Chivalry’s Double-edged Sword: How Girls’ and Boys’ Paternalistic Attitudes Relate to Their Possible Family and Work Selves

Abstract Paternalism refers to the ideology that women need men’s protection (Glick and Fiske 2001), which is associated with greater acceptance of the gender status quo (Jost and Kay 2005) and lower feelings of agency and competence among women (Dumont et al. 2010). To consider the potential impact of paternalistic attitudes during adolescence, we investigated girls’ and boys’ paternalistic attitudes in relation to their possible family and career selves. The sample comprised 201 U.S. adolescents from California high schools (M age  = 17.49 years; 46% girls) from ethnically diverse backgrounds (49% White, 26% Asian, 25% other). Participants completed survey measures of paternalistic attitudes, possible family and work selves, and other constructs. Possible work selves included occupations traditionally associated with men (computers, science, business/law, and action-oriented jobs [e.g., firefighter, mechanic]) or with women (elementary-school teacher and aesthetic-oriented jobs [e.g., fashion model, dancer]). There were significant average gender differences in paternalism (boys higher), future family hopes (girls higher), future careers associated with women (girls higher), and most future careers associated with men (boys higher); we found no significant gender difference in business/law career interest. Paternalistic attitudes significantly predicted several aspects of poss...
Source: Sex Roles - Category: Global & Universal Source Type: research