Is Marriage Associated With Decreases or Increases in Sexism?

Abstract

The current study examines whether a pivotal event central to gender relations—marriage—is associated with changes in sexism. Drawing upon a nationally representative study assessing sexist attitudes across 14 years, event-aligned piecewise latent growth models examined change in hostile and benevolent sexism (1) across the years prior to marriage, (2) within the year immediately post marriage, and (3) across the years following marriage (N = 1,615). Matching average trajectories established in prior research, hostile sexism and women’s benevolent sexism showed small declines across the years prior to marriage. Immediately post marriage, however, men’s hostile sexism and women’s hostile and benevolent sexism significantly increased from pre-marriage levels, before returning to declining trajectories across the following years. By contrast, men’s benevolent sexism was stable prior to marriage, did not change within the year immediately post marriage, but then significantly departed from the pre-marriage trajectory by declining across the years following marriage. These novel findings reveal that investigating meaningful life events provides new insight into the factors that may be associated with changes in sexism. The results also open new avenues to advance understanding of the relationship experiences and motivations that may reinforce and reduce sexist attitudes.