Journal of Sex Research

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Ambivalent sexism and attitudes toward women

who engage in premarital sex in Turkey

Nuray Sakalh‐Uğurlu & Peter Glick

To cite this article: Nuray Sakalh‐Uğurlu & Peter Glick (2003) Ambivalent sexism and attitudes
toward women who engage in premarital sex in Turkey, Journal of Sex Research, 40:3, 296-302,
DOI: 10.1080/00224490309552194

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/00224490309552194

Published online: 11 Jan 2010.

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 Ambivalent Sexism and Attitudes Toward Women Who Engage in
Premarital Sex in Turkey

Nuray Sakalh-Uğurlu
Middle East Technical University
Peter Glick
Lawrence University

This study examined the relationship of ambivalent sexism, political conservatism, demographic variables (age, educa-
tion, and gender), and prior sexual experience to Turkish men's and women's attitudes toward women who engage in pre-
marital sex. Participants included 124 Turkish undergraduate students and 60 nonstudent Turkish adults. Benevolent but not
hostile sexism uniquely predicted more negative views of women who engage in premarital sex once other variables were
controlled. Regression analyses demonstrated that for both men and women, older, more politically conservative and less
sexually experienced respondents and more educated men (but not women) respondents were more likely to disapprove of
women who engage in premarital sex. Similarly, regression analysis revealed that men who were older, politically conserv-
ative, and less sexually experienced expressed stronger preferences for marrying a virgin. Both hostile and benevolent sex-
ism predicted men's preference for marrying a virgin after all other variables were controlled.

Premarital sex may be viewed as acceptable (or even be
encouraged) for men but can be stigmatizing for women.
Although such traditional attitudes are currently less pro-
nounced in Western nations (where attitudes about pre-
marital sex are generally permissive; Iwawaki & Eysenck,
1978), traditional gender attitudes remain strong in many
Asian and Middle Eastern societies, such as Turkey
(Koçtlirk, 1992; Parla, 2001), India (Kanekar &
Kolsawalla, 1983), Iran (Shapurian & Hojat, 1985),
Morocco (Mernissi, 1982), Indonesia and Taiwan (Buss,
1989, as cited in Widmer, Treas, & Newcomb, 1998), and
China (Higgins, Zheng, Liu, & Sun, 2002). The current
study explored attitudes toward women who engage in
premarital sex in Turkey, a relatively traditional society in
which women may still be significantly disrespected and
penalized for having sex before marriage.
In gender-traditional nations, the consequences of nega-
tive attitudes about women who have premarital sex are far
from trivial. Women who are known to have engaged in
premarital sex are not only disrespected (Kanekar &
Kolsawalla, 1983), but may face myriad forms of discrim-
ination, including serious social and family problems
(Bekker et al., 1996), involuntary virginity examinations
(Parla, 2001), surgical reconstruction of the hymen (Bekker
et al., 1996), and physical abuse for failing to "protect"
their virginity (Ayotte, 2000). Additionally, women who
have sex before marriage are viewed as less desirable mar-
riage partners (Yeni yiizyil, 1998, as cited in Sakalli,
This work has been supported by the Turkish Academy of Science's Young
Scientist Award Program (NS-TÜBA-GEBIP/2001-1-1).
Address correspondence to Nuray Sakalh-Uğurlu, Psychology Department
(Psikoloji Bölümü), Middle East Technical University (Orta Doğu Teknik
Üniversitesi), 06531, Ankara, Turkey; e-mail: nurays@metu.edu.tr.
Karakurt, & Ugurlu, 2001) and may be seen as having
stained their own honor and the honor of their families
(Koçtiirk, 1992; Parla, 2001; Sever & Yurdakul, 2001).
More specifically, in Turkey, premarital female virginity
is still considered an important indicator of a woman's puri-
ty and innocence (Koçtiirk, 1992; Parla, 2001), and
although sexuality before marriage is acceptable for men, it
is strongly discouraged for women (Kayir, 1995). Although
recent studies suggest increasing tolerance among Turkish
respondents for women having sex before marriage
(Erkmen, Dilbaz, Seber, Kaptanoglu, & Tekin, 1990;
Sakalh et al., 2001; Ulu & Ugurlu, 1999), gender-tradition-
al attitudes linger, especially in the form of benevolent sex-
ism (Glick & Fiske, 1996), a subtle (though traditional)
form of sexism that is strongly endorsed in Turkey (Glick
et al., 2000). Theoretically, there is reason to believe that
benevolent rather than hostile sexism may be of special
importance to understanding the disapproval of and dis-
crimination against women who engage in premarital sex.
Ambivalent sexism theory (Glick & Fiske, 1996, 2001)
posits that traditional attitudes toward women have a
benevolent as well as a hostile component, which work in
concert to reinforce men's power and women's subordina-
tion. Benevolent sexism (BS) is a set of beliefs that,
though subjectively favorable, reinforce the notion that
women are the "weaker sex" and therefore require men's
protection, affection, and provision. BS idealizes women
and suggests that they ought to be placed on a pedestal, but
only if they conform to the traditional roles men assign
them and do not challenge men's authority (Glick,
Diebold, Bailey-Werner, & Zhu, 1997). Thus, BS is a form
of paternalism (Jackman, 1994) that seeks to control
women by offering them a deal: conform to a traditional,
subordinate role in order to be provided for and protected.

