Gender Wars
Rick Cheung & Curtis Hardin
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Across two experiments, the cognitive salience of a stigmatized ingroup identity harmed self-evaluation and elicited stereotype-consistent behavior to the degree that participants endorsed the political status quo. In Experiment 1, ethnic identity salience caused Filipina domestic workers in Hong Kong to evaluate their own labor as meriting less pay if they were high in social dominance orientation but more pay if they were low in social dominance orientation. In Experiment 2, gender identity salience caused women in the U.S. to evaluate their work on a logic task (but not a verbal task) as meriting less pay if they were politically conservative but more pay if they were politically liberal - a pattern mirrored in task performance. Depending on the degree to which the political status quo is accepted or rejected, findings suggest that members of stigmatized groups can be either implicit participants in their own subjugation or agents of change.
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Sex and Gender Traditionalism Among Conservative Protestants: Does the Difference Make a Difference?
John Bartkowski & Lynn Hempel
Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, December 2009, Pages 805-816
Abstract:
Recent years have witnessed the resurgence of conservative Protestantism and its adherents' advocacy of gender traditionalism. Scholarship has traced conservative Protestant women's support for gender traditionalism to biblical inerrancy while linking conservative Protestant men's support for gender traditionalism to their denominational affiliation. Our study revisits this issue with more recent data, more sophisticated analytical techniques (structural equation modeling), and a refined measure of theological conservatism (accounting for beliefs pertaining to scripture, sin, and salvation). We find that theological conservatism is significantly related to gender traditionalism among conservative Protestant women but not men. For men, strength of denominational affiliation is more strongly related to traditionalist ideology. Strength of affiliation also affects gender ideology for women, but its effects, as well as those of religious attendance, are largely indirect through theological conservatism. We discuss these sex-specific patterns of religious influence in the context of conservative Protestantism exhibiting characteristics of a gendered institution.
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Jonathan Weaver, Joseph Vandello, Jennifer Bosson & Rochelle Burnaford
Sex Roles, February 2010, Pages 241-251
Abstract:
Two studies test the hypotheses that men, relative to women: 1) see manhood as a more elusive, impermanent state than womanhood, and 2) understand aggression as a means of proving or re-establishing threatened manhood, but not threatened womanhood. In Study 1 (N = 175 Northeastern U.S. undergraduates), men's (but not women's) sentence completions revealed tendencies to define manhood by actions and womanhood by enduring traits. In Study 2 (N = 113 Southeastern U.S. undergraduates), men were more likely than women to explain a man's physical aggression in primarily situational terms, whereas men and women did not differ in the attributions they made for a woman's physical aggression. Results suggest that men perceive active and aggressive behaviors as integral parts of manhood and its defense.
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Sexual Orientation and Household Savings: Do Homosexual Couples Save More?
Brighita Negrusa & Sonia Oreffice
RAND Working Paper, February 2010
Abstract:
We analyze how sexual orientation is related to household savings, comparing gay and lesbian couples to heterosexual married and cohabiting couples. Data from the 2000 United States Census show that homosexual couples significantly own more retirement and social security income than heterosexual couples, also after controlling for intra-household differences in life expectancy and age. Additionally, we find evidence of higher savings for heterosexual cohabiting than for married couples. Being gay or lesbian makes you have $5,600 more annual old-age household income than the average married couple, who in turn saves $2,700 less annually than the average heterosexual cohabiting couple. In a household savings model, we interpret our findings in terms of a homosexual-specific differential that may be due to the extremely low fertility of this demographic group, in addition to the precautionary motive due to the lack of legal marriage that may drive all cohabiting couples to save more. Evidence from home-owners' ratio of mortgage payments relative to the value of their house exhibits the same pattern of savings differentials by sexual orientation and cohabiting status.
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Sexual orientation and the second to fourth finger length ratio: A meta-analysis in men and women
Teresa Grimbos, Khytam Dawood, Robert Burriss, Kenneth Zucker & David Puts
Behavioral Neuroscience, April 2010, Pages 278-287
Abstract:
The ratio of the lengths of the second and fourth fingers (2D:4D) may serve as a marker for prenatal androgen signaling. Because people are typically unaware of their 2D:4D, its use allows possible effects of early sex hormone regimes and socialization to be disentangled. We conducted a meta-analysis on relationships between 2D:4D and sexual orientation in men and women in 18 independent samples of men and 16 independent samples of women. Collectively, these samples comprised 1,618 heterosexual men, 1,693 heterosexual women, 1,503 gay men, and 1,014 lesbians. In addition to identifying the normative heterosexual sex difference in 2D:4D for both hands, we found that heterosexual women had higher (more feminine) left- and right-hand 2D:4D than did lesbians, but we found no difference between heterosexual and gay men. Moderator analyses suggested that ethnicity explained some between-studies variation in men. These results add to a literature suggesting that early sex hormone signaling affects sexual orientation in women, and highlight the need for further research exploring the relationships among 2D:4D, sexual orientation, and ethnicity in men.
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Mark Hatzenbuehler, Katie McLaughlin, Katherine Keyes & Deborah Hasin
American Journal of Public Health, March 2010, Pages 452-459
Objectives: We examined the relation between living in states that instituted bans on same-sex marriage during the 2004 and 2005 elections and the prevalence of psychiatric morbidity among lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) populations.
Methods: We used data from wave 1 (2001-2002) and wave 2 (2004-2005) of the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions (N=34653), a longitudinal, nationally representative study of noninstitutionalized US adults.
