The Origins of Sexual Prejudice…

Mata, J., Ghavami, N., & Wittig, M. (2009). Understanding Gender Differences in Early Adolescents’ Sexual Prejudice The Journal of Early Adolescence, 30 (1), 50-75 DOI: 10.1177/0272431609350925

Mata et al. (2009), argue that social dominance orientation (SDO) in part, explains prejudiced attitudes by young straight people against gay males, and to a lesser extent, lesbians. They claim that SDO is a ‘psychological predisposition associated with both gender and with attitudes toward sexual minorities…’ (p.55-56). I am not sure what to think of that term, ‘psychological predisposition’. Anyway, the article reads like insider-outsider stuff, with those on the inside heaping shite on those who are not as they clamber up a slippery, neo-con rat pole. How you get from that basic premise to full-blown homophobia, I do not know. I do know that SDO provides a patchy case for explaining extraordinarily complex behaviours. Yes, the authors discover (reaffirm) that male high school students in the US are more prejudiced toward gay males than they are toward lesbians. This disparity, they claim, might be attributable to the greater threat attached to boys being labelled ‘gay’ (p.67). So how do we fix this problem? Mata et al. (2009, p.71) call for early intervention strategies to combat homophobia in the classroom setting, a difficult task given how deeply ingrained such prejudices are. They note that ‘contact’ between straight students and (openly) gay people does seem to lessen the likelihood or intensity of prejudice (p.68). I would stress that contact of certain types, helps. That is, contact as contemporaries and not as the demonised or alternatively, rarefied other.

Update: Martin and Ruble (2010) provide a fantastic overview of when and how children start identifying and acting/reacting to sexual stereotypes in the following article:

Martin, C., & Ruble, D. (2010). Patterns of Gender Development Annual Review of Psychology, 61 (1), 353-381 DOI: 10.1146/annurev.psych.093008.100511