Women tend to be attracted to male chivalry even though they see it as a threat to their gender equality, according to a new study.
Men who pay for dinner and open doors for women are said to display 鈥渂enevolent sexism鈥�: the attitude that women should be protected and provided for. These chivalrous acts are superficially positive, but may entrench gender inequality by positioning women as weaker and less competent, says Pelin Gul at Iowa State University.
Gul and her colleagues explored heterosexual women鈥檚 attitudes to benevolent sexism in a series of experiments involving more than 700 women aged 18 to 70 in the UK.
Advertisement
In one experiment, the volunteers were told to imagine a聽potential partner called Mark. Half were given chivalrous descriptions, such as, 鈥淚n case of a聽disaster or emergency situation, he thinks that women should be helped before men鈥�. The other half were given gender neutral descriptions, such as, 鈥淚n case of a disaster or emergency situation, he thinks that a person鈥檚 sex should not be a factor determining who is helped first鈥�.
The chivalrous version of Mark was rated as more attractive, even though most participants said he was probably more likely to undermine and patronise them. In another experiment, the researchers found that women who held strongly feminist beliefs were still more attracted to a chivalrous Mark than a non-chivalrous Mark.
In general, women had a slight preference for hypothetical male co-workers who would help them carry boxes or hold the door for them, but this preference for benevolent sexism was weaker than it was for romantic partners (Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, ).
Rather than simply being a sign of being a nice person, chivalry in romantic partners seems to be taken as an indication of a man鈥檚 鈥渨illingness to invest鈥�, says Gul. Hypothetical men who displayed benevolent sexism were rated by聽women who took part in the experiments as being more likely to commit to a romantic relationship and to protect and provide for their partners.
Women may prioritise willingness to invest in romantic contexts because they tend to earn less and have more childcare obligations than men, says Fiona Barlow at the University of Queensland, Australia. As a result, they may feel pressure to pick partners who would look after them, even at the risk of being made to feel inferior, she says.
In support of this idea, some studies suggest that women in countries with greater gender inequality tend to place even greater value on male chivalry, says Barlow. 鈥淎t a practical level, if you鈥檙e a woman living in a society where men have all the money and the control, it makes sense to prefer those who think it鈥檚 their role to take care of you,鈥� she says.
Peter Glick at Lawrence University in Wisconsin agrees, but warns that benevolent sexism helps maintain patriarchal social structures and creates dilemmas for men who believe in equality. For example, men risk looking sexist if they offer to pay for dinner, he says, but risk appearing unattractive if they don鈥檛.
Gul is interested in studying whether chivalry can coexist with聽gender equality if it doesn鈥檛 have sexist intentions. 鈥淭here may be ways for men who hold egalitarian beliefs to signal their willingness to invest without undermining women, but that鈥檚 something we need to look into,鈥� she says.
This articles appears in print under the headline 鈥淲hy 鈥榖enevolent sexism鈥� can be attractive鈥�
Read more: The origins of sexism: How men came to rule 12,000 years ago
