Sexual Ideology Research Articles

Regulating Sex in the Roman Empire: Ideology, the Bible, and the Early Christians by David Wheeler-Reed

Reviewed by: Regulating Sex in the Roman Empire: Ideology, the Bible, and the Early Christians by David Wheeler-Reed William Loader david wheeler-reed, Regulating Sex in the Roman Empire: Ideology, the Bible, and the Early Christians (Syncrisis; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2017). Pp. xxi + 177. $45. Wheeler-Reed’s book seeks to expose the reader to the “discourses from the Roman Empire, Judaism, early Christianity, and modern America that attempt to regulate marriage, procreation, and sexuality” (pp. xi-xii). In particular it addresses the extent to which what many contemporary conservative American movements claim about the uniqueness of Christian sexual ethics really existed and makes sense in the world of today. He does so by examining these discourses in four chapters: Augustan sexual ideology; Judaism and procreationism; conflicting values in the NT; and battles in the early church. A fifth chapter address contemporary discussion in American society. The discussion of Augustus concentrates on the lex Iulia legislation of 18 b.c.e. and 9 c.e., imposing procreation as a civil responsibility, divorce as mandated in cases of adultery, the requirement that widows remarry, and minimum quotas of offspring to be produced. Augustus promoted such law on the basis of the need to return to the true order of a harmonious society, evoking as did others like Virgil and Horace the ideal of an impending golden age. More grounded assessments have shown that, rather than “family values,” the driving concern was ensuring sufficient male offspring to enable Rome and its military to remain strong. Musonius Rufus, W.-R. demonstrates, is misunderstood when taken as an early proponent of feminism. Rather, Musonius’s comments about women and companionate marriage sit within the Augustan frame of reference. This he argues, was also true of the romantic novels of the period. The chapter on Judaism rightly highlights the similar focus on procreation across a number of texts, and especially in Philo. Some claims are debatable. CD 13.17b-19 need not imply that the Damascus Document saw divorce as sin. The discussion of Jubilees’ rewrite of Genesis 1–2 overlooks that celibacy is about being in sacred space, Eden being understood as a temple, and that the first couple’s coming together in sexual intercourse was clearly prior to their entry and also clearly prior to the prospect of their bearing children, thus reflecting a positive attitude toward nonprocreative sexual union. Some exploration of the implications for sexuality of seeing eschatological space as sacred, implied also in Jubilees 23 and reflected in the early Jesus tradition, would have strengthened the discussion. Treatment of the impact of the LXX translation of Genesis 1–2 is missing. Philo’s account of the Essenes focused less on the sexual danger women posed than on their quarrelsomeness. [End Page 544] In the discussion of NT texts, the author rightly notes that Paul does not use the argument for procreation, suggesting that his playing down family derives from imminent eschatology. I suggest it derives also from the belief that the age to come is sacred and so no place for sexuality and marriage. It is important to hear Paul’s insistence that marrying is not sin, despite Paul’s clear preference for celibacy. Paul’s view of marriage cannot be reduced to a strategy to avert sexual immorality. The book rightly notes the tension between what Paul says, preferring celibacy, and what those writing in his name propounded to order Christians households. The impact of an eschatology that saw a celibate future for all, expressed in Mark 12:25 and Revelation and assumed by Paul, needs more nuanced discussion. To be out of place in the holy has nothing to do with morality, nor did it imply deprecation of sex or family, but it could certainly lead in that direction. Celibacy, challenge to family power, and negative attitudes to sexuality are not necessarily the same thing and are in themselves complex. There are missing elements in this and the preceding chapter, many covered in my own research. The chapter on the early church highlights subsequent developments that partly perpetuate the trend to accommodation evident in the later NT writings, but also exploit the potential that eschatology...

