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A correlational study of feminist/womanist identity development and depression in women

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A correlational study of feminist/womanist identity development and depression in women

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A CORRELATIONAL STUDY OF FEMINI ST/WOMANI ST
IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT AND DEPRESSION IN WOMEN
by
Janet Louise Fossum
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(Education - Counseling Psychology)
December 1996
Copyright 1996 Janet Louise Fossum
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UMI Number: 9720223
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UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY PARK
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 90007
This dissertation, written by
Janet.# _ Lou i se _ _ Fo s sum..........
under the direction of hex. Dissertation
Committee, and approved by all its members,
has been presented to and accepted by The
Graduate School, in partial fulfillment of re
quirements for the degree of
DO C TO R O F PH ILO SO PH Y
In of Graduate Studies
DISSERTATION COMMITTEE
Chairperson
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Table of Contents
Page
Abstract..........................................iii
List of Tables..................................... v
Chapter 1
Introduction and Literature Review................. l
Chapter 2
Method.............................................40
Chapter 3
Results............................................73
Chapter 4
Discussion........................................104
References........................................151
Appendix..........................................156
Informed Consent
Demographic Survey
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iii
Janet Louise Fossum Michael Newcomb, Ph.D., Chairperson
ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION
A correlational Study of Feminist/Womanist
Identity Development and Depression in Women
Women are diagnosed as depressed twice as often as
men. Feminists and other researchers have pointed to the
societal expectations of the traditional female gender
role, often associated with powerlessness, passivity, and
dependency, as contributing to an increased diagnosis of
depression in women. The stereotypical female gender
role may suppress the growth of a healthy, individuated,
autonomous self.
The present study hypothesizes that women who accept
the traditional, stereotypical female gender role while
eschewing a feminist identity will have more depressive
symptomology than feminist women. Conversely, women who
define themselves according to an internalized, self-
defined standard of womanhood will have lower depression
levels than women who define themselves according to an
external, societal definition of womanhood. A
correlational design was used to investigate whether
associations exist between women's depressive
symptomology and levels of compliance to the traditional
and stereotypical female gender role.
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iv
Questionnaires were completed by 230 college women
who were both part-time and full-time students. The
participants ranged in age from 17 to 70 years old with a
mean age of 26.3 years. The ethnicity was as follows:
Asian-American, 16.5%; Hispanic/Latino, 10%; African-
American, 3.5%; European-American, 58.7%; Native-
American, 2.6%; and "Other" were 8.7%.
A mature feminist identity was associated with less
depression. Also, women who scored low on feminist
identity development had significantly higher depression
levels than women who did not score low. Women in the
middle stages of feminist development were associated
with higher depression levels than non-feminist women.
The results also revealed other significant predictors of
depression in women: escape-avoidance coping methods
used to deal with daily stressors; having experienced
certain types of victimization; having depressed parents;
perceiving relationships with others as non-supportive;
and being unemployed.
The results of this study may aid psychotherapists
in their treatment plans for depressed women. It
provides evidence that developing a mature feminist
ideology may be empowering and beneficial for some
depressed women.
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V
List of Tables
Table 1
Description of Sample............................ 44
Table 2
Means, Standard Deviations, Range,
Reliability and Coefficients of
Scales........................................... 57
Table 3
A Comparison of the Group Means of this
research study with the original Group Means
on which the scales were normed for the
Womanist Identity Development Scale and the
Feminist Identity Development Scale............... 95
Table 4
Intercorrelations of the Womanist Identity
Attitude Scale, the Feminist Identity
Development Scale and the Single-item
Feminist Question................................. 96
Table 5
Correlations of Predictor and Dependent
Variables for all Measurement Scales.............. 97
Table 6
Correlations of Predictor and Dependent
Variables......................................... 98
Table 7
Hierarchical Multiple Regression Analyses
Predicting Depression in Women.................... 99
Table 8
Correlations of Single-Item Feminist
Question with Center for
Epidemiologic - Depression Scale................. 101
Table 9
Relative Scores for
Ways of Coping Questionnaire..................... 102
Table 10
Means and ANOVA of Scales and Subscales
for the Categories of Ethnicity,
Living Status and Age............................ 103
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Chapter l
Statement of the Problem
In contrast to the writings of Freud and other
prominent theorists who have emphasized that mental
illness is linked primarily to intrapsychic conflicts,
numerous authors assert that societal factors play a
major role in contributing to depression in women.
Feminist scholars in particular have proposed that
sexism, discrimination, and rigid adherence to sex-role
expectations can contribute to depressive symptomology as
feelings of powerlessness and helplessness (Enns, 1993;
Friedan, 1963; Jordan, Kaplan, Miller, Stiver and Surrey,
1991; McGrath, 1992; McGrath, Keita, Strickland & Russo,
1990; Miller, 1976; Nairne & Smith, 1984; Travis, 1988).
Depressive symptomology can also result from
victimization resulting from battery, incest, rape, and
sexual harassment (Briere, 1989; Briere & Runtz, 1991;
Frazier & Cohen, 1992; McGrath et al., 1990), acts that
are more commonly experienced by women than men.
Depression occurs twice as frequently in women as in men
(DSM-IV, 1994; McGrath et al., 1990; McGrath, 1992;
Nolen-Hoeksema, 1990; Travis, 1988) and several
explanations exist as to the reasons underlying this
trend. Kaplan (1983) reveals that certain criteria for
depression and other diagnoses often mirror
characteristics of the stereotyped female personality.
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2
For example, Kaplan notes that an extreme exaggeration of
"traditional" female personality characteristics such as
dependency and passivity, can lead to a DSM-III-R
diagnosis of Dependent Personality Disorder. Moreover,
Dependent Personality Disorder as well as other
personality disorders are highly correlated with
depressive diagnoses (McGrath et al., 1990). Kaplan
(1983) argues that certain diagnoses (including
depression) label women as mentally ill when, in fact,
there is a greater need to edify and reveal the extent to
which women's inequality and subordinate position in
society has created this passivity and dependency.
Relatedly, Broverman, Broverman, Clarkson,
Rosenkrantz & Vogel (1970) found that therapists'
criteria for labeling healthy men and women differed.
Importantly, they found that these labels pointed to
pervasive stereotypes that often characterize women as
more maladaptive than men. The criteria used to describe
a "healthy person" and a "healthy man" were similar.
However, for women to be labeled healthy they were
required to exhibit the characteristics of an "unhealthy
person." Thus, socially sanctioned behaviors for women
such as submissiveness, excitability, emotionality,
sensitivity, and dependency, were also those behaviors
cited as criteria for mental illness in this study. The
Broverman, et al. (1990) study thus implies a Catch-22
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3
position for women, whereby reflecting qualities of an
"unhealthy person" is to exhibit socially sanctioned
characteristics, although exhibiting characteristics
deemed as healthy is to be portrayed as "deviant," or as
characteristically masculine.
Spence & Helmreich (1978) propose that commonly held
views or stereotypes of traits of men and women are
actually present to some degree in both men and women.
Those traits thought to be stereotypical of women are
sometimes labeled "communion" and those traits thought to
be stereotypical of men are sometimes called "agency."
Although men may tend to have agency as their dominant
characteristic and many women have "communion" as a more
dominant trait, in truth men and women have both traits
and, indeed, our society could not survive if these are
too far out of balance.
The agentic traits that refer to aggressiveness and
dominance are thought by some to be linked to hormonal
differences between males and females, and furthermore
these hormonal differences are thought to account for the
greater aggressiveness observed in the male compared with
the female. The trait aggression is the difference
between men and women that is most frequently given a
biological explanation, but these authors state that the
"biological basis for temperament differences between the
sexes has not been unambiguously established" (Spence &
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4
Helmreich, p. 122, 1978) . Although a previous study-
reported by Beere (1979), using the Personal Attributes
Questionnaire (Spence & Helmreich, 1978), which assesses
gender-role orientation, did find significant sex-role
stereotypes for both men and women, nevertheless,
according to the authors, people tend to greatly
exaggerate the differences between the average man and
the average woman, along with underestimating the
va-r-i ability within men and women (Spence & Helmreich,
1978) . High scores on the "Masculinity" scale
(representing the trait "agency") of the Personal
Attributes Questionnaire are thought to be desirable for
men in our society, while high scores on the "Femininity"
scale (representing the trait "communion") are thought to
be more desirable for women to possess. Nevertheless,
women may be at a disadvantage who score high on the
"Femininity" scale while simultaneously scoring low on
the Masculinity scale. For instance, those women who
score high on "Androgynous" (On the Personal Attributes
Questionnaire, scoring high on both the Masculinity scale
and the Femininity scale is considered an "Androgynous"
trait) differ from others in that they have higher self
esteem and social competence. Also- scoring high on the
"Masculinity" scale is correlated with higher self-esteem
in women (p.124). Women who are high achieving social
psychologists, Ph.D. scientists, and women varsity
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5
athletes are overrepresented in the Masculine and
Androgynous scales and underrepresented in the Femininity
scales (Spence & Helmreich, 1978, p. Ill).
Although a review of the literature suggests a two-
to-one ratio in comparing women's rates of depression to
the rate of depression in men, it has been suggested that
the rate at which men are diagnosed as depressed may be
lower than its true occurrence because men may "mask"
depression. The term "masking" has been used to describe
the phenomenon of concealing feelings of depression with
excessive alcohol and drug use or sociopathic behaviors.
Similarly, some scholars assert that some men mask
depression by utilizing these and other behaviors that
serve to distract them from these maladaptive feelings.
Becoming obsessively involved with work may be yet
another method of self-distraction used primarily by men
to suppress their depression. According to Nolen-
Hoeksema (1990) , men are more likely than women to have a
"distracting style" of response to environmental
stressors and negative moods. On the other hand, Nolen-
Hoeksema notes that women are more likely than men to
demonstrate a "ruminative style" of response to
environmental stressors and negative moods, which causes
them to have longer and more severe depressions. These
different response styles may explain in part why men are
more likely than women to engage in maladaptive responses
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such as alcoholism, drug use, and sociopathy.
Nevertheless, although some researchers propose that
sociopathy and alcoholism may be the manifestations of an
underlying, undiagnosed depression, Nolen-Hoeksema (1990)
argues that men and women have learned different response
styles which lead to the development of differing
disorders. For instance, researchers who have attempted
to show that alcoholism is the "male equivalent" to
depression have not done so conclusively. Moreover,
research suggests that depression is just as likely to be
a result of alcoholism (resulting from its toxic effects)
as it is to be a predecessor of alcoholism (Nolen-
Hoeksema, 1990) . Thus alcoholism and depression can be
seen as two maladaptive but separate responses to
difficult environmental circumstances (Nolen-Hoeksema,
1990) .
Because of differences in societal stereotypes for
men and women, it is likely that men and women learn
different ways of responding to difficult environmental
stressors and to the corresponding negative moods.
