More about in-group bias and gender stereotypes

A Comparative Study of the Implicit and Explicit Gender Attitudes of Children and College Students - John J. Skowronski, Melissa A. Lawrence - 2000

Implicit attitudes and explicit attitudes toward men and women and toward male soldiers and female soldiers were assessed in fifth-graders (28 male, 31 female) and college students (43 male, 42 female). Women were rated more positively than men on an explicit attitude measure. Similarly, female soldiers were rated more positively than male soldiers, except among college men, who were pro-male soldier. Different results emerged from an Implicit Association Test using names of men and women (general gender condition) or of male soldiers and female soldiers (soldier name condition). Latencies indicated pro-female attitudes in the soldier name condition and among women and college students. Error rates also indicated pro-female attitudes, except for a pro-male preference among men in the general gender condition. Reasons that implicit and explicit attitude measures may produce such divergent results are discussed.


Preferring “Housewives” To “Feminists”: Categorization and the Favorability of Attitudes Toward Women - Geoffrey Haddock, Mark P. Zanna - 1994

Four studies are described outlining the favorability of attitudes toward women. In Study 1, participants indicated their attitudes toward women and men and their construal of the term “women.” The results revealed that women were evaluated more favorably than men, but that male right-wing authoritarians (RWAs) who construed women as referring primarily to feminists were least favorable in their attitudes. In Study 2, participants indicated their attitudes toward both “housewives” and “feminists.” The results revealed that feminists were evaluated less favorably than housewives, and that the most negative attitudes toward feminists were expressed by authoritarian men. Study 3 revealed that high-RWA males held more negative symbolic beliefs concerning feminists (i.e., beliefs that feminists failed to promote participants' values) and that these beliefs accounted for variation in attitudes among high RWAs and much of the RWA-attitude relation. Finally, Study 4 revealed that high RWAs perceived greater value dissimilarity between themselves and feminists. The implications of the findings for future research are discussed.


Are Women Evaluated More Favorably Than Men?: An Analysis of Attitudes, Beliefs, and Emotions - Alice H. Eagly, Antonio Mladinic, Stacey Otto - 1990

In an experiment in which male and female respondents evaluated the social category of women or men on several types of measures, analysis of respondents' attitudes toward the sexes and of the evaluative content of their beliefs established that they evaluated women more favorably than men. In addition, analysis of respondents' emotional reactions toward women and men did not yield evidence of negativity toward women at the emotional level. Nor did it appear that respondents' very positive evaluations of women masked ambivalence toward them. This research, therefore, provides strong evidence that women are evaluated quite favorably—in fact, more favorably than men.


A Meta-Analysis on the Malleability of Automatic Gender Stereotypes - Alison P. Lenton, Martin Bruder, Constantine Sedikides - 2009

Furthermore, given that men are, on average, liked less than are women (Eagly, Mladinic, & Otto, 1991; Rudman & Goodwin, 2004), it certainly seems there is ample scope for improving people’s beliefs about and expectations of men.


Brannon - Chapter 07 - Gender Stereotypes: Masculinity and Femininity

Listening to the conversations of groups of women or men saying terrible things
about the other may seem to confirm this view, but research results are not consistent with such a conceptualization. Although women are the targets of various types of discrimination in terms of economic, political, educational, and professional achievement, attitudes about women are not uniformly negative. Indeed, one line of research from Alice Eagly and her colleagues (Eagly, Mladinic, & Otto, 1991) showed that women as a category re-ceive more favorableevaluations than men. Results from a meta-analysis (Feingold, 1998) indicated that women received slightly more favorable ratings than men. Thus, people in general have positive feelings about the characteristics stereotypically associated with women; people believe that these characteristics provide fine examples of human qualities.

These findings are not consistent with an overall prejudice against women.
Peter Glick, Susan Fiske, and their colleagues (Fiske, Cuddy, Glick, & Xu, 2002;
Glick & Fiske, 2001; Glick et al., 2000) have researched this puzzle in gender stereo-typing and formulated interesting answers. The focus of their research is their concep-tualization of sexism, that is, prejudice based on sex or gender. Their view separates positive from negative aspects of sexism. They call the negative aspects hostile sexism, and this concept includes negative attitudes toward women. They also consider benevo-lent sexism, which they conceptualize as positive attitudes that nonetheless serve to be-little women and keep them subservient. Benevolent sexism is reflected in the attitudes that women deserve special treatment, deserve to be set on a pedestal, and should be revered. Despite the positive nature of these beliefs, people who hold such attitudes tend to see women as weaker, more in need of protection, and less competent than men (Fiske et al., 2002).

Ironically, it may be the favorable traits stereotypically associated with women that
serve to perpetuate their lower status (Glick & Fiske, 2001). When people see women as warm and caring but less competent than men, they may give women positive evaluations but still feel that women need men to protect and take care of them. Thus, women’s sub-servience is justified. Men are not exempt from this type of ambivalent sexism; the stereo-typic characteristics of men can also be analyzed into hostile and benevolent components that are analogous to those that apply to women, but women’s hostile attitudes toward men do not erase men’s dominance (Glick & Fiske, 1999). This type of benevolent prejudice may rationalize racism as well as sexism, casting the dominant group as benevolent pro-tectors rather than oppressors.

