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Sex Roles (2008) 58:299310 DOI 10.1007/s11199-007-9317-y
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Whats in a Name? Two Approaches to Evaluating the Label Feminist
Amanda B. Breen & Andrew Karpinski
Published online: 17 October 2007 # Springer Science + Business Media, LLC 2007
Abstract Across two studies, we employed unique approaches to investigating the meaning of the label feminist using a sample of undergraduates from a large Northeastern university in the U.S. In Study 1 (N=60), we utilized an impression formation paradigm to investigate the meaning of the label feminist when applied to typical college student. The results revealed that feminist males were rated less favorably than nonfeminist males and feminist females were rated more favorably than nonfeminist females. In Study 2 (N=112), we examined the context-free associations that people have with the label feminist using two implicit attitude measures. Females reported positive implicit associations with the label feminist while males expressed neutral to slightly negative implicit associations with feminists.
Keywords Feminist attitudes . Attitudes toward feminists . Implicit attitudes . Impression formation
Introduction
I think its the label. Express a faminist (sic) attitude or concept, and people dont flinch. Say youre a feminist, and they run screaming (italics in original; Vervain 2006, Comments section, para. 21).
In recent years, support for womens rights and for feminist ideals (equality of women and men in social,
economic, and political realms) has been remarkably strong, particularly among women. For example, a poll conducted by the Peter Harris Research Group in 2003 (cited in Rowe-Finkbeiner 2004) found that 83% of women reported approval for a movement to strengthen womens rights. Furthermore, 92% of young women (ages 1824) reported favorable attitudes toward the womens movement. This discrepancy between (generally positive) feminist attitudes and (lack of) identification as a feminist is not new; it has been a consistent, robust finding for the past twenty years (Burn et al. 2000; Buschman and Lenart 1996; Henderson-King and Stewart 1994; Renzetti 1987; Rowe-Finkbeiner 2004). As the quote above suggests, something about the word feminist prevents and even actively repels people from identifying themselves as such despite their endorsement of feminist ideals. Thus, in order to understand why people (and young women especially) are reluctant to describe themselves as being a feminist, it is necessary to understand the common...