Gender Stereotypes and Their Impact on Social Sustainability: A Contemporary View of Spain

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Gender Stereotypes and Their Impact on Social Sustainability: A Contemporary View of Spain

I was excited to read through your article, “Gender Stereotypes and Their Impact on Social Sustainability: A Contemporary View of Spain.” As thoroughly explained in the introduction, the topic is important and timely, and I believe the objectives and approach can add to what we know about gender norms. There are several significant issues with the current formulation, though most, I believe, are fixable. These include an introduction that fails to set up the research questions, the arbitrary nature of deciding whether conformity levels are low, and a dated/narrow Discussion section. An issue that I find more significant is the lack of assessing femininity and masculinity norms in both men and women. Finally, please appraise how you always present data and information about men first and women second. Leading with men/masculinity is a subtle reinforcement of patriarchal norms.

Abstract

1. You need to update the sample number to reflect the actual number used in the analysis.

Introduction

2. The introduction does a good job justifying the importance of studying conformity to gender norms, but it needs to do a better job mapping change in gender norm conformity over time. There are a few sentences on this, but it is not very cohesive as it blends information from different age groups.
3. Your introduction fails to adequately set up your research questions. Specifically, you do not address the issue of developmental ages regarding gender norm conformity, nor education level.
4. p. 2: “When gender role conflict turns into outright rejection”. Maybe this would be clearer if you said “when gender role conflict involves outright rejection” or something.
5. p. 2: The phrase “People who fully break with gender stereotypes” does not seem very realistic. Consider using something like “people who reject many gender stereotypes” or something.
6. p. 2: Add a citation (or multiple) after this claim: “and increasing the 80 prevalence of anxiety, depression, and suicidal thoughts.”
7. p. 2: “The lack of institutional support 81 and fear of stigma”. You need to provide a little more context about the lack of institutional support and fear of stigma.
8. p. 2: “These findings highlight the importance of studying gender role conformity. While gender roles have evolved over the decades, the changes have not been consistent, making continuous evaluation necessary.” Can you clarify or reword this? I believe you mean that in the last several decades, rigid gender role expectations have seemed to relax, but this is not entirely clear, thus continual evaluation is needed?
   1. It is important to note that it is not clear whether gender norms really have relaxed or not. Some studies show no real changes (Haines et al., 2016) and others show changes in expressivity but not instrumentality (Donnoley & Twenge, 2017).
9. p. 3: You say that more information on gender norm adherence is needed, but you cite a recent study (Palomino and Aparicio 2024) on this topic. How does your proposed study build on this recent study?
10. p. 3: You refer to an integrative approach, but what exactly does that mean? What is integrated?

Method

11. Can you include a breakdown of different age groups similar to the one you provided for education level. As age is one of your constructs of interest, it is important to know how well each age group is represented in your study.
12. Which percentage of the sample was filled by the snowball method? I am not sure you could call your sample representative if a large portion is generated via convenience sampling.
13. Did you conduct an a priori power analysis to determine the requisite cell size for you analyses? If not, can you provide a post hoc power analysis to determine your ability to detect effect based on cell sizes?
14. The authors need to be clearer about the exact constructs involved in the study. The objective “acceptance or rejection of traditional gender norms” seems to indicate more of an endorsement of gender norms whereas the measures used (CFNI, CMNI) are about personal adherence/conformity to norms.

Results

15. p. 5: The way you describe the first objective here (degree of acceptance/rejection) is clearer than in the introduction when you say whether the Spanish population “currently accepts or rejects them”, which seems to indicate complete acceptance or rejection as opposed to degree of acceptance which is more accurate.
16. p. 5. “There is greater variability in responses regarding conformity to masculine norms and lower variability in conformity to feminine norms, which indicates diverse opinions or attitudes toward gender norms in the group of men, and a less dispersed group of women.” This makes it sound like only men were given the masculinity scale and only women were given the femininity scale. Is that correct? If so, that should be noted in the methods section. Also, if that is the case, I see that as a limitation of the study as men and women have attitudes about both masculinity and femininity that provide valuable information.
    1. For example, you can conduct a gender difference comparison on these scales because certain samples do not show any gender difference on CFNI subscales and items. With no gender differences, these are no longer expectations of femininity but just about humans in general. Which is, perhaps, a more compelling method of showing gender norm change over time.
17. It might just be my view, but Table 1 has formatting issues.
18. For your first objective, the means of identifying what constitutes “low” level of conformity are arbitrary. Can you make the assessment a little more rigorous?
19. p. 6: “Table 3 provides a detailed breakdown of each subscale by item”. I think the table shows the items with the highest scores, irrespective of subscales, no? It does not show each subscale.
20. p. 8: If it is just women responding about femininity and men about masculinity, the language in this section should be updated to reflect this, rather than “young adults”.