Connecting the dots, In-group bias and gender roles

Like the headline said, borrowed from Girlwriteswhat:

This is the most common path to a positive male identity BECAUSE MEN LACK A MECHANISM FOR AUTOMATIC OWN-GROUP PREFERENCE. Simply put, they do not relate to other men automatically, just because they're men.

Women have this bias, which provides them a natural ability to form cooperatives, relate to other women, and seek consensus though their strong mechanism for own-group preference based on gender alone. Given their gender roles through most of human history, this mechanism makes sense. Their individual value as, to put it bluntly, breeders, meant that in a survivalist environment, you didn't throw a woman on the trash pile without a pressing reason. Adjustments were made when possible to keep as many women as you could within the sisterhood. This is where you find a ton of attention in female spaces given to things like "tone" and "being nice" and "getting along" even when there are disagreements. It's all about comfort level and feelings of acceptance.

Men, however, lack the hardwiring to form a preference for maleness based merely on maleness. And that only makes sense when you think about men's roles for the last couple million years or so--roles that involved things like beating the guys down the valley to a pulp when they threatened his women and children, and competing against other males within his community for a shot at the mating game. Given those roles, automatically siding with one's own gender over the other is...well, it just doesn't work.[...]

The myth among feminists that men will insult each other for displaying feminine traits because they see women as inferior is just that--a myth. Men do this because women have a trump card that bestows intrinsic value on them--their uteruses--and they retain that value even when they gender-bend a little. A woman who acts like a woman is not seen as inferior. A man who acts like a woman has always been seen not as a woman, but as a "woman without a womb". He has no female value, and he has no male value. Therefore, he has NO value at all. And unlike women, men who were not "useful" did--and still do--get thrown on the trash heap of society.

In the currency of reproduction, an ovum goes for a thousand bucks, a uterus is worth a cool mill, and an ejaculation about 10 cents. To be acceptable mating material, and worth keeping around, a man had to do more than generate sperm. And when the only thing keeping you from becoming completely disposable as an individual lies in differentiating yourself from the feminine, well, guys gonna enforce that shit.

This is why men have always tended to define themselves by their roles. Father, husband, working man, soldier, career man, family man, middle class man, politician, activist, etc...in other words, roles to exist in which allow them to relate to other men who also occupy those roles, and to derive a positive and meaningful identity from performing their masculinity through those roles.

Gender Stereotypes and Attitudes Toward Men

I really do love google scholar:

Gender Stereotypes and Attitudes Toward Women and Men - Alice H. Eagly - 1989

Attitude theory is used to provide a conceptual analysis of how attitudes toward men and women relate to gender stereotypes. Consistent with this analysis, attitudes toward the sexes related positively to the evaluative meaning of the corresponding gender stereo-types. In addition, attitudes and stereotypes about women were extremely favorable - in fact, more favorable than those about men. The findings also demonstrated that the Attitudes Toward Women Scale assesses attitudes toward equal rights for women not attitudes toward women, and therefore did not relate to the evaluative meaning of subjects' stereotypes about women.

And as a bonus:

The construction and validation of Attitudes Toward Men Scale - Iazzo, Anthony N. - 1983

Describes the construction and validation of the Attitudes Toward Men Scale (AMS). The initial 63 items were based on a review of the literature, which suggested 4 major content areas that define men: marriage and parenthood, sexuality, work, and physical and personality attributes. Factor analysis of responses of 104 18–63 yr old women indicated 4 factors that corresponded to these content areas. Good internal consistency and freedom from social desirability distortion were found. In criterion-related validation, the AMS scores of battered wives, rape victims, feminists, and lesbians clearly demonstrated more negative attitudes toward men than a control sample. In an exploratory study, the personality and psychopathology of the 1st 104 Ss were compared (via the 16PF and the Mini-Mult) and contrasted in relation to their attitudes toward men. Findings indicate that attitudes toward men depend largely on experience. (40 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)

Why do women like women more than men like men?

That is the question:

Gender differences in automatic in-group bias: why do women like women more than men like men? - Rudman LA, Goodwin SA. - 2004

Four experiments confirmed that women's automatic in-group bias is remarkably stronger than men's and investigated explanations for this sex difference, derived from potential sources of implicit attitudes (L. A. Rudman, 2004). In Experiment 1, only women (not men) showed cognitive balance among in-group bias, identity, and self-esteem (A. G. Greenwald et al., 2002), revealing that men lack a mechanism that bolsters automatic own group preference. Experiments 2 and 3 found pro-female bias to the extent that participants automatically favored their mothers over their fathers or associated male gender with violence, suggesting that maternal bonding and male intimidation influence gender attitudes. Experiment 4 showed that for sexually experienced men, the more positive their attitude was toward sex, the more they implicitly favored women. In concert, the findings help to explain sex differences in automatic in-group bias and underscore the uniqueness of gender for intergroup relations theorists.