“Don’t Rock the Boat: Women’s Benevolent Sexism Predicts Fears of Marital Violence” Francisca Exposito, M. Carmen Herrera, and Miguel Moya- Universidad de Granada

http://0-journals.sagepub.com.books.redlands.edu/doi/full/10.1111/j.1471-6402.2009.01539.x

The article examines how Spanish women’s ideology affects their perception on whether a hypothetical husband feels threatened by his wife’s success at work. Benevolent sexism is a sex role attitude where women accept their traditional status as a wife and mother in order to receive men’s protection and provision. A social perception study was conducted. The subjects were 210 undergraduate psychology students at the Universidad de Granada, they read a vignette where a husband and wife argued over her job promotion. Women’s benevolent sexism confirmed the hypothesis that they perceived the husband to feel more threatened by his wife’s success and thus would be more likely to be violent towards her. When provided with background information on the husband’s ideology (traditional, egalitarian, no information) this had no significance. Other data produced  was the scores for ASI (Ambivalent Sexism Inventory)  used to measure hostile sexism and benevolent sexism. Thus women who scored higher on benevolent sexism (compared to those who scored low on benevolent sexism) perceived aggression even when the man was egalitarian. The method of data analysis used is, “multiple regression analysis to assess participants’ perceived probability that the husband was threatened as a function of women’s benevolent and hostile sexism scores and the husband’s ideology.” In conclusion, the findings supports the hypothesis that women who endorse benevolent sexism are in psychological conflict where they abide by traditional norms and are threatened if they challenge the status quo; however, they have a desire for intimacy with their partner. The data produced is valid because it further confirms past research where men who are gender traditional are more likely to be aggressive towards women.

Herrera, M. Carmen, and Miguel Moya. “Don’t Rock the Boat: Women’s Benevolent Sexism Predicts Fears of Marital Violence.” Psychology of Women Quarterly 34, no. 1 (March 2010): 36-42. doi:10.1111/pwqu.2010.34.issue-3.