Development and Testing of the Attitudes Toward Feminism and the Women's Movement (FWM) Scale

Abstract

This article outlines the development and testing of the Attitudes Toward Feminism and the Women's Movement (FWM) Scale, a brief measure of affective attitudes toward the feminist movement. Thurstone's (1 959) method of equal-appearing intervals was used initially to create the final 1 O-item summated rating (Likert) scale. Establishment of internal consistency reliability and construct (convergent and discriminant) validity was determined on a sample of 11 7 female and male college students. Results suggested a highly internally consistent and valid attitudinal measure. Additional evidence for the validity of the FWM is discussed in terms of research in which it has been successfully used.Attitude theory typically defines attitude as a tendency to locate some entity or "attitude object" along an evaluative dimension of unfavorability/favorability, expressed in the three components of affect, cognitions, and behavior (Eagly & Mladinic, 1989). The attitude object in the present studyfeminism and the women's movementhas been credited with important gains in personal, political, and economic power for women. However, a concurrent and vicious backlash (Faludi, 1991) has also linked the feminist movement to the downfall of the American family and a rise in personal and societal discontent. Thus, it appears that this attitude

Work‐Family Commitment and Attitudes Toward Feminism in Medical Students

“…The hdmgthat women m d c a l students scored significantly higher than men on FWM suggests further that female medical students, in particular, appreciate gains in gender equity made by the women's movement. The mean FWM score of 32.70 for the present sample proved to be significantly less than that of the general college sample (35.17) reported by Fassinger (1994). This difference suggests that medical students in an accelerated program hold more conservative and traditional attitudes about ferninism and the women's movement when compared to college undergraduate students.…”

When Declaring “I am a Feminist” Matters: Labeling is Linked to Activism

“…For example, Henley et al's (1998) Feminist Perspectives Scale (FPS) is a broad attitudinal measure that taps respondents' agreement with statements that reflect each of six sociopolitical variations of feminism: conservative, liberal, radical, socialist, cultural, and womanist. Fassinger's (1994) Attitudes Toward Feminism and the Women's Movement Scale (FWM) explores individuals' affective attitudes-specifically toward feminists and the women's movement. Fischer et al's (2000) Feminist Identity Composite (FIC) was designed to capture a theory-based (Downing and Roush 1985) developmental model of feminist identity that has since been re-framed as a series of five dimensions that together capture an individual's beliefs at a single point in time (Fischer and Good 1994).…”

“…Feminist scholars have addressed this seemingly simple question with some quite complex approaches, including explorations of the predictors of being feminist (e.g., Liss et al 2004;Myaskovsky and Wittig 1997;Yoder et al 2007a), examinations of feminism as a construct (e.g., Fassinger 1994;Fischer et al 2000;Henley et al 1998;Zucker 2004), and linkages with various outcomes (e.g., Eisele and Stake 2008). What remains most elusive is the construct of feminism itself, or exactly what it means to be a feminist (Liss and Erchull 2010).…”

A study of developing a Thurstone type attitude scale

“…Yurtdışında ise çeşitli konulara yönelik tutum ölçme aracı geliştirilmesinde Thurstone'un eşit görünen aralıklar yöntemi kullanılmıştır. Bunlardan bazıları müzik dersine (Rainey, 2002), feminizm ve kadın hareketlerine (Fassinger, 1994), kan bağışına (Breckler & Wiggins, 1989) ve zenci öğrencilere (Grafton, 1964) yönelik tutum ölçekleridir.…”