Rethinking Benevolent Sexism
The ideological starting point is that sexism is bad. But how, then, do we reconcile that with benevolent sexism predicting good relationship outcomes?
Disclaimer: This article contains original data that has not been peer-reviewed.
Written by Alexander.
The Ambivalent Sexism Inventory (ASI) was developed by Glick and Fiske (1997; 2001) to describe two facets of sexism: benevolent and hostile. Benevolent sexism has been defined as “valuing feminine-stereotyped attributes in females (e.g., nurturance) and a belief that traditional gender roles are necessary to complement one another” (Brown & Prinstein, 2011). Items on scales that measure benevolent sexism include “every man ought to have a woman whom he adores” and “men are incomplete without women” (Rollero et al., 2014).
Thus, whereas hostile sexism might be found among grotesquely prejudiced men, benevolent sexism might be found in your average conservative grandfather who has maintained a lifelong happy marriage. The two describe very different attitudes about women. As one might expect, benevolent and hostile sexism also predict different relationship outcomes.
Hostile sexism is what the average person on the street would describe as sexist. It is largely negative and antisocial. Benevolent sexism, on the other hand, is characterized by prosocial views of women. That it is sexism at all is dubious.
For example, it is questionable if the belief that, per the previous example, “every man ought to have a woman who he adores” is really a sexist belief, for it would strike many as a positive relationship aspiration.
There is an important question here: does benevolent sexism have construct validity. That is, does benevolent sexism describe an actual meaningful latent variable in a scientifically neutral way? One crucial component of construct validity is predictive validity: The power of the construct (as measured by some test or scale) to predict real outcomes. So, in this case, the question is does benevolent sexism predict what one would assume sexism to predict?
Benevolent Sexism and Relationship Outcomes
In the case of relationship outcomes, benevolent sexism seems to predict more positive outcomes than negative. Psychologists who research benevolent and hostile sexism treat this as a puzzle. The ideological starting point is that sexism is bad. But how, then, do we reconcile that with benevolent sexism predicting good relationship outcomes? Indeed, much research seems to have been conducted for the express purpose of trying to explain why benevolent sexism predicts positive life and relationship outcomes (Connelly & Heesacker, 2012; Napier et al., 2010).
For example, benevolent sexism is associated with higher relationship satisfaction (Sibley & Becker, 2012; Lachance-Grzela, 2021; Leaper et al., 2022) and less relationship conflict (Leaper et al., 2022). For individuals in relationships, benevolent sexism predicts higher life satisfaction (Waddell et al., 2019) and higher well-being for both men and women (Hammond & Sibley, 2011).
Men who score high in benevolent sexism are viewed more favorably by women (Bohner et al., 2010) and preferred by women (Gul & Kupfer, 2019). Montañes et al. (2013) found that the most attractive men were those high in benevolent sexism. Having more relationship experience also predicted a higher female preference for benevolently sexist men. Cross & Overall (2017) similarly found that benevolently sexist men were more attractive to women, particularly if women desired more relationship security. Adolescent men who were higher in benevolent sexism also had more relationship experience (Lemus et al., 2010).
Barreto & Ellemers (2005) found that women were less likely to view benevolent sexism as being sexist, nor did they express anger toward benevolent sexism as they did with hostile sexism. Women’s perceptions of benevolent sexist behavior are often positive, whereas they were predictably negative for hostile sexism (Kilianski & Rudman, 1998). Oswald et al. (2019) found that women did not report benevolent sexism as distressing or sexist. Additionally, women in relationships reported more experiences of benevolent sexism. While the Protective Paternalism facet of benevolent sexism was associated with low self-esteem, the Complementary Gender Differentiation facet was associated with positive outcomes: lower self-doubt, higher self-esteem, higher psychological well-being, and greater flourishing.
Benevolent sexism also doesn’t consistently predict what one would expect from a construct intended to measure sexism. Hopkins-Doyle et al. (2019) found that women perceived benevolently sexist men as more warm, as well as more supportive of gender equality. They describe this as a “deception” and a “misunderstanding” — as if women who prefer traditional gender roles are big dummies who don’t know what is good for them — rather than an individual difference in mate preference. Similarly, Overall et al. (2011) found that “men who expressed higher agreement with benevolent sexism were more open to their partners’ influence and behaved with less hostility, and their discussions were more successful.” Hostile sexism, as expected, predicted poorer relationship outcomes.