Sexist Ideology and Endorsement of Men’s Control Over Women’s Decisions in Reproductive Health

Feminist scholars have argued that men’s control over women’s reproductive autonomy is a central feature of male dominance. Building on recent research that shows sexist ideology informs support for restricting women’s reproductive autonomy, we examined the relation of sexism and the belief that men should be able to restrict the behavior of women. Study 1 ( N = 366 undergraduate psychology students in the United Kingdom) and Study 2 ( N = 281 Amazon Mechanical Turk workers in the United States) showed that controlling for various demographics and ideological measures (e.g., right-wing authoritarianism, support for abortion rights), hostile sexism was related to support for men having the right to prevent their pregnant partner from having an abortion. Further, hostile sexism was related to the endorsement of men’s right to withdraw financial support for the child if a woman chooses not to terminate her pregnancy. Hostile sexism was also uniquely related to support for men’s right to veto their female partner’s decisions during pregnancy and childbirth. The present studies show that hostile sexism is associated with perceptions that men have the right to constrain women’s reproductive choices. Our findings highlight the adverse pressures on women’s reproductive autonomy, including sexist ideology, and may suggest that practitioners should be mindful of this when assisting women in discussing reproductive questions. Further, by creating awareness about the different factors that shape the perception of men’s role in reproductive decisions, sexual health educators could potentially help affirm women’s autonomy in reproductive health. Additional online materials for this article (measures used in this study) are available on PWQ’s website at http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/suppl/10.1177/0361684317744531 . Data files, together with syntax detailing the statistical analyses, are available at https://osf.io/vwjus/ . Online slides for instructors who want to use this article for teaching are available on PWQ's website at http://journals.sagepub.com/page/pwq/suppl/index

Sexist Ideology and Endorsement of Men’s Control Over Women’s Decisions in Reproductive Health:

Feminist scholars have argued that men’s control over women’s reproductive autonomy is a central feature of male dominance. Building on recent research that shows sexist ideology informs support fo...

Constructing a feminist icon through erotic friend fiction: millennial feminism on Bob’s Burgers

ABSTRACTThis study engages in current scholarly debates regarding third-wave versus postfeminist media icons through an analysis of Tina Belcher, the eldest daughter in the animated series Bob’s Burgers and a paragon of what I coin “millennial feminism.” In it, I argue that Tina rejects popular postfeminist discourses and experiences a politicized feminist awakening. While Tina is significant in her own right, most remarkable is the way millennial audiences have utilized the internet to position Tina as a feminist folk hero. Ultimately, I trace how popular critics use Tina to theorize a millennial feminism that reflects the values and characteristics of the millennial generation. Revisiting Sarah Banet-Weiser’s (2004. “Girls rule! Gender, feminism, and Nickelodeon.” Critical Studies in Media Communication, 21, pp. 119–139) argument that Nickelodeon’s girl power programming demonstrated third-wave feminist politics for its audiences, I argue that adult-oriented animated sitcoms lend themselves to an absurdity and disregard for hegemonic gender ideologies which have the potential to unsettle dominant ideologies of gender and sexuality and can define contemporary feminist politics for viewers.

Do Sexist Mothers Change More Diapers? Ambivalent Sexism, Maternal Gatekeeping, and the Division of Childcare

The present study examined the role of ambivalent sexist ideologies in the division of childcare responsibilities. We proposed maternal gatekeeping as a mediator through which hostile sexist attitudes toward men and women facilitate gendered division of childcare. A sample of 207 mothers with at least one child aged 6 years or younger completed extensive questionnaires. As hypothesized, the mother’s hostile sexist attitudes toward men and women were positively related to maternal gatekeeping tendencies. Gatekeeping, in turn, was related to the mother’s greater time investment in childcare and greater share of childcare tasks relative to the father. Finally, hostile sexist attitudes toward men and women had an indirect effect on the mothers’ hours of care and relative share of childcare tasks, mediated though maternal gatekeeping. The findings underscore the importance of investigating the mechanisms through which sexist ideologies are translated into daily behaviors that help maintain a gendered social structure. They may be utilized to inform parenting interventions aimed at increasing collaborative family work and fathers’ participation.

Social Media and Young People’s Sexualities: Values, Norms, and Battlegrounds

This article explores how young people are making sense of sexuality in the context of social media, considering social media’s material as well as symbolic operations. Drawing on 14 focus groups ( n = 89, conducted in 2012 and 2015) with young people between 14 and 19 years of age in Dutch-speaking Belgium, this article is informed by young people’s discussions, meanings, values, and norms on sexuality and social media, situated in everyday life peer group settings. The results argue how young people are making strong value judgments about sexuality in the context of social media and how they use a sharp hierarchical system to distinguish between “good” and “bad” sexual practices in social media. Therefore, young people draw on essentialist sexual ideologies. This article discusses these value judgments not only in relation to how social media functions but also in relation to social media’s symbolic operations, namely how they are meaningful for young people’s sexualities. The role of social media is discussed in relation to broader cultural dynamics of young people’s changing sexual cultures, which are characterized by risk, resistance, individualization, and mediatization. The article concludes how young people’s consistent need for making value judgments about sexuality in the context of social media may point to a conservatism that is driven by social media’s overwhelming role in culture and society. Social media have become a crucial battleground for sexual politics; they need to be taken seriously as spaces that produce values and norms about sexuality, deciding what kind of sexualities are supported, repressed, or disciplined.

