Doing Gender Diversity

Readings in Theory and Real-World Experience

Rebecca F. Plante, Lis M. Mau

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9780429980565
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Gender Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

This cutting-edge reader demonstrates the multiple ways in which the universe of gender is socially, culturally, and historically constructed. The selections focus on gender itself - how gender operates socioculturally, exists, functions, and is presented in micro and macro interactions. In order to avoid balkanization, the authors examine the various ways in which culture intersects with individuals to produce the range of presentations of self that we call 'gender', from people born male who become adult men to lesbian women to transmen, and everyone else on the diverse gender spectrum.

SECTION III

The Macrocosm of Gender: Institutions, Structures, and Politics

CHAPTER 5

Doing Gender Diversity: At Home and at Work

28 Judith E. Owen Blakemore, Carol A. Lawton, and Lesa Rae Vartanian

I Can’t Wait to Get Married

Gender Differences in Drive to Marry

Whereas married people of both genders are evaluated more favorably than are unmarried people (Etaugh & Birdoes, 1991; Etaugh & Hoehn, 1995; Etaugh & Stern, 1984; Ganong, Coleman, & Mapes, 1990; Russell & Rush, 1987), women appear to be subject to social pressures to marry in ways that men are not (Nilsen, 1977). Although some single women report that they enjoy their independence and the freedom to focus on their own careers, others express anxiety about remaining single and report pressure from family members and others to marry and have children (Kaslow, 1992; Lewis & Moon, 1997). Although the normal aging process decreases both male and female fertility, it places no absolute limit on men’s ability to father children, but clearly defines parameters for women’s childbearing—creating a particular pressure for women to marry. It is also the case that single women often report feeling that they are responsible for the success of romantic relationships—that they are to blame and that others blame them when heterosexual relationships fail. They also tend to think that women who have not married are perceived as deficient (Reynolds & Wetherell, 2003; Sandfield & Percy, 2003). Finally, fear for personal safety when alone in public is not likely to be a concern of single men, but it is a concern often expressed by single women (Chasteen, 1994). Thus it is reasonable to assume that women’s desire to marry would be expected to be especially strong.

As opportunities for women have expanded and feminist attitudes have gained acceptance (Huddy, Neely, & Lafay, 2000), attitudes toward marriage and women’s roles have changed in some respects, but not others. Marriage role expectations of female college students from the 1960s to the present have become more egalitarian (Botkin, Weeks, & Morris, 2000). Young women regard favorably the roles of both worker and mother for married women (Bridges, 1987; Hoffnung, 2004), and young women and men place similar importance on anticipated career and marital identities (Kerpelman & Schvaneveldt, 1999). Yet when asked whether they would choose marriage or career if they could only pick one, women college students are more likely than men to choose marriage (38% vs. 18%), and more women than men say they would be willing to make sacrifices, such as moving to a new city, in order to advance a future spouse’s career (Novack & Novack, 1996). Young women also place greater importance than do young men on their future parental identity (Kerpelman & Schvaneveldt, 1999), are more likely to consider the possibility of an extended work interruption to manage future family concerns (Peake & Harris, 2002), and expect to be the parent who will stay at home with a newborn infant (Novack & Novack, 1996).

The significance of marital identity for women is reflected in the fact that the majority of women still use or intend to use the title “Mrs.” upon marriage (Brightman, 1994; Twenge, 1997). Young women, in particular, show little understanding of or desire to adopt the title “Ms.,” which was intended to be neutral with regard to marital status (Atkinson, 1987; Lawton, Blake-more, & Vartanian, 2002; Pauwels, 2001). Apparently somewhat older unmarried or divorced women do understand the meaning of the title, as they say that they prefer to use “Ms.” because they do not wish to reveal their marital status. However, many young single women prefer to use “Miss” to signal their availability, and many married women prefer “Mrs.” because they are proud to be married and want others to know they are married (Foss & Edson, 1989; Lawton et al., 2003).

