The effect of benevolent sexism on women

Abstract

Benevolent sexism has a positive feeling, it is a more subtle kind of sexism. Benevolent sexism is known to have negative effects on women. Within this research we focused on the effect of benevolent sexism on affect and system justification. The effect of benevolent sexism is not the same on every woman. In this research we used gender identification, attitude toward gender roles and feminist identification to identify different types of women (N=104). Results: after being exposed to benevolent sexism (vs. neutral control) women reported less positive affect. Women with a high feminist identification report less positive affect. Gender identification, attitude toward gender roles and feminist identification have a main effect on system justification. Women with a high gender identification and women with a more traditional attitude towards gender roles report more system justification. Women who have a high feminist identity report less system justification. Feminist identification and the condition had a significant interaction effect. Women who were high feminist identified report less system justification after being exposed to benevolent sexism than women who are low feminist identified. Meanwhile the amount of system justification in de control condition did not significantly vary between high and low feminist identifiers