Nolen-Hoeksema (1990) states that "these differences in
response styles lead to sex differences in propensities
toward certain types of disorders" (p.171). This may be
attributed to depression having a feminine (and thus
"negative") quality. For instance, some terms that are
often associated with depression are dependency,
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passivity, non-assertiveness, helplessness, emotional
rumination and the free and open expression of feelings,
all of which are associated with feminine stereotypes and
none of which are considered acceptable characteristics
for males in our society. The acceptable masculine
stereotypes for men in our society, such as dominance and
high activity levels, may be a result of the sanctions
against emotionality in men (Nolen-Hoeksema, 1990) .
The cognitive response styles which some women
exhibit may also affect the ways in which those women
choose to cope with daily stresses. Women's ways of
coping may be unduly influenced by societal admonitions
on the behaviors expected of them, thus adversely
restricting their coping processes. If some women have
less power, because of submissiveness and dependency,
then their ability to carry out planful problem solving
may be appreciably less than for other people, for
instance, other women who are less influenced by societal
admonitions.
The feminine stereotype may accept depression as an
acceptable outlet to stress because the characteristics
associated with depression are more consistent with
feminine stereotypes. On the other hand, men may
actively distance themselves from their depressive
feelings because it counters masculine stereotypes and
eases too close to "femininity," while women may
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emotionally ruminate in response to their negative moods.
Although the sex differences in response styles to stress
may account in part for the sex differences in
depression, the evidence does not suggest that the rate
at which men are diagnosed as depressed is lower than its
true occurrence (Nolen-Hoeksema, 1990).
Correlates of Depression in Women
Recent studies have shown that women's depression is
multicausal. What is more, scholars suggest that mental
health professionals need to consider biological and
social factors that influence behavior, as well as
cognitive factors and personality styles in assessing
depression (e.g. McGrath et al. 1990). More
specifically, McGrath (1990) urges practitioners to
consider the following "biopsychosocial" risk factors in
depression assessment: reproductive-related events,
cognitive and personality styles, sexual and physical
abuse (experienced by 37-50% of women before age 21),
marriage, and poverty (75% of the US poverty population
are women and children).
Biological Factors
Women's biological makeup includes reproductive
related events including premenstrual syndrome (PMS),
pregnancy, childbirth, and menopause. These conditions
are likely to create imbalances in levels of estrogen or
other hormones (Travis, 1988). Many women report PMS,
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9
postpartum depression and various menopausal symptoms to
their physicians, but these are difficult to tease out
from other etiological factors and thus their
contribution to women's depression has not been
satisfactorily explained. Research studies which have
attempted to show a relationship between hormonal changes
and depression in women have had mixed results, with as
many studies refuting an association as there are studies
which support it (Nolen-Hoeksema, 1990, p.56).
Women who show depressive symptoms during the
premenstrual period often have depressive symptoms at
other times as well, suggesting that an underlying
depressive disorder is being exacerbated by, rather than
caused by, premenstrual syndrome (Nolen-Hoeksema, 1990,
p.58). Travis (1988) explains that research on
premenstrual syndrome has been limited by poor
conceptualization and poor hypothesis development,
inadequate methodology and improper or wrong
interpretation. Additionally, research on the role of
stress on the menstrual cycle has been limited due to
lack of government funding for premenstrual syndrome as
well as the historical situation that "problems of women
are traditionally neglected as research material"
(Travis, 1988, p.67).
A new depressive disorder diagnosis, "Premenstrual
Dysphoric Disorder" (PDD), was considered to be included
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10
for DSM-XV (1994). However, there was insufficient
information to warrant its inclusion. According to the
DSM-IV (1994) PDD occurs in 3-5% of women. Notably,
those most at risk for the disorder have a personal or
familial history of Major Depressive Disorder, Bipolar I
or II Disorder. PDD has also been linked with postpartum
Major Depression, and Manic or psychotic episodes. In
addition, a history of Mood and Anxiety Disorders is
frequently present when a diagnosis of Dysphoric Disorder
is made (DSM-IV, 1994) . Again, this suggests that with
PDD, there lies an underlying predisposition to (or at
least, concurrence with) a Mood Disorder (depression).
Postpartum depression or "blues" is evidently quite
brief and by the eighth or ninth week following delivery,
the percentage of new mothers experiencing depressive
symptoms is lower than the percentage of women in the
general population who are depressed (Nolen-Hoeksema,
1990) . In addition, there are many physical changes and
conditions existing before and after childbirth that
might make women appear to be depressed on a self-report
inventory, for example "fatigue, appetite changes, sexual
interest, aches and pains" (p.64). Nolen-Hoeksema
suggests there is research support for a stressor-related
postpartum depression unrelated to abnormal hormonal
regulation and it is likely that biological and
psychological vulnerability can also interact with the
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11
stress a new mother is experiencing and subsequently
cause a serious postpartum depression (Nolen-Hoeksema) .
However, she concludes that, "There is no evidence that
serious postpartum depression is caused by hormonal
irregularities" (Nolen-Hoeksema, 1990, p.70).
Studies on menopausal women have shown that
depression is not higher for women during menopause than
during other periods of adult life (Nolen-Hoeksema,
p.71) . Nolen-Hoeksema states there is a "paucity of
evidence" for the hypothesis that hormonal changes cause
depression in females and she states, "If anything, rates
of depression among women decline during menopause"
(p.71). To summarize, there is as yet no clear research
evidence that hormonal changes in women cause serious
depression, although controlled studies continue to
explore why women who are prone to psychological problems
have recurrences during the premenstrual time period,
pregnancy and postpartum period (Nolen-Hoeksema, 1990) .
P s ychosocial P e £emiaanfc.s.
Brown & Harris published a landmark study in 1978
on the effect of certain conditions on women's
depression, which studied the interactive effect of
stress (life events) with each woman's underlying
vulnerability. The underlying vulnerability consisted of
four separate factors which were loss of a mother before
the age of 11, having three or more children under 14 in
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12
the household, not having a job, and not having a person
in their life with whom they could have a confiding
relationship. Their study concluded that depression in
women was caused by a woman having an underlying
vulnerability to depression, and then suffering "life
events" in the form of joblessness, loss (of any form) ,
or any ongoing event which is stressful (Brown & Harris,
1978).
Cognitive behavioral psychotherapy, a popular and
well-researched orientation for the treatment of
depression in both men and women, consists of a cognitive
schema which includes a "negative triad." The three
parts are a negative view of self (low self-esteem, low
feelings of self-worth, feeling unlovable); a negative
view of the future (e.g. hopelessness, negativity,
powerlessness); and a negative view of one's environment
(e.g. overwhelming and many obstacles) (Beck, 1979) .
These cognitive schema may act synergistically with each
other and with other risk factors, increasing the
likelihood for depression (Travis, 1988).
Depression can also occur from the helplessness and
powerlessness that a woman may experience after being
physically or sexually abused (McGrath, et al., 1990).
Women who were molested as children are two times as
likely to be clinically depressed as are women with no
history of sexual abuse and women molested as children
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are two times as likely to make a suicide attempt
(Briere, 1989). The rates for childhood sexual abuse of
female children range from 21.7% to 37%, woman battering
25%, acquaintance rape 12% - 14% and rape reports from
women who have been forcibly raped range from 5% to 24%
(McGrath, et al., 1990). Moreover, when women are
assessed by medical doctors or therapists, they often do
not disclose their abuse history, either out of shame,
because they do not recall it, or because they do not see
a connection between their abusive experiences and their
current problems (Frazier & Cohen, 1991). Many female
victims of acquaintance rape do not label it "rape" for
years afterward, feeling the victim herself was
"responsible" for it.
Finally, marriage can be a risk factor for
depression in women, with married women being five times
as likely as married men to be depressed. A problem for
women has been the assumption by clinicians that problem
resolution and self-actualization come from marriage and
perfecting the role of wife (McGrath, et al., 1990). To
summarize, although many correlates to depression in
women have been established, demonstrating direct, causal
links has been less successful, partly because of the
additive, interactive, and synergistic nature of the
elements in women's lives that are associated with
depression. For instance women's biological makeup
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14
evidently does not stand on its own as a cause o£ serious
depression in women, although, research studies tend to
indicate that reproductive-related events sometimes
exacerbate a preexisting, chronic or underlying
depressive condition (Nolen-Hoeksema, 1990). There is a
plethora of research which substantiates not only a high
rate of physical and sexual abuse to women, but also
supports a strong association between these types of
victimization and depression in women. Sexual harassment
in the workplace is another form of victimization
experienced by many women and probably a precursor for
depressive episodes in women (McGrath, et al., 1990).
Marriage, under certain conditions, continues to be a
significant risk factor for depression in women. Women's
personality styles appear to predispose some women to
depression, for instance, passivity, helplessness, taking
care of others to the exclusion of taking care of oneself
and having a ruminative response style to environmental
stressors and negative moods.
Women who have not achieved an awareness or who have
not questioned society's expectations of so-called female
personality or behaviors with their inherent
contradictions may passively conform to gender role
expectations. This passive acceptance may in turn result
in a suppression of their inner self, goals and needs.
The stereotypical female gender role suppresses the
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growth of a healthy, individuated autonomous self (Jack,
1991; Jack & Dill, 1992; McGrath et al., 1990; McGrath,
1992) . Such women may unhesitantly assume a major role
in caregiving while simultaneously ignoring their own
needs for nurturance and growth or other aspects of their
identity. Such selflessness can be associated with
depression, especially when the act of putting others'
needs before one's own quells or suppresses the need for
self-fulfillment. For some women, this scenario may
occur repeatedly as a result of gender schemas that
encourage her to be the traditional "good woman" (Enns,
1991).
Many theories of psychology espouse that healthy
psychological development is equated with the development
of an internal sense of an individualized self;
accordingly, the healthy person is free from external
boundaries that attempt to define her or him and strives
to make choices and decisions autonomously (Travis,
1988). However, if the individual allows external
societal norms to guide her or him in decision-making
behaviors it is likely that conflict can arise and that
feelings of powerlessness and ineptness can ensue. In
the case of women's subjugation in American society, the
acceptance and adherence to certain living patterns by
women may contribute to "learned helplessness," the
pathway to depression whereby one learns to give up
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16
trying because no matter what one does, his or her
actions do not lead to success (Seligman, 1990). The
confusion and self-doubts encountered in attempting to
satisfy both external, societal expectations while at the
same time needing to meet internal needs and desires may
feel impossible and a woman may find her actions are
futile in getting what she wants.
In addition, heterosexual women may give up self
responsibility in a marriage because they have accepted
traditional societal norms which dictate that in a
marriage the husband is in the position of authority.
Depressed heterosexual women may subordinate themselves
to their husbands because they believe their husbands are
stronger than they, partly because of cultural
stereotypes but also because of "men's tendency to
disguise and hide their needs" (Jack, 1991, p.78).
Should the woman earn less than her spouse, then
financial dependence can also contribute to this
abdication of self-responsibility because financial
dependence easily influences decision making and feelings
of independence (p.81).
Next will follow a review of the relevant
literature, including a list of criteria required for the
diagnosis of a Major Depressive Disorder and Dysthymic
Disorder; a discussion of how the stereotypical female
gender role in this society is thought to be associated
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17
with depression in the anecdotal literature, but how this
alleged association has been neglected in research
studies; and a discussion of two identity development
models which will describe how the development of the
feminist and womanist "self" occurs on a continuum.
