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Sex Roles (2010) 62:615622 DOI 10.1007/s11199-010-9754-x
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Religion and Sexism: The Moderating Role of Participant Gender
Lauren E. Maltby & M. Elizabeth L. Hall &
Tamara L. Anderson & Keith Edwards
Published online: 27 March 2010# Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2010
Abstract The present study examined the relationship between gender, religious belief and ambivalent sexism. Specifically, this study tested the hypothesis that participant gender moderates the relationship between religious belief and ambivalent sexism. Three-hundred thirty seven Evangelical Christian undergraduate students from the Southwestern United States were administered the Ambivalent Sexism Inventory and the Christian Orthodoxy Scale. Results showed that gender moderated the relationship between Christian orthodoxy and Protective Paternalism. This finding suggests the importance of intervening variables, such as gender, in understanding the relationship between religion and sexism.
Keywords Religion . Gender . Ambivalent sexism . Mediator
Introduction
The research to be described in this article investigated the role of gender in the relationship between religiosity and ambivalent sexism. We report the results of a questionnaire study that included measures of religious belief (The Christian Orthodoxy Scale; Fullerton and Hunsberger 1982; Hunsberger 1989), and a measure of ambivalent sexism (The Ambivalent Sexism Inventory; Glick and Fiske 1996). The study makes a new contribution by
focusing on how the relationship between religious beliefs and ambivalent sexism differs depending on gender.
Glick and Fiskes (1996) reconceptualization of prejudice against women as ambivalent in nature revolutionized research in the area of sexism. The introduction of benevolent sexism and the concept of ambivalence toward members of a target group are ideas that have already borne much fruit both theoretically and empirically. The present research aims to explore the relationship of religion to ambivalent sexism with a specific emphasis on gender as a possible moderator of this relationship.
Ambivalent Sexism
Despite being more liked than men in the United States, women still experience discrimination (Eagly and Mladinic 1993; Glick et al. 2000). Based on research in the United States, Glick and Fiske identified the two components of this ambivalence toward women as hostile and benevolent sexism. They defined hostile sexism as antagonism. It is an attitude toward gender relations in which women are perceived to be using sexuality or feminist ideology to control men, and characterizes women as inferior...