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Risking Difference revisions the dynamics of multicultural feminist community by exploring the ways that identification creates misrecognitions and misunderstandings between individuals and within communities. Drawing on Lacanian psychoanalysis, Jean Wyatt argues not only that individual psychic processes of identification influence social dynamics, but also that social discourses of race, class, and culture shape individual identifications. In addition to examining fictional narratives by Margaret Atwood, Angela Carter, Sandra Cisneros, Toni Morrison, and others, Wyatt also looks at nonfictional accounts of cross-race relations by white feminists and feminists of color.

The language of psychology is all-pervasive in American culture--from The Sopranos to Oprah, from the abundance of self-help books to the private consulting room, and from the support group to the magazine advice column. Saving the Modern Soul examines the profound impact of therapeutic discourse on our lives and on our contemporary notions of identity. Eva Illouz plumbs today's particular cultural moment to understand how and why psychology has secured its place at the core of modern identity. She examines a wide range of sources to show how self-help culture has transformed contemporary emotional life and how therapy complicates individuals' lives even as it claims to dissect their emotional experiences and heal trauma.

In this article, we engage with the commentaries of our Feminist Forum article (McCormack and Anderson 2014 ) by Parent et al. (2014) , Plummer ( 2014 ), Worthen ( 2014 ) and Negy ( 2014 ) to enhance understanding of the concept homohysteria and to explore its application to a range of demographic groups. Developing a stage model of homohysteria that accounts for both increases and decreases in levels of homophobia in U.S. cultures, we focus on three key issues that were highlighted by the commentaries. First, we discuss the definitional clarity of homohysteria. Next, we argue that while it is important to recognize the diversity of sexualities in the U.S. and historically, it is primarily heterosexuals’ perceptions of homosexuality that are most important. Finally, we call for the incorporation of an intersectional and international approach that extends the concept beyond heterosexual men in the U.S.

This article describes the construction of the Conformity to Feminine Norms Inventory (CFNI), which was designed to assess women's conformity to an array of feminine norms found in the dominant culture in the United States. In addition, we present four studies in which the psychometric properties of the CFNI were examined. In Study 1, factor analysis indicated that the CFNI is comprised of eight distinct factors labeled as Nice in Relationships, Thinness, Modesty, Domestic, Care for Children, Romantic Relationship, Sexual Fidelity, and Invest in Appearance. Results from Study 2 indicated that the CFNI has strong internal consistency estimates and differentiates college women from college men. In addition, Study 2 demonstrated that the CFNI Total score and subscale scores relate to Bem Sex Role Inventory and Feminist Identity Development Scale scores in theoretically consistent patterns. Study 3 indicated that the CFNI Total score and several of the subscales significantly and positively relate to scores on the Eating Disorder Inventory. Finally, Study 4 demonstrated that the CFNI Total score and subscale scores have high test-retest estimates for a 2-3 week period. The discussion focuses on potential uses of the CFNI, limitations to the study, and suggestions for future research. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]

The status of women in the United States varied considerably during the 20th century, with increases 1900–1945, decreases 1946–1967, and considerable increases after 1968. We examined whether changes in written language, especially the ratio of male to female pronouns, reflected these trends in status in the full text of nearly 1.2 million U.S. books 1900–2008 from the Google Books database. Male pronouns included he, him, his, himself and female pronouns included she, her, hers, and herself. Between 1900 and 1945, 3.5 male pronouns appeared for every female pronoun, increasing to 4.5 male pronouns during the postwar era of the 1950s and early 1960s. After 1968, the ratio dropped precipitously, reaching 2 male pronouns per female pronoun by the 2000s. From 1968 to 2008, the use of male pronouns decreased as female pronouns increased. The gender pronoun ratio was significantly correlated with indicators of U.S. women’s status such as educational attainment, labor force participation, and age at first marriage as well as women’s assertiveness, a personality trait linked to status. Books used relatively more female pronouns when women’s status was high and fewer when it was low. The results suggest that cultural products such as books mirror U.S. women’s status and changing trends in gender equality over the generations.

The purpose of this study was to extend Fredrickson and Robert’s ( 1997 ) Objectification Theory by examining coping with sexually oppressive experiences via internalization/self-blame as another important way, in addition to self-objectification and internalization of cultural standards of beauty, to possibly explain how sexual objectification experiences (SOEs) influence psychological distress. An additional purpose of this study was to examine the potential moderating or buffering role of resilience in the links between SOEs and psychological distress and between SOEs and coping with these experiences via internalization, self-objectification, and internalization of cultural standards of beauty. Our sample included 270 young adult heterosexual undergraduate women from the Southeast region of the United States who completed an online survey. Results revealed that both coping with sexist oppression via internalization and self-objectification uniquely mediated the SOEs-psychological distress link but internalization of cultural standards of beauty did not. Results from the moderation analyses indicated that the direct effect of SOEs and coping with via internalization and the conditional indirect effects of SOEs on psychological distress were contingent on resilience such that these relationships were only significant among women with low resilience or at the mean of resilience, suggesting that high resilience plays a buffering role whereas low resilience plays an exacerbating role.