Finally, an explanation of the purpose of the study will
conclude this chapter. Broadly stated, the proposed
study will determine if a relationship exists between
women's depressive symptomology and levels of compliance
to the traditional, stereotypical female gender role.
Depression and Women
Depression is generally described as a mood or
affect disorder of varying degrees, although it is
probably incorrect to assume it varies along a continuum
from the blues to a major depression. Rather, it is
heterogeneous and there are various subtypes (McGrath et
al., 1990). Some subtypes such as Bipolar Disorder and
Organic Mood Disorder are generally considered to have a
strong contributing biological etiology as opposed to
psychological and sociological causes (Beck (1967), while
other subtypes have milder or no biological contribution.
Depression has a multicausal etiology and it is often
impossible to assess the degree to which each cause has
contributed to the depressive state, due in part to the
interactive and synergistic effect of the contributing
factors in women's depression. The DSM-IV (1994)
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18
discusses depression related diagnosis under the general
category, "Mood Disorders," (p.317). Criteria for a
diagnosis vary, depending on the subtype, but a Major
Depressive Disorder must include the following criteria
(simplified here): a depressed mood or loss of interest
or pleasure along with at least four of the following (or
three if both depressed mood and loss of interest or
pleasure are present): significant weight loss or gain;
insomnia or hypersomnia; psychomotor agitation or
retardation; fatigue, feelings of worthlessness or
inappropriate guilt; diminished ability to think or
concentrate; recurrent thoughts of death or suicide
ideation. A milder diagnosis of depression, Dysthymic
Disorder, is similar, with fewer of the criteria required
to be experienced, these criteria can be milder, and
suicide ideation and "loss of interest or pleasure" need
not be experienced.
Although the description and definition of
depression are straightforward and fairly well agreed
upon, the causes of depression are far more complex and
many questions remain unanswered. The causes of
depression in women need to be considered in a
biopsychosocial context, including social, economic,
biological and emotional factors with the major risk
factors being cognitive and personality styles; sexual
and physical abuse; marriage; and poverty (McGrath et
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19
al., 1990). The learned helplessness paradigm (Seligman,
1990) helps to explain how the experience of
powerlessness and submissiveness lead to a state where a
person is unable to get what she or he wants. This
paradigm helps explain why the victimization of women
creates depression. Virtually all of these risk factors
are exacerbated by the particular experience of being
female in this society and to further compound the
complexity, these components may be both additive and
synergistic (McGrath et al., 1990).
Miller (1976) states that "depression in general
seems to relate to feeling blocked, unable to do or get
what one wants." For some women it may seem on the
surface to them and others that she has what she wants,
but as it turns out, she has what she has been led to
believe she wants, often a house in the suburbs,
children, a nice husband. The present treatment of
depressed women, except in feminist therapy, seldom takes
into consideration the contribution of societal factors
to depression in women. Therefore, research showing
evidence for an association between the acceptance of
traditional, stereotypical attitudes and depression could
help inform mental health professionals about the
treatment needs of women in therapy.
Feminists generally agree that for a woman to be
mentally healthy she needs to move from being dependent
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upon others for defining her roles to achieving her own
definition of self and identity- This is often a
difficult step for a woman because she risks rejection
and anger from those who have benefitted from her
caretaker role (Jack, 1991) . Feminist theory understands
that women's depression may have resulted in part from
feeling like a second class citizen in a society that
devalues women, and that women have "a collective
vulnerability to depression, which results simply from
living in a culture in which sexism, discrimination and
violence against women are allowed and sometimes even
encouraged" (McGrath, 1992, p.292) . This can be
understood as a "beta bias" which is an assumption that
societal factors create most of the differences perceived
in the personalities in women and men (Kahn & Yoder,
1989) . Alternatively, an alpha bias focuses on gender
differences to explain women's problems, often with the
result that women are blamed for their problems and their
position in society. A beta bias would therefore
support changing societal definitions and expectations of
those roles for women which can lead to depression (Kahn
& Yoder, 1989).
To conclude this section, it bears repeating that,
although many convincing theoretical arguments have been
made for the sociological effects on depression in women
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21
(see for instance, Friedan, 1963, Jack, 1991; McGrath,
1992; Travis, 1988;) the research is sorely lacking.
Feminism Defined
Feminism is a broadly used term and feminist groups
differ greatly in their philosophies about the status of
women and the means for overcoming gender inequality.
There are four major variants in feminist thought.
Travis (1988) describes liberal feminism as the belief
that sexism and discrimination are the sources of
oppression among women. Radical feminism, on the other
hand, perceives oppression as the result of male
domination, while socialist/Marxist feminism views
oppression as resulting from patriarchy and capitalism.
In terms of strategies for change, Travis states that
liberal feminists desire legislation/legal changes and
equal opportunities, whereas radical feminists advocate
consciousness-raising efforts and mutual support.
Socialist/Marxist feminists see the need for control of
reproduction as well as participation in the work force.
While Enns & Hackett (1990) and Travis (1988)
describe the three variants of feminism in three
categories just mentioned above, Enns (1993) states that
a fourth variant, cultural feminism, has survived as one
of the more enduring philosophies of feminism. Cultural
feminists differ from liberal feminists in that they
believe that women have different capabilities and
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strengths than men. For instance, cultural feminists
emphasize the relational capacity of women and perceive
the difficulties women experience as springing from the
devaluation of women's special values and strengths.
Related to this are a number of theories of women' s
development which emphasize women's differentness from
men and explain and celebrate the positive aspects of
these differences. A number of "relationship models" of
women's identity development emphasize women's unique
relationship skills involving intimacy and affiliation,
as well as "previously undervalued experiences of
empathic relatedness" (Enns, 1991, p.216).
Therefore, although liberal feminists believe the
differences between men and women are minimal, cultural
feminists differ from other theories of feminism in their
celebration of certain of women's differences from men,
which they view as strengths. It is important to note
that Enns (1993) points out that recent research does not
support generalized distinctions of differences between
men and women. Moreover, she explains that there are
social consequences to creating such dichotomies between
men and women because they reinforce existing
stereotypes, often are only true in certain situations
where gender related behaviors are rewarded and punished,
and finally, diminish the salience of power, domination
and subordination as tied to sex (Enns, 1991).
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23
In spite of the wide variance in the ideologies of
the categories of feminist ideology, many women refrain
from identifying with feminism altogether because they
disagree with the aims and purposes of groups commonly
associated with the women’s movement. Some women who
otherwise strongly believe in equality for women are
turned off by some (what may appear to be) angry,
aggressive, men-hating women. They may avoid feminism
out of fear of upsetting their current male-female
relationships or unleashing their own anger. These women
may equate feminism singularly to a radical feminist
perspective and shun all associations with "feminism" as
a result of disagreeing with that particular ideology.
This group may include, for example, those women who
adhere closely to religious doctrines which stand
diametrically opposed to political agendas often
associated with feminism.
Other women feel the feminist movement in the United
States does not represent all women. In truth, the
resurgent women's movement of the 1960's primarily
represented the concerns of upper and middle class White
women for whom "work" means a career and gaining economic
power and independence. Hooks (1981) explains that many
low-income and/or Black women whose presence in the
workforce has been strongly visible have eschewed the
women's movement because of this emphasis on
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24
participation in the workforce as being the key to their
liberation. Therefore, the primarily White and middle-to-
* upper income women's movement appeared to "excluded1 1
groups as being racist, classist and narcissistic. In
addition, the feminist movement made evident that because
of years of sexist and racist brainwashing, college-
educated White middle and upper class women still
regarded women unlike themselves as "others." Women's
studies programs (usually all-White faculties teaching
literature by White women about White women) were
established "frequently from racist perspectives" (hooks,
1981, p. 121) . The women who were active in feminism in
the United States were appropriating feminism for their
own materialistic opportunism and "...they showed little
concern about the status of women as a collective group
in our society" (p. 190) . White women were upholding the
capitalistic system and their own class privileges. Thus
feminists were apathetic toward other unempowered groups
of women, which was the same charge they themselves had
been making toward men (hooks, 1981) .
For the purposes of this research and to appeal to a
more inclusive definition, feminism is defined as the
insight and awareness of women's need to transcend
stereotypical, rigid boundaries imposed on women
externally by society and fulfill their inner potential
in the outer world. It is the belief of this researcher
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that this transcendence is a stage-wise progression,
beginning at a stage in the development of a woman' s
identity where her self-definition is based on perceived
external expectations and progressing to a self-identity
whose goals and values are based on an internalized,
positive self-definition. Therefore, categorizing women
as feminist or nonfeminist is unlikely to tap the
complexity inherent in the development toward "feminism.1 1
It is also likely that this progression may lead to less
reports of psychological distress relating to subjective
feelings of hopelessness and powerlessness. The
following discussion on the models of feminist identity
development further clarifies the link between the
development of feminism and depression.
The Development of "Feminist" Identity
Two models of women's identity development have been
developed, both are similar and have corresponding
measurement scales which attempt to operationalize the
theories. Downing & Roush (1985) developed a Feminist
Identity Development Model and Helms developed a model of
Womanist Identity Development (Ossana, Helms & Leonard,
1992). Although this literature review has discussed how
the socialization of women in this society contributes to
women's depression, it is difficult to measure so
ubiquitous an effect.
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26
Feminist Identity Development
Downing & Roush (1985) assert that women go through
a series of stages in developing a feminist identity.
These stages range from Passive Acceptance to Active
Commitment. At the first level, Passive Acceptance,
there is not yet an awareness of discrimination and in
fact at this stage women accept the status quo with
little or no question, consciously or unconsciously
believing they themselves should strive to be more like
men, and at the same time, believe themselves to be
inferior to men. This is the stage which most closely
approximates the term "traditional woman." Some
successful women, even today, often denigrate other women
(who are not as successful) and align themselves with
men. "I did it, let them work hard like I did." They
avoid contact with ideas that would upset this
equilibrium, possibly because they believe (without
necessarily being consciously aware of it) that having
the traditional roles are advantageous to them, or
possibly because they simply don’t want to rock the boat.
In addition the self-silencing of women at this stage
contributes to low self-esteem (Jack, 1991). Women at
this stage are predicted to have more depression because
it is at this stage a woman experiences maximum "loss of
self." A woman may also be particularly vulnerable to
depression when she begins to moves out of the Passive-
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Acceptance stage into the second stage, Revelation. She
is leaving a stage of total compliance with a subordinate
station in life and, believing it is her "place, " she may
have been relatively comfortable with it. Thus she
begins to gain increasing awareness of the unfairness of
this station and the corresponding lack of equal
opportunity, but she has not yet discovered support or
understanding from others in regard to her feelings about
this new awareness. The helplessness and powerlessness
thus experienced may result in depressive symptomology.
At this point in time, negative feelings such as anger
and resentment may be kept out of awareness because she
is unable to deal with the inevitable interpersonal
conflict that would arise if she were to confront people
in her life with the unfairness of the present
arrangement. The Revelation stage often happens after a
significant event in a woman's life, such as being
discriminated against on a job, after which she can no
longer deny the reality of her oppression.
The third stage, Embeddedness-Emanation, occurs when
a woman embeds herself in the women's culture, for
instance through membership in a support group or a close
connection with other women who are at the same stage.
