Research has suggested that men’s sexist behaviors are highly associated with issues within romantic relationships.
This, in turn, undermines the female’s contentment and dedication to the relationship.
The researchers on the topic explain their experiment in the following manner:
“We were interested how hostile and aggressive attitudes about women might promote problems in intimate relationships and influence the types of problems couples face. We were especially interested in how men’s sexist attitudes influence female partner relationship experiences and evaluations.”
The study, which revolved around male sexist attitudes in relationships, made their research on 363 heterosexual couples. The vast majority of couples were married or living together, whereas the other expressed their relationship being “serious/steady”. Hence, the average relationship length was 6.5 years.
The abovementioned research concluded that women who had significant others with hostile sexist tendencies accounted for having more issues with their commitment and satisfaction with the relationship.
“Hostile sexism involves concerns that women cannot be trusted and are trying to take men’s power. These attitudes are not just problematic for men (and women) in the workplace, but could also create friction and problems at home.”
To the aforementioned statement they added the following:
“Moreover, men’s hostile sexism also impacts the types of problems couples face — jealousy, power dynamics, and gender-role conflict were rated as particularly serious problems — which makes sense considering that hostile sexism involves concerns about women being untrustworthy.”
In a study of the same character, 1,096 heterosexual males and females were surveyed and it has been concluded that the male counterparts with sexist attitudes have the tendency to underestimate exactly how much power they possessed in their relationships. As a result, increased aggression toward their female partners was predicted as a consequence.
However, the researches do determine that the study is focused on sexist attitudes only towards women and not men.
Therefore, there is a field to be further investigated in that regard.
“The current study asked people to rate how serious problems were in their relationships. With this method we cannot determine who is more (or less) responsible for these problems and how sexist attitudes may influence this.”