In addition to using the title “Mrs.,” the majority of married women also adopt their husband’s surnames. Only a minority of women keep their birth names when they marry, and there are notable differences among those who do and those who do not adopt their husband’s names (Brightman, 1994; Duggan, Cota, & Dion, 1993; Foss & Edson, 1989; Fowler & Fuehrer, 1997; Intons-Peterson & Crawford, 1985; Kline, Stafford, & Miklosovic, 1996; Twenge, 1997). Generally, women who have adopted or plan to adopt their husband’s name are more traditional, less concerned with equality in their marital relationships, and more focused on relationships with husbands and children as the central part of their identities. Some mention that the adoption of a husband’s name is an important symbol of their new identity as a family unit (or part of becoming “one”). Women who keep their birth names are more likely to be explicitly feminist, concerned with equality in their marital relationships, and to see their individual and professional identities as central. It is interesting that when the issue has been studied (e.g., Kline et al., 1996), both groups of women value their marriages, and there appear to be no differences in marital quality between them. We do not know, however, whether women who plan to adopt their husbands’ names are also more likely to want to marry in the first place.

In this study, we examined three issues. First, we wanted to determine if there were differences between young women and men in their eagerness or desire to get married. Therefore, we developed a “Drive to Marry” scale. This scale was intended to measure feelings of pride or excitement about getting married, rather than the value of, or commitment to, the marital role and its responsibilities (e.g., as examined by Amatea, Cross, Clark, & Bobby, 1986). We hypothesized that women would show a greater drive to marry than would men based on previous research that demonstrated that women are more likely than men to choose marriage over career, if they have to make a choice; to make sacrifices for marriage; to feel a sense of failure if they are unable to maintain a satisfactory intimate relationship; and to feel safer when they have a male partner.

In addition to examining gender differences in the drive to marry, we also wanted to study predictors of individual differences in the drive to marry within each gender. Certainly some young people, women and men alike, are less likely than others to want to marry. As potential factors related to individual differences in the drive to marry, we examined public self-consciousness (the extent to which people are concerned about others’ views of them), traditional versus feminist attitudes, and the value of future parental and occupational roles. Consistent with the external pressure to marry that is reported by many single women, we hypothesized that women who are more concerned about what others think of them would have a stronger drive to marry. We also expected that women who highly value their future role as a parent would have a stronger drive to marry. In contrast, a lower drive to marry was predicted for women who more highly value their future occupational role. Finally, we predicted that traditional women would have a stronger drive to marry. We also examined the drive to marry in men, but made no specific predictions about what factors would be related to it.

We also wanted to examine the relationship between drive to marry and women’s desire to adopt their husband’s name, use the title “Mrs.,” and wear a wedding ring. Therefore, we developed a second measure to examine these issues. On the basis of the previous research, we expected that scores on this measure would be predicted by the value of the parental and occupational roles, and by the Attitudes Toward Women Scale (AWS; Spence & Helmreich, 1978). We also predicted that young women with a higher drive to marry would have higher scores on this “name and ring” scale.

Method

Participants

There were 395 (149 men and 246 women) never-married participants, who ranged in age from 18 to 31 years (M = 19.75; SD = 2.25). Data from 15 additional participants who indicated that they were not heterosexual (below 3 on a 5-point scale; 1 = not-at-all heterosexual, 5 = strongly heterosexual) were not included in the analyses. The majority (88.6%) of the 395 participants identified themselves as White. Most of the other participants identified themselves as Black (6.1%), Hispanic (2%), or Asian (1.5%). The participants were Introductory Psychology students from a regional commuter campus of a state university in the Midwestern United States, who took part in partial fulfillment of a course requirement. The majority of the students on the campus are from working to middle class backgrounds; many are first generation college students.

Materials

Demographics. Participants first completed several demographic questions (e.g., gender, age, ethnic background, current relationship status, sexual orientation).

The Drive to Marry Scale. The participants were asked 13 questions concerning their desire to get engaged and married, as well as excitement and pride in achieving marital status. Participants were asked to rate these items on a 5-point scale (1 = disagree strongly; 5 = agree strongly) with the following instructions: “The following questions concern your views about marrying. To answer them, think about marriage itself, as much as possible without considering either its potential economic benefits or your relationship with a particular partner.”

These questions were analyzed with a series of factor analyses, including the principal components analysis and varimax rotation. As a result of those analyses, a final “Drive to Marry” (DTM) scale was constructed that consisted of five items, with a Cronbach’s alpha of .86. The final scale score was a mean score of these five items. The five items and their factor loadings can be seen in Table 28.1.