The next stage is the Synthesis stage. Women who realize
the futility of the rage they experience in stage three
may move to this Synthesis stage because it is more
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28
flexible and can channel their energies more
productively. They are more able to value the positive
aspects of being female. The last stage is Active
Commitment where a woman works to create her own future
and is actively committed to working for women's rights
(Downing & Roush, 1985). Bargad & Hyde (1991)
operationalized the five stages of Downing and Roush's
feminist identity development in order to measure the
effects of university women's studies courses on the
student's conception of feminism and herself as a
feminist. They found that women's studies courses
contributed significantly to feminist identity
development in women.
Womanist Identity Development
Helms developed a four-stage model of gender
development in women, the Womanist Identity Attitudes
Model, based on social attitudes toward men and women
(Ossana et al., 1992). This model does not attempt to
measure attitudes toward feminism, nor does attaining the
highest level require acknowledgment of feminist thought
or feminist activism. Instead, this model assumes
women's gender identity development progresses linearly
from the beginning stage, Preencounter, where a woman
conforms to external societal messages regarding women's
role in society in which men are idealized and women are
denigrated, to the Encounter stage, where because of some
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29
form of contact she becomes aware that other ways of
defining her womanhood are possible. At the third stage,
Immersion/Emersion, a woman begins to idealize women and
their culture and rejects her previous idealization of
male culture.
At the last stage, Internalization, she defines
herself as woman based on her own internal standard of
what womanhood can be for her, and rejects her previously
held external, societal definition (Ossana et al., 1992).
The questionnaire, Womanist Identity Attitudes Scale, is
not necessarily a measure of women's conscious decision,
attitude or affiliation with organized women's movements,
or feminist movements or organizations. Instead, it is a
measure of social attitudes toward men and women in our
society. In a study designed to discover why women are
not benefiting from their college experiences as much as
men (as measured by their academic and career aspirations
as well as grade point averages compared with men's grade
point averages) a positive relationship between
Internalization attitudes and self-esteem was found in a
study using female university students, and Preencounter
attitudes were negatively related to self-esteem (Ossana,
1992). This lends support to the present study because
low self-esteem is highly correlated with depression
(Beck, 1967).
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Both of the foregoing developmental models of
feminist and womanist identity have original roots in
Cross's 1971 model of Black identity development, but
while there are similarities, they are not identical.
Ossana et al. (1992) lists three important differences:
(1) The feminist identity model assumes healthy
development for a woman requires her to adopt a feminist
political orientation and that she be actively committed
to societal changes, whereas the womanist identity model
is focused on the personal aspect of healthy development
via personal and ideological flexibility. (2) The
womanist identity model is more interested in how the
woman comes to value herself whereas the feminist
identity model places "greater emphasis on changing the
woman's perceptions of the role of women vis a vis men"
(p.403). (3) The womanist identity model subsumes
the feminist model because if feminist ideology does
occur, it probably begins in the third stage,
Immersion/Emersion.
The womanist identity model would likewise be useful
for those women who do not subscribe to feminism per se,
but who have moved away from the traditional model of
womanhood in this society. In general, the womanist
identity model measures attitudes toward men and women
and the experience of a woman's own personal strengths
and valuing of herself without using societal stereotypes
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31
of what being a woman means. The model does not require
her to be actively committed or involved in making social
changes and therefore no specific references are made to
political groups or feminist groups. In contrast, in the
feminist identity model, active commitment (to women's
issues) is actually the title of the highest
developmental stage and being actively engaged in or at
least committed and caring about improving women's status
in the world is a feature of every question in the
highest stage. The feminist identity development model
is therefore useful for women who use feminist identity
as a developmental blueprint (McNamara & Rickard, 1989).
Therefore, the reasons for using both models are
that, while neither have been used extensively, both may
prove to be very important in the understanding of
women's development. In addition, it is important to see
at what developmental point depression decreases.
Another reason both identity development scales are
necessary in this research is because this is a
relatively new area of study and it is not known how
these measures correlate with depression. Although this
is primarily a study to determine if feminist values,
attitudes and lifestyle correlate with less depression
(because of the suppression of the self-identity of women
due to traditional, societal values of womanhood), it is
not necessarily concerned with membership in feminist
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32
groups or political activism. Therefore the womanist
identity development scale may correctly measure the
identity development of women who have grown in self-hood
but who may respond negatively to the feminist
development scale with its heavy emphasis on feminism per
se. On the other hand, some women may have become
empowered by feminist thought and philosophy and have
gained hope and encouragement and determination for their
lives. If so, the feminist identity development scale
may correctly measure the results of this affiliation.
Both models have relevance to women's depression because
they measure development of the self on a continuum and
the thesis of this research is that depression will vary
from higher levels to lower levels, corresponding
conversely with lower to higher levels of measurement on
the feminist/womanist identity scales.
Importance of the Study
Women are diagnosed as depressed twice as often as
men; this percentage generally holds true globally and
across ethnic groups (McGrath et al., 1990). McGrath et
al. (1990) also reports that approximately 20 percent of
all women are likely to suffer from depression at some
time in their lives, and there are currently at least
seven million women in the United States with a
diagnosable depression. Moreover, it is estimated that,
while one out of four women will have a serious
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33
depression in her lifetime, only one in five of those
will receive the help she needs.
A troubling aspect of the prevalence of depression
in women is the likelihood that the depression will
negatively affect others in their life. Women in
American culture are the primary and increasingly often
the sole providers of child care and it is likely that
the children of depressed women will also suffer. Family
theorists are quick to point out the multigenerational
effects of inadequate parenting due to mental disorders,
creating a cycle of inadequate coping strategies.
While children are therefore negatively affected by
women's depression, men are themselves negatively
affected by similar but complementary societal role
expectation. Men too are adversely affected by societal
dictates which reinforce polarization of men and women's
gender roles. Men receive powerful social messages to be
the sole providers for their families. Both men and
women are expected to conform to societies' expectations
of their gender roles. For a man or women to
purposefully shed the external, societal expectations and
instead be guided by an internal self-direction based on
personal desires and inclinations might invite criticism,
social disgrace, and finding him or her self judged as a
failure.
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34
Although males, too, have powerful societal forces
influencing them to conform to external societal norms
(e.g. to be success oriented which, unfortunately, often
distances them psychologically and emotionally from their
families (Messner, 1987), societal forces that influence
women's choices are more limiting than those forces that
influence men1s choices. For instance, a mother of young
or school-age children will often find her success in
college or work brings less recognition in her social and
familial life than how she caretakes her family. Her
"caretaking responsibilities" may include not only her
children, her husband, her parents, and her husband's
parents, but in some cases also family members of her
husband1s workplace.
Women can be heavily influenced by the strength of men's
power and domination over them:
The "breadwinner ethic" as a male role has
most definitely contributed to the perpetuation
of male privilege and the subordination and
economic dependence of women as mothers and
housekeepers (Messner, 1987, p.205).
Moreover, it is particularly difficult for women to
avoid financial dependency given the reality of the labor
market. "Among full-time workers, women still earn about
65 cents to the male dollar and are commonly segregated
in lower-paid, dead-end jobs" (Messner, 1993, p.727).
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35
This puts women in a Catch-22 position financially.
Thus, not only women but men and children are adversely
affected by rigid societal expectations of gender roles.
Purpose of the Study
Relatively little research has studied whether
depression in women might correlate with traditional
values and lifestyles as well as negative attitudes
toward current feminist issues. Alternatively, women who
have adopted feminist ideology and who have developed an
identity based on an awareness of gender discrimination
in our society may experience empowerment from
"permission" to ignore the oppressive societal
expectations. This research will test the hypothesis
that women who define their lives according to an
external, societal and sexist definition of womanhood
will have higher depression levels than feminist women,
or women who define themselves based on an internal,
self-defined standard of womanhood.
In addition, this study proposes to demonstrate that
this distinction between women who conform to present
societal expectations of women, and women who do not
conform, can be measured on a continuum which measures a
stage-wise process of identity development. This
identity development measures women’s growing awareness
of environmental gender bias, their increasing reliance
on their own internal self-evaluation, and their self-
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36
definition as being increasingly based on their own
personal, internal experience of womanhood.
This research study addresses the need for refined
measures of feminist identity development (Enns, 1993) by
examining the possible association between lower levels
of womanist identity development and higher depression
levels in women. If women who have relatively
underdeveloped levels of womanist identity have more
depression than those women who have higher levels of
feminist or womanist identity development, then future
research can focus on what interventions help to develop
women's self-identity, to see if that is an effective
method for treating depression in women. The feminist
and womanist identity development models may be a helpful
way to assess progress in therapy and it is of course
especially suited for feminist therapy because it
describes a stage-wise process of development that makes
it possible to track an individual woman's progress.
In addition, the aims of this study may have further
clinical implications. Therapy that aims at
individualized change such as adjustment, self-assertion
or self-defense may not help women to recognize the need
for change in their environment and may inadvertently
demotivate them to make those changes. They may then be
"adjusted" to a harmful living situation rather than
toward growth and development (Enns, 1993) . In
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37
psychotherapy, the integration of a focus on "inner
psychological processes and personal change" and the
"social-political context of women's lives" which
advocates social change as the means to improving women1 s
lives and well being is "the most pressing issue for the
future of feminist therapy" (Rawlings, 1993, p.90).
A unified theory of feminist therapy would
recognize the plurality and diversity of women's
lives and guide future refinements of feminist
therapy. It would integrate a feminist political
analysis with scientific data on the psychology of
women and knowledge about the impact of life events
on women's development. Emotional disorders would be
conceptualized as disruptions in normal development
that are influenced by a particular
social/environmental system (Enns, 1993, p.65).
This study therefore seeks to measure whether an
inner psychological process, depression, is related to
women's social-political value-belief system. The
results of this research may help clarify whether
depression is one of those inner psychological processes
that need to be included in Rawlings' (1993) and Enns'
(1993) suggestions that feminist therapy integrate inner
psychological processes and personal change with a
social-political analyses of the client's problems.
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The final section of this chapter will list the
hypotheses referred to in this chapter.
Hypotheses
1. Women who accept the traditional, stereotypical
female gender role while eschewing a feminist identity
will have more depressive symptomology than feminist
women.
2. Women who define themselves according to an
internalized, self-defined standard of womanhood will
have lower depression levels than women who define
themselves according to an external, societal definition
of womanhood.
3. Women who score high on measures of traditional,
stereotypical female gender roles, while simultaneously
scoring low on measures of masculine gender roles, will
have higher depressive symptomology than women who score
high on measures of masculinity gender roles (regardless
of their corresponding female gender role scores).
4. A planful problem solving way of coping with daily
environmental stressors by women will be negatively
associated with depressive symptomology.
5. A coping style by women that utilizes a confrontive
style will be positively associated with depressive
symptomology.
6. It is hypothesized that the results of the Brown and
Harris (1978) study will be further confirmed. It is
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39
hypothesized that women who have the following life
situations women will have higher depressive
symptomology: loss of a mother before age 11; having no
job; having no one in their life with whom they have a
supportive relationship; and having 3 or more children in
the household under the
age of 14.
