Jennifer Edgley and Dr. Niwako Yamawaki, Department of Psychology
The women’s liberation movement of the sixties and seventies has ushered in several important social and political changes in the United States. Gender inequality, however, remains an enduring problem in various institutions (Lips, 2007). The theory of Ambivalent Sexism conceptualizes and may be the key to understanding the residual occurrences of gender inequality within social institutions. Theorists Glick and Fiske (1996) believe that prejudice, though traditionally considered to be antipathy towards a certain group (Allport, 1954), can contain both positive and negative features. They contend that sexism is not simply hostility towards women, but also subjectively positive behavior toward women. Two independent, but highly positively correlated factors make up the theory of ambivalent sexism: Hostile Sexism (HS) and Benevolent Sexism (BS) (Glick & Fiske, 1996). Hostile Sexism can be defined as the traditional antipathy towards women based on the desire to protect the status quo and established power of men within a patriarchal society. Benevolent Sexism is, on the other hand, the pro-social attitude towards women—i.e. women are pure, virtuous, deserving of adoration and protection, etc—that in effect, places women in an inferior and dependent position to men.
According to Glick and Fiske (1996) hostile and benevolent sexism are positively correlated. The coexistence of such polar attitudes towards women may seem puzzling, but they (1997) contend that sexist individuals assuage the dissonance caused by HS and BS by creating female subtypes—i.e. good women and bad women, homemakers and career women, saints and whores. Such categorization allows men to benefit from intimate relationships with women and still maintain the most powerful positions in society without the unpleasant feelings of inconsistency and dissonance (Glick, Diebold, & Bailey-Werner, 1997). The sexist individual holds a woman on a pedestal under the conditions that she adheres to traditional gender role prescription. As she deviates from the feminine role the sexist individual will respond with antipathy. Previous research has verified that high levels of benevolent sexism are related to negative evaluations of women who break the feminine gender role (Abrams et al., 2003, Viki, Massey, & Masser, 2005). Ambivalent sexism inhibits gender inequality by reinforcing traditional feminine behaviors and roles through Benevolent Sexism, and punishing roles and behaviors that deviate from the status quo through Hostile Sexism (Glick & Fiske, 2001).
The effects of Ambivalent Sexism can have serious implications in various social and political institutions. One such institution in which inequality has been observed is the U.S. criminal justice system (Lips, 2005). There has been great debate concerning what “gender equality” is, how the legal system can promote it, and whether or not the entire legal system is fundamentally flawed by its patriarchal origins. Regardless of the philosophical concerns of gender equality in the legal system, disparity in the treatment of males and females under the law still exists today (Lips, 2005).Much research has been done on the effect of victim and perpetrator gender on conviction and sentencing outcomes in criminal cases. Studies on the United States legal system have shown that gender may be the most important demographic factor on sentencing outcomes (Steffensmeier, Ulmer, & Kramer, 1998). Research has verified that women tend to receive preferential treatment in the criminal justice system (Weisberg, 1982) and more lenient sentences in comparison to their male counterparts (Rodriguez, Curry, & Lee, 2006). Disparity in the treatment of women and men in the justice system is not as simple as the perpetrator’s gender alone. Factors like crime type as indication of gender-role adherence have been found to interact with gender to contribute to disparity in sentencing and the evaluation of perpetrators (Viki, Massey, & Masser, 2005). Rodriguez, Curry, and Lee (2006) found greater differences between male and female perpetrators in events of more feminine crimes (i.e. theft, drug charges, etc) and little to no disparity in the event of masculine crimes (i.e. violent crime).
For our study we hypothesized that this disparity within sentencing could be explained by the theory of ambivalent sexism. In particular, we hypothesized that individuals who scored highly on the BS would give female perpetrators committing gender-role breaking crimes harsher punishments than their male counterparts while giving female perpetrators committing feminine crimes more lenient punishments than their male counterparts. Since ambivalent sexism appears to be embedded within society, one’s attitude towards women may not be salient. Therefore, it was also necessary to include another variable that may be ultimately influenced by the judge or juror’s level of ambivalent sexism. For this reason, we included a minimization/justification scale that measured the participant’s attitudes towards the crime, perpetrator, and victim. We hypothesized that the minimization and justification of the crime is contingent upon the masculine or feminine nature of the crime.
In our sample, we used a factorial design with four types of scenarios in which crime type, perpetrator’s sex and participant’s sex were the independent variables. The scenarios included two ‘feminine’ crimes and two ‘masculine’ crimes with the only difference being gender of the perpetrator. The dependent variables included measures of minimization and justification of the crime and the recommended sentence severity. To explain the relationship between the independent variables and dependent variables, we selected ambivalent sexism inventory (ASI), as a moderator. We recruited participants for our study by passing out fliers to undergraduate Psychology classes. Participants were directed to email our research team to request access to the study. The study was performed entirely online using Qualtrics.com. We generated around 320 participants (Although we threw out incomplete data for 15 participants). Upon collecting our data, A 2 (perpetrator sex) x 2 (types of crime) x 2 (participant sex) MANOVA was performed on the length of sentence and minimization/justification scale. Furthermore, in order to examine the moderating effects of benevolent sexism on minimization and sentencing, a hierarchical regression analyses was performed.
Regretfully, we were unable to establish a significant relationship between sentence length and/or minimization/justification of crime as moderated by Ambivalent Sexism among our participants. Because previous research has shown that gender-role breaking behaviors are met with punishment from individuals who rate high on the ASI, we believe that Ambivalent Sexism may still explain inequality in the justice system on the basis of gender. We believe that our design was flawed in that it did not effectively trigger sexist attitudes among participants. We believe that a mock-trial design would have more effectively triggered such attitudes. Furthermore, we believe that researching the large body of data regarding actual sentencing outcomes in the US legal system would be quite insightful in measuring the actual disparity in sentencing outcomes among male and female perpetrators.
As a researcher, our results were quite disappointing Even so, my research experience with Dr. Yamawaki was the pinnacle of my undergraduate career. As a research assistant, I have learned far more than I could have ever learned in the classroom alone. My experiences with Dr. Yamawaki have been preparatory for the new challenges that await me as I continue my education. I am currently preparing for law school, and plan to continue in my study of inequality in the justice system as I pursue a legal education and career.
References
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- Glick, P., & Fiske, S. T. (2001). An Ambivalent Alliance. American Psychologist, 56, 109-118.
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Lips, H. M. (2005). Sex and Gender (5th ed.). New York City: McGraw Hill. - Rodriguez, S. F., Curry, T. R., & Lee, G. (2006). Gender Differences in Criminal Sentencing: Do Effects Vary Across Violent, Property, and Drug Offenses? Social Science Quarterly, 87, 318-340.
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- Viki, G. T., Abrams, D., & Masser, B. (2004). Evaluating stranger and acquaintance rape: The role of benevolent sexism in perpetrator blame and recommended sentence length. Law and Human Behavior, 28, 295-303.
- Viki, G. T., Massey, K., & Masser, B. (2005). When chivalry backfires: Benevolent sexism. Legal and Criminological Psychology, 10, 109-120.
- Weisberg, D. K. (1982). Women and the Law: The Social Historical Perspective Vol. 1. Women and the Criminal Law. Cambridge, MA: Schenkman.
- Yamawaki, N., & Tschanz, B. T. (2005). Rape Perception Differences Between Japanese and American College Students: On the Mediating Influence of Gender Role Traditionality. Sex Roles, 62, 379-392.