Gender-Role Attitudes and Participation in Competitive Activities of Varying Stereotypic Femininity

Abstract

The relationship between women's gender-role attitudes and their participation in feminine and unfeminine achievement activities was examined in the domain of competitive sport. The gender-role attitudes of 189 adult and 184 high school female athletes sampled from seven sports were assessed by a short version of the Attitudes Toward Women Scale (Spence & Helmreich, 1978). The perceived stereotypic femininity of each sport was determined by questionnaire ratings completed by a subsample of 126 athletes. The findings from the entire sample of adult athletes supported the prediction that women who participated in traditionally unfeminine sports would have more liberal gender-role attitudes than women who competed in feminine sports. No relationship was obtained for the high school sample. Overall the findings provide little support for the notion that women participating in traditionally unfeminine sports use general sex-role attitudes to compensate for gender-inappropriate behavior.