Department of Psychology, Umeå University, Umeå Sweden.
Department of Community Medicine and Rehabilitation, Umeå University, Umeå Sweden.
Front Psychol. 2014 Sep 9;5:1011. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01011. eCollection 2014.
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.
女权运动旨在改善女性的处境，但现代社会中只有少数女性自认为是女权主义者。这就是所谓的女权主义悖论。有人认为，女权主义者表现出与男性化程度升高相关的生理和心理特征，这可能使女性更容易产生竞争意识、性别非典型行为，并相信性别角色可以互换。如果女权主义活动家，即制造女权主义公众形象的人，与一般女性相比确实更具有男性化特征，那么这可能解释了为什么这两个群体的观点和偏好存在差异。我们在参加女权主义会议的女性样本中测量了 2D:4D 手指比率（从双手收集）和一个称为支配力的人格特质（用直接性量表测量）。该样本的 2D:4D 明显更男性化，支配力评分也高于一般女性的代表性样本，并且这两个变量在双手上都呈正相关。因此，女权主义悖论在某种程度上可以用一般女性和制定女权主义议程的积极女性之间的生物学差异来解释。
