Sexist men and women -- made for each
other
Men with a preference for "one-night stands" and negative sexist
attitudes towards women are more likely to use aggressive courtship
strategies. They compete with other men who are also interested in
the woman, tease the woman, and isolate her away from her friends.
In response, women with a preference for 'no strings attached' sex
and negative attitudes towards other women are more likely to
respond to men's aggressive strategies.
These findings by Jeffrey Hall and Melanie Canterberry, from the
University of Kansas in the US, are published online in Springer's
journal Sex
Roles.
Hall and Canterberry set out to understand the characteristics of
men who use aggressive courtship strategies, based on speed
seduction techniques described in the US bestseller The Game by
Neil Strauss and the popular cable TV program The Pickup Artist.
They also studied the characteristics of women who find such
strategies appealing.
The researchers conducted two surveys. The first pilot study
surveyed a sample of 363 college students from a large Midwestern
university in the US. The second, larger national study recruited
850 adult volunteers via the internet. The authors asked both male
and female participants about their sexist attitudes toward women
and whether they were willing to take part in uncommitted or
short-term sex. They also asked about the extent to which men used
assertive strategies to initiate relationships and the extent to
which women found these approaches desirable.
The results showed that men who were keen on 'one-night stands'
were more likely to use aggressive strategies when flirting with
women, and women who were also open to casual sex were more likely
to respond to this type of aggressive courtship. In addition, men
with negative, sexist attitudes towards women, justifying male
privilege, were more likely to use assertive strategies, which may
serve to 'put women in their place' in a submissive or yielding
role during courtship. Women with sexist attitudes towards members
of their own gender were more likely to be responsive to men's
assertive strategies. This suggests that they find men who treat
them in a dominant way during courtship more desirable, because it
is consistent with their sexist ideology.
Hall and Canterberry conclude: "Our results suggest that assertive
courtship strategies are a form of mutual identification of
similarly sexist attitudes shared between courtship partners. Women
who adopt sexist attitudes are more likely to prefer men who adopt
similar attitudes. Not only do sexist men and women prefer partners
who are like them, they prefer courtship strategies where men are
the aggressors and women are the gatekeepers."
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Thanks to Springer for this article.