Trash talk about the other gender: Content of, reactions to, and willingness to confront stereotypical comments about men and women

Abstract

We examined the content of and reactions to stereotypical comments about men and women. In Study 1, daily comments participants recalled hearing people make about “what men/women are like” were generally negative and targeted the other gender. Men rejected negative comments about both genders, whereas women rejected negative comments about women more than comments about men. In Study 2, college participants could confront an online interaction partner who made an other-gender sexist comment. Women confronted a comment targeting women and had more negative reactions to sexism directed at a woman than at a man; men had equivalent, negative reactions to sexism that did not depend on target gender. Study 3 extended and replicated Study 2 by including both other-gender and same gender sexism. Results showed that (a) women were more attuned to men’s sexism toward women compared to all other types and (b) men responded negatively to sexism about either gender, but were more likely to confront sexism directed at women than sexism directed at men. We suggest that women’s tendency to confront sexism when it targets women but not men may reinforce stereotypes that undermine gender equality.

Learning to detect sexism: An evaluation of the effects of a brief video-based intervention using ROC analysis

“…Although women are the structurally disadvantaged gender group and the main targets of sexism, it is important to also reduce biased attitudes against men (Becker et al, 2014). This is because ambivalent attitudes toward women, as measured by the ambivalent sexism inventory (ASI; Glick and Fiske, 1996), and ambivalent attitudes toward men, as measured by the ambivalence toward men inventory (AMI; Glick and Fiske, 1999), are positively correlated (Glick et al, 2004) and both reflect and reinforce the gender hierarchy and gender inequality (Haines et al, 2022).…”