7. It is hypothesized that women who self report
victimization in the form of sexual harassment,
woman/wife battering, childhood sexual abuse, rape,
acquaintance/date rape and childhood physical abuse will
have higher levels of depressive symptomology than those
women who report no victimization.
In addition, depressive symptomology will be
statistically analyzed to see if correlations exist with
the following personal data: age, ethnicity,
socioeconomic status, level of education, employment
information and marital status.
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40
Chapter 2
Method
The methodology for this study will be described in
this chapter in the following five sections: Research
Design, Participants, Protection of Human Subjects,
Procedures, and Measuring Instruments. In addition,
Tables 1 and 2 are presented in this chapter. Table 1
provides information regarding the participants and Table
2 provides the means, standard deviations, range,
reliability and coefficients of the scales used in this
study.
Research Design
A nonexperimental, correlational design measuring
differences between subjects was used to investigate
whether a covariation exists between women's depressive
symptomology and several factors which have been
theoretically linked to depression in women. These
factors include levels of compliance to the traditional
and stereotypical female gender role, gender role
characteristics such as communion and agency, and ways of
coping with daily environmental stressors. In addition,
the victimization of women has been associated with
depression in women and therefore, the study will include
the categories of childhood physical abuse, childhood
sexual abuse, rape, acquaintance rape, sexual harassment
in the workplace or school, and woman battering.
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41
Depressive symptomology was also statistically analyzed
to see if correlations exist with the following personal
data: age, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, level of
education, employment information, emotional support
received from others, death of one or both parents during
the subject's childhood, and the number of children under
age 14 in the subj ect1s household.
Questionnaires were given to a population of women
for the purpose of assessing the degree to which their
attitudes, values and beliefs toward women's adherence to
traditional gender roles (presumably toward opposition or
neutrality to feminism) predict levels of depression.
Zero-order correlational analyses were performed to study
not only the possible covariation between the variables
just mentioned, but also to examine which variables
predict the most variance.
In general, it was hypothesized that there is an
inverse relationship between the scores on the scales
used to determine levels of feminist identity and the
scores on the Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale
(CES-D scale).
It was also hypothesized that victimization and
previous history of familial depression are associated
with higher scores on the CES-D scale. Lower but
significant correlations were also hypothesized between
higher levels of depressive symptomology and the Feminine
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42
scales of the Personal Attributes Questionnaire (PAQ) and
certain scales of the Ways of Coping Questionnaire.
These subscales on the WCQ include "Confrontive Coping,"
1 1 Self-Control, " and "Escape-Avoidance."
It was expected that attitudes associated with
higher levels of feminist and womanist identity, and
therefore more enlightened levels of feminist and
womanist attitudes, relate to significantly lower scores
on the CES-D scale. Lower scores on the CES-D are
associated with low levels of depression whereas higher
scores relate to heightened levels of depression. The
null hypothesis is that differences in depression levels
are not significantly associated with differences in
scores of the various categories of the FIDS and WAIS.
A hierarchical regression analysis was performed
using stepwise procedures to determine whether women's
compliance or non-compliance to the traditional and
stereotypical gender role makes a significant
contribution to the variance, after the addition of other
known correlates to depression have been entered into the
regression analysis. These other variables include,
but are not limited to, age, socioeconomic status,
educational level and ethnic identity,
Participants
The participants in this study were 230 women who
were students at three community colleges and one large
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43
private university in Southern California. The majority
of women were students in the community colleges (225)
while the remaining participants (5) were students at the
university. The participants were both part-time and
full-time status students, whose ages ranged between 17
and 75 years old. The average age of the participants
was 26 years. The ethnic diversity was as follows:
Asian-American, 16.5%; Hispanic/Latino, 10%; African-
American/Black, 3.5%; European-American/White, 58.7%;
Native-American/American Indian, 2.6%; and "Other" were
8.7%. The category "Other" generally included those
women who defined themselves ethnically as identifying
with more than one of the above groups. Table 1
provides more information in regard to the diversity of
the women, including socioeconomic status, marital/living
status, number of children living in the household and
employment status.
The researcher, in attempting to reach a broad
cross-section of adult women, recruited subjects from 22
separate college classes over 2 semesters. These classes
include archaeology, psychology, art, art history and
appreciation, intermediate and advanced clothing
technique, sewing skills assessment, computer application
in fashion, ethnic studies, native American studies,
anthropology, gender issues, a parenting class and one
student union group.
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44
Table 1
DESCRIPTION OF SAMPLB Women (n=230)
Percent(%)
Aae (years)
Range 17-70
Median 21
Mean 26.3
Mode 20
Bthnicity
Asian-American 38
Hispanic/Latino 23
African-American/Black 8
European-American/White 135
Native-American/
American Indian 6
Other 20
Total 230
Bducation
Years of College
Range 0-6
Mean 2
Median 2
Mode 2
Number of Children in Household
0 154
1 or more 76
Total 230
E m ploym e n t .
Unempl oyed 71
Part-time 114
Full-time 45
Total 230
Household income
$0 - $15,000 100
$15,000 - $30,000 48
$30,000 - $75,000 45
$75,000 - $125,000 15
$125,000+ 8
No response 14
Total 230
Living Situation (%)
Married 46
Divorced 12
Widowed 2
Single 152
Cohabiting 16
No response_____________________2 .
Total 230
16.5%
10.0
3.5
58.7
2.6
8-_7
100 %
67
21
100 %
31
49.5
_ l. S -. - 5
100 %
43 .5
20.9
19.6
6.5
3.5
< ?,Q
100 %
20
5
1
66
7
1_
100 %
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Nearly 100% of the women, who were invited to
participate accepted the questionnaire to take home with
them, and 56% of those women actually returned a
completed questionnaire to the researcher. The completed
questionnaires were gathered a week later when the
researcher returned to the classroom, or in some cases, 2
or 3 weeks later. A few were returned by mail in an
envelope provided by the researcher. A total of 241
questionnaires were received and 11 were discarded due to
incomplete data, leaving a total of 230 participants.
Protection of Human Subjects
A cover letter which also comprised the informed
consent advised the participants that their participation
was voluntary and that they could withdraw from the study
at any time. They were also told the steps that were
being taken to insure the confidentiality of each
individual participant. The investigator was the only
person distributing and collecting the questionnaires.
In order to insure the complete confidentiality of each
participant, the female students were provided with a
large bag already containing other questionnaires, in
which each person placed her own completed questionnaire.
To further insure anonymity, participants were instructed
not to include their names on the questionnaire and they
were assured that the surveys were not numbered or marked
in any way.
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There was little risk involved in the research. One
possible risk may have existed in the participant's
completion of the depression inventory. The items of the
survey may trouble women who are depressed, for instance,
if they have not fully realized the extent of their
malaise. To address this potential problem, all
participants were given in written form the names,
addresses and telephone numbers of three mental health
centers. One of the referrals provided was the
counseling center at the particular college which the
participant was currently attending. At least one of the
other referrals was a local clinic or agency which
accepts clients on a sliding scale (according to her
ability to pay) , or free (the agency does not turn
clients away due to inability to pay). The list of
referrals was attached to the last page of the
questionnaires. The respondents were told in the cover
letter that no discomfort is anticipated but if they feel
they would like to talk to someone, they should call one
of these referrals. The cover letter also included the
phone number of the researcher in the event the
participants developed concerns or questions, and as a
further precaution to insure the comfort of each
participant. In that way, each participant would have
someone to talk to about the research if for any reason
she should feel the need to discuss it.
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47
In the cover letter which also comprised the
informed consent, they were told that the research
project involves the study of women's attitudes,
feelings, and perceptions about their living and working
environment. They were informed that after the data
analyses have been completed, a summary of the purpose
and the results will be available to those participants
who request it.
Procedures
In an attempt to reach a cross-section of adult
women, the research study was conducted at three
community colleges and one large private university which
were all located on the West Coast. The university and
one community college required and received a full
institutional review board meeting and the other two
community colleges required only that each individual
teacher approve of the research conducted in his or her
classroom. For those colleges who did not have an
institutional review board, each teacher was provided
with a copy of the questionnaire packet a week before the
presentation was given in her or his classroom.
Initially, the researcher approached several
teachers who were acquaintances of the researcher and
asked them if they would allow her to address the
students in their classes for the purpose of inviting the
female students to participate in a research project.
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48
These requests were granted and the experimenter visited
the classrooms and asked for volunteers to participate in
the study. Thereafter, other classrooms became available
to the researcher including other classes taught by the
same instructors, through word-of-mouth by students and
also by approaching other teachers utilizing the same
classrooms. A total of 22 classes were visited,
including archaeology, psychology, art, art history and
appreciation, intermediate and advanced clothing
technique, sewing skills assessment, computer application
in fashion, ethnic studies, Native American studies,
anthropology, gender issues, a parenting class and one
student union group.
A presentation was made to each of the above-
mentioned college classes by the investigator of this
research study. The female students were invited to
participate in a research project and they were told that
the research project involves "the study of women's
attitudes, feelings and perceptions about their living
and working environment today" and that it will include
about 200 women. These students were also told that
their participation in this research project would be
anonymous, completely voluntary and that they could
terminate their participation at any time. The
researcher explained the potential risks and benefits to
the participants. They were informed that completing the
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49
questionnaires would take about 45 minutes.
Additionally, a short talk was given for the purpose of
building rapport with the students in order to maximize
participation. In this talk, the researcher shared
information about the Ph.D. process and requirements
which included general information about dissertations as
well.
The cover letter of the questionnaire packet
(Appendix A), which also comprises the informed consent,
repeated the information given verbally to the students.
The informed consent did not require their signature and
it explained that the return of the completed
questionnaire packet to the researcher would constitute
the participant1s consent to participate. The cover
letter also explained that, should they feel the need to
talk with someone immediately, they may call the
researcher, whose phone number was included in the
informed consent cover letter. None of the participants
called the researcher, with the exception of one person
who called to suggest a women's group which could be made
available for the research.
The participants were informed during the
presentation and again when the questionnaires were
collected that if they would like, they could receive
information regarding the purpose and the results of the
study. A stamped and self-addressed postcard was stapled
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50
to the last page of the questionnaire packet for this
purpose. They would need only to write their name and
address on the postcard and mail it to a post office box
number of the researcher. Mailing the postcard
separately from returning the questionnaire protected
each participant's anonymity because their name would not
be connected to their questionnaires.
Those who volunteered for the project were
instructed to take home the questionnaires, complete them
and bring them to class the following week. The
investigator was the only person distributing and
collecting the questionnaires. In order to insure
complete confidentiality, a large bag was provided
already containing other questionnaires, in which each
person placed her own completed questionnaire. A record
was kept of the number of women who were invited to
participate as well as the number of those who actually
returned a conqpleted questionnaire in order to determine
compliance rate.
The researcher attended each of the classes a week
after the initial presentation for the purpose of
collecting the completed questionnaires. She returned to
most of the classes a second time and sometimes a third
time to collect questionnaires in order to maximize the
response rate. At the very last collection for each
class and at the point when the researcher knew she would
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51
not return again, she passed out stamped and self-
addressed envelopes to those students who said at that
time that they still intended to complete their
questionnaires. Approximately 56% of the women who took
home a questionnaire eventually completed and returned it
to the researcher, and 53% of those who actually
completed a questionnaire requested a summary of the
research by mailing the postcard separately that was
provided to them for that purpose. A total of 241
questionnaires were received and 11 were discarded due to
incomplete data, leaving a total of 230 participants.
