SEXIST DISCRIMINATION AS DISTANCING BEHAVIOR

This study, the second in a series of investigations of sexist discrimination in face-to-face situations, involved the observations of women and men characters on 10 primetime TV shows found to be most popular with a sample of eighth graders. Distancing behavior—the operational measure of face-to-face discrimination—was found, as predicted, to be manifested more frequently by men TV characters toward women than toward men. Distancing behavior by women TV characters, on the other hand, was not related to the gender of the person with whom they were interacting. Observations were made independently by 53 trained college students, most of whom watched four preassigned TV programs, focusing on either a woman or a man character during a 10–12 minute segment. It was also found that women TV characters appeared less often in the programs than men and that, when they did appear, they were more likely to be shown interacting with men than with other women. Implications for behavioral modeling are discussed.     

SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY

The central theme of this article is that a feminist perspective is not only compatible with the history, objectives, and emphases of social psychology, but necessary for its continued vitality. In view of social psychology's humanist roots and its "nurturist" and "social optimist" tenets, it is not surprising that feminist scholarship has flourished within it. Situational factors and group membership—the focus of social psychological inquiry—are also key to understanding how culture constructs gender, a central issue in the feminist agenda. Some of the important women in the early decades of American psychology are claimed as foremothers of social psychology and as feminist voices, and the feminist perspective is defined and identified in terms of its major interrelated themes. The influence of feminist scholarship on contemporary social psychology is illustrated, and it is argued that a feminist perspective will become increasingly more visible.