Androgyny, Perceived Prejudice & Outness Among Lesbian and Bisexual Women
Research Findings Summary October 1997
I wish to express my gratitude to the 345 lesbian and bisexual women from across the United States and other countries who assisted me by completing a questionnaire for this study, as well as those of you who helped me to circulate questionnaires to women I may not otherwise have reached. I was overwhelmed with the generous help and support that I found while spreading the word about my research to individuals, organizations, discussion groups, publications and places of business in the lesbian-bisexual-gay-transgendered community. Many thanks to everyone who helped!
I have put together a brief summary of my findings for participants and others. Feel free to forward or post this message wherever it may be of interest. For those who wish to know more details about the study, you may be able to borrow a copy of my master’s thesis (with the above title) through interlibrary loan at your local library. You may also contact me with questions or comments.
Thanks again!
Katäri Brown
brownka5@msu.edu
FINDINGS SUMMARY
This study was concerned with lesbian and bisexual women, and the relationship of gender role orientation to outness, perceived prejudice and relational satisfaction. Lesbian women have often been stereotyped negatively for being too masculine or androgynous. Previous research has found that lesbian women, compared to straight women, tend to rate similarly on femininity but somewhat higher on masculinity, and thus tend to be more often androgynous and have greater gender role flexibility.
Androgyny research suggests that androgynous individuals, compared with masculine, feminine, and undifferentiated individuals, may have greater resources with which to deal with prejudice, in the form of behavioral flexibility, interpersonal adaptability, greater ego development and greater ego strength. This study asserted that androgyny may be an asset for dealing with prejudice. Participants were classified as androgynous, masculine, feminine, or undifferentiated with regard to gender orientation according to American societal stereotypes, using the self-description scale of the Bem Sex Role Inventory, which measures masculinity and femininity as two independent dimensions.
This study hypothesized that androgynous lesbian and bisexual women would report greater outness in the face of potential prejudice. Some support was found for this hypothesis. Androgynous participants did report consistently higher outness and consistently similar perceived prejudice levels compared to masculine, feminine and undifferentiated participants. Both masculinity and femininity were associated with outness. Masculinity was correlated more highly with outness than femininity, and in a broader range of areas, whereas femininity was correlated more weakly with outness and more specifically in family relationships. It appears that androgyny is indeed associated with greater outness, but that masculinity’s role is somewhat stronger than that of femininity.
This study also hypothesized that androgynous women would report greater relational satisfaction. This hypothesis was not supported. Sexual satisfaction was not associated with gender role group. However, femininity, not androgyny, was significantly associated with nonsexual intimacy satisfaction.
Some other findings that may be of interest follow:
Masculinity and femininity correlated in similar magnitude with perceived prejudice, but femininity’s role was specific to family relationships. Bisexual women indicating an equal preference for partner gender reported perceiving the highest prejudice within the les-bi-gay community. Lesbian participants rated higher on femininity than bisexual women, and were more often androgynous. Bisexual women reported greater levels of perceived prejudice, and lesbian women reported greater intimacy satisfaction and sexual satisfaction. Participants’ reports of anti-bisexual prejudice within the lesbian and gay community merit further investigation.
Outness was associated with intimacy satisfaction and satisfaction with time spent with one’s partner. Perceived prejudice was correlated negatively with relational satisfaction. The possible relationship of perceived prejudice and internalized prejudice should be explored further.
Greater relationship exclusivity was associated with greater intimacy satisfaction and sexual satisfaction. Cohabiting women reported greater outness and lower perceived prejudice than non-cohabiting women. Cohabiting women rated higher on satisfaction with time spent together but lower on sexual satisfaction. Participants with children reported lower intimacy satisfaction. The items concerning prejudice by children were correlated negatively with some other items; while only one correlation was significant, this pattern merits further study.
Age was positively correlated with level of outness. White participants rated higher on femininity compared to non-white participants.
The many rich narrative responses provided by participants have yet to be fully explored because of time limitations. Further qualitative and quantitative analysis of these responses are sure to provide greater insight into what kinds of prejudice lesbian and bisexual women face as well as what strategies work best for dealing with such prejudice.
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