The Relationship Between Gender Social Identity

and Support for Feminism

Shawn Meghan Burn,

Roger Aboud, and Carey Moyles

This study is an application of social identity theory to feminist consciousness

and activism. For women, strong gender identications may enhance support
for equality struggles, whereas for men, they may contribute to backlashes
against feminism. University students (N 276), primarily Euroamerican,
completed a measure of gender self-esteem (GSE, that part of ones selfconcept derived from ones gender), and two measures of feminism. High
GSE in women and low GSE in men were related to support for feminism.
Consistent with past research, women were more supportive of feminism
than men, and in both genders, support for feminist ideas was greater than
self-identication as a feminist.
For many feminists working as part of the American womens movement,
feminism is an important group identity. For instance, members of the
National Organization for Women generally identify themselves as femi
nists. Negative stereotypes of feminism may threaten involvement in the
womens movement. People may agree with goals of the movement, but
may avoid labeling themselves as feminists for fear of being associated with
this socially stigmatized label. This fear may interfere with the development
of the group identication linked to collective action.

FACTORS INFLUENCING SUPPORT FOR FEMINISM

Research in the United States nds that terminology affects support for
feminism (Breinlinger & Kelly, 1994; Buschman & Lenart, 1996; Jacobson,
1981). In general, people respond more negatively to the term feminist
than they do to womens movement, even when they are sympathetic
to the aims of feminism (Buschman & Lenart, 1996). In the United States,
anti-feminist groups and the media portray feminists as unrepresentative
of American women, anti-mother, man-hating, and lesbian (Burn, 2000;
Pharr, 1988). Consequently, many womens activists and organizations
avoid the feminist label because of the perception that it reduces public
support for womens policies and programs. In developing countries, the
feminist label is avoided because the term is associated with a narrow,
Western view of womens issues and strategies (Basu, 1995).
Nontraditional gender-role attitudes and beliefs and nontraditional
gender role experiences also inuence support for feminism (Andersen &
Cook, 1984; Banaszak & Plutzer, 1993; Morgan, 1996). Support for feminism
is also related to negative experiences such as sexual harassment and gen
dered violence (Buschman & Lenart, 1996; Komarovsky, 1985; Renzetti,
1987).
Group consciousness, an awareness of group membership combined
with an evaluation of the groups current status and desire for collective
action, also appears to be a primary element in the development of
feminism (Breinlinger & Kelly, 1994; Buschman & Lenart, 1996; Cook,
1989; Henderson-King & Stewart, 1994; Gurin & Markus, 1989; Skevington
& Baker, 1989; Williams & Giles, 1978). According to social identity theory,
social identity is that part of an individuals self-concept derived from his
or her membership in some social group, along with the value and emotional
signicance of that membership (Tajfel, 1981). Research based on social
identity theory suggests that taking pride in the very group qualities used
as a basis for discrimination and embracing their identities as members
of a disadvantaged group justies equality struggles and motivates group
activism (Dion, 1986; Gurin, Miller, & Gurin, 1980; Smith & Tyler, 1997;
Walker & Mann, 1987). Crocker and Luhtanen (1990) call that part of
ones self-esteem derived from group memberships collective selfesteem. Individuals from traditionally discriminated groups frequently
score higher on measures of collective self-esteem than do individuals
from socially dominant groups (Bat-Chava, 1994; Crocker & Major, 1989;
Ellemers, 1993).
Burn (1996) proposed that gender as a social identity may stimulate
gender equality efforts on the part of women while simultaneously trig
gering backlashes from men against these efforts. This may occur because

awareness of womens gender pride and of gender equality efforts may

increase the salience of males sex-category membership and contribute to
an in-groupout-group dynamic (usthem enemy perceptions). Indeed,
some research indicates that gender category salience increases the salience
of gender to the individuals self-image (Hogg & Turner, 1987; Swan &
Wyer, 1997), and that such salience is correlated with greater acceptance
of traditional sex roles (Abrams, Thomas, & Hogg, 1990).
This project examined the role of gender self-esteem (GSE) in support
for feminism. Adapting the concept and measurement of collective selfesteem (CSE; Crocker & Luhtanen, 1992) to gender, gender self-esteem
is dened as that part of an individuals self-concept derived from being
female or male (Burn, 1996). In the case of females, the identity component
is how important being female is to their self-concept. The public compo
nent is how socially valued they view females to be. The private component
is how proud they are of females as a group, and the membership component
is how worthy and useful they are to their gender group. For women,
we predicted that higher scores on the identity and membership subscales
and lower scores on the public GSE subscale would predict greater support
for feminism. For men, high identity, membership, and public GSE scores
were expected to be associated with decreased support for feminism.

