The ambivalent sexism Inventory: Differentiating hostile and benevolent sexism

Is sexism a form of prejudice? Although the question might appear absurd, consider Allport’s (1954) influential definition of ethnic prejudice. Prejudice, Allport wrote, “is an antipathy based upon a faulty and inflexible generalization” (p. 9). The existence of prejudice is commonly indexed by measures of antipathy, such as social distance (e.g., Crosby, Bromley, & Saxe, 1980) and negative stereotypes (e.g., Sigall & Page, 1971). Relationships between men and women, however, do not easily fit the mold of ethnic prejudice, at the very least because no other two groups have been as intimately connected (S. T. Fiske & Stevens, 1993). Furthermore, cultural images of women from ancient to modern times are not uniformly negative; women have been revered as well as reviled (Eagly & Mladinic, 1993; Guttentag & Secord, 1983; Tavris & Wade, 1984). Sexism is indeed a prejudice, but in this article we argue that it is, and probably always has been, a special case of prejudice marked by a deep ambivalence, rather than a uniform antipathy, toward women. Our goals are to: (a) reveal the multi dimensional nature of sexism, (b) offer a theoretical and empirical analysis of the sources and nature of men’s ambivalence toward women, (c) compare our conception of ambivalent sexism with other theories of ambivalence (including ambivalent racism), and (d) provide a validated measure of ambivalent sexism.