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ABSTRACT
Extending the theoretical understanding of modern prejudice into the realm of heterosexism, it is argued that shifts in the manifestation of prejudice against lesbians and gay men have occurred resulting in an increasingly multidimensional modern heterosexism. Four subdomains of modern heterosexism are identified that are conceptually and empirical distinct from the more traditional hostile heterosexism: aversive heterosexism, amnestic heterosexism, paternalistic heterosexism, and positive stereotypic heterosexism. The Multidimensional Heterosexism Inventory is offered as an instrument to capture the four theorized subdomains of modern heterosexism, and an examination of reliability and validity of the scale is presented.
I am grateful to Daniel J. Myers, Felicia LeClere, Rich Williams, Michael Emerson, Robert Rodriguez, Yan Li, Stacey Freedenthal, the Study of Politics and Movements workgroup at the University of Notre Dame, and the Queer Studies Reading and Research Group at the University of Notre Dame for comments and suggestions on various drafts of this manuscript.
Notes
1. These new forms of prejudice may not actually be “new” at all, but may have existed concurrently with more traditional hostile prejudicial attitudes as well. If this is the case, it is perhaps more appropriate to view these clusters of attitudes as new in the sense that they represent a cluster of attitudes that is gaining greater consensus in the population as a way to justify and legitimize stratification, potentially even replacing the hostile cluster of attitudes as the primary way in which social stratification is justified.
2. Perhaps, the mostly widely used scale to measure attitudes about lesbians and gay men in the last twenty years is CitationHerek's (1988) ATLG and ATLG-S (short) scale (for recent examples, see CitationEllis, Kitzinger, & Wilkinson, 2002; CitationSpan & Vidal, 2003; CitationVan de Meerendonk, Eisinga, & Felling., 2003; CitationWhite & Kurpius, 2002). The scale and its shorter version have undergone extensive testing for factor structure, item analysis, construct validity and reliability (CitationHerek, 1984, Citation1987a, Citation1987b, 1988). For a comprehensive review of strategies and scales used to capture attitudes toward lesbians and gay men through 1993, see CitationSchwanberg (1993) and CitationO'Donohue and Caselles (1993).
3. All of the concerns identified by CitationMorrison and Morrison (2002) fall under the rubric of what the author originally conceptualized as “apathetic heterosexism”: the belief that lesbians and gay men are making unnecessary demands for change; the belief that discrimination based on sexual orientation is a relic of the past; and the belief that lesbians and gay men exaggerate the impact of sexual orientation.
4. Using the term hostile heterosexism parallels CitationGlick and Fiske's (1996) use of the term hostile sexism which they define to mean “antipathy toward women who are viewed as usurping men's power” (p. 109).
5. A subdomain corresponding to heterosexual intimacy was not theorized for the attitudes toward lesbians and gay men. Given that the nature of the relationship between the ingroup (males) and outgroups (females) regarding gender is significantly more interdependent than that of heterosexuals and nonhetereosexuals, it is suggested that the heterosexual intimacy component may be a unique feature to prejudice based on gender. See CitationJackman (1994) for a thorough discussion of the role of interdependence between groups in shaping the dynamics of oppression between groups.
6. The remaining two questions for the gender differentiation subcomponent are “Women, compared to men, tend to have a superior moral sensibility” and “Many women have a quality of purity that few men possess.”
7. Positive stereotypes may play an important social identity role. They may function as identity consolidators—clearly defining ingroups and outgroups—in much the same manner as negative stereotypes. An individual with a nonprejudiced self-concept does not have negative stereotypes at their disposal (unless they want to risk cognitive and emotional dissonance) and therefore may endorse positive stereotypes as a way to meet their social psychological identity needs. Identities do not exist in a vacuum, but rather in a stratified social context, where they are tied to issues of power, privilege, and status.
From a structural perspective, positive stereotypes also identify “approved of” social rolesarginalized groups and can serve as explicit and implicit justifications for limitations placed on career options, social roles and even geographic relationships. The positive stereotype of women as nurturing can be used, for example, as a justification to limit women to careers of education, childcare and nursing. This stereotype is dissonant with the image of women as trained soldiers marching into battle or cutthroat executives managing a hostile takeover. Even the man who considers himself nonsexist may still experience emotional reluctance to employ a qualified woman for “dirty work.”
8. Development of questions to tap into the paternalistic heterosexism subdomain faced a number of difficulties. First, because it was believed that paternalistic heterosexism might vary as a function of social distance, a decision had to be made whether to risk little variability by asking questions regarding a close relationship and triggering a more general protective instinct (one's child), or to risk little variability by asking questions regarding a distant relationship and triggering a live and let live attitude (an acquaintance). The decision was made to err on the side of a close relationship. If little or no variability emerged, we would experiment in later versions of the scale.
9. Descriptive statistics, reliability coefficients, and correlational information are available from author upon request.
10. Apathetic was chosen for its connotation of indifference, unresponsiveness, and little concern.
11. One would also anticipate that like seculars, persons of the Jewish faith would also score significantly lower on the Apathetic Heterosexism subscale than would conservative Protestants. However, the sample consists of no persons of the Jewish faith, leaving this hypothesis untestable.
12. While the stereotype that gay men are wealthy has been utilized in some anti-gay political rhetoric, it has typically been used in a manner that resonates more with the denial of discrimination, rather than as a positive stereotype. For example, it is often discussed as evidence that gay men are not discriminated against and, therefore, need no legal protection against discrimination.
13. As a further check on the structure of the scale, multidimensional scaling was conducted using Euclidean distances. The initial analysis was restricted to two dimensions and resulted in a Mardia fit measure 1 = .5401 and Mardia fit measure 2 = .8990, indicating a less than optimal fit for the data. Consecutive analyses were run allowing three, four, five, and six dimensions to emerge. Each additional dimension improved the fit measures, however, factor analysis with five and greater factors resulted in factors that were ambiguous. As such four factors were retained. The four dimension model emerging from the multidimensional scaling analysis resulted in a Mardia fit measure 1 = .6889 and a Mardia fit measure 2 = .9662, a significant improvement over the two-dimensional model.
14. Amnestic is the adjective form of the word amnesia and was chosen for its incorporation of both the idea of forgetfulness and the state of being oblivious.
15. The format of the Paternalistic Heterosexism subscale questions allow for someone to indicate that they are “okay with having a gay kid.” If they indicate that response on all seven items then they are assigned a score of zero for the subscale.
16. CitationGlick and Fiske's (1996) Ambivalent Sexism Inventory does contain a component that they term “gender differentiation” which it has been argued here actually does tap into positive stereotypes of women.
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