This survey-based study finds evidence that feminist women (and non-feminist men, to a lesser extent) view women more favorably than men, and that women view mothers more favorably than fathers (with no effect of feminism). See the discussion and conclusion below for interpretations and implications of these findings.

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(Length: 2,400 words.)

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1. Introduction

Although it’s commonly assumed that women are viewed more negatively than men, there’s actually a convincing body of research finding that women are in fact viewed more positively than men. The “women-are-wonderful effect” was first shown using explicit measures that straightforwardly ask people to rate men and women on semantic scales (like good–bad, valuable–useless, and nice–awful) or to provide traits characteristic of each gender (which were then rated on a good–bad scale). Later, these findings were backed up by studies using implicit measures that more subtly test people’s mental associations. Both kinds of studies are summarized in my existing write-up.

Here I conduct my own survey-based study, with methods based on a previous study using explicit measures (Haddock & Zanna, 1994), to investigate how the women-are-wonderful effect breaks down by gender and feminist identification. There is some evidence suggesting that the effect is stronger among women than men (see again my existing write-up above), but to my knowledge no study has looked at feminist identification. In addition to comparing people’s evaluations of men and women, in this study I will also look at evaluations of mothers and fathers to see whether, or how, the women-are-wonderful effect applies to men and women as parents.

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2. Methodology

2.1 Participants

One-hundred and fifty-five Americans were recruited from an online research platform and paid a small sum to complete the survey, which took approximately one-and-a-half minutes. Demographic information collected included age (mean = 31.6, sd = 11.5, range = 17–84), gender (80 men, 72 women, and 3 other), politics (100 left-leaning, 19 centrists, and 36 right-leaning), and feminist status (68 feminists—35% of men and 53% of women—and 87 non-feminists). The sample size was chosen based study design factors and monetary concerns. No statistical analysis was done during data collection.

2.3 Procedure

Based on Haddock & Zanna’s (1994) investigation of the women-are-wonderful effect, participants were asked to give their “overall evaluation” of six groups on a 101-point (0–100) “evaluation thermometer” with the following instructions.

Provide a number between 0 and 100 to indicate your overall evaluation of the following groups. 100 is extremely favorable, 0 is extremely unfavorable, and 50 is neither favorable nor unfavorable.

Participants rated the following groups, presented in random order: men, women, fathers, mothers, grandparents, and teenagers. Afterwards they provided their age, gender, feminist status, and political affiliation (on a seven-point scale, which was later collapsed into the three options of left, centre, and right).

2.4 Data analysis

The data on men/women and fathers/mothers will be analyzed separately, using linear mixed effects analysis on the rating responses (with lme4/lmerTest in R). For each analysis, there will be three fixed effects: target of evaluation (men, women; or fathers, mothers), feminist status of the participant (feminist, non-feminist), and gender of the participant (man, woman). The only random effect is participant. Analysis of significant interactions be done using testInteractions from the phia package in R.

The people who identified their gender as “other” will be excluded from the above analysis because there were only three of them, and I wouldn’t be able to draw meaningful conclusions about people who identify their gender that way from only three people. However, their results will be included in the other summaries of the data.

In addition to testing for statistical significance, I will report effect sizes using Cohen’s d (including confidence intervals) from the effsize package in R (using paired=TRUE).

For readability, the outputs of the statistical tests are saved for the appendices.

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3. Results

3.1 Evaluations of “men” and “women”

The mean favorability rating given to women was 73.7 (sd = 22.8), compared to 61.8 (sd = 22.6) for men. This is a difference of 11.9 points, or approximately half of a standard deviation (Cohen’s d = 0.47, 95% CI: 0.24 to 0.70). According to the mixed effects model, this difference is statistically significant (see target in Appendix 1).

Figure 1

This preference for women over men is best understood broken down by the gender and feminist status of the participants (as a result of the significant target:feminist:gender interaction in Appendix 1). According to the interaction analysis, two of the groups—feminist women and non-feminist men—have a statistically significant preference for women over men (which I’ve marked with an underline in Table 1), while the other two groups don’t. Out of curiosity, according to a post-hoc t-test, feminist women’s 24-point disparity is significantly larger than non-feminist men’s 11-point disparity.

Table 1: Favorability evaluations of men and women, by feminist status and gender of rater

Feminist Men

(n = 28) Feminist Women

(n = 38) Non-F. Men

(n = 52) Non-F. Women

(n = 34) Men 58.6 52.9 62.6 73.2 Women 65.0 77.2 73.2 77.6 Difference 6.4 points 24.3 points 10.6 points 4.4 points

Here is a plot of the subset of the data coming from the group that showed the largest disparity (feminist women).

Figure 2

3.2 Evaluations of “fathers” and “mothers”

The mean favorability rating given to mothers was 76.1 (sd = 24.8), compared to 71.3 (sd = 23.0) for fathers. This is a difference of 4.8 points, or approximately a fourth of a standard deviation (Cohen’s d = 0.24, 95% CI: 0.01 to 0.47). According to the mixed effects model, this difference was statistically significant (see target in Appendix 2).