Measurement Instruments
A personal data questionnaire and five measures were
used in this study. The Center for Epidemiologic Studies
- Depression scale (CES-D) was used as the dependent
variable (criterion variable) to determine depressive
symptomology. The Feminist Identity Development Scale
(FIDS), the Womanist Identity Attitudes Scale (WIAS), the
Personal Attributes Questionnaire (PAQ), and the Ways of
Coping Questionnaire (WCQ) were used as independent
variables. Following is a description of these
instruments.
Personal Data Questionnaire. The personal data
questions included age, ethnicity, socioeconomic status,
educational level attained, religion (optional), present
employment, and the number and ages of the children
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52
living in the household. A brief question asking whether
or not depression has been experienced by other members
of the participant's family was also included. A
question on marital status was included since marriage,
under certain conditions, continues to be a significant
risk factor for depression in women (McGrath, et al.,
1990) .
Sexual abuse and other forms of abuse to women have
been associated with depression in women (Brier & Runtz,
1991). Therefore there were questions asking the
participant if she has ever been a victim of any of the
following crimes: sexual harassment, woman/wife
battering, childhood sexual abuse, acquaintance/date
rape, rape, childhood physical abuse by parent or
guardian.
In addition, there were questions designed to
respond to the landmark study by Brown and Harris (1978).
In this study Brown and Harris concluded that there are
four factors that cause women to have an underlying
vulnerability to depression which include the following:
loss of a mother before the age of 11, having three or
more children under 14 in the household, not having a
job, and not having a person in their life with whom they
could have a confiding relationship. According to Brown
and Harris (1978), these factors are predictors of
depression in women when a stressor is encountered.
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53
Finally, there was a question designed to assess her
attitude toward feminism. Although the Personal
Attributes Questionnaire assesses for adherence or
membership in stereotypical masculine and feminine traits
and groups, and the Feminist Identity Development Scale
and the Womanist Identity Attitude Scale assess feminist
identity development levels, a single item question has
been useful to indicate attitudes toward feminism. The
respondent was asked to determine to what degree she
would label herself a feminist on a 5-point Likert-type
response scale. Higher scores will reflect a stronger
agreement with the label "feminist."
This single item question on feminism has previously
been useful in studying stress and coping in managerial
women (Long, Kahn & Schutz, 1992) and career orientation
and choices of women (O'Brien and Fassinger, 1993).
Smith and Self (1981) found women who label themselves
feminist have formed a more consistent sex-role ideology
than women who would not accept the feminist label. In
their study, many women who do not label themselves
"feminist" nevertheless do support egalitarianism in the
workplace and political arena, but are reluctant to
change existing cultural norms with regard to
interpersonal relationships with men. It has been
theorized that when women are involved in interpersonal
relationships with men that are consistent with
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54
traditional culture norms, they are more susceptible to
depression. This may happen because some women may
subordinate their goals and needs to men and may
sometimes remain passive and dependent. It is
hypothesized that women who do not label themselves
"feminist" on this single item question will be
associated with higher levels of depression than
"feminist" women. The information gathered from the
demographic questionnaire will be statistically analyzed
for possible correlations and associations with other
data from the research.
Following will be a description of each of the
remaining instruments and a discussion regarding the
reliability and validity as well as the reasons for using
these instruments.
The Feminist Identity Development Scale _(FIDSJ_.
This instrument was designed by Downing and Roush (1985)
to measure graduated levels of the degree to which a
woman identifies with ideas, values, roles, etc. which
are currently associated with the women's movement
(feminism) . The authors of this measure believe that
women in American society develop a feminist identity.
At the beginning stage, women accept the status quo,
believing that a "traditional" role for women is not
unfair; in fact, she may perceive her role as
advantageous. She may also believe that men are
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55
naturally superior to women. As a woman becomes aware of
discrimination, unequal treatment and unfairness to
women, she moves on to other levels of feminist identity
development. The feminist identity development scale
" ... is based on the premise that women who live in
contemporary society must first acknowledge, then
struggle with, and repeatedly work through their feelings
about the prejudice and discrimination they experience as
women in order to achieve authentic and positive feminist
identity" (Downing & Roush, 1985, p. 695).
The model of feminist identity development was also
based on the authors' clinical and personal experience,
and the belief that "any model that attempts to describe
accurately events in women's lives must acknowledge the
prejudice and discrimination that are a significant part
of their life experience" (Downing & Roush, 1985, p.
696). In addition they believe that women in our society
share some of the developmental experiences of a minority
population so that the literature in the area of the
identity development of minority men and women is also
relevant for all women, regardless of race. Thus, there
are parallels between these stages for all women and
Black men. They therefore developed their 5-stage
feminist identity development model based on Cross's
(1971) model of Black identity development. Bargad & Hyde
(1991) operationalized this 5-stage model by performing
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56
several studies. Using factor analyses and beginning
with 200 items, they eventually yielded a 39-item scale.
In the first study, the factor analysis yielded five
factors which reflected the original scaled items of
Passive Acceptance, Revelation, Embeddedness-Emanation,
Synthesis and Active Commitment. Thus each questionnaire
yields 5 scores, one for each of the factors. They cast
their instrument in Likert-type format, using self-
descriptive statements on a 5-point scale from strongly
disagree (1) to strongly agree (5). Test-retest
reliability was determined by a second administration one
week after the initial administration, using a subset of
the original participants. Only items which had a test-
retest reliability of greater than .60 were retained.
Table 2 presents the coefficient alpha estimates of
internal consistency of the measuring instruments used in
the present study.
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57
Table 2
Means, Standard Deviations, Range, Reliability and Coefficients of Scales
H=230
Measures
Number
of
Items Means Std Dev Range
Sample Original
Alpha Alpha
Center for Epidemiologic Studies
Total Score
- Depression
20 . 8 3 .56 .00 2.60 .91
Subscales:
Negative Affect 5 . 8 3 .75 .00 3.00 .87
Positive Affect 4 2.22 .71 .25 3.00 . 8 2
Impaired Motivation 8 .97 .59 .00 2.63 .78
Impaired Relationships 3 .51 .61 .00 2.67 . 6 9
Rays of Coping Questionnaire:
Escape-avoidance 8 1.01 .63 .00 3.00 .76 .72
Distancing 6 1.06 .61 .00 2.67 .67 .61
Accepting Responsibility 4 1.18 . 8 2 .00 5.50 .54 . 6 6
Confrontive coping 6 1.24 .61 .00 2.83 .62 . 7 0
Positive reappraisal 7 1.35 .76 .00 3.00 .8 0 .7 9
Self-controlling 7 1.36 .50 .14 2.57 .47 . 7 0
Seeking social support 6 1.48 . 7 0 .00 3.00 .75 .76
Planful problem solving 6 1.58 .61 .00 3.00 . 6 3 . 6 8
Personal Attributes Questionnaire (gender roles):
Masculinity 8 3.49 .6 2 .75 4.88 . 7 3 . 7 3
Pemininity 8 4.02 .6 2 .00 5.00 . 8 0 . 7 3
Masculinity-femininity 8 2.71 .54 1.13 4.13 .55 . 6 5
Romanist Identity Attitudes Scale
Preencounter 8 2.34 .60 1.13 7.25 .41 .5 5
Encounter 8 3.07 .45 1.75 4.13 .37 . 4 3
Immersion\emersion 16 2.42 .49 1.25 4.19 .79 .8 2
Internalization 11 4.16 .42 2.36 5.00 . 7 2 .77
Feminist Identity Development Scale:
Passive Acceptance 1 2 2.45 .64 1.00 4.17 .80
Revelation 7 3.11 .65 1.43 5.00 .63
Embeddedness Emanation 7 3.00 .71 1.29 5.00 .75
Synthesis 5 3.85 .53 2.20 5.00 .55
Active Commitment 8 3.45 .64 1.75 5.00 . 8 3
Rote: The total mean scores and the subscale mean scores are derived by dividing the total
score for each scale by the number of items in the scale.
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58
The coefficient alpha estimates of the present study
are as follows: Passive Acceptance, .80; Revelation,
.63; Embeddedness-Emanation, .75; Synthesis, .55 and
Active Commitment, .83.
In the second study, Bargad and Hyde (1991),
administered the Feminist Identity Development Scale to
women from three separate women's studies courses at the
beginning and the end of the course. It was also
administered to a group of controls who were women who
had expressed an interest in taking a women's studies
course, but who were actually enrolled in courses which
did not include women's studies. Both quantitative and
qualitative information were taken. The results
supported the model of feminist identity development
originally proposed by Downing and Roush (1985) . Their
studies specifically intended to study the effects of
women's studies courses on feminist identity development
and also to provide support for the validation of the
Feminist Identity Development Scale. Their results also
supported the hypothesis that women's studies courses do
cause an increase in feminist identity development.
Additionally, in describing the stages of feminist
identity development and the possible advantages and
implications for using the model as a framework for
female clients in psychotherapy, the researchers stated
that they expected the women at the Passive Acceptance
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59
level would have more depression (McNamara & Rickard,
1989) . Thus this instrument was chosen for the present
study because it measures women's level of identification
with feminism; therefore, if a covariation exists between
depression in women and feminist identity, the use of
this instrument will help locate at what level or
category of feminist identity the covariation is highest.
Womanist Identity Attitudes Scale (WIAS). This
measurement was designed to measure attitudes which women
hold about their identity as women in this society. Four
stages of "womanist" identity were identified by Helms
(1990). These stages are termed Preencounter, Encounter,
Immersion/Emersion and Internalization.
The WIAS is in a Likert-type format, using 44 self-
descriptive items on a 5-point scale from Strongly
Disagree (1) to Strongly Agree (5) . As can be seen in
Table 2, Ossana (1992) found coefficient alpha estimates
of internal consistency were .55 for the Preencounter
Stage, .43 for the Encounter, .82 for Immersion/Emersion,
and .77 for Internalization scales. Table 2 presents the
coefficient alpha estimates of internal consistency of
the present study for each of the stages as follows:
Preencounter, .41; Encounter, .37; Immersion-Emersion,
.79; and Internalization, .72.
Other analyses performed during a pilot study of
this research (Ossana, 1992) provide evidence that the
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60
WIAS is not merely a measure of feminist attitudes. It
was found that the correlation between the Attitudes
Toward Feminism scale (ATF) (Smith, Ferree & Miller,
1975) and Preencounter was -.25, p<.01, while the
correlation between ATF and the Internalization attitudes
(highest level of identity development) was .29, p<.05.
These are statistically significant and in the
theoretically expected direction.
