The aim of the present paper was to test differences in perceptions towards a woman who took a 3-month maternity leave (a working mother) as opposed to a 3-year maternity leave (a stay-at-home mother), and then to apply the ambivalent sexism theory to predict those differences. We expected that in Poland, where motherhood is highly appreciated, it is especially benevolent (not hostile) sexism that predicts less positive attitudes toward working mothers, compared to stay-at-home mothers. In two studies, we found that the working mother was perceived as less warm, less effective as a parent and less interpersonally appealing and more successful at work. Additionally, although the stay-at-home mother was evaluated as less successful at work, she was not perceived as less competent. We discuss this as a reflection of the “Mother-Pole” phenomenon, where mothers in Poland are perceived as not only kind, but also competent. Afterward, we showed that benevolent (but not hostile) sexism predicts differences in perceiving the stay-at-home mother and working mother. Participants higher in benevolent sexism rated the stay-at-home mother as warmer, more parenting-effective and more interpersonally appealing compared to the working mother, while participants lower in benevolent sexism perceived them equally well. Studies suggest that benevolent sexism predicts a more positive perception of traditional mothers (as opposed to nontraditional mothers), and at the same time, maintains the status quo of traditional gender relations.
Studies consistently reveal that the traditional worldview about women’s motherhood-related obligations is still valid (e.g.,
Because of motherhood-related responsibilities, women drop out of the job market, earn less (
The aim of this paper was to test differences in the perception of career woman who took a 3-month maternity leave (working mother) as opposed to a 3-year maternity leave (stay-at-home mother), and then to apply the ambivalent sexism theory (
According to the stereotype content model (e.g.,
One of the essential elements of Poland’s national identity and culture is the “Mother-Pole” phenomenon, in which mothers are warm and kind, and, at the same time, competent, multitasking, and strong (
According to the ambivalent sexism theory (
In line with previous studies, we could expect that both benevolent and hostile sexism would predict less positive attitudes toward working mothers. However, Poland has a firm Catholic identity. In terms of gender roles, this implies a strong identification of women as mothers and caregivers (
To test our hypothesis, we conducted two studies. In the pilot study we tested whether the duration of the maternity leave taken predicts the way a mother is perceived. Participants were given a scenario (prepared specifically for this study) about a successful woman who had recently become a mother. We manipulated the length of the maternity leave: three years in a stay-at-home mother condition versus three months in a working mother condition. Mothers in Poland are entitled to 1 year of paid and 3 years of unpaid maternity leave.
In the main study, we added benevolent and hostile sexism into the model to investigate whether beliefs moderate the effect of the mother’s role. We expected that benevolent sexism would especially moderate attitudes toward stay-at-home/working mothers. We hypothesized that participants higher in benevolent sexism would evaluate the stay-at-home mother as warmer, more parenting effective and more interpersonally appealing than the working mother, while participants lower in benevolent sexism would evaluate them equally well. As benevolent sexism is associated with the stereotype that women are incompetent (
A group of 90 students (51 women,
Participants read a short scenario that described a new mother. Depending on the experimental condition, she took a 3-year (stay-at-home mother) or 3-month maternity leave (working mother). The full scenario was as follows: “Agnes is 34. She and her husband have recently become parents. Before that, she was employed as a project manager in a trade organization. She would leave for work at 8 a.m. and come back home at 6 p.m. Sometimes, she had to work overtime or go for business trips that were a few days long. After the baby was born, she took 3-year/3-month break from work”. After reading the scenario, the participants evaluated Agnes using the following measures. If not mentioned otherwise, dependent variables were measured on a 1 (definitely not) to 7 (definitely yes) scale.
Participants indicated to what extent the female character was warm, friendly, helpful, moral, honest, good (warmth, α = .94) and competent, intelligent and talented (competence, α = .91;
We measured the perceived parenting effectiveness of the character with three statements: “She is a good parent”; “She will have a good relationship with her child”; “She and her child will have a strong bond” (α = .95;
The perceived job effectiveness of the character was measured with three statements: “She is a good employee”, “She will succeed in her career”, “She will be appreciated by her superiors and colleagues” (α = .88;
To capture the general impression of the character, participants were asked to indicate their general impression of Agnes using a 1 (definitely unfavorable) to 7 (definitely favorable) scale.
To capture the effect of role (stay-at-home/working mother) on the perception of the scenario’s female character, we conducted a multivariate analysis of variation (MANOVA) We controlled all statistical models described in this paper for participants’ gender. As it was not a significant factor, we will not describe the effect of gender in more detail.
