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Differential Reactions to Male and Female Gender-Role Violations: Testing the Sexual Orientation Hypothesis

UnHope20

September 24, 2022

11 upvotes

/r/Male_Studies

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Title	Differential Reactions to Male and Female Gender-Role Violations: Testing the Sexual Orientation Hypothesis
Author	UnHope20
Upvotes	11
Comments	9
Date	September 24, 2022 12:19 AM UTC (3 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/Male_Studies
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/Male_Studies/comments/xmdtph/differential_reactions_to_male_and_female/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/Male_Studies/differential-reactions-to-male-and-female-gender.1215748 https://theredarchive.com/post/1215748

Comments

[–]UnHope20[S] 9 points10 points11 points 3 years ago* (8 children) | Copy Link

Previous research has found that gender-atypical males are evaluated more negatively than gender-atypical females. According to the sexual orientation hypothesis, this asymmetry in evaluations occurs because the feminine characteristics taken on by males when they violate gender roles are more closely tied to perceived sexual orientation than are the masculine characteristics of gender-atypical females.

The current series of studies were designed to confirm the existence and generality of the asymmetry phenomenon (Study 1), the preconditions for testing the sexual orientation hypothesis (Study 2), and then to test the hypothesis itself (Study 3).

Study 1 found that, as predicted, adults (N = 195, females = 97) displayed more intolerance of males than of females committing gender-role violations across a wide variety of characteristics within multiple domains, although the existence of asymmetry varied somewhat depending on the domain.

Study 2 revealed that, as predicted, adults (N = 196, females = 117) believed that gender-role violations indicate homosexuality more so for males than for females overall and across all four domains studied (occupation, activity, trait, and appearance).

Study 3 directly tested the sexual orientation hypotheses by examining the relationship between intolerance of specific gender-role violations (scores from Study 1) and the perceived homosexuality associated with those violations (scores from Study 2).

Overall, there was a positive relationship between intolerance and perceived homosexuality, indicating that the more a given gender-role violation is thought to implicate homosexuality, the more negatively/less positively people tend to react to the violation, consistent with the sexual orientation hypothesis.

[Full Article Available]

[–]lightning_palm 5 points6 points7 points 3 years ago (7 children) | Copy Link

According to the sexual orientation hypothesis, this asymmetry in evaluations occurs because the feminine characteristics taken on by males when they violate gender roles are more closely tied to perceived sexual orientation than are the masculine characteristics of gender-atypical females.

The more negative evaluations could also or additionally be caused by homosexual men being evaluated more negatively than homosexual women. Comparing the number of anti-homosexual hate crimes for men and women seems to suggest that.

Still, this result is surprising to me. While I did expect anti-femininity bias and anti-homosexual bias to have an effect on one another, I would have guessed them to be mostly independent. The fact they were able to show that the strength of the more negative/less positive evaluation is mediated by how predictive it is thought to be of homosexuality is interesting.

I do wonder if there is some research on evaluations of masculine presenting homosexual men.

[–]UnHope20[S] 2 points3 points4 points 3 years ago (1 child) | Copy Link

[–]lightning_palm 2 points3 points4 points 3 years ago (0 children) | Copy Link

[–]Oncefa2 0 points1 point2 points 3 years ago (4 children) | Copy Link

[–]lightning_palm 0 points1 point2 points 3 years ago (3 children) | Copy Link

[–]Nicksvibes 1 point2 points3 points 3 years ago (1 child) | Copy Link

[–]lightning_palm 1 point2 points3 points 3 years ago (0 children) | Copy Link

[–]Nicksvibes 0 points1 point2 points 3 years ago (0 children) | Copy Link