Blatant sexism scales fail to predict key gender outcomes

Evidence

The Attitudes Toward Women Scale (Spence & Helmreich, 1972b) measures blatantly sexist attitudes regarding women’s status in society (e.g., “Women should be concerned with their duties of childbearing and house tending, rather than with desires for professional and business careers”). Consistent with the argument that it reflects antipathy toward women, higher scores are associated with greater male aggression toward women (Scott & Tetreault, 1987) and more favorable perceptions of those who aggress toward women (e.g., rapists; Weidner & Griffitt, 1983; and domestic abusers; Hillier & Foddy, 1993). However, the measure is limited in the scope of its predictive utility (see Spence, 1999, for a review). For example, it does not predict gender identity, women’s career choices, or gender stereotypes, perhaps because it measures attitudes toward women’s rights, not attitudes toward women. — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 749

Categorization

• QUESTION: Worth chasing: the AWS measures attitudes toward women’s rights, not women — yet it correlates with rape/abuser approval. What does that say about what blatant sexism actually indexes?
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 749