Gender Differences in Attitudes toward Homosexuality - the issue of same sex marriage.

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Gender Differences in Attitudes toward Homosexuality – the issue of same sex marriage

I.          Introduction

There are many studies examining the issue of homosexuality from many different disciplines like mental health, psychology, clinical perspective, sociologists, law, communication, history, religion, market research, or multidisciplinary approaches etc. In particular, research on negative attitudes toward homosexuals has rapidly increased in the past decades. Researchers have been seeking insight into factors that differentiate between individuals who have a generally positive attitude toward homosexuals and those who have a generally negative toward homosexuals. One of common interest is gender differences and their homophobic attitudes.

Homophobia is a personality trait with deleterious effects, also labeled as homosexphobia, heterosexism, homoerotophobia. It is generally refer to the personal and institutional prejudice and fear or negative attitudes toward lesbian and gay men (Herek, 1988). Although not proven empirically, people who hold negative attitudes toward homosexuals also tend to disagree same-sex marriage whereas people who hold positive attitudes toward homosexuals tend to support same sex marriage.

Canada has recently become the third country in the world that legalized same-sex marriage after Netherland and Belgium. However, there are still overwhelmingly negative attitudes toward homosexuals in the society. Thus, the present paper investigated the basis for differences among Canadians that explain their negative attitudes towards homosexual that also lead them to oppose same-sex marriage.

II.         Literature Review

One of the most important scholar that study gender differences towards homosexuality is Herek, Gregory. M. (1988, 1994,2002). First, he found out that male and female heterosexuals differ in their attitudes, women generally hold more favorable and less condemning attitudes toward gay people.  Second, aggregate attitudes tend to be more hostile toward gay men than lesbians. Affective reactions towards gay men were significantly more negative than reactions to lesbians. Third, whereas heterosexuals tend to express more negative attitudes toward homosexual people of their same sex, this pattern occurs mainly among men. Heterosexual men responded significantly more negatively towards gay men than to lesbians in questions about recognition of same-sex relationships and adoption rights.

Herek (1988) also summarized heterosexuals with negative attitudes are more likely to express traditional, restrictive attitudes about gender roles, more likely to manifest high levels of authoritarian personality characteristic and more likely to subscribe to a conservative religion ideology.

Johnson et al (1998) also reported gender was related to homophobia in his study with women being less homophobic than men and more willing to grant human tights to gay individuals. Age was also related to homophobia with older respondents being less homophobic than younger respondents. The study also shows that other personality traits such as empathy, religiosity and coping styles are related to negative attitudes towards homosexuals. Higher levels of empathy are less homophobia toward gay individuals regardless of perceived origins of their homosexuality. Religious beliefs and religion-consistent behaviors were related to higher level of homophobia. Relative to coping style, individuals who tend to use denial and to isolate or turn away from others were more homophobic.

Lim (2002) studied gender differences in attitudes toward homosexuals in a non-Western and Confucian ideology based society – Singapore also shows that gender differences in attitudes towards homosexuals exist. The results of this study suggest women are more tolerance towards homosexuality in general than men.          

In sum, one of the most consistent findings is that male manifest more homophobic hostility on average than do female. This includes being more supportive of employment protection, human rights, adoption rights and were more willing to extend some form of recognition to same-sex couples.

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 In light of the previous studies, the present study is interested to explain the gender differences in supporting the issue of same sex marriage. The main objective of this study is to understand and try to explain reasons of the recognition or opposition of same-sex marriage. It is hypothesized there is a gender differences in supporting same sex marriage. In other word, female or male are more likely to agree that ‘gay and lesbian should be allowed to get married’. The null hypothesis is that there is no relationship between gender (female or male) and their supporting (or opposition) to ...

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