The aim of the current thesis was to explore the possible link between System Justification Theory (SJT) and Terror Management Theory (TMT) in gender context and from the perspective of intergroup relations in a sample of Turkish university students. Having recently attracted research attention, the relation between the two theories is based on the effect of mortality salience (MS) on the tendency to justify the existing system. Accordingly, three research questions were investigated to see whether (1) ambivalent sexism toward women (hostile and benevolent sexism / HS and BS, respectively) and gender-group favoritism (on both explicit and implicit measures / expGF and impGF, respectively) were related to gender-specific system justification (GSJ), and whether (2) gender and (3) MS moderated the relation of GSJ to ambivalent sexism and gender-group favoritism. Based on the literature, it was hypothesized that (1) GSJ would predict HS, BS, expGF, and impGF, and that these predictions would be stronger (2) among women than among men and (3) when mortality is made salient as compared to when it is not. The hypotheses were tested with 185 participants (86 men, 99 women) who completed a questionnaire package including the demographic information form, GSJ Scale, MS manipulation, Ambivalent Sexism Inventory, and a scale measuring expGF along with a computer-administered task for impGF. The results revealed that higher levels of GSJ predicted higher levels of benevolent and hostile attitudes toward women as well as higher levels of explicit ingroup favoritism and lower levels of favoritism toward women. Only GSJ &ndash / HS and GSJ &ndash / expGF relationships were moderated by gender. The moderating role of MS was not observed in any of the four relationships. However, GSJ scores were found to be unevenly distributed across MS conditions, thereby, casting doubt on the reliability of the results concerning the moderating role of MS. The findings, as well as the contributions and limitations of the study, were discussed.

In this qualitative study, I examine the experiences of African American pilots and flight attendants with emotional labor. Integral to existing theories of emotional labor is the incorporation of voices of color and their contemporary movement into professional industries. Essentially, most all theories of emotional labor were built through the examination of low-wage service workers in gendered or racially segregated occupations, with only recent incorporations of gendered occupations within professional settings. Using the theoretical concept of emotional labor, or the labor required to reduce or suppress feeling in order to sustain the outward countenance that produces the proper state of mind in others, I argue that emotional labor is much more than labor produced within the confines of a job, but is also based on identity characteristics that directly influence interactions in the workplace. Therefore, I qualitatively examine, through in-depth interviews with more than thirty African American flight crew members, how emotional labor is influenced and performed when people of color are introduced to professional settings. The results of this study show that there are multiple dimensions of emotional labor that should be added to existing theory. Primarily, existing standards of emotional labor in the airline industry are a direct result of institutional structures and cultures created during a period of systematic exclusion that do not account for contemporary racism and sexism. Thus, performing emotional labor in this industry is unequally placed on those white women and people of color that had no input into its creation. The results of this study suggest that emotional labor should be inclusive of systemic racism perspectives as a method of understanding how salient identity characteristics, such as gender, race, and class, are directly connected to preconceived ideologies that influence interactions that call for emotional labor. Moreover, because African American men and women in this industry are underrepresented, emotional labor becomes a necessity in their interactions with coworkers, consumers, and management. In addition, African Americans experience highly regulated emotional labor that influence how they perform their jobs, interact with others, and formulate appropriate counter-narratives.

This essay examines how humor is used in the making of stereotypes in the Kronlöf sister’s video SÅ JÄVLA PK! In addition I give my analysis of how power and resistance is shown in the video. Through Michel Foucault’s conception power and resistance together with Judith Butler’s theories about performativity I’d like to show how the characters you can see in the video, in addition to the humor, also put themselves in a public context. I discuss my material in relation to a number of similar and current events that concern sexism and racism in Sweden. I clarify in my essay how Bianca and Tiffany Kronlöf through their verbal expression use a man-dominated scene – humor/comedy – to spread their message on how to prevent racism and sexism. My conclusion is that the Kronlöf sisters through their video create performativity through the retelling of an event that has already taken place, as well as resist against the power that was taken away from Bianca Kronlöf. They regain their power through a performative action.

