Three daily diary studies were conducted to examine the incidence, nature, and impact of everyday sexism as reported by college women and men. Women experienced about one to two impactful sexist incidents per week, consisting of traditional gender role stereotypes and prejudice, demeaning and degrading comments and behaviors, and sexual objectification. These incidents affected women's psychological well-being by decreasing their comfort, increasing their feelings of anger and depression, and decreasing their state self-esteem. Although the experiences had similar effects on men's anger, depression, and state self-esteem, men reported relatively fewer sexist incidents, suggesting less overall impact on men. The results provide evidence for the phenomena of everyday prejudice and enlighten our understanding of the experience of prejudice in interpersonal encounters from the perspective of the target.*We would like to thank Mathilda du Toit for her help with the analyses.
African American college students reported their experiences with everyday forms of racism at a predominantly European American university using a daily diary format. Their reported incidents represented verbal expressions of prejudice, bad service, staring or glaring, and difficulties in interpersonal exchanges (e.g., rudeness or awkward and nervous behavior). Both women’s and men’s experiences with interpersonal forms of prejudice were common, often occurred with friends and in intimate situations, and had significant emotional impact on them in terms of decreasing their comfort and increasing their feelings of threat during the interaction. Moreover, anger was the most frequently reported emotional reaction to these events. Participants were not passive targets, however, with many responding either directly or indirectly to the incidents. Findings from this study converged upon patterns of results found in in-depth interviews and surveys while also adding information to a growing body of literature on everyday experiences with racism.
Past lab and scenario research on sexism suggests that women are more likely to contemplate than to engage in assertive confrontation of prejudice. The present study was designed to explore how the competing cultural forces of activist norms and gender role prescriptions for women to be passive and accommodating may contribute to women's response strategies. Women were asked to keep diaries of incidents of anti-Black racism, anti-Semitism, heterosexism, and sexism, including why they responded, how they responded, and the consequences of their responses. Participants were about as likely to report they were motivated by activist goals as they were to report being motivated by gender role consistent goals to avoid conflict. Those with gender role-consistent goals were less likely to respond assertively. Participants were more likely to consider assertive responses (for 75% of incidents) than to actually make them (for 40% of incidents). Assertive responders did, however, report better outcomes on a variety of indicators of satisfaction and closure, at the expense of heightened interpersonal conflict. Results are discussed with respect to the personal and social implications of responding to interpersonal prejudice.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.