An Empirical Test of Feminist Theory and Research

Abstract

Feminist empirical research, which consistently shows a positive relationship between traditional gender-role attitudes toward women and tolerant perceptions of male violence against intimate female partners, ignores the heterogeneity of these attitudes. New scholarship reveals that they are not necessarily blatant, hostile, and negative but are more complex, involving covertly and even overtly benevolent references to women. A sample of Israelis were asked to evaluate the seriousness of and most appropriate punishment for hypothetical and multidimensional crime scenarios while their differing kinds of traditional gender-role attitudes toward women were assessed. Perceptions varied considerably as a function of the gender-role scale applied and respondents' scores.