Perceived Acceptability of Violence Against People with Different Gender Expressions

Our study investigates how people make judgments about the severity of a crime based on facial features of the victim.  Specifically, we are interested in if physical assault crimes are seen as less severe, and requiring less punishment, in the victim has facial features not typical to their gender. Ambivalent sexism theory (Glick & Fiske 2001) suggests that many people hold benevolent stereotypes toward women. These stereotypes are seemingly positive, but rooted in traditional gender roles (e.g., women are more compassionate). These attitudes suggest women should be respected so long as they follow traditional gender roles. Therefore, we predict that crimes against women will be seen as very serious if the woman has traditional feminine traits. Crimes against women with more masculine physical traits may be seen as less serous as crimes against women with more typical feminine features. Participants who are higher in benevolent sexism will be most tolerant of violence toward a masculine woman. Our study investigates the relationship between perceptions of violence as a function of gender typicality of the victim. The participants, who are currently enrolled in college, will be approached and asked if they would like to participate in our study. Once reviewing the consent form, they will be permitted to continue to the study where they first read an article. Participants read an article presumable from a local news paper that describes a violent incident that occurred downtown, including a picture of the victim that we varied based on condition. The design was a 2 (gender of victim: man or woman) X 2 (facial features: more masculine or more feminine). Following the article, participants will first be asked about the age and gender of the perpetrator and victim and whether there should be prison time and for how long (up to 160 months). We also included three questions measuring the severity of the attack, and three questions measuring how serious the punishment should be relative to other crimes. Participants then completed the ambivalent sexism scale questions (Bendixen, & Kennair 2017), which contain factors for both hostile sexism and benevolent sexism. We expect to see a main effect of gender, where violence against women will be seen as more severe, requiring harsher punishments compared to violence against men. We also expect violence against people who have facial features that are not consistent with their gender (women with masculine features or men with feminine features) to be considered less severe than violence against people with more gender “typical” features. Our primary hypothesis is a three-way interaction between gender, facial features, and benevolent sexism. We specifically expect to see a larger gap in perceived severity (and corresponding punishment) of violence toward masculine looking women and feminine looking women for participants high in benevolent sexism. Benevolently sexist participants will see violence toward feminine women has highly severe requiring severe punishments. However, those same participants will see violence toward masculine women as much less serious. We do not expect the same effect with hostile sexism (as hostile sexist participants will see violence toward women as less serious regardless of facial features).  

 

References 

Bendixen, M., & Kennair, L. E. O. (2017). When less is more: Psychometric properties of Norwegian short‐forms of the Ambivalent Sexism Scales (ASI and AMI) and the Illinois Rape Myth Acceptance (IRMA) Scale. Scandinavian journal of psychology, 58(6), 541-550. 

Glick, P., & Fiske, S. T. (2001). An ambivalent alliance: Hostile and benevolent sexism as complementary justifications for gender inequality. American psychologist, 56(2), 109-118.