Benevolent sexism further predicts a willingness to dissolve relationships when they are bad or unsatisfactory (Hammond & Overall, 2014). Allen et al. (2009) found that benevolent sexism was protective against actual domestic violence in a relationship. Goh & Tignor (2020) found no relationship between benevolent sexism and Dark Triad traits, while hostile sexism was correlated with Machiavellianism. As in Hopkins-Doyle et al. (2019), benevolent sexism also predicted male warmth scores.
Benevolent sexism may even be attractive to feminists. Women who scored high in a self-identified feminism measure reported a lower likelihood of using condoms with men who were benevolently sexist (Fitz & Zucker, 2014; 2015). However, they were more likely to anticipate using condoms with men who were hostile sexists. Gul and Kupfer (2019) similarly found that feminist attitudes in men did not predict desirability, but benevolent sexism was attractive because it signaled investment and protection. Russell (2015) found that non-feminist women reported the highest relationship satisfaction and that partner conformity to masculine ideals predicted actual partner choice as well as relationship satisfaction. Backus and Mahalik (2011) similarly found that non-feminist women reported the highest desire for partners that conform to masculine norms.
What about sex? The most recent paper on sexual satisfaction and benevolent sexism is from Bonnell et al. (2022). This may be understudied; Bonnell et al. wrote “there is only one study to date that has explicitly examined the association between benevolent sexism and sexual dissatisfaction for women.” Neither the study referenced (Lentz & Zaikman, 2021), nor the current results in Bonell et al. found a relationship between benevolent sexism and sexual satisfaction. Harris et al. (2016) similarly found no direct relationship between female orgasm frequency and benevolent sexism.
Benevolent sexism may index mainstream conservative attitudes and behaviors. Indeed, Durán et al. (2010) found that it is explicitly associated with traditional roles. Priming women with traditional gender roles (“housewives”) raises benevolent sexism scores in women (Becker, 2010) and priming men with traditional gender roles raises benevolent sexism in men (Good & Sanchez, 2009). Viki et al. (2003) found that benevolent sexism predicted a measure of paternalistic chivalry: “attitudes that are both courteous and considerate to women but place restrictions on behavior considered appropriate for women during courtship.”
Benevolent sexism is also associated with less support for abortion (Duerksen & Lawson, 2017). Glick et al. (2002) found benevolent sexism was associated with adherence to Catholicism. Forbes et al. (2003) found that men and women who scored high in benevolent sexism were more likely to support natural breast-feeding. Viki et al. (2011) found that women high in benevolent sexism had more negative views of Myra Hindley, a female criminal who murdered her own children. Women high in benevolent sexism were more likely to be in relationships (Mastari et al., 2019) and have more children (Deak et al., 2020).
Why Do Many Feminists Think Benevolent Sexism Is Bad?
There are some negative interpersonal associations with benevolent sexism: within relationships, women may view benevolently sexist men as more patronizing (Gul & Kupfer, 2019). Women high in attachment anxiety may also be more attracted to benevolently sexist men (Fisher & Hammond, 2019), consistent with benevolent sexism predicting higher perceptions of protection, security, and investment from men. A study by Hammond and Sibley (2014) found that women who scored high in benevolent sexism had more psychological entitlement (essentially, higher standards). Similarly, women who score high in benevolent sexism and have high aspirations for male partners (who don’t live up to them) may be less satisfied (Casad et al., 2015). Women high in benevolent sexism may also have more positive attitudes toward cosmetic use and enhancing their own physical attractiveness (Franzoi, 2001), which some feminists might denounce.
However, relationship outcomes are not the primary focus of research on benevolent sexism. From the beginning, Glick and Fiske created the construct to index gender inequality. Becker & Wright (2011) found that benevolent sexism was associated with lower motivation for collective social change. Montañés et al. (2012) found that mothers high in benevolent sexism had daughters who performed worse in school and were less interested in pursuing an academic degree. Much more research has been done on how benevolent sexism may negatively affect career aspirations than romantic relationships (Bradley-Geist et al., 2015; Gick & Raberg, 2018).
