Unbelievably Obvious Study Finds Anti-Abortionists Also Sexist

by Monica Joshi

Do you wonder why universities are being funded for social science research into things any logical person already knows? As though it wasn't obvious, a study from the University of Denver published in the May 2015 issue of the feminist magazine Affilia: Journal of Women and Social Work addresses the extent to which sexism predicts anti-choice attitudes. The study shows that there is a direct relationship between those with sexist attitudes and those with anti-abortion sentiments through the lens of the Ambivalent Sexism Theory.

The psychological theory claims that there are two different forms of sexism towards women: hostile sexism and benevolent sexism. Participants were asked to what extent they agreed or disagreed with benevolent sexist statements like “Women are motherly” and “a good woman should be set on a pedestal by her man” as well as hostile sexist statements like “women are too easily offended”.

Stephanie Begun and N. Eugene Walls used data from a previous survey of 651 undergraduate students from six different universities.

The researchers noted that:

“While women have been shown to endorse forms of hostile sexism somewhat infrequently, women’s endorsements of benevolent sexist beliefs are quite common.”

The results of the study show that people who endorse hostile sexist views were statistically more likely to hold anti-choice abortion attitudes. The same was also true for those who endorse benevolent sexist attitudes towards women; in fact, to the same degree. It is even more likely that those who hold both hostile and benevolent sexist views also hold anti-abortion views.

According to Begun, this suggests that both types of sexism pose a threat to allow women to have abortion rights. The study that had 70% female and 30% male respondents, shows that the results hold true across genders.

What is surprising about the study is that women hold benevolent sexist views that quite clearly work against them, but the rest of the study seems pretty much like a big ol' “duh”.

Clumping all 'women' together in a sentence and making a general statement about them like “all women are nosey” is going to inevitably confirm the sexist views via generalization based on gender. The statement clearly no longer appreciates the individual, but rather makes statements about them based on the gender category of which they choose to be a part. This is the same as saying something like “all men are strong” or even “all men should be strong to protect their woman”. The former states that all men, no matter what, are strong and the latter claims that all relationships that men form are heterosexual. People who hold these views will fall into the trap of making grand claims according to a gender binary separating “men” and “women”. They would assume that it is true of either “all men” or “all women” that they hold certain characteristics simply because they are men or women.

The findings of the study, leading up to the anti-abortion sentiment are equally intuitive. Some of the generalizations like “women are too easily offended” or “a good woman should be set on a pedestal by her man” or “all women are women only if they are mothers” do not suggest that a woman cannot be a strong autonomous individual. Those who hold these views would hold anti-abortion views because they would be more likely to think that a woman should not have the right to control what happens to her body during pregnancy. She ought to be a slave to her biological functions that she cannot control being the passive, motherly, kind person that she is. It follows that since women are maternal, in general, having an abortion would be going against their natural instincts. In the mind's of anti-abortionists, killing an unborn baby is, therefore, more important than the woman's right to her own body.

What's next? A study that shows that holding benevolent or hostile sexist views also shows that people are more likely to hold the view that “men complete women” and “women complete men”.