Aproximación al concepto de emocionalidad. El estereotipo emocional del sexismo || Approach to the concept of emotionality. The emotional stereotype of sexism

Este trabajo persigue dos objetivos fundamentales: El primer objetivo es conocer el estereotipo emocional del sexismo, o lo que es igual, las expectativas y creencias que el sexismo tiene acerca de lo que debe ser el comportamiento emocional en mujeres y hombres desde esta posición ideológica. El segundo objetivo es proponer una primera aproximación y definición de la dimensión emocional del sexismo en el marco de la teoría del sexismo ambivalente, a la que llamamos Emocionalidad. Para el desarrollo de este trabajo se ha seleccionado una muestra de 1608 estudiantes de Magisterio de la comunidad de Castilla la Mancha, repartidos en las cuatro provincias y los cinco campus con Facultad de Educación. Han sido 1308 participantes los que han cumplido todas las condiciones para poder formar parte del estudio. Los resultados muestran que el sexismo presenta un estereotipo de gestión emocional muy claro y diferente para hombres y mujeres, además de complementario según la propia ideología sexista, donde las mujeres obtienen su puntuación más alta en atención emocional y su puntuación más baja en regulación emocional. Por el contrario, los hombres obtienen su puntuación más alta en regulación emocional y su puntuación más baja en atención emocional. Este estereotipo emocional sexista es, además, significativamente diferente según nuestros resultados al que presenta la población estudiada no sexista. Nuestros resultados apuntan, por tanto, a la existencia de este estereotipo emocional sexista y a la necesidad de incluir la dimensión emocional, la emocionalidad, en la definición de sexismo.

New Sexism in Couple Therapy: A Discursive Analysis.

The persistence of gender inequality in postindustrial societies is puzzling in light of a plethora of changes that destabilize it, including shifts in economy, legislation, and the proliferation of feminist politics. In family relations, such persistence manifests as a disconnect between couples aspiring to be more egalitarian yet continuing to enact traditional gender roles and hierarchies. There is an emerging consensus that gender inequality persists because of people's continued reliance on sexist ideology or gendered assumptions that constitute women as innately distinct from and inferior to men. Sexist ideology changes its form to accommodate to changing socio-economic conditions. Contemporary forms of sexism are old ways of legitimizing male power articulated in new and creative ways, often by incorporating feminist arguments. To effectively recognize and address "new sexism," scholars and practitioners require new, innovative research frameworks. Our objective in writing this article is two-fold. First, we seek to advance discursive (i.e., focused on language in use) approaches to the study of sexism. Second, we present the results of a discursive analysis of "new" sexist discourse in the context of couple therapy. The study provides preliminary evidence that, despite endorsing egalitarian norms, couples studied continue to rely on gender binaries and remain entrenched in old-fashioned patterns of gender inequality. Implications of these results for the practice of couple therapy and for future research are discussed.

Judging the gender of the inanimate: Benevolent sexism and gender stereotypes guide impressions of physical objects.

Within a given culture, sexist ideologies and stereotypes are largely characterized by their prescriptive expectations for the types of social and behavioural domains men and women occupy. The activities that take place within these respective domains, however, frequently involve designed, physical artefacts. This study reports a pair of studies that test whether sexist schemas are capable of guiding not only impressions of men and women as social groups, but also their impressions of the inanimate objects associated with these groups. In Study 1, benevolent sexism was found to predict a greater willingness to classify physical objects as being either highly feminine or highly masculine, even when these objects had a neutral rating by the sample as a whole. In Study 2, stereotypes consistent with legitimizing ideologies (i.e., competence and warmth) predicted rating associated objects in complementary ways, in terms of greater liking of feminine objects but greater presumed competence needed for using masculine objects. These results demonstrate how sexist beliefs and attitudes are capable of bleeding into people's impressions of the physical world.

