Gender identity, attitudes, and bystander intervention

Gender identity, attitudes, and bystander intervention

Adriana Vivas Zurita

2017

Identifying as a feminist and demonstrating a commitment to feminist activism has suggested an increased likelihood of engaging in bystander interventions in sexist situations in women university students (Brinkman et al., 2015), and awareness about gender prejudices as a result of undertaking women studies and/or diversity courses seems to relate to an increased involvement in feminist activity (Stake & Hoffmann, 2001). Together with this, confrontational responses to prejudicial attitudes can be perceived as a means for decreasing stereotypic responding (Mallett, Ford & Woodzicka, 2016;; Czopp, & Monteith, 2003). For this research levels of exposure to feminist research and self- identification as feminist were examined to determine its effect on sexism levels, and the ability to identify sexism on given hostile and benevolent sexist scenarios. Likewise, the responses participants have given in the past when witnessing sexism was also recorded, and then analyzed to determine correlations between a confrontational response, exposure to feminism, and the strength of feminist identity participants self-identify with. Gender differences were also analysed. Results revealed that participants with high levels of exposure to feminist had significant lower levels of only benevolent sexism. Further analysis also suggests that those with exposure to feminist theory are significantly more likely to identify sexism in hostile sexist scenarios than are those with no exposure. Exposure to feminist theory also increases the likelihood to have a stronger feminist identity. Significant gender differences were also found. Application of these findings and recommendations for future research is further discussed.

Gender prejudice
Feminist identity
Feminist theory
three partite model of violence.

Measurements
Vignettes Exercise. The vignettes exercise presented participants with 15 scenarios, of which 5 were hostile sexism scenarios, 5 were benevolent sexism scenarios, and 5 were neutral scenarios. The participants were asked 3 questions after reading each vignette. First, they were asked if the scenario presented involved sexism, which was evaluated with a 5 point Likert scale from “strongly disagree” to “strongly disagree”. Secondly, the participants were asked to rate the seriousness of the event, with a 6 point Likert scale which rated from “not applicable”, “not at all serious” to “very serious”. The third question asked participants to pick the type of phenomena that best described the scenario from 8 different choices, which included “hostile or negative comments about women”, “reproduction of the idea that women are not complete without a significant other”, and “the scenario does not describe a situation that involves sexism”, among others that derived from Glick and Fiske ́s (1996) definitions of sexism. Examples for the vignettes (see Appendix A) were taken from Mallett, Ford, and Woodzicka (2016), McCarty, and Kelly (2015), Durán, Moya, & Megías, (2011), Kato et al. (2011), Expósito, Herrera, Moya, and Glick (2010), and Sibley and Wilson (2004).

Experiences of Gender Prejudices Instrument. Past experiences of gender prejudice were measured using Brinkman et al’s (2015) Experience of Gender Prejudices Instrument. Participants were asked to identify the last time they were in a situation in which they witnessed a woman being the target of sexism (see Appendix B). They were asked to pick which scenario best described the type of sexism witnessed from 7 options that included “hostile or negative comments about women” and “reproduction of the idea that women are not complete without a significant other”. They were then asked how they reacted to the situation, and if they intervened what their motivation had been. The participant ́s reactions to the sexism situation were coded as either ́confrontational ́ or ́non-confrontational ́, and as ́not applicable ́ in two occasions. Responses “tried to help the victim”, “ignored the person/people”, “left the situation”, “responded indirectly, but in a way I hoped would end the situation”, “used a nonverbal gesture to express that I was offended (ex. rolled my eyes, gave them a dirty look, etc.)”, “said something to the instigator(s) to express my thoughts/feelings”, and “used a physical response to express my thoughts/feelings (ex. slap the instigator)” were classified as confrontational. Responses “ignored the person/people”, “left the situation”, and “nothing” were coded as non-confrontational. Where participants reported a confrontational response, their motivations to intervene were again sought. Participants were presented with a list of 8 options which included “wanted to do my duty as a man by being chivalrous / wanted to do my duty as a woman by being nice”, “wanted to help a person in distress”, “wanted to stop the sexist behaviour because is wrong”, and “other”. Their motivations were then coded as “feminist goal”, “non-feminist goal”, “neutral” and “other”.