The Journal of Sex Research Volume 40, Number 3, August 2003: pp. 296-302 296
Salalli-Ugurlu and Glick
Women who fail to comply but instead challenge men's
power—by questioning traditional beliefs (e.g., by
expressing feminist attitudes), seeking a prestigious or
powerful role (e.g., pursuing a high status job), or using
men's sexual attraction to them to gain influence over men
(e.g., by being a "temptress")—are subjected instead to
hostile sexism (HS). HS is a subjectively negative attitude
toward women that casts them as seeking to gain control
over men. Despite the opposing emotional valences of BS
and HS, cross-cultural work involving 19 diverse nations
(including North and South America, Europe, Africa, and
the Middle and Far East) has shown the two forms of sex-
ism to be positively correlated to each other and, across
nations, to national indices of gender inequality, suggest-
ing that they are complementary belief systems that legit-
imize gender hierarchy (Glick et al., 2000). BS acts as the
carrot (rewarding women for embracing a conventional
female, subordinate role), whereas HS is the stick (punish-
ing women who reject traditional roles).
Theoretically, BS and HS encompass attitudes in three
domains: paternalism, gender differentiation (gender roles
and stereotypes), and heterosexual relations. Thus, the the-
ory recognizes that sexuality plays an important role when
it comes to the maintenance of power relations between
the sexes. For instance, BS items emphasize the need for
women to be pure and more moral than men and to have a
committed relationship to a man. In contrast, some HS
items express fears that women may gain power over men
within romantic relationships and evince hostility toward
women who are perceived as using sexual attraction to
gain power over men. In short, both BS and HS are con-
cerned with the exercise of control over women's sexuali-
ty: BS does so by idealizing (and therefore rewarding)
women who remain "pure" while HS demonizes women
whose sexuality is uncontrolled and therefore dangerous.
A growing body of research supports these contentions.
HS has been found to be positively correlated with men's
expressed willingness to commit rape (Abrams, Viki,
Masser, & Bohner, 2003) and to beat their wives (Glick,
Sakalh-Ugurlu, Ferreira, & Aguira de Souza, 2002). More
intriguing are findings suggesting that BS's promise of
protectiveness toward women is contingent on women's
fidelity and sexual purity. Endorsement of BS is positive-
ly related to the tendency to blame the victim (and not the
perpetrator) of a date rape if she initiated the beginnings of
sexual contact (Abrams et al., 2003) or had been engaged
in an extramarital affair (Viki & Abrams, 2002). Similarly,
BS does not diminish men's approval of physical abuse for
wives who are deemed to have done something to deserve
this treatment, such as by engaging in an extramarital
affair (Glick et al., 2002).
Thus, ambivalent sexism theory and the recent results
that support it suggest that HS and BS may be related to
negative attitudes toward women who engage in premari-
tal sex. Such women are likely to be viewed by benevolent
sexists as violating prescriptions concerning women's
purity and by hostile sexists as potentially using their sex-
297
uality to exercise control over men. BS may be particular-
ly important in this regard because it assesses a concern
that women ought to be "pure." Thus, BS may be a more
powerful predictor of men's disapproval of women who
have premarital sex as well as their unwillingness to marry
a nonvirgin.
Although we are particularly interested in men's atti-
tudes, women who embrace sexist ideologies may likewise
exhibit negative attitudes toward women who engage in pre-
marital sex. In general, women (compared to men) are like-
ly to reject HS; however, because of its subjectively positive
tone and promise of chivalrous protection and provision,
women (especially in relatively gender-traditional nations)
often accept BS as much or more so than men (Glick et al.,
2000). To the extent that women accept BS and the idealized
image of women it promotes, they are likely also to express
disapproval of women who fail to live up to BS's high stan-
dards. For example, Abrams et al. (2003) found that BS pre-
dicted blaming the victim of an acquaintance rape just as
strongly for female perceivers as it did for men.
Jackman (1994) suggests that paternalistic ideals (such as
BS) become prescriptions that are enforced not only by
dominants, but by members of the subordinate group who
attempt to live up to those ideals, which become an integral
and positively valued aspect of subordinates' self-image.
Thus, although we expect women generally to be more egal-
itarian than men and, therefore, to express less disapproval
of women who have sex before marriage, we also expect
that BS will correlate with women's (as well as men's) dis-
approval of women who have premarital sex. In contrast,
women are unlikely to feel threatened by the hostile sexist
notion that women use sexuality to gain control over men
since this strategy is specifically directed at the other sex
and does not define a positive ideal that women are expect-
ed to live up to or that can enhance their self-esteem.
Therefore, it is less likely that women's HS scores will pre-
dict disapproval of women who engage in premarital sex.
In addition to ambivalent sexism and gender, Turkish
citizens' attitudes about women engaging in premarital sex
may be related to education, age, political orientation, and
an individual's own sexual behavior. Education and past
sexual experience are typically predictive of more permis-
sive sexual attitudes, whereas age is typically predictive of
less permissive sexual attitudes (Le Gall, Mullet, &
Shafighi, 2002; Sakalh et al., 2001). We included these
variables in the present study both to determine their indi-
vidual effects and to control for them to determine whether
sexism (HS and BS) adds unique variance to the prediction
of attitudes toward women's premarital sexual behavior.
METHOD
Participants
Participants included 124 Turkish undergraduates and 60
nonstudent Turkish adults. We recruited the student sample
on the campus of the Middle Eastern Technical University