Discussion

21. p. 11: “The findings regarding men indicate a rejection of traditional gender beliefs, suggesting that the internalization of conventional masculine roles has significantly declined.” I do not think you can make this claim unless you compare data showing mean levels of norm adherence on these scales from historically older samples.
22. Your discussion would be enhanced by linking to similar studies on different populations that compare different age groups on norm conformity (e.g., Levant et al., 2021; Owsiany et al., 2023; Thompson et al., 2020).
23. p. 11: The paragraph on education differences moved on quickly from that topic and started talking about other patterns not immediately related to education. The connection to education is an interesting addition of this study and the Discussion would benefit from lingering on this topic and connecting more broadly to what is or isn’t already known about this topic.
24. p. 12: The paragraph on resurgence of hypermasculinity would benefit from a more thorough review of the recent articles written on this. The citations in this area are more than a decade old, but you are describing the importance of recent ideological shifts.
25. The Discussion, and perhaps the whole article, could benefit from an orientation in how the particular context of Spain might be influencing the gender-related trends you found.

References

Donnelly, K., & Twenge, J. M. (2017). Masculine and feminine traits on the Bem Sex-Role Inventory, 1993–2012: A cross-temporal meta-analysis. Sex Roles, 76(9–10), 556–565. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-016-0625-y

Haines, E. L., Deaux, K., & Lofaro, N. (2016). The times they are a-changing … or are they not? A comparison of gender stereotypes, 1983–2014. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 40(3), 353–363. https://doi.org/10.1177/0361684316634081

Levant, R. F., Martin-Fernandez, J., McDermott, R. C., & Thompson, E. H. (2021). Measurement Invariance and Comparison of Mean Scores by Age Cohort of Two Versions of the Male Role Norms Inventory. Men and Masculinities. https://doi.org/10.1177/1097184X211017620

Owsiany, M., Fenstermacher, E., An, J., Lohmar, S., Fiske, A., Hwang, M., Cho, Y., Gahn, K., Manojlovich, M., & Jiang, Y. (2023). Differences in conformity to masculine norms across age cohorts. Innovation in Aging, 7(Supplement_1), 832–832. https://doi.org/10.1093/GERONI/IGAD104.2682

Thompson, E. H., Webster, B. A., Stanley, J. T., & Levant, R. F. (2020). Measurement Invariance by Age Group for the Aging Men’s Masculinity Ideologies Inventory. Https://Doi.Org/10.1177/1060826520911159, 28(3), 301–317. https://doi.org/10.1177/1060826520911159

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Findings of this research indicate a greater acceptance of traditional gender roles based on sex and age, but, unexpectedly per the previous data, do no significant correlation with educational level. These findings point to a nuanced shift in gender norms, with both progressive and regressive elements. As aptly discussed by the author/s, some of the regression may be attributable to influencers on Instagram/TikTok. Manosphere influencers like Andrew Tate and Tradwives have large and malleable audiences. Although some traditional masculine and feminine norms are still being embraced, this research indicates that the strict gender dichotomy is anachronistic and no longer serves the sexes in the current sociocultural climate. Indeed, continuing to embrace these gender norms can be deleterious for one’s psychological health as well as interpersonal relationships. Most interesting to me is the fact that men show greater gender role flexibility than women and they reject traditional masculine norms related to power over women, work primacy, and dominance.

This was a well-written manuscript with an apt methodology to measure the research questions. Data was easy to read and replicable.

Line 23: Add updated citations: “Gender roles and norms function as sociocultural frameworks that regulate behaviors, attitudes, and values, delineating social expectations for men and women (Deaux 24 1985).”

Line 28: Remove hyphen “gen-der”

Line 41: Period needed “submission linked to women, which impact emotional well-being (Martínez-Marín and 40 Martínez 2019)”

Lines 55-59:  Adhering to traditional gender roles can negatively impact romantic relationships (Ventura Navarro and García Torres 2016); reduce(s) sexual satisfaction (Herrero Sánchez 2023); increase(s) levels of anxiety and depression, lowers self-esteem in women (Álvarez et al. 2022) and decreases the likelihood of seeking professional mental health services (Toribio-Caballero et al. 2022).