This study re-evaluates the Consciousness Scale originally formulated by Pingree et al. in 1976. The element of assumed power was added to the Consciousness Scale, which was then used to evaluate 516 magazine advertisements from 1999 to determine if the Consciousness Scale still accurately evaluates sexism in media. A set of advertisements was culled which had contradictory Consciousness Scale and power ratings. The set was evaluated, revealing common themes, which created difficulty in coding these modern images. The study revealed that while the Consciousness Scale can still provide a valuable tool in evaluating media images, the change in the social dynamic of women as well as minorities and how advertisers portray them must be taken into account. The element of power as well as a more nuanced reading of each level of the Consciousness Scale creates a more modern and complex evaluation of gender images in the media.

Svensk arbetsmarknad är snedfördeladmellan män och kvinnor. Tidigare forskning har visat att könsstereotypiskt språk (agentic/communal) kan bidra till att upprätthålla denna snedfördelning, skapa statusskillnader mellan kvinnor och män samt leda till diskriminering av kvinnor redan i en rekryteringsprocess. Med ett flerfaktoriellt experiment (N=194) av dubbel-blind-design med randomiserade deltagare undersöktes, huruvida bedömningen av en arbetssökande påverkas av könsstereotypiskt språk, samt vilken attityd deltagarna hade till pronomenHen. Deltagare betingades med agentic eller communal platsannons samt en av fyra personbeskrivningar.Sedan skattades den sökandes agentic och communal egenskaper. Deltagarna svarade på frågor gällande sexism samt uttryckte sin åsikt om Hen. Två av studiens fyra hypoteser kunde styrkas, de övriga två förkastades. Studien visar att könsstereotypiskt språk har betydelse för hur en sökande bedöms, att Den sökande uppfattas som en man och att sexism predicerar negativa åsikter om Hen.

This thesis investigated attitudes toward sexual harassment (SH) and relationship between these attitudes, ambivalent sexism and ambivalence toward men. 311 Middle East Technical University students with a mean age of 22 participated in this study. Attitudes toward SH was measured by Sexual Harassment Attitude Scale (SHAS), which has three subfactors / accepting SH as a result of provocative behaviors of women, accepting SH as normal flirtations between men and women, and endorsement of SH as a trivial matter, respectively. Ambivalent sexism was measured by Ambivalent Sexism Inventory (ASI) and ambivalence toward men was measured by Ambivalence toward Men Inventory (AMI). Sequential regression analysis revealed that gender, Hostile Sexism (HS) and Benevolence toward Men (BM) predicted acceptance of SH as provocative behaviors of women. Additional analysis demonstrated that gender, BM, Benevolent Sexism (BS) and age predicted acceptance of SH as normal flirtations. Finally, BS, gender, economy class and department were significantly predicting endorsement of SH as a social problem. Main contributions of this thesis were investigating (1) attitudes toward sexual harassment and its relationship with ambivalent sexist attitudes toward not only to women but also to men and (2) effects of gender, and some other demographic variables such as age, department and economy class on predicting attitudes toward SH.

The aim of the present research was to investigate attitudes toward sexual harassment (SH) and the relationships of these attitudes with locus of control and ambivalent sexism. A total of 311 university students from Middle East Technical University participated to the study. In order to measure attitudes toward SH, a new scale, Sexual Harassment Attitude Scale (SHAS), was developed by the author of the thesis and another researcher (Salman &amp / Turgut, 2006). This scale consists of three subfactors which were accepting SH as a result of provocative behaviors, accepting SH as normal flirtations between men and women, and endorsement of SH as a trivial matter. Locus of control was measured with Locus of Control Scale (LCS, Dag, 2002) having five subfactors which were personal control, belief in chance, meaninglessness of the effortfulness, belief in fate, and belief in an unjust world. Lastly, sexist beliefs were measured with Ambivalent Sexism Inventory (ASI, Glick &amp / Fiske, 1996) having two factors which were hostile sexism and benevolent sexism. The results revealed that some domains of locus of control were significantly associated with sexist beliefs and subfactors of attitudes toward SH. In particular, people having internal personal control were more likely to accept SH as provocative behaviors of women. In addition, people believing in external forces, such as belief in fate and powerful others were more likely to have sexist beliefs and tolerate SH by seeing provocative behaviors as causes of SH, by accepting SH as normal flirtations and by trivializing this problem. This thesis aims to contribute to the literature by investigating (1) attitudes toward sexual harassment and its relationship with locus of control and (2) the roles of ambivalent sexism and gender differences in this relationship.