The Ambivalent Sexism Inventory (ASI). The Ambivalent Sexism Inventory (ASI; Glick & Fiske, 1996) is a measure of modern sexism in participants. It comprises 22 statements, such as “men are incomplete without women” and “women exaggerate problems they have at work”, which participants evaluate on a 5 point Linkert scale, from “disagree strongly” to “agree strongly” (see Appendix C). The mean of all 22 items was obtained, closer means to 5 equals higher levels of sexism. The ASI also measures two sub-scales, the mean of 11 items was used to generate a hostile sexism score and the mean the other 11 items generated a benevolent sexism score.

Demographic Information. Demographic information was collected relating to each participant ́s gender, age, and year in University (see Appendix D). Participants were also asked to quantify the hours of exposure to teaching on gender-related topics during their undergraduate and/or postgraduate studies on the following scale, from 0 hours, to 1-10, 10-20, 20-40, 40-60 or 60(+). Participants were also asked if they self-identified as feminist or not, and the strength of their identification as feminist was measured on a 5 point Likert scale, from “I strongly identify as a feminist” to “I strongly do not identify as a feminist”.

The Demographic Information Questionnaire also measured, on a 5 point Likert scale, the degree to which participants identified with feminist goals and the degree to which they agree that the transformation of gender relations is needed in order to achieve gender equality.

Design
The study adopted a survey design and the variables measured are as follow: Independent and participant variables: Gender, age, feminist identity, strength of feminist identity, feminist goal, sexism and exposure to feminist theory.
Dependent variables: Bystander intervention, identification, and evaluation of different forms of sexism, ambivalent sexism scale.

Procedures
Ethical approval for this study was obtained from the Psychology department research ethics committee at Lancaster University on May 26th 2017. Once ethical approval was gained, the participants’ recruitment stage began.

Participants answered an invitation to complete an online survey which was hosted on the Qualtrics platform (2017). First, participants read the Participant Information Sheet (see Appendix E), and then completed the consent form (Appendix F). Then, participants answered the Vignettes exercise, followed by the “Experiences of Gender Prejudice Instrument” (Brinkman et al., 2015), then they were asked to fill “The Ambivalent Sexism Inventory” (Glick & Fiske, 1996), to finish with the Demographic Information Questionnaire. After answering the participants were debriefed (Appendix G) through the same platform. Completion of the survey typically took 20-30 minutes.

Results Section:

Demographic information
Table 1 shows the demographic data relating to the gender of the participants and identification as feminist; the category “rather not say” was excluded from all the analysis of the gender variable owing to nil response.

From the total of participants, 56 self-identified as feminist (68.3%) and 26 said they did not self-identify as feminist (31.7%). Chi-square analysis revealed significant gender differences in self-identification as feminist X2(1,81)=4.858, p<.05, significantly more female 77.4% participants reported being feminist than did male 53.6% participants.

Effect of exposure to feminist theory, effect of gender, and interactions
The purpose of this study was to look the effect of exposure to feminist theory, the effect of gender, and the effect of the interaction between gender and exposure to feminist theory on the sexism levels of the participants, on recognition of sexist scenarios and on their responses to witnessing sexism in their lives. The effect of exposure to feminist theory to the strength of self-identification as feminist was also measured.

Effect of exposure to feminist theory, effect of gender, and interactions on sexism levels

Participants were asked to quantify in hours their exposure to feminist research/teaching, then their answers were coded as “exposure” and “no exposure” and results were compared.

Sexism was measured with the Ambivalent Sexism Inventory (Glick & Fiske, 1996), which provides three measures; the ambivalent (or overall) sexism levels, benevolent sexism levels and the hostile sexism levels. The levels of sexism were calculated for each participant, higher numbers indicating higher levels of sexism.

Lancaster University

data/SPSS.sav

Zurita2017

John Towse

Open

English

Data

LA1 4YF

Chris Walton

MSc

Social Psychology

82 participant’s responses to the survey were analysed, of which 28 were male, 53 were women and one person rather not saying

ANOVA
Chi-Square