(METTJ) in Ankara. Several student research assistants
298
also recruited nonstudent adults (e.g., relatives, cowork-
ers). Of the 184 participants, 92 were female and 92 were
male. The mean age for undergraduate students was 21.04
years (SD = 1.53, range = 18-25) and for nonstudents was
29.80 years (SD = 8.83, range = 19-58). Of the nonstudent
participants, 42 had graduated from 4-year colleges, 6 had
graduated from 2-year colleges, and 12 had only elemen-
tary or high school degrees. Most of the respondents
(57.3%) were from large metropolitan cities (Istanbul,
Ankara, and Izmir); 42.7% were from smaller cities in
Turkey. Most participants (82.70%) reported being middle
to upper class. Participation was voluntary.
Procedure
We asked participants to complete a survey on attitudes
about premarital sex. Participants indicated their gender,
age, and whether they had ever had sexual intercourse,
along with their political orientation on a one-item mea-
sure using a 7-point scale that varied from radical right to
radical left. Additionally, participants completed measures
of attitudes toward women who engage in premarital sex
(see below) and the Ambivalent Sexism Inventory (ASI;
Glick & Fiske, 1996).
Attitudes toward women who have premarital sex.
Participants' disapproval of women who engage in pre-
marital sex was assessed by the following items: "I get
angry at girls who have sexual relationships before mar-
riage"; "I think that a girl who has sexual relationships
before marriage is morally weak"; "Girls should keep their
virginity for the person they will marry"; "In my opinion,
it is normal for a girl to have sex before marriage" (reverse
item); "I don't want my sister to have sexual relations
before marriage"; "I don't think that a girl who has sexual
relations before marriage has 'honor'"; "A nonvirgin girl
is not a girl to marry"; "Girls should experience their first
sexual intercourse with their husbands"; "Girls should not
have any sexual relations before marriage"; and "I think
that girls should not have a sexual life before marriage."
Participants were asked to indicate their agreement or dis-
agreement with each item using a 1 (disagree strongly) to
6 (agree strongly) scale, so that higher scores indicated
greater disapproval of women who have premarital sex. A
principal components factor analysis with varimax rota-
tion yielded one factor with an eigenvalue greater than 1
(7.81), which accounted for 78.09% of the variance and
yielded high factor loadings (from .82 to .95) for all items.
Therefore, we averaged all scale items to form a highly
reliable measure of disapproval for premarital sex among
women (Cronbach's a = .97).
Men's willingness to marry a nonvirgin. Men's willing-
ness to marry a nonvirgin woman was measured by the fol-
lowing items: "I prefer to marry a virgin girl"; "I want to
get married to a girl who has had no prior sexual relation-
ships"; "I might date a nonvirgin, but I wouldn't marry
one"; "Because the girl whom I will marry will be the
mother of my children, she should be a virgin"; and "It is
harder for me to break up with a girl who had her first sex-
Ambivalent Sexism and Attitudes Toward Premarital Sex
ual intercourse with me than a girl who had had sex before
with others." Only male participants were asked to indi-
cate their agreement or disagreement on a 1 (strongly dis-
agree) to 6 (strongly agree) scale with higher scores indi-
cating the preference to marry a virgin. A principal com-
ponents factor analysis with varimax rotation yielded only
one factor with an eigenvalue greater than 1.0 (3.60). This
factor accounted for 72.01% of the variance and individual
items loaded highly (.73 to .92) on it. Therefore, we aver-
aged the items to form a highly reliable scale (Cronbach's
a = .90) in which higher scores indicated less willingness
to marry a woman who has had premarital sex.
Ambivalent Sexism Inventory (ASI). The ASI (Glick &
Fiske, 1996) has previously been validated in 19 nations,
including Turkey (Glick et al., 2000). More recently, a
study involving 1,023 Turkish participants (Sakalli-
Ugurlu, 2001) confirmed that the Turkish version of ASI
has high reliability and good validity. The ASI consists of
two scales, HS and BS. HS items measure sexist hostility
(e.g., "Women seek to gain power by getting control over
men"; "Feminists are making entirely unreasonable
demands of men"), whereas BS items assess a subjective-
ly positive but patronizing attitude toward women (e.g.,
"A good woman should be set on a pedestal"; "Women
have a more refined sense of culture, and taste"; "Men are
incomplete without women.") Participants rated each item
on a 1 (strongly disagree) to 6 (strongly agree) scale, so
that higher scores indicated sexist attitudes. Consistent
with past research in Turkey, the HS (Cronbach's a = .86)
and BS (Cronbach's a = .77) scales were reliable.
RESULTS
Descriptive Statistics for Attitudinal and Behavioral
Measures
Participants' political views (indicated on a 7-point scale)
were generally liberal (61.4% scored from 1 to 3) or cen-
trist (25.5% scored at the midpoint of the scale) rather than
conservative (12.1% scored from 5 to 7); this result is not
surprising because METU is considered to be a politically
liberal university. There were no sex differences in partic-
ipants' political attitudes, /(181) = -.42, ns. Male respon-
dents (76.09%) were significantly more likely than female
respondents (47.74%) to report having had sexual inter-
course x2 (1) = 17.65, p < .001. A 2 (Participant Sex) X 2
(ASI Scale: HS, BS) repeated measures analysis of vari-
ance revealed a significant interaction for ASI scale scores,
F(l, 177) = 54.07, p < .001. Specifically, men (M = 3.88)
scored higher on HS than women (M = 3.20), f(178) =
5.00, p < .001; in contrast, women (M = 3.76) scored high-
er on BS than men (M= 3.29), t(lSl) = -3.59,p <.001. The
finding that women relative to men reject HS but endorse
BS more strongly is consistent with past results in gender-
traditional countries (Glick et al., 2000). As expected, men
(M = 2.80) expressed more disapproving attitudes toward
women who have premarital sex than did women (M =
2.07), t (182) = 3.35, p < .01. For the scale that assessed
Salalh-Ugurlu and Glick 299