Variable | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | Stay-at-home mother |
Working mother |
||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
95% CI |
|
95% CI | ||||||
1. Warmth | - | .61*** | .65*** | .23 | .66*** | 5.48 | [5.18, 5.79] | 4.28 | [3.91, 4.64] |
2. Competence | .65*** | - | .37* | .35* | .40* | 5.59 | [5.31, 5.87] | 6.62 | [5.25, 5.98] |
3. Parenting effectiveness | .70*** | .56*** | - | -.11 | .69*** | 6.26 | [5.99, 6.52] | 3.48 | [3.06, 3.89] |
4. Job effectiveness | .21 | .38* | .26 | - | .08 | 4.39 | [4.01, 4.76] | 6.03 | [5.76, 6.30] |
5. General impression | .57*** | .45** | .66*** | .43** | - | 5.80 | [5.40, 6.19] | 4.35 | [3.96, 4.74] |
*
As expected the stay-at-home mother (as opposed to the working mother) was perceived as warmer and more parenting-effective. Additionally, in line with the “Mother-Pole” phenomenon, but contrary to the stereotype content model, the stay-at-home mother was not evaluated as less competent. The fact that the traditional woman was marked high on both warmth and competence is consistent with results of other research conducted in Poland (e.g.,
In the main study, we aimed to test whether benevolent and hostile sexism moderate attitudes toward stay-at-home/working mothers. Given the Polish context, we expected that benevolent sexism would be a more robust predictor of attitudes toward mothers. We predicted that participants high (vs. low) in benevolent sexism would accept the stay-at-home (vs. working) mother more. Instead of students, we recruited a more diverse sample through an online research panel, but we did not expect that this would affect the results. We also replaced the one-item measurement of overall impression with four items measuring interpersonal appeal.
A group of 101 participants (56 women,
We measured benevolent (e.g., “Many women have a quality of purity that few men possess”; α = .88,
To measure attitudes towards the stay-at-home/working mother, we used the same scenarios as in the pilot study. Participants first read the scenario and then evaluated the female character using the measures below. Dependent variables were measured on 1 (definitely not) to 7 (definitely yes) scales.
To measure the perceived warmth (α = .95), competence (α = .88), parenting effectiveness (α = .98) and job effectiveness (α = .92) of the female character, we used the same scales as in the pilot study.
To show their desire to interact with the female character, participants indicated their agreement with four statements: “Would you like her to be your neighbor?”, “Would you like her to be your friend?”, “Would you like your children to be friends with hers?”, “Would you like to work with her?” (α = .92;
We conducted a MANOVA to capture the effect of role (stay-at-home/working mother) on the perception of the female character. Afterwards, we included benevolent and hostile sexism in the model and conducted a series of multiple moderation analyses with PROCESS (Model 2; Regardless of whether or not we added the second dimension of sexism to the model as a covariate variable, we obtained similar results.
Variable | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | Stay-at-home mother |
Working mother |
||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
95% CI |
|
95% CI | ||||||||
1. Warmth | - | .33* | .76*** | .25 | .68*** | -.25 | .05 | 5.34 | [5.02, 5.67] | 4.30 | [3.98, 4.62] |
2. Competence | .70*** | - | .10 | .57*** | .23 | -.02 | -.05 | 5.55 | [5.25, 5.85] | 5.27 | [4.98, 5.55] |
3. Parenting effectiveness | .78*** | .57*** | - | .06 | .67*** | -.10 | .17 | 5.91 | [5.60, 6.22] | 3.79 | [3.37, 4.21] |
4. Job effectiveness | .29 | .37** | .33* | - | .20 | .08 | .17 | 4.96 | [4.56, 5.37] | 5.66 | [5.39, 5.93] |
5. Interpersonal appeal | .71*** | .62*** | .69* | .55*** | - | -.13 | .23 | 5.63 | [5.26, 5.99] | 4.43 | [4.09, 4.77] |
6. Benevolent sexism | .33* | .15 | .41** | .13 | .37* | - | .47*** | ||||
7. Hostile sexism | .33* | .11 | .21 | .20 | .31* | .44** | - |
*
The stay-at-home mother was perceived as warmer than the working mother,
The two-way interaction of role (stay-at-home mother vs. working mother) and benevolent sexism on perceived warmth of the female character (main study).
