WANTING IT BOTH WAYS - DO WOMEN APPROVE OF BENEVOLENT SEXISM

An oft-expressed criticism of feminism is that women ''want it both wa ys,'' opposing what Glick and Fiske (1996) have called ''hostile sexis m,'' but accepting or approving of ''benevolent sexism.'' To examine t his issue, an ethnically and socioeconomically diverse group of one hu ndred female undergraduate volunteers rated profiles of a hostile sexi st, a benevolent sexist and a non-sexist. For the benevolent sexist, r atings were mildly favorable, while for the hostile sexist, ratings we re highly unfavorable. Forty-four participants (a category referred to as equivocal egalitarians) approved of the benevolent sexist while di sapproving of the hostile sexist. Equivocal egalitarianism was positiv ely related to participants' Attitudes About Reality (Unger, Draper, & Pendergrass, 1986) and negatively related to their belief that hostil e and benevolent sexism could coexist. Overall, participants considere d it unlikely that the hostile and benevolent sexist profiles describe d the same person. Given previous findings, these data suggest that wo men may underestimate the coexistence of hostile and benevolent sexism in men (Glick & Fiske, 1996).