men's willingness to marry a nonvirgin, the average score
was 3.10 (close the midpoint of the scale).
Predicting Attitudes Toward Women Who Engage in
Premarital Sex
The predictor variables (demographics, political views,
sexual experience, ASI scale) were for the most part not
significantly correlated with each other, with some impor-
tant exceptions. As in past research (Glick et al., 2000), HS
and BS were positively correlated (r = .32, p < .001 for
men; r = .35, p < .001 for women). For women, whether
the respondent had had sexual intercourse was positively
correlated with age (r = .40, p < .01) and economic status
(r = .22, p < .05) and negatively correlated with political
conservatism (r = -.22, p < .05). In contrast, for men, sex-
ual experience was significantly correlated only to age
(r = .23, p < .05). Political conservatism was significantly
related to HS among men (r = .33, p < .01) and to BS
among women (r = .43, p < .01)
Did BS and HS predict more negative attitudes toward
women who engage in premarital sex? Zero-order correla-
tions for the relationship of B S to negative attitudes toward
women who have premarital sex were significant for both
women (r = .38, p < .01) and men (r = .29, p < .01), where-
as HS predicted negative attitudes among men significant-
ly (r = .31, p < .01) but only marginally significantly
among women (r = .18, p < .10). Partial correlations, for
which the positive relationship of the BS and HS scales
was controlled, revealed similar results: for men, BS (par-
tial r = .21, p< .05) and HS (partial r = .22, p < .05) were
still significantly correlated with negative attitudes toward
women who have premarital sex; for women, BS (partial
r = .38, p < .01) but not HS (partial r = .05, ns) was sig-
nificantly correlated with negative attitudes toward
women who have premarital sex.
Multiple regression provided a more rigorous test of the
relative contributions of HS and BS to attitudes toward
women who have premarital sex, controlling not only for
the relationship of HS and BS to each other but also for the
potential confounding factors measured in this study
(demographics, political views, sexual experience). We
performed hierarchical regression analyses (with attitudes
toward women who have premarital sex as the dependent
variable) in which all predictor variables other than HS
and BS (age, education, economic status, previous sexual
experience, and general political views) were entered on
the first step. HS and BS were then entered on the second
step to see whether, once all other variables were con-
trolled, they made unique contributions to predicting atti-
tudes toward women who have premarital sex. We per-
formed the regression analyses separately for male and
female respondents, and the results are reported in Tables
1 and 2, respectively.
Results for the first block revealed that older, more
politically conservative, and less sexually experienced
respondents (for male and female respondents) and more
educated male (but not female) respondents were more
likely to disapprove of women who engage in premarital
sex. All of these effects remained significant in the second
block when HS and BS were added to the equation, with
the exception of women's political conservatism, which
was reduced to marginal significance.
Did HS or BS account for unique variance once all other
variables were controlled? For both men and women, HS did
not uniquely predict attitudes toward women who have pre-
marital sex, but BS did add unique variance to the prediction
of more negative attitudes toward this behavior, with a sig-
nificant effect for men and a marginally significant effect for
women. Subsequent analyses showed that it was controlling
for general political attitudes that, for male respondents,
reduced the correlation of HS and attitudes toward women
who have premarital sex to nonsignificance (a similar regres-
sion analysis that excluded political attitudes yielded a b of
.24, p < .05, for HS in block 2) and, for female respondents,
reduced the correlation of BS and attitudes toward women
who have premarital sex to marginal significance (a similar
regression analysis that excluded political attitudes yielded a
b of .26, p < .01, for BS in block 2).