Saved from hegemonic masculinity? Charismatic Christianity and men’s responsibilization in South Africa

In this article, the author explores the role of religion in social constructions of heterosexual masculinity in South Africa in the context of civil society driven programs to fight sexual and gender-based violence and the spread of HIV. Critically engaging with the concept of hegemonic masculinity and the sociological literature on gender relations in conservative Christian communities, the author examines how Charismatic Christian and Pentecostal communities in the townships of Cape Town negotiate their model of masculinity and gender authority in the context of the prevailing hegemonies of ‘traditional’ and ‘liberal’ masculinity. Based on ethnographic observations and qualitative interviews with Pentecostal men, the author specifies the concrete mechanisms whereby Pentecostalism both contributes to transform but also to reproduce rather than undermine hegemonic masculinity. He finds that Pentecostalism responsibilizes men not because men adopt its sexual ideology but because they adopt its model of personhood.

Gap Creek’s Celebration of Women’s Subjugation

Abstract Through tropes of work and sex, Robert Morgan’s Gap Creek: The Story of a Marriage normalizes violations perpetrated by men against women. The book is set around the turn of the twentieth century, so as the protagonist, Julie, relates her story, it becomes a journey into an imagined past when women were women and knew how to help men become men, in the purest patriarchal sense of the terms. While Julie is cast as a strong mountain woman who is to be commended for her physical strength, maturity, and common sense, what actually underlies her admirable character traits is the novel’s approbation for her subservience and silence. Yet since its publication in 1999, the novel has enjoyed immense popular appeal as well as critical praise. I argue that Morgan’s insider status and his use of a contentedly subjugated woman narrator obfuscate the book’s sexist ideology.

Social perception of intimate partner violence according to the motivations and sex of the aggressor and the ideology and sex of the observers / Percepción social de la violencia de pareja en función de las motivaciones y sexo del/a agresor/a y de la ideología y sexo de los/as observadores/as

We studied how the sex of the aggressor and their motivations for attacking influence the social perception of intimate partner violence, as well as the sex of the observer and their sexist ideology. University students read a scenario in which both members of a heterosexual couple harmed each other owing to controlling or reactive motivations. After that, they were asked to identify the motivations of each partner and estimate the seriousness of what occurred, the number of aggressions described and the frequency of this kind of episode in real life. The results showed that the men and women properly identified the motivations underlying the aggressive behaviours, considered control violence more serious than reactive violence, and perceived more of the first kind of aggression. However, the men estimated a lower frequency of these episodes in real life, especially episodes of control violence. The ambivalent sexism of the men is related to these assessments. These results are particularly important with regard to the debate on gender symmetry/asymmetry in intimate partner violence.

Introduction to Special Section Youngsters: On the Cultures of Children and Youth

