Abstract
Gender violence is generally conceived as a phenomenon concerning only adults. Nonetheless, it is also perpetrated within teenagers’ relationships, as many empirical studies have shown. We therefore have focused our attention on a non-probabilistic sample consisting of 400 adolescents living in Naples (Italy), to study the association between sexism and the justification of violent attitudes. Generally, sexism is recognised as a discriminatory attitude towards people, based on their biological sex. However, it is conventional to talk about sexism as a prejudice against women. The Ambivalent Sexism Inventory (ASI) for adolescents was used to evaluate the two dimensions of ambivalent sexism, i.e., hostile sexism (HS) and benevolent sexism (BS). Moreover, the questionnaire regarding attitudes towards diversity and violence (CADV) was administered to assess participants’ attitudes towards violence. A Partial Least Square–Second Order Path Model reveals that girls’ ambivalent sexism is affected more by benevolent sexism than hostile sexism. On the contrary, among boys, hostile sexism has a higher impact. Finally, benevolent sexist girls justify domestic violence more than boys do.
Highlights
Is sexism a prejudice? Glick and Fiske [1] (p. 491) wrote: “Sexism is a prejudice, but a special case of prejudice marked by a deep ambivalence, rather than a uniform antipathy, toward women
We considered the blocks with scalar items as additive scales
The results show that all blocks have good internal consistency
Summary
Is sexism a prejudice? Glick and Fiske [1] (p. 491) wrote: “Sexism is a prejudice, but a special case of prejudice marked by a deep ambivalence, rather than a uniform antipathy, toward women. Sexism has typically been conceptualized as a reflection of hostility toward women. This view neglects a significant aspect of sexism: the subjectively positive feelings toward women that often go hand in hand with sexist antipathy”. Glick and Fiske [1] defined sexism as a multidimensional construct, labelled “ambivalent sexism”, which includes both a negative perception of women-hostile sexism, and a positive one, termed benevolent sexism. This recognises that sexism entails a mixture of hostile and subjective benevolence, comprised of these two distinct yet complementary ideologies. Public Health 2020, 17, 4991; doi:10.3390/ijerph17144991 www.mdpi.com/journal/ijerph
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callMore From: International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
Disclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