Figure 3

This overall effect is best understood broken down by the gender of participant (due to the significant target:gender interaction in Appendix 2). As seen in Table 2, women’s preference for mothers over fathers is numerically larger than men’s. According to the interaction analysis, only women’s disparity is statistically significant (underlined).

Table 2: Favorability evaluations of fathers and mothers, by gender of rater

Men (n = 80) Women (n = 72) Fathers 69.8 72.8 Mothers 72.2 80.4 Difference 2.4 points 7.6 points

Here is a plot of the subset of the data coming from the group that showed a statistically significant disparity (women).

Figure 4

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4. Discussion

4.1 Individual results

While my sample exhibited an overall preference for women over men and mothers over fathers, statistically significant interactions in the model led to a closer look at how gender and feminist identification affect people’s fondness for women and mothers. Specifically, the interaction analysis found statistically reliable evidence of a preference for women over men among two groups (feminist women and, albeit to a lesser extent, non-feminist men), but not among the other two groups (feminist men and non-feminist women). For the favorability ratings of parents, statistically reliable evidence was found of a preference for mothers over fathers among women but not men, with no effect of feminism.

The finding that feminist women have greater favorability towards women than men seems straightforward. Presumably that should be interpreted as a simple “own-gender” bias, alongside the fact that many strains of feminism focus on men as oppressors (on a societal level) and victimizers (on an individual level). Perhaps women who are feminists hear more negative discourse about men, and/or women who have had more negative experiences with men are more drawn to become feminists in the first place.

The finding that non-feminist men also have greater favorability towards women than men is perhaps more surprising. This would suggest that men who don’t identify with feminism are predominantly doing so from the perspective of chivalry and putting women on a pedestal, rather than the perspective of misogyny (which would mean preferring men to women) or egalitarianism (which would mean having no preference).

It is interesting then that feminist men and non-feminist women did not exhibit a significant effect. With the caveat that we should be careful comparing significant and non-significant effects like this (i.e., if Group A exhibits a significant effect and Group B does not, this doesn’t mean the difference between Group A and Group B is necessarily significant), it is possible that men and women choose to identify with feminism (or not to identify with feminism) for different reasons. These results could be explained if men tend to identify with feminism for more egalitarian reasons than women, and women tend to identify with non-feminism for more egalitarian reasons than men.

Turning to the favorability ratings of mothers and fathers, the preference for mothers over fathers among women (but not men) should presumably be interpreted as a similar “own-gender” bias to the one mentioned above. It is interesting that feminism did not play a significant role here, given that the family sphere is a common subject within feminism (specifically, “deadbeat” or abusive fathers are not an uncommon topic).

4.2 Broader interpretations

Overall, these results provide evidence that the women-are-wonderful effect does vary based on a person’s gender and feminist identification, although not in entirely straightforward ways (the effect of feminism or non-feminism might differ by gender). They also suggest that it applies, at least to some extent, to evaluations of fathers and mothers, in addition to the traditional findings on evaluations of men and women.

Does this variation by gender and feminist identification weaken the overall finding of the women-are-wonderful effect? Perhaps partially, although note that none of subgroups looked at went in the opposite direction of preferring men, and certainly none significantly preferred men, which is what would more strongly weaken the women-are-wonderful effect finding. Even though not all groups preferred women to a statistically significant degree, there was a statistically significant overall preference for women.

If something is going to challenge the overall finding of the women-are-wonderful effect, I think it’s more likely to be differences by political identification (see below).

4.1 Limitations

This sample leaned much more to the left than the overall American population. Of 155 people, 100 identified with the left, 19 with the centre, and 36 with the right. A post-hoc look at the results by political affiliation found what appeared to be a much larger preference for women and mothers on the left than the centre or the right. I did not look at this in the results section because, in addition to not being a part of the planned analysis, there were gaps and small numbers in my sample that made it hard to separate the effects of political identification, feminism, and gender. For example, feminist women (who had the largest preference) were rare in the centre and completely absent on the right.

So it is possible that the women-are-wonderful effect is primarily a phenomenon of the left (either due to differences between the left, centre, and right in gender and feminist composition, or due to a separate effect of political affiliation), although I can’t provide strong conclusions from my data. One previous study, Haddock & Zanna (1994), did find a women-are-wonderful effect among people who scored higher on right-wing authoritarianism (which includes e.g., law-and-order attitudes), which might or might not be applicable to the broader right-wing in politics today.

4.2 Follow-ups

An intentional look at the effect of political affiliation in today’s political climate would be useful, perhaps including a look at the women-are-wonderful effect for different kinds of men and women that the right or the left might have divergent opinions on (e.g., immigrant men and immigrant women, or business men and business women).

In addition, outside of the context of the women-are-wonderful effect, I would be interested in taking a look at non-feminist men and the reasons they take for rejecting feminism (chivalry vs. egalitarianism vs. misogyny), or more broadly the different reasons that people of either gender have for identifying with feminism or rejecting it. Do men and women differ from each other in their reasoning? Some of the evidence suggested that men tend to identify with feminism for more egalitarian reasons than women, and women tend to identify with non-feminism for more egalitarian reasons than men.

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5. Conclusion

This survey-based study found evidence that feminist women and (to a lesser extent) non-feminist men view women more favorably than men, and that women view mothers more favorably than fathers (with no effect of feminism). Specific implications of this include that women who are feminists may be influenced by negative discourse about men, and/or women who have negative experiences with men may be more motivated to become feminists—also, that men who reject feminism may be motivated primarily by chivalry, rather than either misogyny or egalitarian beliefs. Broader implications of these findings include that the women-are-wonderful effect varies to a large degree by gender and feminist status (although no group exhibited an effect in the opposite direction), that the women-are-wonderful effect to some degree extends to evaluations of fathers and mothers (in addition to men and women), and that men and women may have different motivations for deciding whether to identify as feminists or not.

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6. Appendices

6.1 Appendix 1: Men/women data

Here is the ANOVA table for the mixed effects analysis. The response variable is rating (on a scale from 0–100), and the fixed effects are target of rating (men, women), gender of participant (man, woman), and feminist status of participant (yes, no).

> lm.waw<-lmer(rating~target * feminist * gender + (1|participant) , data=waw) > anova(lm.waw) Type III Analysis of Variance Table with Satterthwaite's method Sum Sq Mean Sq NumDF DenDF F value Pr(>F) target 9433.5 9433.5 1 148 31.4818 9.621e-08 *** feminist 2135.0 2135.0 1 148 7.1249 0.008451 ** gender 911.8 911.8 1 148 3.0428 0.083174 . target:feminist 1124.2 1124.2 1 148 3.7517 0.054658 . target:gender 636.7 636.7 1 148 2.1247 0.147057 feminist:gender 145.1 145.1 1 148 0.4844 0.487538 target:feminist:gender 2608.2 2608.2 1 148 8.7041 0.003692 ** --- Signif. codes: 0 ‘***’ 0.001 ‘**’ 0.01 ‘*’ 0.05 ‘.’ 0.1 ‘ ’ 1

Here is the analysis of the target:feminist:gender interaction using testInteractions.

> testInteractions(lm.waw, pairwise = "target", fixed = c("gender", "feminist")) Chisq Test: P-value adjustment method: holm Value Df Chisq Pr(>Chisq) men-women : Man : No -10.5192 1 9.8607 0.005065 ** men-women : Woman : No -4.4412 1 1.1492 0.322806 men-women : Man : Yes -6.3929 1 1.9610 0.322806 men-women : Woman : Yes -24.3421 1 38.5866 2.095e-09 *** --- Signif. codes: 0 ‘***’ 0.001 ‘**’ 0.01 ‘*’ 0.05 ‘.’ 0.1 ‘ ’ 1

And here is the t-test comparing feminist women’s 24-point preference for women over men to non-feminist men’s 11-point preference.

> t.test(waw.nfmen$difference, waw.fwom$difference, paired=F) Welch Two Sample t-test data: waw.nfmen$difference and waw.fwom$difference t = -2.7423, df = 69.111, p-value = 0.007762 alternative hypothesis: true difference in means is not equal to 0 95 percent confidence interval: -23.878212 -3.767537 sample estimates: mean of x mean of y 10.51923 24.34211

6.2 Appendix 2: Fathers/mothers data

Here is the ANOVA table for the mixed effects analysis. The response variable is rating (on a scale from 0–100), and the fixed effects are target of rating (fathers, mothers), gender of participant (man, woman), and feminist status of participant (yes, no).

> lm.waw.par<-lmer(rating~target * feminist * gender + (1|participant) , data=waw) > anova(lm.waw.par) Type III Analysis of Variance Table with Satterthwaite's method Sum Sq Mean Sq NumDF DenDF F value Pr(>F) target 1335.15 1335.15 1 148 6.7730 0.010196 * feminist 1431.72 1431.72 1 148 7.2628 0.007854 ** gender 808.48 808.48 1 148 4.1013 0.044649 * target:feminist 371.41 371.41 1 148 1.8841 0.171947 target:gender 795.97 795.97 1 148 4.0378 0.046310 * feminist:gender 9.94 9.94 1 148 0.0504 0.822673 target:feminist:gender 342.57 342.57 1 148 1.7378 0.189456 --- Signif. codes: 0 ‘***’ 0.001 ‘**’ 0.01 ‘*’ 0.05 ‘.’ 0.1 ‘ ’ 1

Here is the analysis of the target:gender interaction using testInteractions.

> testInteractions(lm.waw.par, pairwise = "target", fixed = "gender") Chisq Test: P-value adjustment method: holm Value Df Chisq Pr(>Chisq) fathers-mothers : Man -0.9794 1 0.1771 0.673860 fathers-mothers : Woman -7.6161 1 10.5603 0.002311 ** --- Signif. codes: 0 ‘***’ 0.001 ‘**’ 0.01 ‘*’ 0.05 ‘.’ 0.1 ‘ ’ 1