Introduction to Special Section Youngsters: On the Cultures of Children and Youth Naomi Hamer (bio) and Stuart R. Poyntz (bio) Click for larger view View full resolution On October 20–22, 2016, the Association for Research in Cultures of Young People (ARCYP) hosted the inaugural international conference, Youngsters: On the Cultures of Children and Youth (Youngsters 2016) at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, British Columbia, on the unceded traditional territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations. The first conference of its kind in North America, Youngsters 2016 was created to explore the intersections between childhood and youth studies as interdisciplinary fields of scholarship and community engagement. Drawing together internationally renowned researchers from across the social sciences and humanities, with child- and youth-engaged artists, community groups, and students, Youngsters 2016 offered new sightlines from which to see connections and establish future directions for our [End Page 14] work. The conference’s three keynote speakers—Steven Bruhm, the Robert and Ruth Lumsden Professor of English at Western University; Wendy Hui Kyong Chun, Professor and Chair of Modern Media and Culture at Brown University; and Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, Indigenous author, artist, scholar, activist, and member of the Alderville First Nation—set the tone for the interdisciplinary nature of the conference. Building on these distinguished keynotes, the conference also planned a special round table on “Youngsters and the Arts,” featuring Vancouver-based artists, and one on writing and publishing in children’s and youth studies, with Jeunesse lead editor Dr. Heather Snell and founding editor Dr. Mavis Reimer as panellists. The research paper sessions, including “Queer Youth Cultures,” “Writing Indigeneity,” “Rights and Resistance,” and “Mental Wellness,” were designed not only to address significant contemporary research topics in the field but also to encourage dialogue across disciplines, methodological approaches, and international contexts, and to challenge the boundaries among practitioners, artists, and scholars. The Special Section of Jeunesse that follows is a celebration of this event with a sample from the range of presented work. As past and current Presidents of the ARCYP, as well as conference coordinators, we believe that there are multiple pressing issues that support the need for an event like Youngsters 2016. To begin with, a prevailing sense of crisis and fundamental change in the lives of young people is present across a range of communities and identities today. We can mark these prevailing intensities through a host of concerns and tensions that indicate a general broadening of risk taking and risk bearing as properties of young lives (Appadurai). Risk and precarity have, of course, long been associated with what it means to be young. In the West, as the notion of youth culture emerged in the early-to-mid-twentieth century, for instance, to be young seemed tied to notions of transition and flux, to experiences of change that were thought to shape the development of youthful imaginations, identities, and sexualities. The very boundaries between childhood, adolescence, and adulthood, are increasingly uncertain and treated with suspicion by many. Moreover, historical and contemporary popular cultures, legal discourses, and educational policies around youth and childhood tend to be rooted in ideologies of race, gender, sexuality, physical mobility, and socio-economic class that privilege generalized assumptions about the experiences of young people across diverse identities, cultural backgrounds, and geographies. The project of unpacking and challenging assumptions, absences, and histories is an integral part of current work across disciplines in the field of childhood and youth studies. Meanwhile, what it means to be a child—to play, to learn, and to imagine—is being recast by the new and profound conditions of mediation, surveillance, participation, and commodification that characterize the contemporary moment. Amid these pressing issues, to date there has been no umbrella academic organization or regular [End Page 15] conference to bring together scholars working in childhood and youth studies, particularly those focused on the cultures of young people. If surprising, this is in part a function of how recent the development of the field of childhood studies is. The year 1991 is often thought to mark the consolidation and beginning of childhood studies as a distinct field of inquiry. In that year, Brooklyn College at City University of New...

Translation and Ethics: making translation choices ideologies that underlie the source text

Abstract: Since 2013, members of the project ExTrad — a program of Continuing professional development carried out at the Federal University of Paraiba (UFPB) — have been translating texts in the state of Paraiba (Northeast Brazil). Aimed both at providing translations for the community and at helping on the professional development of the students of the Translation Program of the University, the project has debated a number of ethical issues since its establishment. The paper herein presented discusses some of the ethical issues we have dealt with when translating an 18 th century text, on rhetoric, artistic perception and good taste into contemporary Portuguese. Although its theme is apparently non-problematic, colonialist and sexist ideologies underlie the discussions presented on the source text, arising discussions on how to tackle the issue and on how to translate it. This paper does not aim at closing the discussion, nor at presenting definitive solutions, but at opening a debate, by presenting complex translation problems as cases that dwell in a grey area and that require more than easy classifications or translation decisions.

Of Pomo Academicus, Reconsidered

This article considers the relationship between what would generally be viewed as a postmodern perspective and the rise and multiple use of the prefix “post” by those arguing that we are finally beyond certain oppressive political, cultural and social issues, and dynamics, such as the racist and sexist ideologies that have historically permeated and plagued our nation’s institutions, including higher education. Many of those who champion the prefix “post” assert that they offer us a narrative, description and framework of a post-racial and post-feminist era that they want us to acknowledge and embrace. I, however, claim that such a utilization and imposition (as opposed to the more generous sounding “offer”) of the various “posts” that we have been presented with are, more often than not, precisely little more than reactionary moves to reestablish and reaffirm the very type of thinking and structure that we have allegedly moved beyond.

When Sexism Cuts Both Ways

This study explored whether tolerance of sexual harassment of men (TSHM) is driven by a common set of sexist ideologies typically found to be related to tolerance of sexual harassment of women. University students ( N = 433) completed a modified version of the Sexual Harassment Attitude Scale (SHAS) designed to measure TSHM. Predictor variables included sexual harassment myths about women, modern sexism, hostile, and benevolent sexism toward men and women and participant gender. A factor analysis of the measure revealed two reliable factors (sexual harassment as flirtation and minimization of victimization). With the exception of benevolence toward women, men scored higher on all measures of sexism and TSHM, yet correlational patterns showed a similar trend among men and women, suggesting a shared ideological belief that justifies TSHM. Despite differences in participant sex on most measures, participant sex was not a significant moderating variable in regression analyses when examining factors relating to TSHM. These results provide support that tolerance of sexual harassment is driven by a common set of sexist attitudes.