Line 66: Delete hyphen “them-selves”

Line 100: Delete hyphen “op-pression”

Lines 129 (and throughout MS): Use lower case for levels of education “In terms of educational attainment level, 61.6% had achieved a University Degree, 33.7% had 129 finished High School, 4.5% had finished Elementary school Education, and 0.3% had not completed any formal education.” Line 306: “University Degree”, etc.

Line 174: for each gender conformity scales

Author Response

Please see the attachment

1. Summary

Thank you very much for taking the time to review this manuscript. We sincerely appreciate your thoughtful feedback. Please find the detailed responses below, along with the corresponding revisions and corrections in the re-submitted files.

2. Point-by-point response to Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Comment 1:

This was a well-written manuscript with an apt methodology to measure the research questions. Data was easy to read and replicable.

Comment 2: Line 23: Add updated citations: “Gender roles and norms function as sociocultural frameworks that regulate behaviors, attitudes, and values, delineating social expectations for men and women (Deaux 24 1985).” 

Response 2: Thank you for your suggestion. We have updated the citation to include a more recent source that supports the conceptualization of gender roles as sociocultural frameworks regulating behaviors, attitudes, and values. Specifically, we have incorporated Ridgeway and Correll (2004), who offer a contemporary theoretical perspective on how gender beliefs shape social relations and expectations.

Comment 3: Line 28: Remove hyphen “gen-der”

Comment 4: Line 41: Period needed “submission linked to women, which impact emotional well-being (Martínez-Marín and 40 Martínez 2019)”

Comment 5: Lines 55-59:  Adhering to traditional gender roles can negatively impact romantic relationships (Ventura Navarro and García Torres 2016); reduce(s) sexual satisfaction (Herrero Sánchez 2023); increase(s) levels of anxiety and depression, lowers self-esteem in women (Álvarez et al. 2022) and decreases the likelihood of seeking professional mental health services (Toribio-Caballero et al. 2022).

Comment 6: Line 66: Delete hyphen “them-selves”

Comment 7: Line 100: Delete hyphen “op-pression”

Comment 8: Lines 129 (and throughout MS): Use lower case for levels of education “In terms of educational attainment level, 61.6% had achieved a University Degree, 33.7% had 129 finished High School, 4.5% had finished Elementary school Education, and 0.3% had not completed any formal education.” Line 306: “University Degree”, etc.

Comment 9: Line 174: for each gender conformity scales

Response 3-9: Thank you so much for pointing it out, it has been fixed in the manuscript.

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

A very interesting paper on the Spanish context. The methodology is clearly defined,

Maybe a point to clarify on page 8

the authors refer to "young adult" - could be interesting to differentiate

young adult male / young adult female

further research could have been proposed exploring other countries ( France, Germany, Sweden ...), or further research on the role of education

Just a remark : in the LR, maybe develop the spanish context a little bit more by refering to the Gender Gap Index https://www.weforum.org/publications/global-gender-gap-report-2024/digest/

Author Response

1. Summary

Thank you very much for taking the time to review this manuscript. We sincerely appreciate your thoughtful feedback. Please find the detailed responses below, along with the corresponding revisions and corrections in the re-submitted files.

2. Point-by-point response to Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Comment 1:

A very interesting paper on the Spanish context. The methodology is clearly defined,

Maybe a point to clarify on page 8 the authors refer to "young adult" - could be interesting to differentiate young adult male / young adult female

Response 1: Thank you for your suggestion. We have clarified in the manuscript that male participants completed the masculinity questionnaire and female participants completed the femininity questionnaire. While we have retained the term young, middle-aged, older participants, we have added a note at the beginning of the section indicating that it refers exclusively to male participants in this context. Additionally, the title of each table has been revised to clearly state that the results pertain only to female or male participants.

Comment 2:

Further research could have been proposed exploring other countries ( France, Germany, Sweden ...), or further research on the role of education.

Response 2: Thank you for your observation. We have addressed the role of education in the discussion section. We agree that this topic deserves further exploration, and we have expanded the paragraph to better connect our findings with existing research.

Comment 3:

Just a remark : in the LR, maybe develop the spanish context a little bit more by refering to the Gender Gap Index https://www.weforum.org/publications/global-gender-gap-report-2024/digest/

Response 3: Thank you for this valuable suggestion. We agree that including contextual information about Spain is important. In response, we have incorporated a brief paragraph.