The purpose of this thesis was to investigate the relationship between ambivalent sexism, gender related system justification and religious orientation with attitudes toward physical wife abuse (APWA). APWA are investigated in three facets, namely justifiability (JPWA), perceived functionality (PFPWA) and consequences (ACPWA). As measurement tools, Attitudes toward Physical Wife Abuse Scale, Content Domains for Justification of Physical Wife Abuse Scale, Ambivalent Sexism Inventory (ASI), Ambivalence toward Men Inventory (AMI), Revised Muslim Religious Orientation Scale (MROS-R), Gender Related System Justification Scale (GSJ) and demographic information form were used. Although a total of 385 student and non-student participants responded the questionnaire, only 303 (119 males, 184 females) participants who stated their religion to be Islam were included in the study for accurate assessment of Muslim religious orientation. The age range of the participants was between 17 and 72 (M=27.30 / SD= 8.68). Since women and men significantly differed with respect to their APWA, separate hierarchical multiple regression analyses were conducted in order to further observe the differences between them. Although there were slight differences in unique contributions of the variables for the three subscales of APWAS and for men and women, a general pattern was drawn in which results revealed that intrinsic religious orientation and quest religious orientation were not related to any of the three dimensions of APWA whereas fundamentalist religious orientation was found to be a significant predictor of APWA. Among the dimensions of ASI and AMI, Hostile Sexism (HS) and Benevolence toward Men (BM) predicted more favorable attitudes toward the three dimensions of physical wife abuse, whereas hostility toward men (HM) and benevolent sexism (BS) predicted less favorable attitudes. GSJ was not found to have a unique contribution in predicting any of the three dimensions of APWA. The major contributions of the present study are / 1) Investigation of religious orientation as an individual difference affecting APWA first in a Muslim culture, 2) Investigating GSJ first in Turkey and first with relation to APWA and 3) Providing a detailed measurement tool for specific assessment of attitudes toward physical wife abuse in three dimensions and 4) Providing a re-constructed Muslim Religious Orientation Scale which was extended and improved in content, reliability and validity after revision.

The purpose of this thesis was to investigate perception of glass cliff in a Turkish sample. Glass cliff refers to a phenomenon whereby women are over-represented in risky leadership positions. Thus, the current study explored the effect of company performance and candidate gender on perceived suitability and on perceived leadership ability of the candidate for the leadership position. The thesis also examined moderating effects of ambivalent sexism (hostile and benevolent sexism) on the relationship between company performance and perceived suitability as well as on the relationship between company performance and perceived leadership ability of the female candidate. The data were collected from 167 MBA students through quantitative methods. The results of the analyses indicated that compared to an equally qualified male candidate, female candidate was perceived as more suitable and more able as a leader when the company performance was declining. Moreover, the female candidate was perceived as more able when the company performance was declining rather than improving. Participants evaluated the male candidate as more suitable when the company performance was improving rather than declining. The results of the moderation analyses revealed that declining company performance predicted an increase in perceived suitability and leadership ability of the female candidate for the participants who have low benevolent sexism scores. The major contributions of the present study are (1) examining the perception of glass cliff phenomenon for the first time in Turkey, and (2) showing the impact of benevolent sexism on glass cliff.

<p>This essay investigates the extent and significance of a gender decisive language in the foreign language classroom. Focus lies on teachers teaching English as a foreign language and their attitudes towards gender neutrality from a pure linguistic point of view.</p><p>My starting point was previous research done concerning my topic and the survey was performed through questionnaires that were sent out with both qualitative and quantitative questions to thirty teachers.</p><p> </p><p>My findings indicate that the teachers contradict themselves when answering the questionnaire. Their knowledge of gender neutrality is surprisingly low, but they think they know more than they actually do. It is essential to teach more about gender decisive language in schools and at the Teachers’ Education to promote equality. Conclusions can be drawn that this is an issue not dealt with enough and that teachers seem to have a distorted image about their approach concerning gender neutrality.</p>