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PRENTICE AND CARRANZA
leadership abilities, independent, individualistic, makes de-
cisions easily, masculine, self-reliant, self-sufficient, strong-
personality, willing to take a stand, and willing to take risks.
These characteristics provide a good representation of pre-
scriptive gender stereotypes, at least as they existed in the
early 1970s.
sirable masculine traits, like arrogant and insensitive, that
are more likable, appropriate, and common in men than in
women.
The question, then, is how to conceptualize the role of
these undesirable qualities in societal gender prescriptions.
Is one supposed to demonstrate the undesirable qualities
associated with one’s gender, avoid the undesirable qualities
associated with the other gender, or both (see Broverman et
al., 1972; Stoppard & Kalin, 1978; Stricker, 1977)? Empir-
ical evidence suggests that the only strong imperative is to
avoid the other gender’s undesirable qualities. In the most
relevantstudy, StoppardandKalin(1978)askedparticipants
to rate feminine and masculine traits that varied in social
desirability on one of four dimensions: how obligatory they
are, how prohibited they are, the extent to which they are
met with approval or disapproval, and how characteristic
they are, for both women and men. The results for socially
desirable traits were consistent with the findings of Bem
(1974) and others. Those that were gender-appropriate re-
ceived the most extreme, positive ratings (i.e., high ratings
of approval and obligation and low ratings of prohibition),
whereas those that were gender-inappropriate received sig-
nificantly less extreme ratings on all three dimensions.
The results for socially undesirable traits were parallel.
Those that were gender-appropriate received moderate
ratings on all three dimensions, whereas those that were
gender-inappropriate received the most extreme, negative
ratings. These results suggest that societal prescriptions de-
mand the presence of gender-appropriate, desirable traits
andtheabsenceof gender-inappropriate, undesirabletraits.
They also hint that for certain types of qualities—gender-
inappropriate, desirable traits and gender-appropriate, un-
desirable traits—societal standards are markedly more
relaxed.
This point brings us to the second assumption—that a
trait that is more desirable in one gender is prescribed for
that gender. An example will serve to illustrate the logical
problem with this assumption. Consider the finding, from
our own research and Bem’s (1974), that the trait “defends
own beliefs” is more desirable for a man than for a woman.
One interpretation of this difference is that the societal im-
perative to defend one’s beliefs is especially strong for men.
Another, equallylogicalinterpretationisthatthisimperative
is especially relaxed for women. These two interpretations
are importantly different, and either or both could be valid
given evidence only of a difference in the gender-specific
desirability of the trait. Disentangling them requires that
we use the desirability of the trait for people in general
as a benchmark. If it is more desirable for men to defend
their own beliefs than it is for people in general to do so,
then this trait is part of what society requires of men in par-
ticular. However, if it is equally desirable for men and for
people in general to defend their own beliefs, then the trait
is not part of the prescriptive stereotype of men. Instead,
the lower desirability rating for women reflects a markedly
relaxed standard for them.
Recent attempts to validate the contents of the BSRI
femininity and masculinity scales, using a similar item-
selection procedure, have provided evidence for the per-
sistence of these stereotypes. For example, in 1993, Harris
(1994) found that 19 of 19 masculine items (excluding the
item “masculine”) and 16 of 19 feminine items (exclud-
ing the item “feminine”) met Bem’s criteria for inclusion
on their respective scales. In 1997, Holt and Ellis (1998)
found that all 20 masculine items and 18 of 20 feminine
items still met Bem’s criteria, although the magnitude of
the differences in desirability for a woman versus a man
had decreased. In 1999, Auster and Ohm (2000) found that
18 of 20 feminine items but only 8 of 20 masculine items
still met Bem’s criteria. Interestingly, most of the failures
were attributable to male participants only; female partici-
pants rated 20 of 20 feminine traits and 18 of 20 masculine
traits as differentially desirable for women and men in the
expected direction. Moreover, when the investigators rank-
ordered traits in terms of desirability, they found that both
male and female participants still ranked traits on the fem-
ininity scale as most highly desirable for women and traits
on the masculinity scale as most highly desirable for men.
They took these latter results as evidence for the persis-
tence of traditional gender prescriptions (Auster & Ohm,
2000).
Research on the BSRI thus provides some insight into
the contents of prescriptive gender stereotypes. In particu-
lar, it highlights the continued centrality of traditional defi-
nitions of femininity and masculinity. At the same time, this
research is based on two assumptions that limit the conclu-
sions we can draw from it. First, it assumes that prescriptive
gender stereotypes include only socially desirable qualities.
Second, it assumes that a difference in the desirability of a
quality for women and men signals that the quality is pre-
scribed for the gender that receives the higher rating. We
examine each of these assumptions in turn.
The assumption of social desirability has long been one
of convenience more than conviction. Although initial re-
search on sex-role identity focused exclusively on socially
desirable traits (e.g., Bem, 1974; Spence, Helmreich, &
Stapp, 1975; although see Broverman, Vogel, Broverman,
Clarkson, & Rosenkrantz, 1972), a second wave of re-
search documented the gendering of undesirable traits
(e.g., Antill, Cunningham, Russell, & Thompson, 1981;
Bryson & Corey, 1977; Kelly, Caudill, Hathorn, & O’Brien,
1977; Spence, Helmreich, & Holahan, 1979; Stoppard &
Kalin, 1978). These studies identified a set of socially un-
desirable feminine traits, like gullible and weak, that are
more likable, appropriate, and common in women than
in men. Similarly, they identified a set of socially unde-