THE SCHEDULE OF SEXIST EVENTS - A MEASURE OF LIFETIME AND RECENT SEXIST DISCRIMINATION IN WOMENS LIVES

This paper describes the development, reliability, and validity of the Schedule of Sexist Events (SSE), a measure of lifetime and recent (pa st year) sexist discrimination in women's lives. A culturally diverse standardization sample of 631 women completed the 20-item SSE. Factor analyses revealed that the SSE-Lifetime and SSE-Recent have four facto rs: Sexist Degradation, Sexism in Distant Relationships, Sexism in Clo se Relationships, and Sexist Discrimination in the Workplace. The SSE- Lifetime and SSE-Recent scales had high internal-consistency (.92, .90 ) and split-half (.87, .83) reliability, and the factors were similarl y reliable. Validity was established by demonstrating that scores on t he SSE-Lifetime and SSE-Recent correlate as well with two other measur es of stressful events (the Hassles Frequency and the PERI-Life Events scales [PERI-LES]) as those measures correlate with each other. Sexis t discrimination (events) ran be understood as gender-specific, negati ve life events (stressors). Descriptive data indicated that sexist dis crimination is rampant in women's lives. Additional analyses revealed significant status differences in experiencing sexist discrimination, with women of color reporting more sexism in their lives than White wo men.