Education and Catholic Religiosity as Predictors of Hostile and Benevolent Sexism Toward Women and Men

The relationships of education and religiosity to hostile and benevolently sexist attitudes toward women and men, as assessed by the Ambivalent Sexism Inventory (ASI; Glick & Fiske, 1996) and the Ambivalence Toward Men Inventory (AMI; Glick & Fiske, 1999), was explored in a random sample of 1,003 adults (508 women, 495 men) from Galicia, Spain. For both men and women (a) level of educational attainment negatively correlated with hostile and benevolent sexist attitudes, and (b) Catholic religiosity uniquely predicted more benevolent, but not more hostile, sexist attitudes. Although correlational, these data are consistent with the notion that active participation in the Catholic Church may reinforce benevolently sexist ideologies that legitimate gender inequality, whereas education may be effective in diminishing sexist beliefs.