METHOD
Participants
Two hundred seventy-six general education students from 44 different
majors at California Polytechnic State University at San Luis Obispo served
as research participants. Of the students, approximately 31% were rst
year, 9% second year, 14% third year, 20% fourth year, and 25% fth year
or greater. There were 181 females and 95 males. Age ranged from 17 to
47 years with a mean of 21 years and a standard deviation of 4.48. Partici
pants were predominantly Euroamerican (77%); approximately 1% of the
sample was African American, 7% Asian, 9% Latin American, 0.4% Arab,
1% Native American, and 3% checked more than one ethnic category.

Materials
Gender self-esteem was measured with an adapted version of Crocker
and Luhtanens (1990) collective self-esteem scale (CSES). The CSES has
high internal consistency, construct validity, and testretest reliability. Al

tering the instrument for a specic group does not appear to compromise
its psychometric properties (Crocker & Luhtanen, 1990). A different ver
sion was constructed for female and male participants. For instance, an
item which read In general, Im glad to be a member of the social groups
I belong to, became, In general, Im glad to be a member of the female/
male gender. A 7-point Likert scale was used to rate items.
Support for feminism was measured with the short form of the Liberal
Feminist Attitude and Ideology Scale (LFAIS). The LFAIS reects the
three general themes of womens discrimination and subordination, collec
tive action for womens equality, and sisterhood. The LFAIS has good
convergent, divergent, and known-groups validity and demonstrated relia
bility (Morgan, 1996). The 11-item short form has high internal reliability
and correlates signicantly with behaviors such as writing letters in favor
of womens rights, responses to sexist insults, and the recognition of sexism
in a commercial. The LFAIS appears to be a subtle measure of feminism.
It does not use the words feminist or womens movement and therefore
represents a more covert type of feminism.
A closed-ended question from Morgan (1996), To what extent do
you consider yourself a feminist? was used to measure self-identied
feminism. This question was answered by choosing one of eight options
ranging from Committed feminist currently active in the womens move
ment (8) to I do not consider myself a feminist at all and I believe that
feminists are harmful to family life and undermine relations between men
and women (1). This item pointedly refers to feminism and requests that
the individual self-identify in regards to feminism. It represents a more
overt feminism.

Procedure
Two undergraduate seniors, one female and one male, collected the
data during class time. They read the instructions aloud, emphasizing that
the questionnaires were anonymous and that participation was voluntary.
After collection of the completed questionnaires, the study purpose was ex
plained.

RESULTS
Due to ordinally scaled data, Spearmans rho was used instead of
Pearsons r. The perception that females are socially devalued (measured
by the public subscale) was signicantly associated with covert feminism

Table I. GSE Subscales and Feminism Correlations

Liberal Feminism
Attitude and
Ideology Scale
(Covert)

Self-Identied
Feminism
(Overt)

GSE subscale

Females

Males

Females

Males

Identity
Public
Private
Membership
Overall GSE

.19*
.19*
.09
.30**
.15*

.16
.21*
.16
.21*
.28**

.09
.14
.04
.16*
.05

.25
.07
.19
.33**
.32**

Note: For females, n ranged from 162 to 180, for males from 82 to 95.
*p .05; **p .01.

(support for feminist policies as measured by the LFAIS). In general, results

supported the hypothesis that for women, high GSE would be associated
with greater support for feminism (see Table I). For female participants,
expressing support for the idea that they were worthy and useful
members of their gender group was signicantly associated with higher
scores on the two feminism variables. The hypothesized relationship be
tween the identity subscale and the feminism measures was partially sup
ported. Scores on the GSE identity subscale and the LFAIS were signi
cantly positively correlated.
For men, a strong GSE was associated with reduced support for femi
nism (see Table II). The perception that males are socially valued (public
Table II. Participants Responses to: To What Extent Do You Consider Yourself a

Feminist?

Item Option

Females

Males

A committed feminist currently active in the womens

movement
A committed feminist
Feminist
I agree with all of the objectives of the feminist
movement, but do not consider myself a feminist
I agree with most of the objectives of the feminist
movement, but do not consider myself a feminist
I agree with some of the objectives of the feminist
movement, but tend to be somewhat traditional
I do not consider myself a feminist at all. I am quite
traditional
I do not consider myself to be a feminist at all and I
believe that feminists are harmful to family life and
undermine relations between men and women

1.7

4
10.9
8

0
3.7
4.9

36.2

31.7

32.2

30.5

5.7

20.7

1.1

8.5

Note: Numbers refer to the percentage of respondents choosing that option. Items are
from Morgan (1996).