Internal consistency and the validity of the
instruments was supported by the following correlations
among the scales, where, as expected, there were negative
correlations between the lowest and highest levels of
womanist identity development: Preencounter with
Encounter r= .22; Preencounter with Immersion/Emersion
r=.35; Preencounter with Internalization r=-.28;
Encounter with Immersion/Emersion r=.53; Encounter with
Internalization r=.14; Immersion/Emersion with
Internalization = r=-.28 (Ossana, 1992) . The present
study yielded the following correlations among the
scales: Preencounter with Encounter r= .27; Preencounter
with Immersion/Emersion r=.28; Preencounter with
Internalization r=-.13; Encounter with Immersion/Emersion
r=.59; Encounter with Internalization r=.00; and
Immersion/Emersion with Internalization = r=-.29.
It is important to include both measures of
feminist/womanist identity development because, although
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61
they appear to be similar, there are important
differences, according to Ossana et al. (1992) . The
feminist identity model assumes that healthy development
for a woman requires her to adopt a feminist political
orientation and that she be actively committed to
societal changes, whereas the womanist identity model is
focused on the personal aspect of healthy development via
personal and ideological flexibility. In addition, the
womanist identity model is more interested in how the
woman comes to value herself, whereas the feminist
identity model places "greater emphasis on changing the
woman's perceptions of the role of women vis a vis men"
(p.403). Furthermore, it is possible that the womanist
identity model subsumes the feminist model and, if so,
feminist ideology may begin in the third stage,
Immersion/Emersion. Additional reasons for including
both measures are that both inventories are relatively
new and neither has been widely used. Thus it is unknown
whether the results will differ in this study and
comparing the inventories will therefore advance the
knowledge in this area.
The Center for Bpidemiologic Studies Depression
Scale (CES-D) . The dependent variable is the Center for
Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D). The CES-
D Scale is a 20-item self-report depression scale which
was designed for use in research in the general
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62
population. This measure was especially designed for
non-clinical, cross-sectional populations for research
purposes and has been used in hundreds of studies since
its development in the early 19701s. It is designed to
assess for current psychological symptoms of depression,
especially depressed mood (Radloff, 1977).
The respondent is asked to answer questions on a 4-
point Likert type response scale beginning with "(0)
rarely or none of the time" on a graduated continuum to
"(3) most or all of the time." Scores can range from 0
to 60. It assesses how often the respondent has felt
this way during the past week and the questions are
focused on the respondent's symptoms of depressed affect
or mood, rather than the full range of depressive
symptoms. There are 4 reversed-score items which are for
the purposes of avoiding a response set and to assess
positive affects or their absence. It is important to
take precautions to insure that the scores on these four
items are reversed when summing the total score.
The test was originally validated by Radloff (1977)
in several large studies from 1971 to 1973. Utilizing
the medium of household interviews in Kansas City,
Missouri and Washington County, Maryland, a total of
2,846 respondents were interviewed. An additional survey
in Washington County re-interviewed 1,089 respondents
from the original research interviews. Another study was
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63
conducted for the purpose of a clinical validation in a
psychiatric facility which included 70 inpatients as well
as 35 people who were outpatients receiving treatment for
severe depression.
Convergent validity was initially found to be
moderate (.44-.56) by comparing CES-D scores with both
nurse-clincian ratings as well as scores from the
Hamilton and Raskin scales, using the patient sample.
Radloff (1977) also reported moderate correlations
between the CES-D scores and the number of negative life
events which respondents reported as having occurred
during the year previous to their participating in the
study.
The CES-D scale correlated moderately well with
self-reports of depression and depressed mood. The CES-D
was also reported to have a correlation of .81 with the
Beck Depression Inventory (BDI). Concurrent validity
ranged from r=.37 to .53 with other self-report measures
and with clinician ratings. Discriminate validity was
also reported by Radloff (1977) , who reported a low,
negative correlation (r=-.18) on the CES-D with the
Marlow-Crown Social Desirability Scale.
In a reliability study for internal consistency,
Radloff found split-half correlations of .85 for patients
and .77 for normals. For both normals and patient groups
the coefficient alpha and Spearman-Brown coefficients
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64
were .90 or above. Test-retest reliabilities were found
to be .67 for four weeks and .32 for twelve months.
The CES-D was originally designed to measure six
components of depression: depressed mood, feelings of
guilt and worthlessness, feelings of helplessness and
hopelessness, psychomotor retardation, loss of appetite,
and sleep disturbance. A factor analysis revealed four
factors all of which are consistent with or associated
with depression: depressed mood (the largest factor) ,
positive affect (reversed scoring), somatic and retarded
activity and interpersonal factors (Radloff, 1977). The
CES-D total score as well as the four factors described
in the previous paragraph are used in the present
research. The present study yielded a coefficient alpha
estimate of internal consistency for the complete 20-item
questionnaire of .91 and the coefficient alphas for the
subscales were as follows: Positive Affect, .82;
Depressed Affect, .87; Impaired Motivation (previously
referred to as Somatic and Retarded Activity), .78 and
Impaired Relationships (previously referred to as
Interpersonal Factors), .69.
Personal Attributes Questionnaire (PAO). The
Personal Attributes Questionnaire (PAQ) is a 24-item
self-report instrument designed to measure gender roles.
The PAQ was chosen for the purpose of measuring the
gender role scores of participants in this research study
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65
in order to compare these scores with other personality
variables (e.g. depression) which are being assessed in
this research. The PAQ has three scales which each have
eight items. The first scale measures a characteristic
of men and women called "Masculinity" (M) ; the second is
called "Femininity" (F); and the third scale is labeled
"Masculinity-Femininity" (M-F).
The PAQ reflects a theoretical viewpoint regarding
men and women in our society that differs from the
frequently prevailing viewpoint. While it has been
commonly assumed by the general public, theorists and
researchers that masculinity and femininity are bi-polar
opposites and that traits can be measured on a single bi
polar dimension, Spence and Helmreich (1978) contend that
those masculine and feminine gender roles and traits as
measured on this instrument are essentially orthogonal.
While men are stereotypically thought of as having
primarily agentic, instrumental traits that
differentiates them from women who lack these traits,
women are thought to be high in "expressive" traits which
include being empathic, sensitive to others and sometimes
called "communion" traits. Men and women generally have
as parts of their personality make-up some
characteristics of both stereotypes of masculine and
feminine attributes.
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66
The Masculinity and Femininity scales thus each
represent clusters of socially desirable psychological
traits commonly thought to differentiate males and
females. The M and F scales each represent those traits
thought to define the psychological core of males and
females. The PAQ assesses Masculinity and Femininity as
independent attributes and they are each measured
separately.
Items in the masculine scales are thought to be
socially desirable in both sexes, but are believed to be
more highly possessed by males in our culture (e.g.
independence) . The Femininity Scale contains items also
considered to be socially desirable in both sexes but,
again, believed to be possessed more by females (e.g.
gentleness). The third scale, Masculinity-Femininity
contains items containing both communion and agency
traits. For the M-F scale, the presumed ideal man is
expected to score higher on this inventory and the
presumed ideal modal for women would result in a lower
score for women.
Spence and Helmreich (1978) concede that the self-
concepts of the sexes are not identical but they explain
that "...differences between the sexes are perceived on a
greater range of characteristics than can be sustained by
reality and, even on those characteristics in which the
sexes do appear to differ, the stereotype tends to
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67
exaggerate the discrepancy between the average woman and
man and to underestimate the variability within each
sex." (p. 112) . Furthermore, the "dominant-submissive
relationship often demands a good deal of role-playing or
self-deception in both sexes..." (p.113).
Moreover they assert that some men and women score
high on both scales. These high scorers belong in a
category called androgynous and these people are more
often characterized by higher social competence and high
self-esteem (Spence and Helmreich, 1978).
The validity of the PAQ was established by numerous
studies during its development and validity has been
further demonstrated by numerous studies since then
(Spence and Helmreich, 1978) . Each scale was originally
formulated by using items which are commonly believed to
differentiate the sexes and which are also items in which
men and women tend to report themselves as different.
Further research substantiated the items (Spence &
Helmreich, 1978). It is now one of the top two
inventories currently used to measure gender roles
(Beere, 1990).
The PAQ correlates highly with the other of the two
most frequently used inventories of gender roles which is
the Bern Sex Role Inventory (BSRI) . The PAQ and BSRI
correlates were .75 for males on the two M scales, .57
for males on the F scales, .73 for females on the M
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68
scales and .59 for females on the F scales (Spence &
Helmreich, 1978).
The PAQ 24-item short form to be used in the present
study was developed from the original instrument which
contained 55 items. Spence & Helmreich (1978) report
correlations of .93, .93 and .91 for M, F, and M-F
respectively between the long form and the short form.
The present study yielded coefficient alpha estimates of
internal consistency for each of the three subscales as
follows: Masculine, .73; Feminine, .80; and Masculine-
Feminine, .55.
The Ways of Coping Questionnaire (revised) (WCQ).
The Ways of Coping Questionnaire (Folkman & Lazarus,
1988) has 66 items and is made up of 8 scales which
assesses the various cognitive styles and behavioral
strategies that people use in coping with stress and the
ways in which people use coping as a mediator of negative
emotions. It was designed from a cognitive-
phenomenological theory of stress and coping for the
purpose of being used as a research tool, although other
uses have been envisioned by the authors. The
questionnaire asks the respondent to remember the
thoughts and actions that she has in her daily life as
she attempts to cope with stressful encounters. The
items on the questionnaire are answered in relation to a
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69
specific stressful encounter which the respondent has
experienced within the past week.
An underlying philosophy of the scale is that, while
many other measures are really trying to measure coping
as a single dimension based on traits that people have
which are stable over time and events, Folkman and
Lazarus designed their instrument as a process-oriented
approach to measure what they believe to be are
multidemensional and variable coping processes. This
differs from a trait approach which measures how a person
would typically handle a stressful event. The authors
feel that coping with stress is "characterized by
dynamics and changes that are a function of continuous
appraisals and reappraisals of the shifting person-
environment relationship" (Folkman and Lazarus, 1988,
p.6). Furthermore, in addition to its use as a research
tool, the scale may be useful with clients either
clinically or in workshops. For instance it could be
used to generate a discussion for the purpose of
identifying the approach and strategies which were
actually used during a stressful encounter.
This questionnaire has been used in numerous studies
to assess stress processes and their effect on coping
(Folkman & Lazarus 1988). Other predictors of coping
scores have been found to be individual differences,
environmental factors, and situational characteristics
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70
(Folkman & Lazarus, 1988). In smother study reported by
Folkman & Lazarus, The Type A personality was found to be
associated with certain types of coping behavior. Type
A personality was positively associated with the
subscales "Problem-Focused coping and "Self-Blame" and
negatively correlated with the Acceptance subscales.
Folkman, Lazarus, Gruen & DeLongis (1986) found that
the "Planful Problem Solving " subscale of their Ways of
Coping Questionnaire (Folkman & Lazarus, 1988), has been
associated with satisfactory outcomes and negatively
correlated with psychological symptoms. In other studies
conducted by Folkman and Lazarus (1986), "Planful
Problem Solving" was associated with satisfactory
outcomes and "Confrontive Coping" was associated with
unsatisfactory outcomes.
In addition, depressive symptomology has been
positively associated with the "escape-avoidance"
subscale. Persons having high depressive symptoms differ
from persons low in depressive symptoms in that they tend
to be more "psychologically vulnerable and hostile" and
"They respond with more negative emotions during
stressful encounters" (Folkman & Lazarus, 1986, p. 112).
