Ways to go: Men's and women's support for aggressive and non-aggressive confrontation of sexism as a function of gender identification

Abstract

This research examines male and female perceivers’ reactions to a female target who (1) confronted sexism nonaggressively, (2) confronted sexism aggressively (by slapping the perpetrator), or (3) did not confront sexism. Results (N = 152) indicated that, overall, both women and men responded most favorably to the female target who confronted nonaggressively. Nonaggressive confrontation was perceived as relatively unthreatening for women and relatively threatening for men, whereas the remaining responses were all perceived as threatening for women. Results were further moderated by participants’ a priori levels of gender identification: women who were weakly identified with their gender and men who were highly identified with their gender were less supportive of aggressive confrontations. Implications regarding the optimal way to confront sexism are discussed.