However, few positive traits or constructs in psychology have no downsides. For example, the Big Five trait Openness is mostly associated with positive outcomes but is also associated with behaviors such as drug use (Dash et al., 2021). Trait Agreeableness predicts positive relationship outcomes for men but is negatively associated with climbing the corporate ladder. Even one’s angels can become devils in some contexts. But as far as relationships and mate desirability are concerned, benevolent sexism seems to be largely beneficial.
Hammond and Overall (2017) provide a model of hostile and benevolent sexism that illustrates why feminists think benevolent sexism is harmful. This model outlines what could be described as a career-versus-family trade-off. That benevolent sexism predicts better relationship outcomes is irrelevant from this perspective. Benevolent sexism is harmful insofar as women focus more on men than on themselves (and specifically, on their own careers). Cross and Overall (2017) describe benevolent sexism as “undermining women's competence, ambition, and independence.”
Careers, Families, and the Happiness Trade-Off
It’s unclear that pursuing a career makes women happier (Başlevent & Kirmanoğlu, 2017; Treas et al., 2011; Ferree, 1984). Level of education is at best weakly predictive of happiness and subjective well-being (Oreopoulos & Salvanes, 2011; Bücker et al., 2018). Okulicz-Kozaryn and da Rocha Valente (2018) found that housewifery predicted higher happiness in the General Social Survey between the 1970s and 2014, but that the effect has recently diminished in size. In the representative Chinese General Social Survey, income predicted happiness for women but was counterbalanced by household income contribution; the more women contributed, the less happy they were (Chen, 2018).
In a representative German sample, Brockmann et al. (2018) found that women in managerial positions had lower life satisfaction than men in the same positions. Further, this effect was mediated by the termination of women’s fertility between age 35 and 45. Hall and Gordon (1973) classically found that doing what you want to do is what really predicts happiness, be it stay-at-home or in the workplace. Women who wanted to be housewives and were housewives were happier. What was important was the congruence of the role.
At the same time, both level of education and income are independently protective of divorce. Being poor is a robust predictor of divorce. Contrary to popular memes, level of education for both men and women is inversely related to singledom and divorce. Women with more education are less likely to be single and less likely to get divorced at every level (see: Why College Grads Are Less Likely To Be Single or Divorced).
There is certainly something to be said for not having to depend on a romantic partner for one’s income. It is understandable that women may not want to hitch their entire future upon a partner, given that relationships may dissolve. Most women don’t receive a windfall following a divorce. What is much more common is a long period of poverty. This dire outcome, among others, has shaped the last one hundred years of women desiring to enter the workforce.
Relationships and Life Satisfaction
Relationship trajectory is a better predictor of life satisfaction than career outcomes. Stone (2019) found that when ideal fertility outcomes (the number of children a woman desires) matches actual fertility outcomes (the number she has), the woman is happiest. This is consistent with Hall and Gordon (1973) insofar as meeting life goals, rather than the goal itself, is what predicts happiness. However, unlike career outcomes, having a loving relationship is a near-universal desire. Thus, we should expect relationships to predict life satisfaction better than careers.
Indeed, marriage is associated with higher general happiness, better physical and mental health, as well as a longer lifespan (Wadsworth, 2015; Holt-Lunstad et al., 2010; Dupre et al., 2009; Rogers, 1995). It’s probably not the case that this is merely a correlation explained by healthier people getting married; marriage seems to have protective benefits (Carr & Springer, 2010). Further, being in a committed relationship predicts happiness both for the married and unmarried (Perelli-Harris et al., 2019). The association between relationship status and wellbeing emerges in adolescence and early adulthood (Gómez-López, 2020). Singledom predicts loneliness that increases over the lifespan (Mund & Johnson, 2021), committed relationships reduce loneliness (Bucher et al., 2019), and relationships — even sexual activity — continues to predict enjoyment of life well into old age (Smith et al., 2019).
