Masculinity, femininity, and leadership: Taking a closer look at the alpha female.

Monika K Sumra,Valerio Capraro

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0215181

Abstract

An extensive review and textual analysis of the academic and popular literature of the human alpha female was conducted to examine the social construction and expression of the alpha female identity in a small non-random sample of North American women (N = 398). This review revealed 2 predominant alpha female representations in the literature–one more masculine versus one more feminine–and 21 alpha female variables. In this sample of women, the “alpha female” was found to be a recognized socially constructed female identity. Univariate analysis revealed positive and highly significant differences in self-reported mean scores between alpha (N = 94) and non-alpha (N = 304) females for 10 variables including, masculine traits, leadership, strength, low introversion, self-esteem, life satisfaction, sexual experience, initiates sex, enjoys sex and playing a dominant role in sexual encounters, with alpha females scoring higher than non-alphas. The measure of masculine traits was identified as the only predictor of alpha female status as per the multiple regression model. Interestingly, both alpha and non-alpha women scored the same for the measure of feminine traits. Further, both groups scored higher for feminine traits than masculine traits. The results also revealed that neither social dominance nor sexual dominance were predictors of alpha female status which challenge academic and popularized representations of this identity. The results suggest that although the alpha female is often regarded as an exceptional and, at times, an exoticized form of femininity, like other femininities, her identity is marked by contradictions and tensions

Highlights

Individuals considered leaders in society who occupy the highest positions such as heads of corporations, senior management and those that hold political office are often referred to as “alpha” [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16]
In comparison to non-alpha females, alpha females are described as, 1) more socially dominant, 2) leaders 3) having higher self-esteem, 4) displaying more masculine than feminine personality traits, 5) using collaboration and affiliation strategies to achieve their goals, 6) physically stronger, 7) more extroverted, and 8) more sexually dominant, than non-alpha women The results of the textual analysis revealed 21 potential alpha female predictor variables. These included, 1) masculine traits; 2) feminine traits; 3) neutral traits; 4) age; 5) education; 6) employment; 7) income; 8) leadership; 9) strength; 10) low introversion; 11) collaboration; 12) social dominance; 13) self-esteem; 14) network size; 15) network diversity; 16) life satisfaction; 17) sex frequency; 18) sexual experience; 19) initiates sex; 20) enjoys sex; and 21) plays a dominant role in sexual encounters. These results allowed for the development of the following working definition of the alpha female/woman: “The alpha female is a confident leader who is socially and sexually dominant over others
With respect to sexual behavior, the results revealed that alpha and non-alpha females do not differ in terms of the frequency of sex, they are different when it comes to sexual experience, initiating and enjoying sexual intercourse with alpha females reporting higher levels in all

Summary

Introduction

Individuals considered leaders in society who occupy the highest positions such as heads of corporations, senior management and those that hold political office are often referred to as “alpha” [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16]. The term “alpha”, or “alpha male”, originates from the field of animal behavior and is used as a descriptor for the highest-ranking individual of a social group [18,19,20,21,22,23,24,25,26,27,28,29,30,31]. Popularized narratives and discourse within this context rely on analogies between human and primate behavior [1,2,3,4], [16], [32,33,34,35,36].

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion