Neosexism among Women: The Role of Personally Experienced Social Mobility Attempts

Abstract

An extension of the neosexism model based on the assumption that neosexism derives from experiences of upward mobility within the broader social structure of male-female relations was proposed and evaluated in a sample of 335 secretaries employed in a Canadian federal agency. It posited that the more women attempted to access nontraditional fields of work, the more they experienced discrimination. Personally experienced discriminatory barriers were related to feelings of collective relative deprivation. Moreover, the more women felt deprived on behalf of their group, the less they endorsed neosexist beliefs. Finally, a reverse effect was predicted between neosexism, collective relative deprivation, and responses to affirmative action and a pro-male bias in the evaluation of the competence of male and female managers. Support for this model was obtained by a structural equation modeling technique (EQS).