Beliefs in Equality for Women and Men as Related to Economic Factors in Central and Eastern Europe and the United States

Contingencies of Self-Worth and Global Self-Esteem Among College Women: The Role of Masculine and Feminine Traits Endorsement

The study examined the relative importance of seven contingencies of self-worth of Polish college women's (appearance, others' approval, competition, academic competencies, family support, virtue, God's love), as well as the associations between preference for particular contingencies and global self-esteem. Additionally, the predictive role of the self-assignment of masculine and feminine traits for both contingencies of self-worth and global self-esteem was investigated. The participants were one hundred and ninety-four Polish women in emerging adulthood (aged from 19 to 26; M = 21.36; SD = 1.67). Participants provided self-reports of self-ascription of masculine and feminine traits, the contingencies of self-worth, and self-esteem. Obtained results showed that the family support contingency of self-worth was the most preferred one, followed by virtue contingent self-worth, academic competencies, competition, and appearance contingencies of self-esteem, while the less preferred contingencies were: others' approval and God's love. Appearance and others’ approval contingencies of self-worth correlated negatively with self-esteem. Masculine traits were positively linked to competition contingency of self-worth, but negatively to physical appearance self-worth contingency and others’ approval self-worth contingency, whereas feminine traits were positively correlated with both physical appearance self-worth contingency and others’ approval self-worth contingency. The findings showed the positive associations between self-ascription of traits regarded to be masculine and self-esteem, and a lack of significant associations between self-description of feminine traits and self-esteem. Structural equation modeling demonstrated predictive role of masculine traits for self-esteem when feminine traits’ self-ascription and contingencies of self-worth were controlled.

Women’s Studies in the Muslim World: A Bibliometric Perspective

This study investigates the scientific outputs made by scholars residing in Muslim countries in the field of Women’s Studies as represented in the Web of Knowledge between 1900 and 2016. Focusing on countries whose population was at least 50% Muslim, we found 741 publications in this field. However, scholars in 16 out of 49 (32.65%) Muslim countries did not publish any works in Women’s Studies. Although the first work appeared in 1977, an exponential increase in the number of such publications was seen from 2008 on. Most of the articles were written by scholars in Turkey (188, 30.9%), followed by those in Malaysia (59, 9.7%), Nigeria (51, 8.4%), Lebanon (43, 7.07%), Bangladesh (42, 6.91%), and Iran (40, 6.58%) in the fields of Public, Environment & Occupation Health (37.1%), General Internal Medicine (17%), Obstetrics Gynecology (17%), and Psychology (9.4%). The most frequently used words in the titles and abstracts and as keywords were women, women’s, Turkey, gender, violence, and health. We predict that the number of such publications will continue increasing in the coming years.

Beliefs about Sexual Assault in India and Britain are Explained by Attitudes Toward Women and Hostile Sexism

As many as one in five women worldwide will be sexually assaulted over the course of her lifetime (United Nations 2008), yet myths that downplay the prevalence and severity of sexual assault are still widely accepted. Are myths about sexual assault (rape myths) more likely to be accepted in cultures that endorse more traditional gender roles and attitudes toward women? To explore the relationships among rape myth acceptance, attitudes toward women, and hostile and benevolent sexism, data were collected from 112 Indian and 117 British adults, samples from two cultures differing widely in their gender role traditionalism. Analyses confirmed a cultural difference in rape myth acceptance, with the more traditional culture, India, accepting myths to a greater extent than the more egalitarian culture, Britain. Indian participants' greater rape myth acceptance was explained by their more traditional gender role attitudes and hostile sexism. We discuss ways in which promoting gender egalitarianism may help to break down negative beliefs and reduce the stigma surrounding sexual assault, especially in India, for example through interventions which increase exposure to women in less traditional roles (e.g., those in positions of power).

Differences in Gender Norms Between Countries: Are They Valid? The Issue of Measurement Invariance

The values and attitudes towards gender roles are often investigated and compared from a cross-country perspective without the proper statistical treatment of the measurement invariance (MI) assessment. This implies that the conclusions based on composite scales of gender norms, gender role attitudes or gender egalitarianism, to name only a few, may be questionable. In this study, we address this lack by investigating the cross-country MI properties of the Gender Equality Scale (GES) based on World Value Survey data. We use multi-group confirmatory factor analysis with and without alignment to determine the configural, weak, strong and strict MI. The results show that the concept of gender equality is not comparable across all countries involved in the survey. In particular, it seems to differ between Western Europe and Central and Eastern Europe. We claim that only selected Central and Eastern European countries exhibit a configural MI but fail to show full weak MI and definitely fail to show full strong and full strict MI. However, under the aligned measurement framework, we succeeded in showing that for these countries, comparisons of the country rankings with respect to the GES are valid provided that a correction for non-invariance of certain factor loadings and/or intercepts is applied. Our study shows that the most egalitarian gender role attitudes measured by the GES are observed in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Lithuania and Croatia. They are significantly higher than the gender equality attitudes recorded in the lowest scoring countries Poland, Slovakia, Albania and Romania.

Threats to Feminist Identity and Reactions to Gender Discrimination

The aim of this research was to examine conditions that modify feminists' support for women as targets of gender discrimination. In an experimental study we tested a hypothesis that threatened feminist identity will lead to greater differentiation between feminists and conservative women as victims of discrimination and, in turn, a decrease in support for non-feminist victims. The study was conducted among 96 young Polish female professionals and graduate students from Gender Studies programs in Warsaw who self-identified as feminists (M_age  = 22.23). Participants were presented with a case of workplace gender discrimination. Threat to feminist identity and worldview of the discrimination victim (feminist vs. conservative) were varied between research conditions. Results indicate that identity threat caused feminists to show conditional reactions to discrimination. Under identity threat, feminists perceived the situation as less discriminatory when the target held conservative views on gender relations than when the target was presented as feminist. This effect was not observed under conditions of no threat. Moreover, feminists showed an increase in compassion for the victim when she was portrayed as a feminist compared to when she was portrayed as conservative. Implications for the feminist movement are discussed.

Uneven transitions: Period- and cohort-related changes in gender attitudes in China, 1995-2007

This paper analyzes temporal variations in two gender attitudes in China: beliefs about gender equality and perspectives on women's combined work and family roles. It uses the most currently available population series from the 1995, 2001 and 2007 World Value Surveys of 4500 respondents and a series of multilevel cross-classified models to properly estimate period and cohort effects. Attitudes toward women's dual roles manifest neither period nor cohort effects; the population displays a universal high level of acceptance of women's paid employment. Orientations toward gender equality manifest both cohort and period effects: members of the youngest cohort of both sexes hold the most liberal attitudes; the positive effect of college education has increased over time. Attitude toward gender equality in China displays neither a shift toward conservatism nor an over-time trend toward egalitarianism in 1995-2007, a time of rapid economic growth.