Neither the main effect of role,
The stay-at-home mother was perceived as a better parent,
The stay-at-home mother was evaluated as a worse employee,
The stay-at-home mother was perceived as more interpersonally appealing,
As expected, benevolent sexism moderated attitudes toward the stay-at-home/working mother. Participants higher in benevolent sexism perceived the working mother as less warm and interpersonally appealing, while participants lower in benevolent sexism evaluated them equally well. Although both groups of participants evaluated the working mothers as less parenting-effective, the effect was stronger among participants high in benevolent sexism. Results suggest that benevolent sexism predicts a more favorable perception of the stay-at-home mother. However, the effect of benevolent sexism was significant only on warmth-related dimensions; assigned competence and job effectiveness was not predicted. Hostile sexism did not moderate the effect of role. We will discuss these results in the general discussion.
The main goal of this paper was to test whether benevolent and hostile sexism predicts differences in perceiving stay-at-home/working mothers. As sexism justifies traditional gender relations, we hypothesized that participants higher in benevolent sexism would perceive the working mother less favorably than the stay-at-home mother, as the former violates traditional gender norms. At the same time, we expected participants low in benevolent sexism to evaluate the working and stay-at-home mothers equally well. Given that mothers are greatly appreciated in Poland, we did not expect hostile sexism to moderate attitudes.
In two studies, we consistently showed that the working mother was perceived less positively than the stay-at-home mother and experienced a backlash. She was evaluated as less warm, less parenting-effective and less interpersonally appealing. Any attempt to combine motherhood with a professional career leads to disapproval and social isolation.
As expected, the stay-at-home mother was not perceived as less competent. Although one possible explanation is that the contents of the scenario emphasized the competence of the female character, we interpreted this as a reflection of the “Mother Pole” phenomenon, in which mothers in Poland are perceived as both kind and skillful. This result suggests that the prediction of the stereotype content model cannot be applied universally, and that prevailing representations may affect how certain subtypes of women are perceived. Although the stay-at-home mother was not evaluated as less intelligent or talented, the comparison revealed significant differences in perceived job effectiveness. The mother who took a three-year maternity leave was evaluated as a less effective employee. This is in line with previous studies that have shown that mothers in the job market hit the maternal wall and are discriminated against (e.g.,
As expected, we have found that benevolent sexism predicts differences in perceiving stay-at-home/working mothers. Participants low in benevolent sexism evaluated both as equally warm and interpersonally appealing, while those high in benevolent sexism ranked the stay-at-home mother higher. Benevolent sexism predicted stereotype-driven evaluations and fostered a backlash against the working mother. Although the interaction of role and benevolent sexism with respect to parenting effectiveness was significant, both participants low and high in benevolent sexism evaluated the working mother as less parenting-effective (still, the effect was stronger among those high in benevolent sexism). It is likely that even those who do not endorse benevolent sexism hold a belief that women cannot work and be a good mother at the same time. Nevertheless, we managed to replicate the results known from previous research (e.g.,
Contrary to previous research (e.g.,
As sexism is related to the assumption that women are incompetent, we expected participants higher in sexism to evaluate the stay-at-home mother as less competent and successful at work. However, neither hostile nor benevolent sexism interacted with the woman’s role on competence and job effectiveness. Since perceived competence is a less critical dimension in female stereotypes (e.g.,
In these studies, participants read a scenario describing a career woman who became a mother. The contents in the stay-at-home mother scenario do not match the usual definition of a stay-at-home mother, who, above all, is a caregiver (e.g.,
The studies found that, in Poland, it is benevolent sexism that moderates attitudes toward the stay-at-home/working mother. However, these results must be interpreted with caution. Future research may define the role of benevolent and hostile sexism in shaping attitudes toward mothers in different cultural contexts while, at the same, time providing cumulative evidence for these effects (see
The results confirm that women are between a rock and a hard place. If they show a strong commitment to their professional career, they will inevitably be perceived as interpersonally inadequate. In turn, if they devote more time to childcare, it will cost them professional credibility. Our findings suggest that women cannot have it all: a professional career does not go hand in hand with motherhood. This is especially true among those high in benevolent sexism, as they present more positive attitudes toward mothers who take longer maternity leaves. By contrast, the results suggest that participants lower in benevolent sexism did not blame mothers (or blamed them less) for combining a career with motherhood. To conclude, we showed that benevolent sexism predicts a more positive perception of women in the traditional role and, therefore, maintains the traditional gender relations.
For both studies a dataset is freely available (see the
The following Supplementary Materials are available via the PsychArchives repository (for access see Index of
Pilot Study Dataset
Main Study Dataset
This research was supported by a grant from the National Science Centre (2011/03/N/HS6/02312).
The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
The authors have no support to report.