Abstract
Within the framework of the System Justification Theory, this study tested on the archival data from 16 European countries the general hypothesis that homonegativity (HN), as an expression of gender binarism and heteronormativity, works as a legitimizing myth of gender hierarchy. Specifically, we hypothesized that (1) system justification (SJ) would positively relate to HN and (2) this relation would depend on the country level of gender hierarchy, (3) on the gender of respondents, and (4) on the interaction between gender hierarchy and gender. We selected the Gender Equality Index (GEI) as an indicator of the gender hierarchy of the country system and the items from the European Social Survey-Round 9 (ESS-9) as the indicators of the gender of respondents and the levels of SJ and HN. The Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM) partially confirmed the hypotheses, suggesting HN to work as a blatant prejudice and being more viable as a legitimizing myth in females from countries with higher gender hierarchy and in males from more gender-equal countries. In both cases, HN serves as a myth to justify the ontological premise of participants that the world is fair and to counteract the cognitive dissonance generated by the perception of a gender-unequal system (in the case of a woman) or by the perception of a gender-equal system that can threaten gender privileges (in the case of a man).
Highlights
Within the Western value system, the principles of universalism and human rights have placed gender equality among the standards of a fair society, and the respect for sexual minorities has become one of the shared goals of the EU Institutions
Starting with the general hypothesis that HN, as an expression of heteronormativity, works as a legitimizing myth of gender hierarchy, this study aims at analyzing the relation between System Justification (SJ) and Homonegativity (HN) taking into account both the gender of respondents and the gender hierarchy/equality of the country as a societal factor as it was measured by the Gender Equality Index (GEI)
Differences were found on HN, F(15) = 794.181, p < 0.001, η2 = 0.282, showing that the countries at the lower levels on system justification (SJ) dimensions reported the highest levels of heteronormativity
Summary
Within the Western value system, the principles of universalism and human rights have placed gender equality among the standards of a fair society, and the respect for sexual minorities has become one of the shared goals of the EU Institutions. From the point of view of the rights of individuals and public policies, women equality and the social conditions of LGBT+ individuals (i.e., of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and other sexual minorities) are often the objects of separate actions, and the very definition of gender equality has often been cisgender-centric, that is to say strictly adherent to a definition of gender based on biological sex (Hines, 2007; Matthyse, 2020). As an ideology that values certain social groups (i.e., either-male-or-female biologies, cisgender identities, heterosexual sexual orientation, and being a man) and stigmatizes others (i.e., intersex biologies, transgender identities, homosexual and bisexual sexual orientations, and being a woman), heteronormativity builds gender hierarchy and produces what has been called a “pyramid of sexual oppression” (Rubin, 1984; Halberstam, 1998)
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