Perceptions of women who confront hostile and benevolent sexism

ABSTRACT

Little is known about the differences between confronting explicitly negative (hostile) vs. subjectively positive (benevolent) forms of sexism. Across three studies (N = 1315), we test a) whether confronting benevolent sexism is more costly for women than confronting hostile sexism and b) whether confronting some subtypes of benevolent sexism are more costly than others. We compared confrontations and non-confrontations of hostile sexism, benevolent sexism involving complementary gender differentiation (CGD), and benevolent sexism involving protective paternalism (PP). Surprisingly, confronting benevolent sexism was not more costly than confronting hostile sexism; a finding that replicated across studies and in two different contexts. Confronters of PP were evaluated more positively than confronters of CGD, but only when CGD embodied themes of gender essentialism (i.e., beliefs that men and women are naturally different). Confronters were mostly evaluated favorably relative to non-confronters and especially among women. Results imply that confronting benevolent sexism may have fewer consequences than anticipated.

KEYWORDS:

• Confrontation
• hostile sexism
• benevolent sexism
• protective paternalism
• complementary gender differentiation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The data described in this article are openly available in the Open Science Framework at https://osf.io/wk5x3.

Open Scholarship

This article has earned the Center for Open Science badges for Open Data, Open Materials and Preregistered. The data and materials are openly accessible at https://osf.io/wk5x3.

Authors’ contributions

The first and second author contributed to study design and manuscript writing. The first author created study stimuli and led data collection and analysis.

Compliance with ethical standards

All participants in this work were treated in accordance with the ethical guidelines of the APA and the University of Toronto’s Research Ethics Board (protocol #34774).

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/00224545.2023.2173554

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by a Canada Graduate Scholarship (Doctoral) from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) to Jordana Schiralli. This research was also supported by a SSHRC Insight Grant (435-2017-0509) to Alison Chasteen.

Notes on contributors

Jordana E. Schiralli

Jordana Schiralli is a PhD Candidate in psychology at the University of Toronto. Her research interests include sexism, confrontation, and intersectionality.

Alison L. Chasteen

Dr. Alison Chasteen is a Professor of psychology and principal investigator of the Intergroup Relations Lab at the University of Toronto. She investigates stereotyping, prejudice, and stigma from both the perceiver’s and target’s perspective.