The focus of this Feminist Forum commentary is to both complement and extend McCormack and Anderson’s ( 2014 , this issue) thesis by drawing relationships between homophobia, homohysteria, masculinity, and the gendered experiences of heterosexual women in the United States. I argue that the emerging culture of decreasing homonegativity in the United States and the simultaneous reimagining of masculinity and men’s gendered behaviors contribute to more diverse gendered experiences of heterosexual women. To support my argument, I provide direct counterpoints to three of the six characteristics of heterosexual men McCormack and Anderson ( 2014 ) draw upon as evidence of their argument and apply them to the gendered experiences of heterosexual women. These are: (1) social inclusion of lesbian and bisexual women peers, (2) the embrace of once- masculinized artifacts, (3) sexualization and the “party-time rule” of homosexuality, and one additional characteristic (4) increased assertiveness of heterosexual women. Furthermore, I highlight contradictory evidence and missing pieces to the puzzle, including a theoretical exploration of how changing levels homophobia affect LGBT people’s gendered experiences. Overall, through examining the relationships between changing levels of homophobia and heterosexual women’s and LGBT people’s gendered experiences, the current exploration provides a much needed theoretical extension and application of McCormack and Anderson’s ( 2014 ) research.

Female athletes in the United States face the paradoxical challenge of acquiring a degree of muscularity to be successful in their sport, yet they also endure pressure from societal expectations of femininity that often don’t conform with the notion of muscularity. To address research questions about how female student-athletes balance muscularity and femininity, we conducted a mixed-methods study to examine muscularity beliefs among female student-athletes, female college students, and male college student-athletes. We quantitatively examined Drive for Muscularity Scale (DMS) scores from 221 participants attending college in the Midwestern US. Results indicated that female student-athletes reported significantly higher DMS scores than female students, but male student-athletes reported the highest DMS scores in the sample. Qualitative results indicated that female student-athletes wanted to be muscular for these reasons: functionality (45%), health (42%), external gratification (21%), and internal gratification (18%). Only 16% of female student-athletes did not want to be muscular, whereas every male student-athlete reported a desire to be muscular. The results of this study can be used to better understand the unique drive for muscularity among athletes, particularly female college student-athletes who live the paradox of negotiating societal standards of femininity with this desire to be muscular. This enhanced understanding can help create more nuanced interventions for coaches, administrators, and mental health professionals to use to help female student-athletes create space to resist constraining societal gender ideologies. Doing so can help these student-athletes actualize their athletic potential on the field as well as their interpersonal and intrapersonal potential off the field.

This study examined the relation between mindfulness, sexist motivations and beliefs, and prejudice toward women who violate traditional gender roles—namely feminists. In a preliminary study, 672 (251 men, 421 women) undergraduates from a United States Midwestern university completed a measure of mindfulness and warmth toward feminists and consistent with hypotheses, more mindfulness was associated with more warmth toward feminists. Extending this initial finding to the main study, 653 (273 men, 380 women) undergraduates from a U.S. Midwestern university completed measures of mindfulness, motivation to respond without sexism, ambivalent sexism, and warmth toward feminists. Consistent with hypotheses, compared to women participants, men participants were lower on internal motivation to respond without sexism, higher on hostile and benevolent sexism and less warm toward feminists. Also consistent with hypotheses, for men participants, more mindfulness was associated with higher internal motivation to respond without sexism, less benevolent sexism, and more warmth toward feminists. In contrast, for women participants, more mindfulness was only associated with less hostile sexism. Finally, a path analysis revealed that the positive relation between mindfulness and warmth toward feminists for men participants was partially mediated by more internal motivation to respond without sexism (i.e., a significant indirect effect), but not by less sexist beliefs. Implications for mindfulness, sexism, and prejudice more generally are discussed.

This study examines the embodied nature of menarche through a focus on themes of shame, concealment, and sexual maturation. Using a narrative analysis, it examines menarche stories of 155 undergraduates in the Pacific Northwest, USA, aged 21 years and younger, who started their periods between 1999 and 2003 and who grew up in a culture with changing attitudes and practices about women and the body. Unlike findings from past studies and those with older participants, women reported more positive experiences of menarche. While these data provide evidence for changing attitudes and practices associated with menarche, they may also reflect cultural changes that increasingly commodify the female body and encourage girls to identify the maturing female body as an asset.