Promoting Egalitarian Gender Role Attitudes among College Cisgender Men

Abstract

Gender norms and traditional gender role attitudes (GRAs) are limiting to the development of individuals (Halpern & Perry-Jenkins, 2015), benefiting men through the privilege afforded them from patriarchal social structures, and thereby creating inequities for women and those outside of the gender binary (Halimi et al., 2020). The issue of gender inequity and traditional GRAs is prevalent within college-attending environments (Frieze et al., 2003), despite college being a setting in which educational information is available that could potentially change students' attitudes and behaviors. The current study assessed change in GRAs after 40 men (M age = 21.4 years, SD = 1.516) viewed six modules created to promote egalitarian GRAs. Results showed a significant increase in egalitarian gender role attitudes. We also found significant increases in egalitarian attitudes towards transgender individuals. No significant differences were found in how participants viewed male and female gender roles nor was significant change observed in basic knowledge about sex and gender. The results of this study are promising and indicate at least short-term changes in egalitarian GRAs and attitudes towards transgender individuals. This study only touched the surface of a deep societal issue, and ideally future studies should build upon this and collect data on a larger scale with a more diverse sample and attention to whether changes in attitudes persist over time.