Friday, July 31, 2009

Study reveals (GASP!) feminists are not man haters!



Here is the abstract from Psychology of Women Quarterly (http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/122352953/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0).

Despite the popular belief that feminists dislike men, few studies have actually examined the empirical accuracy of this stereotype. The present study examined self-identified feminists' and nonfeminists' attitudes toward men. An ethnically diverse sample (N = 488) of college students responded to statements from the Ambivalence toward Men Inventory (AMI; Glick & Fiske, 1999). Contrary to popular beliefs, feminists reported lower levels of hostility toward men than did nonfeminists. The persistence of the myth of the man-hating feminist is explored.

It is unclear to me as to why researchers felt the need to conduct a study to determine that feminists do not hate men. In fact, according to the study it has been determined that "'non-feminists believe in traditional gender roles such as men being breadwinners and women being caregivers. At the same time, these non-feminists actually appear to resent the confines of the traditional roles they advocate, which presents a paradox for women and men in traditional heterosexual relationships,' says researcher Melinda Kanner."

I give a warm nod and wink to Feministing.com for posting information on this study.

2 comments:

  1. this isn't necessarily proof of anything. the study sounds correlational. what is the measure of the attitudes attitudes in study? what consistutes, in the researchers' operational definition, a pejorative attitude towards men. i think the myth that feminists are man haters is silly, but i think purposely framing and distorting the tenets of what social science does is equally dishonest.

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  2. -Anonymous
    Thank you for your feedback. I agree with your above statements and I probably should have voiced that in the post.

    I do not have access to the entire research article so I am unable to see how they measured anything. I have only read the abstract.

    However, it was a surprise to me that anyone would attempt to conduct such a study as it does not seem necessary. These researchers obviously submitted their study for approval and the board apparently found a need for such a study. While it seems obvious to you and I that feminists are not man-haters there is a wider audience who does not.

    Again, it just seemed strange, a bit comical and also a bit offensive that such a study be carried out.

    Again, thank you for your thoughts.

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