Thursday, March 5, 2009

Sexist Conservatives Doomed McCain/Palin

I'm not really one for pop psychology, but this story caught my eye.

A study using college undergraduates was done previous to the presidential election, asking people to make comments about Sarah Palin and Angelina Jolie. Half were asked to make comments about each woman based on their feelings of the qualities of the women as a person. The other half were to make comments about their appearances.

Then both groups were asked to rate each woman on several different measures, including competence. The the group was asked who they were going to vote for in the upcoming election.

The results were described this way (emphasis mine):
Those who wrote about Palin’s appearance were more positive in their assessments than those who assessed her qualities as a person. But they rated her far lower in terms of competence, intelligence and capability, and were far less likely to indicate they planned to vote for the McCain-Palin ticket.

“It wasn’t her appearance per se” that soured people on Palin, Heflick said in an interview. “It was the effect her appearance had on their perception of her competence and humanity. Those variables made people less likely to vote for her."...

Heflick noted that all the self-proclaimed Democrats participating in the exercise indicated they were voting for Obama. So at least in this sample, it was Republicans and independents who were internally debating Palin’s suitability for the job. The study suggests that their confidence in her abilities may have decreased the more they focused on her looks – and thus, in feminist terms, objectified her.

On a scientific level, this study means very little. There were not enough subjects and the sampling was hardly a cross section of America. However, it does reveal an interesting pattern, does it not?

That is also the reason why I use an icon instead of my real picture. If you could see how devastatingly handsome I really am, I'm afraid the gentle reader would lose all confidence in me.

1 comment:

  1. Sexism (and racism) is also the reason why Hillary Clinton didn't win. She was clearly the better choice. What is disturbing to me is when women participate in this kind of behavior, and then also have the nerve to complain about sexism. That annoys me to no end.

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