Implicit chivalric romantic ideals reduce women’s career and income ambitions

Evidence

A cultural worldview that is largely overlooked concerns romance, a putatively positive ideology for women. Traditionally, romance has idealized femininity, placing women “on a pedestal.” However, it may also teach them (e.g., through romantic fairytales) to depend on men for economic and social rewards. In particular, the romantic idealization of men as chivalric rescuers of women (e.g., Prince Charming) might encourage women to seek their fortune indirectly, through men. If so, romantic fantasies might be negatively linked to women’s interest in personal power. Consistent with this hypothesis, Rudman and Heppen (2003) found that even women who were reluctant to explicitly associate male romantic partners with chivalry (e.g., Prince Charming, White Knight, protector, hero) demonstrated this association implicitly (on the IAT). Furthermore, women who possessed implicit romantic beliefs also showed less interest in personal power, across multiple measures. For example, women with high IAT scores expected to make less income in their careers, and had lower educational goals. — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 771

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the immodesty moral-panic article: both are analyses of putatively positive ideologies that encode female subordination — romance here, modesty dress norms in that article. — connects to: Public hostility and dependence on opinion crushed many women writers’ careers; Expecting a Prince Charming splits women’s energies and produces professional inferiority — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 297; Gender nonconformity in work leads women to reject heterosexuality as a draining performance — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1042 (+5 more)
• ADDENDUM: Supports the sacrifice article’s mechanism: romantic pedestal-placing is a benevolent form of the same self-subordination that sacrificial ideologies impose — women seek fortune indirectly through men.