Sex Roles最新文献

Most sports are constitutive of the masculine identity, and these explicit gender perceptions influence sport participation. Less is known about implicit gender perceptions in sport, which may be instrumental in redefining the narrative of gender stereotypes and sport participation. This study explored gender differences in the implicit and explicit perceptions of sport. A total of 187 adults (45.45% female; M_age = 32.62 years, SD_age = 13.07 years) completed an implicit association task by sorting sport words from the Canadian Women and Sport ‘She’s Got It All’ campaign into gendered categories. Participants self-reported their explicit attitudes towards 10 campaign posters. Using independent sample t-tests, a moderate effect was observed for gender differences in implicit attitudes for sport. Men demonstrated significantly stronger implicit attitudes linking sport to masculine characteristics compared to women. Men reported significantly lower explicit positive attitudes for liking the posters, feeling motivated by them, and perceived relevance. Men and women did not differ on levels of uneasiness and self-consciousness. Results suggest that men maintain implicit gendered attitudes towards sport and report lower positive explicit attitudes to intentional gender equity media. Understanding the counterproductive role that men can play when enforcing stereotypical gendered sport beliefs is vital for advancing girls’ and women’s engagement in sport.

Amid changes in the North American socio-cultural/political and dating landscape, there exist questions about whether the sexual double standard and the inequality (e.g., of pleasure) in sex still exist for young women today. In this study, we explored the discourses that shape young women’s navigation of and talk about heterosexuality, or heterosex. Young, heterosexual women of diverse demographic and relationship backgrounds aged 18–24 (N = 28) attended one of five online focus groups. Informed by feminist post-structuralism and discursive psychology, we analyzed women’s talk about doing heterosex. Many participants mobilized a discourse of expectations of compulsory heterosex practices in casual and committed contexts. Within that discourse, young women were positioned as both constrained and regulated in their sexual lives and as needing to comply with unwanted sex. Risks of non-compliance included the risk of being perceived as being defective and/or “bad.” Participants’ talk also linked coercion, assault, and other male-perpetrated violence against women with how heterosex is done in today’s context. Our findings suggest that despite #MeToo and other exposés of rape culture, young women remain constrained by heterosexual norms. However, their language, ability, and willingness to challenge the current situation concerning heterosex is more sophisticated than previously observed. These advancements are promising, as they suggest the importance of continued research and activism in this area and carry several practical implications, including for sex education programming and counselling and support services in sessions with young women.

Street harassment is a widespread problem that affects women from all backgrounds, often leading to negative psychological consequences such as anxiety, depression, and reduced self-worth. Despite the pioneering development of laws protecting women’s rights, Spanish culture often normalizes this type of violence against women, and research on this context remains limited. To address this gap, we conducted a cross-sectional study with 245 women in Spain to investigate the occurrence and impact of street harassment on psychological well-being. We used the Street Harassment Assessment Scale, a self-report measure designed to evaluate the prevalence and frequency of street harassment, and explored its association with anxiety, fear of rape, avoidance behavior, self-esteem, and adherence to sexist beliefs. The results showed that 98% of women experienced street harassment, with 80% reporting monthly occurrences. The frequency of street harassment was correlated with increased anxiety, fear of rape and avoidance behavior, and lower self-esteem. Additionally, the results supported the link between the endorsement of sexist ideology and lower identification of events. Collectively, the results underscore the negative impact of street harassment on women’s well-being and freedom, highlighting its role as a patriarchal tool that perpetuates female objectification and subordination. An integrative feminist perspective involving various fields, including psychology, public policy, and education, among others, is necessary to create safer environments for women.

Although boys and girls start out performing similarly on STEM-related school subjects, the gap between them widens as they mature, leading to the underrepresentation of women in STEM fields at the college level and in the workforce. The current study examines the development of children’s beliefs about men’s and women’s competence and other boys’ and girls’ learning ability for STEM and non-STEM topics. Children ages 5 through 9 (N = 134) judged adults to be less competent at professions they perceived as more difficult. Boys gave higher competence ratings to men than women in STEM and non-STEM fields, but girls only gave higher ratings to women than men in non-STEM fields. Children also viewed girls as less capable of learning about STEM subjects compared to non-STEM subjects, but they perceived boys as similarly capable of learning both STEM and non-STEM subjects. However, children’s own school subject preferences and career aspirations (STEM or non-STEM) were not related to their judgments of adults or other children. The results point to the detrimental effects of gender stereotypes on children’s beliefs about women’s and girls’ abilities in STEM. Practice implications for caregivers and educators to close the gender gap in STEM are discussed.

Women with larger bodies experience a range of psychological, affective, and behavioral factors that may influence their physical activity (PA) experiences. This study explored women’s satisfaction with plus-size exercise apparel, affective experiences related to their bodies and activity, experiences of body surveillance, social physique anxiety, and motivation to avoid PA. A total of 130 women, M_age = 40.46 (SD = 10.55) who engaged in PA at least two days a week and wore US size 14 or larger clothing completed an online survey with items related to exercise clothing satisfaction and affective experiences, body surveillance, social physique anxiety, exercise avoidance motivation, and two open-ended items about how exercise clothing influences their PA engagement and experience. Clothing satisfaction, body surveillance, and social physique anxiety were significant predictors of women’s motivation to avoid exercise. Responses to open-ended items supported the quantitative results and revealed complexities in women’s experiences. Primarily, women perceived a contingent impact of exercise clothing such that when satisfaction is high, women experience greater body confidence and less concerns regarding their appearance; however, when women are dissatisfied with various aspects of their plus-size exercise clothing, they have negative experiences and feel a desire to avoid activity. Clothing may play a role in women’s experiences during exercise and their motivation to avoid exercise.