Name and Ring Scale. We next asked female participants about their desire to wear a wedding ring, to keep their birth name, to adopt their husband’s surname, and to use either the title “Ms.” or the title “Mrs.” These five items were all rated on 5-point scales that ranged from 1 = “not at all” to 5 = “very much.” The items were factor analyzed by principal components analysis and varimax rotation. The items loaded onto a single factor (Cronbach’s alpha = .70), which we call the “Name and Ring Scale.” The items that asked about keeping one’s birth name and using the title “Ms.” were reverse-scored. Therefore, higher scores on this scale reflect a greater desire to wear a wedding ring, to use the title “Mrs.,” and to adopt a husband’s surname. The final scale score was a mean score of these five items. The items and their factor loadings can be seen in Table 28.2.

TABLE 28.1 Items in the Drive to Marry Scale with Factor Loadings

Item	Factor Loading
I can’t wait to get married	.85
Being married will make me feel proud	.80
I feel I will have achieved a major life goal when I get married	.79
Becoming engaged would be one of the most exciting things that could happen to me	.79
Getting married is not one of my top priorities^a	.79

a Reverse scored.

TABLE 28.2 Items in the Name and Ring Scale with Factor Loadings^a

Item	Factor Loading
If you were to become married How much would you want to adopt your spouse’s last name?	.81
How much you would prefer to use “Mrs.”?	.76
How much would you want to keep your birth name?^b	.67
How much you would prefer to use “Ms.”?^b	.65
How much you would want to wear a wedding ring?	.53

a Female participants only.

b Reverse scored.

Value of Future Identities in Careers, Parenthood, and Marital Role. Participants also completed three subscales from the Life Role Salience Scales (LRSS; Amatea et al., 1986). This instrument measures the importance or reward value that people assign to various life roles.

There are five items on each of these subscales, and each item is rated on a 5-point scale ranging from 1 = disagree strongly, to 5 = agree strongly. Each scale has a maximum score of 25; higher scores reflect greater commitment to the role.

We were especially interested in the extent to which people valued their future roles as workers and as parents. We wanted to examine whether the desire to get married, as measured by the DTM, would be predicted by the extent to which participants value these two roles. Hence, we used the Parental Role Value (PRV) and Occupational Role Value (ORV) subscales as possible predictors of DTM.

We also examined the participants’ scores on the Marital Role Value (MRV subscale), which measures the extent to which people value the marital role, to establish construct validity of the DTM scale. The measures did, in fact, correlate (r = .74). Therefore, our new measure (the DTM) demonstrated a strong and positive relationship with a previously published measure of the extent to which people value the marital role. Because the overlap is not complete, the measures are clearly assessing somewhat different aspects of the phenomenon. We did not, however, use the MRV as a predictor of DTM because of the partial overlap between the two scales.

Self-consciousness. In addition to completing the Drive to Marry (DTM) scale and the LRSS, participants completed the Self-Consciousness scale (Fenigstein, Scheier, & Buss, 1975). For the purposes of this study we considered only the public self-consciousness (PUBSC) subscale, which assesses the extent to which participants are concerned with others’ opinions about them (e.g., “I usually worry about making a good impression”). The seven items on this subscale are rated on a 5-point scale ranging from 1 (not at all like me) to 5 (a lot like me); the overall score is a mean score.

Attitudes toward Women. To assess traditional versus feminist attitudes, participants completed the short version of the Attitudes toward Women Scale (AWS; Spence & Helmreich, 1978). This scale includes items such as “a woman should not expect to go exactly the same places or have quite the same freedom of action as a man.” The 15 items on the short version of the scale are each rated on 4-point scales ranging from 0 (disagree strongly) to 3 (agree strongly). Items reflecting traditional attitudes are reverse coded; scores on the scale can range from 0 (very traditional) through 45 (very pro-feminist).

Procedure

A female undergraduate research assistant administered the questionnaire to participants in groups. All participants were administered the scales in the same order: demographic information, Drive to Marry scale, Name and Ring scale, the LRSS, the...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• PREFACE
• Section I The Basics of Gender
• Section II The Microcosm of Gender: Individuals in Context
• Section III The Macrocosm of Gender: Institutions, Structures, and Politics
• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
• ABOUT THE EDITORS
• INDEX