At the same time, some extreme strains of feminism explicitly oppose romantic love (Grossi, 2018). Feminists may also devalue romantic relationships (Hurt et al., 2007). And some feminists even assail beauty, which they view as a social construct and a trait unrelated to nobler life pursuits. Relatedly, women who are higher on attractiveness and place more value on relationships, as well as their own physical appearance, are less likely to be feminist (Rudman & Fairchild, 2007). This could provide a path of moderation whereby those high in feminist attitudes score low in benevolent sexism and have poorer relationship outcomes.
Results From My Twitter Survey
I wanted to see if I could replicate the relationships between benevolent sexism, life satisfaction, and relationship satisfaction found in past research. The best I could do was a weak replication of the relationship between life satisfaction and benevolent sexism for people in relationships. I found that people who identified as involuntarily celibate scored a little higher in benevolent sexism, and I found a small sex difference, with men scoring higher in benevolent sexism. Relationship status did predict life satisfaction, with those in relationships being more satisfied with their lives.
Below is the methodology and more detailed results.
Method
My sample was recruited from Twitter, and I used only benevolent sexism items to keep the survey short. An important modification of benevolent sexism was that I switched the gender in items for female participants. Women responded to items that asked them about men. For example, the item “men are incomplete without women” became “women are incomplete without men.” “Higher moral sensibility” was changed to “higher rational sensibility” to reflect positive stereotypes about men.
The wilcox.test in R was used for Likert items.
Sample
The total raw sample size was 334 (Male = 242, Female = 91, Other = 1). Ninety percent of the sample was heterosexual; 7% was bisexual; 1.8% was gay or lesbian; and .9% reported as other. Participants who identified as other than heterosexual or other than male or female were removed for the subsequent analysis due to the small number of responses. This gives a final sample of 301 heterosexuals (Male = 231, Female = 70).
Thirty-one women (44.3%) and 47 men (47.1%) were in a committed relationship. Thus, 55.2% of women and 55.4% of men who were not in a committed relationship reported being involuntarily single (Item: “If you are single, is it by choice?”). Forty-one percent of women and 61.8% of men who were not in a committed relationship reported being involuntarily celibate (Item: “If you are celibate, is it by choice?”).
Overall, 22.6% of women and 27% of men who were in a committed relationship reported not having had sex within the past week. 94.9% of women and 92.4% of men who were not in a committed relationship did not have sex within the past week.
And 61.5% of women and 58.6% of men who were not in a committed relationship reported not having had sex within the past 24 months, whereas 6.5% of women and 2.7% of men in committed relationships reported not having had sex within the past 24 months.
Relationship satisfaction
A seven-item scale of relationship satisfaction was used with a maximum score of 5. The average relationship satisfaction score was 4.05 across the entire group. Relationship satisfaction was 4.09 for men and 3.95 for women.
Results
Life Satisfaction
Participants in relationships scored higher in life satisfaction (5.2) than those not in relationships (4) (p < .001, d = .84). This was true for men (5.3 versus 3.9, p < .001, d = .91) and for women (5.2 versus 4.3, p = .013, d = .57). The difference for life satisfaction for men and women in relationships was not statistically significant (p = .876).
Benevolent Sexism
There was no difference in benevolent sexism scores by relationship status (p = .84). Men in relationships (22) did not score significantly higher in benevolent sexism than men not in relationships (22) (p = .778). Women in relationships (18.8) also did not score significantly differently from women not in relationships (18) (p = ~1).
Benevolent Sexism, Life Satisfaction, and Relationship Satisfaction
A simple linear regression was conducted to examine the relationship between benevolent sexism and life satisfaction for participants in relationships. The results indicate a weak predictor of the outcome variable (B = 0.03, SE = 0.01, t = 2.10, p = .04, 95% CI [0.002, 0.067]). The regression model accounted for 4.13% of the variance in the outcome variable (R² = .04, F(1, 103) = 4.43, p = .04).
The regression analysis did not detect a significant relationship between benevolent sexism and life satisfaction (t(103) = 0.28, p = 0.783).