Table 1. Hierarchical Regressions: Prediction of Men's Attitudes Toward Women Who Have Premarital Sex
Predictors B beta Zero-order r Partial r t Block statistics
Block 1
Age .08 .29 .24 .35 3.35** 7? = .68
Education -.26 -.18 -.17 -.24 -2.27* R2 = .47
Economic status -.15 -.12 -.28 -.15 -1.36 Adjusted R2 =.44
Political views .61 .53 .55 .58 6.47** F(5, 81) = 14.32**
Sexual experience -.79 -.21 -.21 -.27 -2.52*
Block 2
Age .09 .31 .24 .38 3.68**
Education -.24 -.17 -.17 -.23 -2.11* R = .12
Economic status -.13 -.10 -.28 -.13 -1.19 R2 = .52
Political views .54 .47 .55 .53 5.56** Adjusted R2 =.47
Sexual experience -.82 -.22 -.21 -.29 -2.67* F(2, 79) = 3.69*
Hostile sexism .16 .10 .29 .13 1.12 change in R2 = .05
Benevolent sexism .30 .17 .30 .22 2.02*
*p < .05. **p < .01.
300 Ambivalent Sexism and Attitudes Toward Premarital Sex

Table 2. Hierarchical Regressions: Prediction of Women's Attitudes Toward Women Who Have Premarital Sex
Predictors B beta Zero-order r Partial r t Block statistics
Block 1
Age .01 .40 .32 .40 3 91***
Education -.16 -.10 -.26 -.12 -1.14 R2 = .38
Economic status -.09 -.12 -.13 -.08 -0.74 Adjusted R2 = .34
Political views .36 .28 .41 .31 294*** F(5, 82) = 9.97***
Sexual experience -.96 -.29 -.28 -.35 -3.35***
Block 2
Age .08 .41 .32 .41 4.06***
Education -.14 -.14 -.26 -.11 -0.99 R = .65
Economic status -.06 -.05 -.13 -.06 -0.49 R2 = .42
Political views .23 .18 .41 .19 1.77* Adjusted R2 = .37
Sexual experience -.95 -.35 -.28 -.35 -3.38*** F(2, 80) = 3.13**
Hostile sexism .16 .10 .20 .11 1.03 change in R2 = .045
Benevolent sexism .29 .19 .39 .20 1.83*
*p < .10. **p < .05. ***p < .01.

