A (Political) Battle of the Sexes: Gender Polarization on Gender-Related Attitudes across 14 Societies

While it is well-established that women typically endorse more progressive gender-related attitudes compared to men, key questions remain about the magnitude of this gender difference and whether it systematically varies in relation to levels of gender inequality across societies. In the current research, we aim to address these questions by examining endorsement of “old-fashioned” and “modern” forms of sexism across 14 countries, including those with relatively low levels of gender equality (e.g., Saudi Arabia, India, Egypt) and those with relatively high equality (e.g., Sweden, United Kingdom, United States). Results show that endorsement of old-fashioned sexism is inversely related to country-level gender equality to a similar extent for women and men, whereas modern sexism endorsement is inversely related to gender equality for women, but not men. Thus, results show that gender polarization is largest on modern sexist attitudes in relatively equal countries, and this is because, as gender inequality increases, modern forms of sexism are especially likely to be rejected by women.