This research focuses on women in corporate positions “above the glass ceiling” and explores their perceptions on corporate mobility and strategies for success in elite positions. Through interviews with 16 men and women corporate presidents and chief executive officers in Southern California, it is found that while white men promote the dominant ideology of individualism and patriarchal gender ideology as explanations of corporate mobility and success, white women emphasize alternative perspectives by confirming the importance of social networks and peer similarities (...) for succeeding in elite positions. These women strategically attempt to increase their cultural capital to negotiate male-dominated networks and maintain their high-status positions through such measures as obtaining advanced educational degrees or modifying speech and behavior. (shrink)

Using life course and intersectional perspectives, this study examines how changes in life experiences such as marriage, parenthood, and work are associated with changes in individuals' gender ideology. Using longitudinal survey data and fixed effects, findings suggest that exposure to these experiences influences gender ideology, though with greater variation than previous work has detected. Marriage exerts an egalitarian influence on Blacks but a less egalitarian one on whites. Parenthood has a less egalitarian effect for all married parents but an egalitarian (...) one for most unmarried parents. These findings suggest that gender ideology is dynamic and life experiences are important sources of change. Furthermore, this change depends on individuals' race-gender categories and the configuration of life events to which they are exposed. These nuanced findings amend past work by better identifying for whom and under which conditions life experiences shape gender ideology. In doing so, this study illustrates how the conceptual and methodological approaches help us understand gender ideology construction by revealing substantial variation that went undetected in past work. (shrink)

Although gender idology is sometimes conceptualized as an identity, researchers invariably measure it with attitude scales. The author introduces a self-administered, vignette-style instrument that measures gender ideology as an identity. Using a sample of 309 married or cohabiting respondents, she demonstrates the instrument's construct validity by showing it is strongly related to measures of the evaluation and the potency of three cultural categories: a feminist, a traditionalist about women's roles, and a househusband. The author discusses the benefits of using such (...) an instrument as an alternative to attitude scales in housework studies. She also discusses how this measurement approach can be useful for measuring variation in the meaning of a marital identity and for operationalizing gender in “doing gender” investigations. (shrink)

This study uses a comparative framework to examine the relationship between individual-level attributes and gender-role attitudes in a state-market society and in a capitalist society. Data from the 1988 International Social Science Program indicate significant differences in attitudes between the two populations. Both women and men in the United States were more supportive of women's employment than their counterparts in Hungary, despite the Hungarian government's policy of full employment during communist rule. Nevertheless, the level of agreement between women and men (...) was uniform across national contexts: Women were more supportive of women's employment than men. We also found that individual-level attributes, such as employment status and marital status, differentially affected gender-role attitudes in the two countries. This study contributes to a broader dialogue about the dynamic relationship between social structure and gender ideology. (shrink)

Data from 590 college graduates are used to assess the relationship between family employment status and gender role attitudes for a predominately European American sample. The women in this study are employed full time, part time, or are full-time homemakers, and all report being married to men employed full time. The men in the study are all employed full time and report having wives who are employed full time, part time, or are full-time homemakers. Controlling for the effects of selected (...) background factors, full-time employed women are the most supportive of nontraditional family gender roles, followed by part-time employed women. The attitudes of homemakers are more similar to those of the men. Few significant differences exist when comparing the men with full-time employed wives, those with part-time employed wives, and men married to homemakers. The findings suggest an important link between work experiences, lifestyle choices, and gender role attitudes, particularly for women. (shrink)

Abundant research has found that men's economic status shapes their gender ideology such that men who are breadwinners are less likely to endorse egalitarian ideology than men in nontraditional arrangements. This article investigates how the association between men's breadwinning status and gender ideology is influenced by the institutional arrangements of different types of labor markets. Rigid labor markets support men's ability to be breadwinners in the long term, whereas flexible labor markets provide men with more frequent, but less permanent, experiences (...) of nontraditional arrangements. The authors anticipate that breadwinner status will have stronger effects on men's gender ideology in rigid labor markets because men can expect less fluctuation in their employment situations in those contexts. Results from a multilevel analysis of 27 countries indeed demonstrate that individual men's economic dependency on their partners influences men's gender egalitarian ideology more strongly in rigid labor markets than in flexible markets. (shrink)

Research on the intersection of race and gender suggests that, for African Americans, racial inequality is more salient than gender inequality. However, theoretical perspectives on the multiplicative effects of status positions and “outsider within” models suggest that minority group membership can be a catalyst for the development of feminist attitudes. This article examines three issues central to feminism: recognition and critique of gender inequality, egalitarian gender roles, and political activism for the rights of women. The authors found that support for (...) feminist ideology was common for both African American women and men, although the level of support varied depending on the issue and by gender. Factors predicting the endorsement of feminist ideology also varied depending on the issue and by gender. The authors found partial support for the race saliency hypothesis, but there was also evidence of the multiplicative effects of status positions on African Americans' feminist attitudes. (shrink)

Men's gender ideologies have changed more slowly than women's since the 1970s; this article analyzes the period and cohort processes that underlie men's attitude change and how the individual-level characteristics of conservative men differ by birth cohort. Using multidimensional measures of gender role attitudes from the 1974-1998 General Social Surveys, the author finds that changes in men's attitudes have been brought about both by period influences, especially during the 1970s, and by cohort replacement. Analyses of multivariate interaction effects demonstrate that (...) education has become a much less significant predictor of attitudes for men born after 1945. (shrink)

Reasons husbands and wives give for why wives work and the structural factors related to reasons given are examined along with the impact of these reasons on husbands' and wives' personal well-being and quality of marital relationships. Although financial and other structural factors are important in understanding why wives work, interpretations using gender and family roles also explain the findings. Working for financial reasons is related to neither wives' nor husbands' personal well-being and quality of marital relationships; however, working for (...) reasons that bring rewards to the wife alone has positive consequences for women and mixed results for men. These findings point to the need to assess both structural and interpretive explanations when examining the impact of work on the family. (shrink)