Men's Willingness to Marry a Nonvirgin
Did BS and HS predict men being less willing to marry
women who engage in premarital sex? Zero-order corre-
lations for the relationship of HS (r = .35, p < .001) and
BS (r = .36, p < .001) to unwillingness to marry women
who have premarital sex were both highly significant.
Partial correlations, for which the positive relationship of
the BS and HS scales was controlled, revealed similar
results: for HS, partial r = .25 (p < .05), and for BS, par-
tial r = .28 (p < .01).
We computed a hierarchical multiple regression analy-
sis similar to those reported above with men's unwilling-
ness to marry a woman who engaged in premarital sex as
the dependent variable. All predictor variables other than
HS and BS (age, education, economic status, previous sex-
ual experience, and general political views) were entered
on the first step, with HS and BS entered on the second
step. The regression results are reported in Table 3. Results
for the first block revealed that older, more politically con-
servative, and less sexually experienced men reported less
willingness to marry a nonvirgin woman. All of these
effects remained significant in the second block when HS
and BS were added to the equation.
Both HS and BS accounted for unique variance once all
other variables were controlled. Entering these variables
on the second step significantly increased R2, and scores
on both HS and BS significantly predicted less willingness
to marry a nonvirgin.
DISCUSSION
Benevolently sexist attitudes, which endorse a traditional
female ideal of women as fragile but purer and more moral
than men, consistently predicted (among both male and
female Turkish respondents) more negative attitudes
toward women who have premarital sex. Even when other
predictors (HS, demographics, political views, sexual
experience) were controlled, BS made a unique contribu-
tion to attitudes toward women who have sex before mar-
riage (although the inclusion of political views did reduce
this contribution to marginal significance among female
respondents). In contrast, although HS showed a first-
order correlation with negative attitudes toward women

Table 3. Hierarchical Regressions: Prediction of Men's Preference To Marry a Virgin