Implicitly stereotyping pSTEM (physical sciences, technology, engineering, and math) with Asian and White men can demotivate Black and Latina women in pSTEM. However, theory suggests that stereotypes might not affect all members of a group in the same way. In a sample of 345 undergraduate Black and Latina women, we tested gender typicality and ethnic/racial typicality as moderators of the relation between implicit stereotypes and pSTEM motivation. We found that stronger endorsement of implicit stereotypes associating pSTEM with men or Asian/White people was negatively related to expectancy beliefs and value beliefs among Black and Latina women. However, interaction effects revealed that the lower value beliefs in relation to pSTEM implicit stereotypes were strongest for women who identified most with other women, and the lower expectancy beliefs in relation to pSTEM implicit stereotypes were strongest for Black and Latina women who identified least with other Black and Latinx people. Thus, for Black and Latina women, seeing oneself as typical of one’s ethnic/racial group may buffer the impact of stereotypes, whereas seeing oneself as a typical woman may further lower pSTEM motivation.

Sexual assaults’ effects on survivors’ sexual pleasure have been well-documented in the literature. However, much of this research is quantitative in nature and focuses on the negative effects of assault on sexual satisfaction. The present study seeks to address a gap in the literature that has failed to ask survivors what they enjoy about having sex and the pleasure they derive from sex. Through a qualitative interview study of a diverse, community sample of sexual assault survivors, we identified several themes around survivors’ sexual pleasure. Prior to the assault, survivors mentioned limited pleasure due to men not being interested in giving them sexual pleasure, but they also enjoyed the emotional connections felt during sex. Some survivors mentioned impacts on their ability to enjoy sex, but this was not universal in the sample. Finally, queer survivors mentioned feeling more sexual pleasure with women, and survivors found empowerment in exploring what they liked about having sex and sexual pleasure with current partners who supported them emotionally. We discuss the importance of a focus on the sexual pleasure of survivors from a sex-positive, rather than a “high risk”, framework in future research, along with suggestions to improve sexual health interventions with survivors.

Previous research has shown that women’s orgasms function as a masculinity achievement for men. Less clear is whether men’s orgasms function as a gendered achievement for women. In the present study, we explored this question via an experimental design by randomly assigning 440 women (M age = 32.29, SD age = 11.91) to read a vignette in which they imagined that an attractive man either did or did not orgasm during a sexual encounter with them. The women then rated their feelings of achievement, failure, femininity, and masculinity in response to the scenario along with how much they would attribute the situation to themselves or to the man partner. Results showed that women experienced men’s orgasm presence as a femininity achievement and men’s orgasm absence as a femininity failure. There were lesser impacts on women’s feelings of masculinity. Feelings of achievement and failure were stronger for women who attributed the scenario more strongly to themselves. Further, greater sexual assertiveness in general predicted stronger feelings of achievement in response to men’s orgasm presence and greater feminine gender role stress predicted stronger feelings of failure in response to men’s orgasm absence. Together, findings highlight that men’s orgasm seems to function as an achievement for women; however, the connection to femininity (which is less valued and prescribed differently compared to masculinity) denotes that men’s orgasms for women are a different gendered experience with different stakes compared to women’s orgasms for men.

This study examines the impact of personally experiencing sexual harassment on women’s subjective well-being and perceptions of gender relations and society. We draw upon large-scale national probability panel data and utilize propensity score matching to identify (1) women who reported sexual harassment in the past year and (2) a matched control group of women who were comparable in outcome and demographic variables in the previous year but did not report sexual harassment (N_{matched pairs} = 609). We then compare pre- and post-event levels of well-being and system justification across groups, including the perceived fairness of gender relations and society in general. Women who reported sexual harassment experienced significant pre-to-post declines in well-being (lower life satisfaction, higher psychological distress) and reductions in perceptions that gender relations, and broader society, are fair. Critically, these changes were significantly different than matched controls who did not show the same pre-post changes in well-being or system justification. These results provide robust evidence that sexual harassment has detrimental effects on well-being and document the previously unexamined effect of sexual harassment on women’s reduced support for the (gendered) status quo, which has important implications for social change.

The politics of respectability continues to inform the messages that Black women receive from family members across a range of experiences, from comments on their hair and body to expectations around dating and marriage. In the current study, we explored Black college women’s perspectives on the types of respectability messages they received in familial contexts from girlhood through emerging adulthood. We used Black feminist theory and consensual qualitative research methods to analyze semi-structured interview data from 48 Black college women (18–24 years old) attending predominantly White institutions. We identified four themes of respectability socialization: (a) perpetuating gendered racialized scripts, (b) policing appropriate appearance, (c) protecting virtue in a patriarchal society, and (d) promoting a “lifting as we climb’’ mentality. Our findings indicate that family members try to prepare Black women for gendered racial stereotypes and oppression by tasking them with behavior modification starting in girlhood. We consider gendered racial socialization practices in Black families that can simultaneously disrupt the pressure to reinforce respectability politics and support Black girls’ identity development, even amidst the anti-Black and misogynoiristic realities of the United States.