Development of the Short form of the Feminist Perspectives Scale

Abstract

Development and testing of a 36‐item version of the Feminist Perspectives Scale are reported. Study 1 (N= 209) found high internal consistency for Femscore (α= .85). Alpha was greater than .70 for several subscales, although some showed reliability sufficient only for testing large groups. Test‐retest correlations for all but one subscale were between .77 and .87. Validity was demonstrated by correlations between short and long forms (Femscore r= .87), among subscales, and with demographic/attitudinal variables. In Study 2 (N= 95), relationships to the Attitudes toward Women Scale (AWS) and Bern Sex Role Inventory (BSRI) were examined. The AWS was correlated negatively with the Conservative subscale and positively with the Liberal Feminist and Fembehave subscales. BSRI femininity was also positively correlated with the latter two subscales.

When Declaring “I am a Feminist” Matters: Labeling is Linked to Activism

“…Henley et al (1998) developed the 78-item Feminist Perspective Scale by including 10 attitudinal and three behavioral items for each of six perspectives derived from feminist theories describing conservative, liberal, radical, socialist, cultural, and womanist feminism. Given the length of our survey, we followed the lead of Henley et al (2000) and reduced the attitudinal scale to 12 items that covered the full breadth of the scale. We selected the two top loading items for each of the six perspectives and averaged responses across all items such that higher scores represented stronger endorsement of feminist beliefs.…”

Identity in Action: Predictors of Feminist Self-Identification and Collective Action

“…Radical beliefs were assessed using the radical subscale of the short form of the Feminist Perspectives Scale (Henley et al 2000). This is a five-item scale in which participants are asked the extent to which they agree with a statement on a scale ranging from 1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree (e.g., "The workplace is organized around men's physical, economic, and sexual repression of women.").…”

“…The conservative subscale of the short form of the Feminist Perspectives Scale was used to assess conservative beliefs about gender (Henley et al 2000). This is a five-item scale in which participants are asked the extent to which they agree with a statement on a scale ranging from 1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree (e.g., "A man's first responsibility is to obtain economic success, while his wife should care for the family's needs.").…”

Minding the Gap Between Feminist Identity and Attitudes: The Behavioral and Ideological Divide Between Feminists and Non‐Labelers

“…A second commonly employed measure, the Feminist Perspectives Scale (FPS; Henley, Meng, O'Brien, McCarthy, & Sockloskie, 1998;Henley, Spalding, & Kosta, 2000), was designed to acknowledge that feminism is not monolithic, and that scholars might be able to test more hypotheses regarding feminism if we could differentiate among feminist perspectives. The measure's subscales assess diverse sets of feminist opinions and approaches: liberal feminism, marked by belief in the fundamental equality of females and males and that such equality should be protected by law and government; radical feminist positions such as sexism is the fundamental human oppression, and that men (rather than social forces such as capitalism) are the oppressors of women; socialist feminist thinking, which proposes that sexism, classism, and racism are fundamentally intertwined; cultural feminism, which suggests the world would be improved if it operated more on ''feminine values'' such as peace and gentleness rather than ''masculine values'' such as war and aggression; and womanist, which addresses racism within traditional feminist movements by focusing on poverty, ethnocentrism, and racism as equally important as and intertwined with sexism.…”