Results: Psychiatric disorders defined by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, increased significantly between waves 1 and 2 among LGB respondents living in states that banned gay marriage for the following outcomes: any mood disorder (36.6% increase), generalized anxiety disorder (248.2% increase), any alcohol use disorder (41.9% increase), and psychiatric comorbidity (36.3% increase). These psychiatric disorders did not increase significantly among LGB respondents living in states without constitutional amendments. Additionally, we found no evidence for increases of the same magnitude among heterosexuals living in states with constitutional amendments.
Conclusions: Living in states with discriminatory policies may have pernicious consequences for the mental health of LGB populations. These findings lend scientific support to recent efforts to overturn these policies.
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John Pachankis & Marvin Goldfried
Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, February 2010, Pages 98-110
Objective: This study tested the effectiveness of an expressive writing intervention for gay men on outcomes related to psychosocial functioning.
Method: Seventy-seven gay male college students (mean age = 20.19 years, SD = 1.99) were randomly assigned to write for 20 min a day for 3 consecutive days about either (a) the most stressful or traumatic gay-related event in their lives or (b) a neutral topic. We tested an exposure-based hypothesis of written emotional expression by asking half of the participants who were assigned to write about gay-related stress to read their previous day's narrative before writing, whereas the other half did not. Posttest and 3-month follow-up outcomes were assessed with common measures of overall psychological distress, depression, physical health symptoms, and positive and negative affect. Gay-specific social functioning was assessed with measures of gay-related rejection sensitivity, gay-specific self-esteem, and items regarding openness and comfort with one's sexual orientation.
Results: Participants who wrote about gay-related stress, regardless of whether they read their previous day's writing, reported significantly greater openness with their sexual orientation 3 months following writing than participants who wrote about a neutral topic, F(1, 74) = 6.66, p < .05, η2 = .08. Additional analyses examined the impact of emotional engagement in the writing, severity of the expressed topic, previous disclosure of writing topic, tendency to conceal, and level of perceived social support on mental health outcomes.
Conclusions: The findings suggest that an expressive writing task targeting gay-related stress can improve gay men's psychosocial functioning, especially openness with sexual orientation. The intervention seems to be particularly beneficial for those men who write about more severe topics and for those with lower levels of social support. The findings suggest future tests of expressive writing tasks for different aspects of stigma-related stress.
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Kyoung Ho Shin, Jang Ae Yang & Carla Edwards
Social Behavior and Personality, Winter 2010, Pages 267-272
Abstract:
Gender role identity (androgyny, masculinity, femininity), and its link to gender and academic achievement were examined across a sample of Korean and American college students. Results indicate that the androgyny group represented the largest proportion in the American sample, while the femininity group was the largest in the Korean sample. Korean students with masculinity achieved the highest score in Korean Sooneung Examination, followed by the androgyny group. In contrast, American students in the femininity group scored highest in the American College Testing examination. Academic performance in Korean male students differed across socioeconomic status but that of the American male students was influenced more by gender role identity than by socioeconomic status.
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The Lived Experience of Girl-to-Girl Aggression in Marginalized Girls
Pamela Zenz Adamshick
Qualitative Health Research, April 2010, Pages 541-555
Abstract:
Girl-to-girl aggression is increasingly being recognized as a health problem, and the number of teenage girls involved in serious fighting is on the rise. Research on the experiences of girl-to-girl aggression in marginalized girls who are out of the mainstream because of poor relationship skills and physical aggression is notably absent, yet this group is at heightened risk for persistent violence. In this study I used the interpretive phenomenological approach to study the lived experience of girl-to-girl aggression in girls who were marginalized and attending an alternative school because of physically aggressive behavior. Data were collected over a 4-month period by means of in-depth interviews and field notes. For this population, girl-to-girl aggression provided self-protection, expressed girls' identity, and was also a means to finding attachment, connection, and friendship. These findings have multidisciplinary implications for interventions with physically aggressive girls, including mentoring programs, in-school support groups, and exploration of a paradigm shift in the use of alternative schools.
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Globalization, Frontier Masculinities and Violence: Booze, Blokes and Brawls
Kerry Carrington, Alison McIntosh & John Scott
British Journal of Criminology, May 2010, Pages 393-413
Abstract:
Over the last two decades, two new trajectories have taken hold in criminology-the study of masculinity and crime, after a century of neglect, and the geography of crime. This article brings both those fields together to analyse the impact of globalization in the resources sector on frontier cultures of violence. This paper approaches this issue through a case study of frontier masculinities and violence in communities at the forefront of generating resource extraction for global economies. This paper argues that the high rates of violence among men living in work camps in these socio-spatial contexts cannot simply be understood as individualized expressions of psycho-pathological deficit or social disorganization. Explanations for these patterns of violence must also consider a number of key subterranean convergences between globalizing processes and the social dynamics of male-on-male violence in such settings.
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Rusi Jaspal & Marco Cinnirella
British Journal of Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
This study explores how a group of young British Muslim gay men (BMGM) of Pakistani background in non-gay affirmative religious contexts understood and defined their sexual, religious, and ethnic identities, focusing upon the negotiation and construction of these identities and particularly upon strategies employed for coping with identity threat. A total of 12 BMGM were interviewed using a semi-structured interview schedule. Transcripts were subjected to qualitative thematic analysis as described by Braun and Clarke. The aim was to explore participants' lived experiences through the interpretive lens of identity process theory. Four superordinate themes are reported, entitled ‘I'm gay because ... ': making sense of gay identity, ‘It's all about temptation': invoking religious discourses to explain sexual identity, ‘Going against God': fear of divine retribution, ‘It's easier to be gay here': external attributions and British national identity. The data suggest the existence of an additional identity principle, which is referred to as the psychological coherence principle. This motive represents the need to ensure a sense of coherence between existing identities, and we discuss how individuals may adopt strategies to deal with threats to the principle.