Feminist activist women are masculinized in terms of digit-ratio and social dominance: a possible explanation for the feminist paradox

Abstract

The feminist movement purports to improve conditions for women, and yet only a minority of women in modern societies self-identify as feminists. This is known as the feminist paradox. It has been suggested that feminists exhibit both physiological and psychological characteristics associated with heightened masculinization, which may predispose women for heightened competitiveness, sex-atypical behaviors, and belief in the interchangeability of sex roles. If feminist activists, i.e., those that manufacture the public image of feminism, are indeed masculinized relative to women in general, this might explain why the views and preferences of these two groups are at variance with each other. We measured the 2D:4D digit ratios (collected from both hands) and a personality trait known as dominance (measured with the Directiveness scale) in a sample of women attending a feminist conference. The sample exhibited significantly more masculine 2D:4D and higher dominance ratings than comparison samples representative of women in general, and these variables were furthermore positively correlated for both hands. The feminist paradox might thus to some extent be explained by biological differences between women in general and the activist women who formulate the feminist agenda.

Keywords: beliefs; digit ratio; dominance; evolutionary psychology; feminism; gynephilia; personality; testosterone.

FIGURE 1

Histograms of 2D:4D for the left and right hand with fitted continuous Gaussian functions for study sample and both female and male comparison samples (Troche et al., 2007). Note that the comparison sample functions are scaled to the study sample and are thus unrelated to absolute frequency.

FIGURE 2

Histogram of Directiveness scores with fitted continuous Gaussian functions for study sample and both female and male comparison samples (Ray and Lovejoy, 1984). Note that the comparison sample functions are scaled to the study sample and thus unrelated to absolute frequency.