Is Men's Heterosexuality Perceived as More Precarious than Women's? An Intersectional, Race-by-Gender Analysis

Abstract

In the United States, people perceive men’s masculinity to be more precarious, or easier to lose, than women’s femininity. In the present manuscript, we investigated (1) whether men’s heterosexuality is likewise perceived to be more precarious than women’s, and if so, (2) whether this effect is exaggerated when the targets in question are Black rather than White. To investigate these questions, we conducted a large-scale (N = 3,010), nationally representative experiment in which participants read about a target person who either did or did not engage in a single same-sex sexual behavior. Results revealed that participants questioned the heterosexuality of men more than the heterosexuality of women when they engaged (vs. did not engage) in a same-sex sexual behavior. Surprisingly, these effects were not moderated by whether targets were Black vs. White. In other words, men’s heterosexuality was indeed perceived to be more precarious than women’s, irrespective of targets’ race.

Through the looking glass: A lens-based account of intersectional stereotyping.

“…For example, just as there is evidence that perceivers’ racial bias depends on whether Black men are described as gay versus heterosexual (Petsko & Bodenhausen, 2019b), so too is there evidence that sometimes, racial bias does not depend on whether Black men are described as gay versus heterosexual (Petsko & Bodenhausen, 2019a, Experiment 1). Likewise, just as there is evidence that sexual stereotyping depends on targets’ race and gender (e.g., Johnson & Ghavami, 2011), so too is there evidence that sometimes, sexual stereotyping depends only on targets’ gender—irrespective of whether targets are Black versus White (Petsko et al, 2021). Contradictions such as these raise an important question.…”

Challenges and recent advances in bio-based isocyanate production

“…Moreover, not surprisingly, huge amounts of plastic waste are dumped in landfills, ending up in the seas and oceans, posing a serious global crisis. 9,10 Therefore, researchers have been working to obtain greener and cleaner products. As European standard EN16575 defines, plastics derived fully or partially from biomass ( e.g.…”