Filtering by
- All Subjects: psychology
- Creators: Department of Psychology
- Member of: Barrett, The Honors College Thesis/Creative Project Collection
male bias in the English language. Male bias can be traced through American history in the form of laws of coverture and the categorization of women in law. Taking into account the connections between sexist language, history, and law, this paper investigates 1) how and why legal language is biased, 2) why male bias has persisted in law over time, and 3) what impact male-biased law has on women. The works of ancient philosophers, feminist historians, psycholinguistic scientists, and modern philosophers of law are used to explain the patriarchal gender hierarchy’s influence on law. Case law and legal policies demonstrate that sexism has been maintained through history due to the preservation of male-biased language and the exclusion of women from the public sphere. Today, the use of masculine generics continues to taint the legal profession by reflecting, rather than denouncing, its patriarchal roots.
It was hypothesized that information about current romantic involvement could make a male target more attractive to females. A 2 (Gender) X 4 (Romantic Involvement: Current Romance, Past Romance, Friend, and Control) factorial design was created to test competing predictions from scarcity/reactance, impression-formation, and sociobiological perspectives. A total of 235 male and female subjects saw a photograph of an opposite gender target person, then read a brief description about the target that contained one of the three involvement manipulations, or contained no involvement manipulation (Control). Subjects then rated the target along a 14 item scale to measure romantic attraction. ANOVA and MANOVA results revealed main effects of Gender and Romantic Involvement. Simple effects for Romantic Involvement were found for female, but not male subjects. A priori contrasts testing the predictions from the competing theoretical perspectives provided support only for the socio-biological prediction for female subjects.