Everyday Sexism: Evidence for Its Incidence, Nature, and Psychological Impact From Three Daily Diary Studies - Statistical Data Included

Journal of Social Issues, Spring, 2001 by Janet K. Swim, Lauri L. Hyers, Laurie L. Cohen, Melissa J. Ferguson

Janet K. Swim [*]

Three daily diary studies were conducted to examine the incidence, nature, and impact of everyday sexism as reported by college women and men. Women experienced about one to two impactful sexist incidents per week, consisting of traditional gender role stereotypes and prejudice, demeaning and degrading comments and behaviors, and sexual objectification. These incidents affected women's psychological well-being by decreasing their comfort, increasing their feelings of anger and depression, and decreasing their state self-esteem. Although the experiences had similar effects on men's anger, depression, and state self-esteem, men reported relatively fewer sexist incidents, suggesting less overall impact on men. The results provide evidence for the phenomena of everyday prejudice and enlighten our understanding of the experience of prejudice in interpersonal encounters from the perspective of the target. Where, after all, do human rights begin? In small places, close to home--so small that they cannot be seen on any map of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person: the neighborhood... the school or college... the factory, farm or office. Such are the places where every man, woman, and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere.

--Eleanor Roosevelt

Everyday incidents make up the basic substance of people's lives, and for members of traditionally oppressed or stigmatized groups, everyday experiences with prejudice likely represent a substantial subset of these experiences. Everyday experiences with prejudice can emerge in one's home from one's family or on the street from strangers. These types of experiences have been referred to as everyday prejudice or interpersonal discrimination and represent the expression of prejudice and the display of discriminatory behavior embedded in people's daily lives (Essed, 1991; Lott, 1995; Swim, Cohen, & Hyers, 1998). These incidents have the potential, like any type of daily hassle, to have a significant impact on people's psychological well-being. Understanding these incidents can help provide concrete information about the way that stigmatized individuals' lives differ from those of non-stigmatized individuals and increase awareness of the issues that must be addressed in order to obtain social justice. In the research presented here, we focus on everyday sexism by examining the incidence and nature of women's and men's experiences with everyday sexism on a college campus and the impact of these incidents on their psychological well-being.

Much of the existing research on people's experiences with sexism is in the form of retrospective accounts in which participants were asked to characterize what they typically experience, sometimes for more than a year's worth of experiences. For instance, investigations of women's experiences with sexual harassment (Fitzgerald et al., 1988) and rape (Koss & Oros, 1982) use retrospective reporting methods. These studies have been effective in assessing people's recall of relatively blatant incidents of sexism. However, they often neglect more mundane or "everyday" types of experiences and thus may provide an incomplete picture of the extent and variety of daily experiences with sexism. Even when everyday sexism has been examined, retrospective survey methods have been used (e.g., Klonoff & Landrine, 1995; Fitzgerald & Ormerod, 1993).

Retrospective surveys and interviews may not accurately reflect the extent and nature of experiences people have with prejudice for several reasons. First, uncertainty about labeling subtle and ambiguous incidents as prejudicial may decrease the likelihood that such incidents are encoded and recalled as prejudicial. Second, isolated incidents may be minimized over time or seen as insignificant and therefore forgotten, even though continual experiences with minor or isolated incidents may ultimately have a cumulative detrimental effect. Third, the similarity and commonness of incidents that constitute everyday prejudice may make it difficult to assess the frequency with which they occur through expansive retrospection. For instance, a woman may perceive that people are more likely to attend to male partners in conversations than to female partners but, if she experiences this often, she may not keep track of individual incidents and may even come to perceive it as typical or usual, rather than discrimination. Finally, retrospective reports are subject to distortion (Reis & Wheeler, 1991) as moods dissipate and contexts change, leaving only salient incidents to take on a more central role in recall. In contrast, daily diary studies minimize many of these problems, providing a more accurate and complete report of incidents and responses to them without the distorting processing that may result in errors (e.g., Crosby, Clayton, Alskins, & Hemker, 1986).

Purpose of Present Research