Neoliberal ethos, state censorship and sexual culture: a Chinese dating/hook-up app

Based upon the case of Momo, a popular Chinese dating/hook-up social media, this article examines an understudied aspect of social media: the kinds of sexual activities a social media tends to encourage, facilitate and mediate, and the sexual ideologies a social media site/application chooses to align with in its advertising and promotional strategies. With a critical conversation with existing scholarships concerning the intersections between feminist/queer theories and media studies, the article considers how sexualities can constitute a useful lens for understanding social media so as to provide a glimpse into the complex interconnections between political, cultural, economic and the ‘private’ realms of sexual experience.

The Failed Probability of Love Over Labor in THX 1138 (1971)

Abstract Scholarship on panopticism and film rarely considers aesthetic attributes of the medium. Thematic elements associated with panopticism are often examined instead. George Lucas’ directorial debut, THX 1138 (1971), uses aesthetic values in filmmaking to screen a narrative grounded in panopticism. By drawing on the Foucaultian principle of panopticism, this article illustrates the ideological confliction between labor and love that is central to the protagonist THX. On the surface, THX 1138 situates the sexual ideologies of the early Seventies in a socialist contention. The sexual ideology that favors love and freedom of expression is placed in direct conflict with a socialist ideology that labor and obedience. This ideological strife erupts on screen in a dystopian future that is visualized in panoptic cinematography techniques. The result is an analysis of the nuanced visual mastery on Lucas’s part that serves as an explicit commentary grounded in the political and cultural contention never quite resolved in American history.

Psychological Androgyny and Children’s Mental Health: A New Look with New Measures

We evaluated Bem’s (1981, 1993) thesis that psychological androgyny—perceiving the self to possess characteristics of both genders—is associated with healthy adjustment and minimal gender-polarizing cognition. Prior studies testing Bem’s ideas have yielded ambiguous results, mainly because self-perceptions of gender-typed attributes have been inferred narrowly from self-perceptions of expressive and instrumental personality traits. We administered measures of gender identity (self-perceived similarity to a gender) that more clearly capture self-perceptions of attributes typical of a gender, and we examined conjoint influences of same-gender typicality and other-gender typicality on children’s self-esteem, internalizing problems, felt pressure for gender differentiation, and sexist ideology. Two studies were conducted with ethnically/racially diverse samples of preadolescent children in the southeastern United States. In Study 1 (N = 305, M age = 10.8 years), androgynous children (i.e., children who saw themselves as similar to both genders) reported high self-esteem, evidenced few internalizing problems, and reported feeling little pressure for gender differentiation. In Study 2 (N = 236, M age = 11.3 years), androgynous boys reported few sexist beliefs. Children with other patterns of gender identity (e.g., high same-gender typicality coupled with low other-gender typicality) sometimes showed similar correlates, but each other pattern of gender identity was associated with poor adjustment or strong gender-differentiating cognition on at least one dependent variable whereas androgyny never was. Results support Bem’s thesis that persons who perceive themselves as possessing characteristics of both genders enjoy mental health advantages over those who perceive themselves as possessing characteristics of only one.

Mars, Venus, or Earth? Sexism and the Exaggeration of Psychological Gender Differences

Few studies have examined how people perceive psychological gender differences despite the practical importance of these perceptions for everyday life. In three studies, we examined whether there is a positive association between sexism and the tendency to exaggerate psychological gender differences. Study 1 demonstrated that the more strongly men endorsed hostile sexism and the more strongly women endorsed hostile or benevolent sexism, the larger they perceived gender differences to be across a broad range of psychological traits. Study 2 documented that the more strongly people endorsed hostile or benevolent sexism, the more likely they were to exaggerate the size of gender differences. In Studies 1 and 2, women perceived gender differences to be larger than did men, after accounting for sexism. Finally, Study 3 showed that increasing (decreasing) the perceived size of gender differences predicts corresponding increases (decreases) in sexism. These results support relevant theory, which argues that differentiation between genders underlies sexist ideologies, and they may inform future intervention studies that aim to reduce sexism by targeting exaggerated gender beliefs. Discussion highlights the proposed connection between sexism and the belief that “men are from Mars and women are from Venus”.