Predictors B beta Zero-order r Partial r t Block statistics
Block 1
Age .08 .29 .25 .33 3.04** 7? = .60
Education -.18 -.13 -.13 -.16 -1.43 R2 = .36
Economic status -.14 -.11 -.26 -.13 -1.17 Adjusted R2 = .32
Political views .49 .43 .44 .46 4.63** F(5, 78) = 8.68**
Sexual experience -.90 -.24 -.22 -.27 -2.48*
Block 2
Age .09 .32 .25 .39 3.65**
Education -.14 -.12 -.12 -.14 -1.18 #=.68
Economic status -.11 -.09 -.26 -.11 -0.96 R2 = .47
Political views .38 .33 .44 .40 3.68** Adjusted R2 = .42
Sexual experience -.98 -.19 -.35 -.23 -2.92** F(l, 79) = 7.95**
Hostile sexism .32 .15 .35 .23 2.07* change in /f2 = .11
Benevolent sexism .42 .16 .36 .29 2.61*
*P<.os. **p<m.
Salalli-Ugurlu and Glick
who have premarital sex (significantly for male respon-
dents and marginally significantly for female respon-
dents), it did not hold up as a predictor once other variables
were controlled.
These results add to a growing body of evidence that BS,
a subjectively favorable view of women, nevertheless can
have negative consequences for women if they fail to live
up to the high standards it sets for them. The present results
dovetail well with findings that BS predicts victim blame
for acquaintance rape scenarios in which the female victim
invited the man to her apartment and initiated kissing
(Abrams et al., 2003) or was engaged in an extramarital
affair (Viki & Abrams, 2002). In both the present study and
in the research by Abrams et al., women were penalized by
benevolent sexists for violating norms of sexual purity.
BS also accounted for unique variance in men's stated
unwillingness to marry a nonvirgin woman. This is not
surprising given that BS items particularly idealize women
as romantic partners in committed relationships, and it is
such partners who are likely to be held up to benevolent
sexists' standards of appropriate female conduct.
Unwillingness to marry a nonvirgin woman was also sig-
nificantly predicted by men's HS scores, even once all
other variables were controlled. Because HS items charac-
terize women as using sexual relationships to gain control
over men, the idea of marrying a sexually experienced
woman who presumably might be more adept at using sex
to gain power in the relationship may be threatening to
men who are high in HS. Alternatively, high HS men may
think that women who are sexually experienced before
marriage are more likely to challenge traditional roles,
rather than to be compliant with a husband.
Other variables also predicted men's and women's atti-
tudes toward women who have premarital sex and men's
willingness to marry a nonvirgin. In general, women had
less negative attitudes than men did toward women who
engage in premarital sex, a finding that is consistent with
women's generally greater egalitarianism (e.g., Sidanius &
Pratto, 1999). Older, more politically conservative and
sexually inexperienced male and female respondents had
more negative attitudes about women who have premarital
sex. Similarly, these variables also predicted less willing-
ness on the part of men to marry a nonvirgin. The findings
concerning age and political orientation are also consistent
with past research (Le Gall et al., 2002; Sakalli et al.,
2001). Men and women who are not sexually experienced
may be more disapproving of women who have premarital
sex because they have less permissive attitudes about
(their own and others') sexual behavior (cf. Simpson &
Gangestad, 1991). Note that the effect for sexual experi-
ence remained significant even when political conser-
vatism was controlled for, suggesting that the effect of sex-
ual experience is not due to general political attitudes but
to attitudes that are more specific to sexual behavior.
There are some limitations of the present study. The
participants were mainly METU undergraduate students
and from large cities in Turkey. The homogeneity of the
301
sample in terms of education and political views might not
represent people from smaller cities or towns with less
education. More specifically, METU students are noted for
being relatively more liberal and secular than the Turkish
population as a whole (and, indeed, the self-report of polit-
ical attitudes within the sample suggests that the people
surveyed were mostly quite liberal). Thus, some of the
more extreme negative attitudes that can be directed at
women who have premarital sex in Turkey may not have
been evident in the current study (in fact, attitudes toward
women who have premarital sex were neutral overall).
However, despite the restricted population that may have
truncated the range of responses on some of the variables
measured here, significant correlations emerged that iden-
tify sources of relatively more negative attitudes toward
women who have premarital sex. Logically, with a more
varied sample, the correlations would only be likely to
increase (given that truncated ranges reduce correlations).
Past conceptions of sexism have viewed it as a hostility
toward women that, among other things, seeks to restrict
their sexuality. Sexism, however, has another component,
a subjectively favorable set of apparently benevolent atti-
tudes toward women that, in this study, exhibited stronger
and more consistent relationships to negative evaluations
of women who have premarital sex than did hostile sexist
attitudes. Benevolently sexist beliefs may be more insidi-
ously effective at controlling women's sexual behavior
than hostile sexism because BS is often viewed (by women
and men alike) as benign. Women may therefore embrace
the restrictive, idealized norms that BS directs toward
members of their sex. The protection BS promises to
women, however, disappears and is replaced by antipathy
when women fail to live up to benevolently sexist ideals.
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