'Women with sexist attitudes likely to prefer men with similar traits

A new study has suggested that sexist women with a preference for casual sex are more likely to respond to men's aggressive strategies.

Men with a preference for "one-night stands" and negative sexist attitudes towards women are more likely to use aggressive courtship strategies. They compete with other men who are also interested in the woman, tease the woman, and isolate her away from her friends.

In response, women with a preference for "no strings attached" sex and negative attitudes towards other women are more likely to respond to men's aggressive strategies.

Jeffrey Hall and Melanie Canterberry, from the University of Kansas in the US, set out to understand the characteristics of men who use aggressive court-ship strategies, based on speed seduction techniques described in the US bestseller 'The Game' by Neil Strauss and the popular cable TV program 'The Pickup Artist'.

They also studied the characteristics of women who find such strategies appealing.

The researchers conducted two surveys. The first pilot study surveyed a sample of 363 college students from a large Midwestern university in the US. The second, larger national study recruited 850 adult volunteers via the Internet.

The results showed that men who were keen on "one-night stands" were more likely to use aggressive strategies when flirting with women, and women who were also open to casual sex were more likely to respond to this type of aggressive courtship.

In addition, men with negative, sexist attitudes towards women, justifying male privilege, were more likely to use assertive strategies, which may serve to "put women in their place" in a submissive or yielding role during courtship.

Women with sexist attitudes towards members of their own gender were more likely to be responsive to men's assertive strategies. This suggested that they find men who treat them in a dominant way during courtship more desirable, because it is consistent with their sexist ideology.

"Our results suggest that assertive courtship strategies are a form of mutual identification of similarly sexist attitudes shared between courtship partners," the researchers said.

"Women who adopt sexist attitudes are more likely to prefer men who adopt similar attitudes.

"Not only do sexist men and women prefer partners who are like them, they prefer courtship strategies where men are the aggressors and women are the gatekeepers," they stated.

The study has been published online in Springer's journal Sex Roles.