Ambivalent sexism and the “do”s and “don’t”s of pregnancy: Examining attitudes toward proscriptions and the women who flout them

Murphy, Amy O.; Sutton, Robbie M.; Douglas, Karen M.; McClellan, Leigh M.

doi:10.1016/j.paid.2011.06.031

Cited by 26 publications

(31 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…Sutton, Douglas, and McClellan (2011) have shown that ambivalent sexism, and especially the subscale benevolent sexism, is related to support for restricting autonomy over women’s diet, exercise, and lifestyle choices during pregnancy, even when these decisions (e.g., drinking tap water, working out) have little or no objective effect on fetal welfare or developmental outcomes. Ambivalent sexism has also been found to relate to punitive attitudes to women whose choices are perceived to put the fetus at risk (Murphy, Sutton, Douglas, & McClellan, 2011). However, this research, like research on attitudes to abortion, investigates support for the placement of restrictions on women’s reproductive autonomy but does not address who has the right to place those restrictions and, in particular, whether men are seen as having the right to do so.…”

Section: Ambivalent Sexism and Women’s Reproductive Autonomymentioning

confidence: 99%

Sexist Ideology and Endorsement of Men’s Control Over Women’s Decisions in Reproductive Health

Petterson

Sutton

2017

Psychology of Women Quarterly

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Feminist scholars have argued that men's control over women's reproductive autonomy is a central feature of male dominance. Building on recent research that shows sexist ideology informs support for restricting women's reproductive autonomy, we examined the relation of sexism and the belief that men should be able to restrict the behavior of women. Study 1 (N = 366 undergraduate psychology students in the United Kingdom) and Study 2 (N = 281Amazon MTurk workers in the United States), showed that controlling for various demographics and ideological measures (e.g., right-wing authoritarianism, support for abortion rights), hostile sexism was related to support for men having the right to prevent their pregnant partner from having an abortion. Further, hostile sexism was also related to the endorsement of men's right to withdraw financial support for the child if a woman chooses not to terminate her pregnancy. Hostile sexism was also uniquely related to support for men's right to veto their female partner's decisions during pregnancy and childbirth. The present studies show that hostile sexism is associated with perceptions that men have the right to constrain women's reproductive choices. Our findings highlight the adverse pressures on women's reproductive autonomy, including sexist ideology, and may suggest that practitioners should be mindful of this when assisting women in discussing reproductive Scholars have argued that because men have enjoyed structural power over women, but also depend on their ability to bear children, men have sought to exert control over

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Section: Ambivalent Sexism and Women’s Reproductive Autonomymentioning

confidence: 99%

Sexist Ideology and Endorsement of Men’s Control Over Women’s Decisions in Reproductive Health

Petterson

Sutton

2017

Psychology of Women Quarterly

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“…Prior evidence suggests that sexism, especially benevolent sexism, supports engagement in preventive health measures, including mask wearing (Hesse 2020). For example, benevolent sexism predicts support for proscriptive rules regarding pregnancy (Murphy et al 2011), restricting the choices of pregnant women (Sutton, Douglas, and McClelland 2011), and restrictive abortion attitudes (Duerksen and Lawson 2017). Yet sexism exhibits a complicated partisan pattern.…”

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confidence: 99%

Gender, Benevolent Sexism, and Public Health Compliance

Chen

Farhart

2020

Pol & Gen

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Growing research shows a correlation between gender, benevolent sexism, partisanship, and COVID-19 public health compliance. We show first that women are more likely than men to engage in protective behaviors to slow the spread of COVID-19. We also find that while Republicans and Independents are less likely to comply with these measures, benevolent sexism moderates the effect of partisanship and can increase compliance. These results suggest that framing public health directives in terms of chivalry and protection activates benevolent sexism, potentially offsetting patterns of noncompliance associated with partisanship. We discuss the negative consequences of these results and posit a need for bipartisan messages to reduce reliance on benevolent sexism in the future.

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“…Alcohol abstinence during (and before) pregnancy is now advocated, and officially promoted in many countries’ public health policies on this basis. A body of work published from the late 1990s onwards has provided a critical engagement with this development (Armstrong, 1998 , 2003 ; Bell, McNaughton, & Salmon, 2009 ; Golden, 1999 , 2005 ; Lee, 2014 ; Leppo, Hecksher, & Tryggvesson, 2014 ; Lowe & Lee, 2010 ; Lupton, 2012 , 2014 ; Murphy, Sutton, Douglas, & McClellan, 2011 ; Potter, 2012 ; Ruhl, 1999 ; Sutton, Douglas, & McClellan, 2011 ).…”

Section: Drinking In Pregnancy: the Medicalisation And Democratisatiomentioning

confidence: 99%

From scientific article to press release to media coverage: advocating alcohol abstinence and democratising risk in a story about alcohol and pregnancy

Lee

Sutton

Hartley

2016

Health, Risk & Society

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In this article, we follow the approach taken by Riesch and Spiegalhalter in “Careless pork costs lives’: Risk stories from science to press release to media’ published in this journal, and offer an assessment of one example of a ‘risk story’. Using content and thematic qualitative analysis, we consider how the findings of an article ‘Fetal Alcohol Exposure and IQ at Age 8: Evidence from a Population-Based Birth-Cohort Study’ were framed in the article itself, the associated press release, and the subsequent extensive media coverage. We contextualise this consideration of a risk story by discussing a body of work that critically engages with the development and global proliferation of efforts to advocate for alcohol abstinence to pregnant (and pre-pregnant) women. This work considers the ‘democratisation’ of risk, a term used to draw attention to the expansion of the definition of the problem of drinking in pregnancy to include any drinking and all women. We show here how this risk story contributed a new dimension to the democratisation of risk through claims that were made about uncertainty and certainty. A central argument we make concerns the contribution of the researchers themselves (not just lobby groups or journalists) to this outcome. We conclude that the democratisation of risk was advanced in this case not simply through journalists exaggerating and misrepresenting research findings, but that communication to the press and the initial interpretation of findings played their part. We suggest that this risk story raises concerns about the accuracy of reporting of research findings, and about the communication of unwarrantedly worrying messages to pregnant women about drinking alcohol.

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Ambivalent sexism and the “do”s and “don’t”s of pregnancy: Examining attitudes toward proscriptions and the women who flout them

Cited by 26 publications

References 18 publications

Sexist Ideology and Endorsement of Men’s Control Over Women’s Decisions in Reproductive Health

Sexist Ideology and Endorsement of Men’s Control Over Women’s Decisions in Reproductive Health

Gender, Benevolent Sexism, and Public Health Compliance

From scientific article to press release to media coverage: advocating alcohol abstinence and democratising risk in a story about alcohol and pregnancy

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