As a mean Likert score was used as an independent variable, I also ran a Spearman's rank correlation. There was a non-significant correlation between benevolent sexism and life satisfaction for people in relationships (r = 0.14, p = 0.15).
Benevolent sexism did not predict life satisfaction independently for men (p = .2) or for women (p = .114). Benevolent sexism also did not predict relationship satisfaction for men (p = .502) or for women (p = .643).
Involuntary Celibacy, Involuntary Singledom, and Benevolent Sexism
Participants who reported as involuntarily single scored higher in benevolent sexism (22.4 versus 19.7, p = .003, d = .35). For men independently, this association remained significant (23.1 versus 20.5, p = .008, d = .36). For women it did not (19 versus 17.8, p = .437). Men who were involuntarily celibate scored higher in benevolent sexism than women who were involuntarily celibate (23 versus 19, p = .004, d = .55).
Being involuntarily single also predicted higher benevolent sexism (22.7 vs 19, p < .001, d = .44).
Benevolent Sexism and Sexual Activity
There was no significant difference between participants who had or did not have sex within the last 24 months in benevolent sexism (21.4 versus 21.2, p = .932). This relationship was not significant for men (22.3 versus 22.1, p = .959) or for women (18.4 versus 18.3, p = .945).
Means of benevolent sexism scores, life satisfaction, and relationship satisfaction are in Table 1. Weekly sex was not a significant predictor of benevolent sexism (F(1, 299) = 0.008, p = 0.928),
Weekly sex did predict life satisfaction (F(1, 299) = 30.2, p < .001, R² = .091). The model accounted for approximately 9% of the variance in weekly activities (R-squared = .091).
A post-hoc test with Bonferroni correction showed that there were significant differences in means between all pairs of groups except for the comparisons between Weekly Sex 2-3 Times and Weekly Sex 3-4 Times (p = 1.00) and Weekly Sex 3-4 Times and Weekly Sex 5+ Times (p = 1.00). All other comparisons were significant at p < .0167. The mean difference between Weekly Sex 0 Times and Weekly Sex 1-2 Times was significant (p < .001), as was the mean difference between Weekly Sex 0 Times and Weekly Sex 3-4 Times (p < .001), and between Weekly Sex 1-2 Times and Weekly Sex 5+ Times (p = 0.68).
The ANOVA for weekly sex and relationship was significant in the overall model (F(1, 299) = 197.2, p < .001). However, no comparisons between groups were significant in a pairwise test.
Discussion
I replicated the relationship between benevolent sexism and life satisfaction for participants in relationships, although the relationship was not strong. Results did not show a relationship between benevolent sexism and relationship satisfaction. Women scored lower in benevolent sexism than men, indicating less positive-sexist attitudes toward men than men had toward women.
Benevolent sexism did not predict sexual activity within the past 24 months or weekly sexual activity within a relationship. Benevolent sexism was not higher for participants in relationships versus those not in relationships. However, benevolent sexism was higher for men who reported being involuntarily celibate.
Relationship satisfaction was high in this sample. This result mirrors nationally representative data in the General Social Survey (GSS), which has also found most people in committed relationships are happy with those relationships.
Participants in relationships also had higher life satisfaction; this remained true when examining men and women in relationships independently. Participants who reported not having had sex within the past week also scored lower in life satisfaction.
These results are also consistent with representative GSS data that has indicated most sex occurs within relationships. Approximately 5% of women and 8% of men who weren’t in a relationship had sex within the last week, and approximately half of single men and women did not have sex within the last 24 months. Thus, committed relationships are where most sex is happening.
Concluding remarks
Benevolent sexism predicted life satisfaction in my results and robustly predicts positive relationship outcomes across the literature.
Being in a relationship was associated with higher life satisfaction in my results and predicts positive life outcomes across the literature.
Alexander is a grad student in behavioral and cognitive research. His research interests are in relationships and attraction. You can follow him on Twitter for interesting research threads and YouTube for evidence-based dating tips.
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I wonder much of the relationship between benevolent sexism and life outcomes is due to the fact conservative people are generally happier.
Benevolent sexism is actually just realism about sex differences.