subscale) was associated with decreased support for feminist policies using
the covert feminism measure. Feeling that one is a worthy member with
much to offer his gender group (membership subscale) was negatively
associated with both covert and overt feminism. High scores on the identity
subscale were associated with low self-identication as a feminist.
As predicted, females scored higher on the identity GSE subscale than
did men as indicated by a Mann-Whitney U test, z 2.23, p .05.
Females had a mean rank of 145.27 and a mean of 20.21. Males had a mean
rank of 122.87 with a mean of 19.03.
Females were also signicantly more supportive of feminism. A MannWhitney U comparing males and females on the LFAIS covert feminism
measure yielded for females a mean rank of 152.72 with a mean of 61.64,
and for males a mean rank of 88.05 and a mean of 53.60 (z 6.63, p
.001). Higher scores indicated greater support and respondents could re
ceive a maximum score of 77. Likewise, males and females differed on the
overt feminism measure, an 8-point measure where lower scores indicated
greater feminist self-identication. Females mean rank was 142.32 with a
mean of 4.01, and males mean rank was 99.16 with a mean of 3.14 (z
4.52, p .001).
Table II gives the percentage of respondents that chose the various
overt feminism categories. The percentages of respondents checking the
various categories of the overt feminist measure differed signicantly,
2(df 1, 7) 29.81, p .001. Phi (.34) was also signicant at p
.001. The percentages reveal males lower support for feminism and how
few respondents of both genders call themselves feminists. Only 29
of 174 females (16.6%) and only 3 of the 82 males (3.7%) checked one
of the three options with a self-described feminist label. The largest
percent of both females and males checked either the I agree with
most of the objectives of the feminist movement but do not consider
myself a feminist item or the item, I agree with some of the objectives
of the feminist movement, but tend to be somewhat traditional.

DISCUSSION
Our results suggest that gender group identity is associated with sup
port for feminism. The results corroborate past research nding that collec
tive self-esteem is higher among members of disadvantaged groups. Like
other recent research on support for feminism, we also found greater sup
port for covert than overt feminism. In other words, participants were
much more willing to agree with feminist ideas than they were to identify
themselves as feminists.

We found that gender self-esteem (GSE, or gender social identity) is

related to support for feminism and that the direction of the relationship
varies by gender. In the case of women, covert feminism was associated
with agreement with statements indicating that being female was central
to the individuals identity. Surprisingly, however, overt feminism was not
signicantly correlated with scores on the identity subscale. Overt feminists
may see themselves as ghting against the notion that gender should dictate
ones identity; however, further explorations are needed. Ideally, gender
social identity should be measured in a broader array of feminists such as
members of the National Organization for Women, members of the Ameri
can Psychological Associations Division 35, womens studies majors, etc.
One aw of this study was the lack of diversity in the sample. The feminist
identities of women of color may differ from those of Euroamerican women
since their struggles as women are often connected to the struggles of their
communities against racism and economic exploitation (Collins, 1990). In
other words, their identities as women are shaped by race, class, and gender,
and these identities mold their particular experiences of gender oppression
(Kemp, Madlala, Moodley, & Salo, 1995). More research on this complexity
is needed.
Covert feminism was associated with the perception that females are
socially devalued. This lends further support to the idea that a disadvan
taged group identity motivates equality struggles. Similarly, support for
both feminisms was correlated with feeling like a worthy member of the
female gender. We suspect that females may feel that being a good or loyal
group member means supporting their groups struggle for equality. Of
course, the relationship could be bidirectional. It is also possible that females
feel like good female-group members when they support womens equal
ity efforts.
For males, the research ndings suggest that a strong gender social
identity may interfere with support for both overt and covert feminism.
Beliefs that one is a good male-group member was associated with reduced
support for both overt and covert feminism. Additionally, the more central
being male was to the self-concept, the less support there was for overt
feminism. Perhaps men who strongly identify with the group male per
ceive overt feminism to be particularly threatening, especially if they stereo
type overt feminism as involving the villication of males.
Although our research should be replicated with larger and more
representative samples, our results point to the paradoxical nature of social
identitiesthese identities may simultaneously enhance and erode support
for equality struggles. Strongly identifying with ones gender may be a
powerful source of meaning and belonging and, in the case of women,
forms the basis of a collective movement which has made great strides in

increasing womens status (Burn, 1996). However, the gender identities of

men who view feminism as attacking males may be enhanced, since, ironi
cally, they may see themselves as unfairly oppressed. Consequently, they
may respond by being less supportive of the social changes needed for
womens equality. Indeed, this dynamic may be an important part of the
current backlash against feminism. Our results suggest that feminists seek
ing to increase womens support for feminism should continue to emphasize
womens status as an oppressed group. For males, support for feminism
would be enhanced by denitions of feminism and masculinity that do not
view support for womens equality as at odds with a masculine identity.

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