The ways in which people cope are strongly related to the
amount of support that people receive. This may be
because angry, impulsive and confrontive ways of coping
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71
might deter others from helping (Dunkel-Schetter,
Folkman, & Lazarus, 1987) .
The authors (Folkman & Lazarus, 1988) report that
the questionnaire has face validity because the
strategies described are the same ones that people have
reported that they actually use in coping with stressful
events. Construct validity is supported by the authors'
findings from several field studies which support the
theoretical predictions. For instance, their studies
show that both problem-focused and emotion-focused
functions are measured by the questionnaire and also that
changes in coping mechanisms occur with different types
of encounters (Folkman & Lazarus, 1988). Reliability is
difficult to assess because test-retest estimates would
be inappropriate since the underlying theory is that
coping processes are variable. A factor analysis by
Folkman, Lazarus, Dunkel-Schetter & Gruen (1986) resulted
in the following eight subscales: "Confrontive Coping"
(e.g "I expressed anger to the person(s) who caused the
problem") alpha = .70); Distancing (e.g. "went on as if
nothing had happened") alpha = .61; Self-control (e.g.
"I tried to keep my feelings to myself") alpha = .70);
Seeking Social Support (e.g., "talked to someone who
could do something concrete about the problem") alpha
=.76; Accepting Responsibility (e.g. "realized I brought
the problem on myself") alpha = .66; Escape Avoidance
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72
(e.g. " tried to make myself feel better by eating,
drinking, smoking, using drugs or medications, etc.")
alpha = .72; Planful Problem Solving (e.g. "I knew what
had to be done, so I doubled my efforts to make things
work") alpha = .68; and Positive Reappraisal (e.g.
"changed or grew as a person in a good way") alpha = .79.
The present study yielded coefficient alpha
estimates of internal consistency for each of the eight
subscales as follows: Confrontive Coping, .62;
Distancing, .67; Self-control, .47; Seeking Social
Support, .75; Accepting Responsibility, .54; Escape
Avoidance, .76; Planful Problem Solving, .63 and Positive
Reappraisal, .80.
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73
Chapter 3
Results
This chapter begins with a comparative analysis of
the results of the two scales which measure feminist and
womanist identity. Following that are sections
corresponding to the hypotheses of the study. These
sections report how the hypotheses were operationalized,
the results of the analyses, and whether the results of
the analyses support the hypotheses. The last section
describes additional analyses of the data. In addition,
the remaining tables of this study, Table 3 through Table
10, can be found at the end of this chapter.
Comparative Analyses of FIDS and WIAS
Table 3 contains means and standard deviations of
the scores of the present research sample for the
Feminist Identity Development Scale and the Womanist
Identity Attitude Scale, along with the original samples
on which they were normed. The group means for the
subscale of the Womanist Identity Attitudes Scale of the
present study were compared with the group means of the
original research sample by performing t tests. The
group means from the present study and the research
sample of the Preencounter and Internalization scales
were found to be statistically different, while no
differences were found between the means of the Encounter
and Immersion-emersion subscales. The standard
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74
deviations were not available for the original sample of
the Feminist Identity Development Scale.
Therefore t tests were calculated using standard
deviations from the present study and none of the
differences between the group means of this research
sample and the original study of the Feminist Identity
Development Scale reached the critical value, although of
course this may not hold true if the original standard
deviations were available.
The present research sample consisted of 230 women
who were students at three community colleges and one
large private university in Southern California. They
were recruited from 22 different college classes. The
average age of the participants was 26 years. The ethnic
diversity was as follows: Asian-American, 16.5%;
Hispanic/Latino, 10%; African-American/Black, 3.5%;
European-American/White, 58.7%; and Native-
American/American Indian, 2.6. A number of women
indicated that they identified with more than one
ethnicity and that group, "Other,1 1 contained 8.7% of the
total sample.
The research sample on which the Womanist Identity
Attitudes Scale was normed was comprised of 630 women,
taken from 24 different college classes. Their mean age
was 20.6. The ethnicity was as follows: White, 76.5%;
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75
Black, 12.9%; Asian 7.7%; Hispanic, 2%; and American
Indian, .8%.
The original sample for the Feminist Identity
Development Scale, as shown on Table 9, were taken from
the control group for the original study. The control
group consisted of a total of 39 women. Some were from a
waiting list of women waiting to enroll for a class on
women's studies (n=12) and the remaining (n=27) were
women from an introductory psychology class who had
expressed a interest in taking a women's studies class in
the future.
Intracorrelations Within Each Scale
The Womanist Identity Attitudes Scale
Internalization stage, representing the most mature stage
of the Womanist Identity Development Scale, as expected,
was negatively correlated with all of the preceding
stages, Pre-encounter, (r=-.13, p<.05) and
Immersion\emersion (r=-.29, pc.001). No association was
found between Internalization and Encounter. The
Preencounter stage of the Womanist Identity Attitudes
Scale was correlated with both the Encounter and
Immersion-emersion (r=.27, p<001; r=.28, pc.001,
respectively) . Encounter was highly correlated with
Immersion-emersion, (r=.59, pc.001).
On the Feminist Identity Development Sale,
Synthesis, representing the most mature stage of the
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76
Feminist Identity Development Scale, as expected, was
negatively correlated with Passive Acceptance (r=-.13,
p<.05); Revelation (r=-.18, pc.Ol) and
Embeddedness-emanation (r=-.ll, p<.05). Strong
associations were found between Revelation and
Embeddedness-emanation (r=.52, p<.001). There are, in
addition, negative correlations between Passive
Acceptance and the following subsequent stages:
Revelation (r=-.16, pc.Ol) and Synthesis (r=-.13, p<.05).
The 5th stage of the Feminist Identity Development Scale,
Active Commitment, as expected, was negatively correlated
with Passive Acceptance (r=-.30, pc.001). Surprisingly,
it was positively correlated with Revelation and
Embeddedness\emanation, (r=.55, c.001); r=.51, pc.001,
respectively.
Intercorrelations between FIDS and WIAS
As can be seen in Table 4, there are low but
significant intercorrelations between the four subscales
of the Feminist Identity Development Scale and the
Womanist Identity Attitudes Scale which, while there are
some theoretical differences, are nevertheless thought to
parallel similar developmental stages. The Pre-encounter
stage of the Womanist scale correlated with its
counterpart, the Passive Acceptance stage of the Feminist
scale, r=.44, pc.Ol). These are stages thought to
measure women who have not yet encountered or experienced
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77
discrimination of any kind of if they have, they see it
as "normal," acceptable, or even advantageous. At this
stage, men may be seen as superior to women.
The second stage of the Womanist scale, Encounter,
also was correlated with the second stage of the
Feminist scale, Revelation (r=.40, pc.Ol). At this stage
a woman has come to have increasing awareness of the
unfairness of this station and the corresponding lack of
equal opportunity, but she has not yet discovered support
or understanding from others in regard to her feelings
about this new awareness. She may feel anger and guilt
and have negative feelings toward men.
The third stage of the Feminist scale, Embeddedness-
emanation (occurring when a woman embeds herself in the
women's culture, for instance through membership in a
support group or a close connection with other women who
are at the same stage) , was positively correlated with
the third stage of the Womanist scale, Immersion-emersion
(at this stage, a woman begins to idealize women and
their culture and rejects her previous idealization of
male culture) (r=.47, pc.Ol). It can be seen that the
descriptions for the parallel stages are very similar.
The fourth and last stage of the Womanist scale,
Internalization, is theorized to represent a woman who
defines herself from her own internal standard of what
womanhood can be for her, and rejects her previously held
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78
external, societal definition of womanhood. Similarly,
the fourth (but not last) stage of the Feminist scale is
the Synthesis stage, where a woman who realize the
futility of the rage she has experienced in stage three
may move to this stage where she has reached a
transcendence of her sex-role and evaluates men on an
individual basis. In the Synthesis stage, she is more
able to value the positive aspects of being female. The
correlation of these two stages is r=.42, pc.Ol. Thus
the correlations between each of the four stages of the
two scales, while not high, are remarkably consistent.
The Feminist scale has a 5th stage, Active
Commitment, which is believed to represent a stage where
a woman works to create her own future and is actively
committed to working for women's rights. However, while
it is correlated, as expected with Synthesis (r=.ll,
p<.05), and the Internalization stage of the WIAS (r=.31,
pc.Ol), it was, surprisingly, more highly associated with
the second and third stages of the Feminist scale,
Revelation and Embeddedness-emanation (r=.55, pc.001;
r=.51, pc.001 respectively). It correlated somewhat less
with the second and third stages of the Womanist Identity
Scale, Encounter and Immersion-emersion (r=.28, pc.Ol;
r=.22, pc.Ol, respectively). The Active Commitment stage
was, as expected, negatively correlated with the Passive
Acceptance Stage of the Feminist Identity Development
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79
Scale (r=-.30, p<.001). It was not significantly
correlated with Preencounter, as expected, although the
direction of the association was in the expected negative
direction.
Hypothesis 1:
Women who accept the traditional, stereotypical
female gender role while eschewing a feminist
identity will have more depressive symptomology
than feminist women.
This hypothesis was operationalized by utilizing the
Preencounter subscale of the Womanist Identity Attitudes
Scale and the Passive Acceptance subscale of the Feminist
Identity Development Scale and performing a correlational
analyses with the Center for Epidemiologic Studies -
Depression Scale, as well as its four subscales, to
determine if pre-feminist, anti-feminist and non-feminist
attitudes are associated with higher depressive
symptomology. A hierarchical regression analyses was
also performed to see if the Passive Acceptance and
Preencounter subscales would add to the variance when
added last after other statistically significant
variables in this research were added. This hypothesis
was additionally operationalized by performing
correlational analyses to determine if the responses
given by the participants to the single-item Feminist
Question are predictors of depression in women.
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80
This hypothesis was supported. Table 5 indicates
that those women who scored higher on the Preencounter
scale of the Feminist Identity Attitudes Scale and the
Passive Acceptance scale of the Womanist Identity
Attitudes Scale, both of which represent the traditional
and stereotypical female gender role, had higher levels
of depression than those women whose scores were lower
(r=.26, pc.Ol; r=.12, p<.05, respectively). Moreover,
the Preencounter subscale is negatively correlated with
the Positive Affect subscale of the depression inventory
(r=-.18, pc.Ol).
In addition, the hierarchical regression analyses
provide some limited support for this hypothesis. Table
6 reports correlational analyses listing a number of
variables found to be associated with depression in women
in this study. Table 7 demonstrates that, after adding
on Step 1 a block of 8 variables found to be associated
with depression in women in this study, as seen in Table
6, Preencounter entered on Step 2 made a significant
difference in the variance (pc.001). However, on the
next analysis when a coping variable, Escape Avoidance,
and a personal attribute variable, Masculine, were added
as Step 2 and Preencounter was entered on Step 3, the
Preencounter subscale did not make a significant
difference in the variance.
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81
Table 8 reports the results of a correlational
analysis which shows significant differences in
depression in the responses on the Single-Item Feminist
Question asking the respondent on a scale of 1 to 5 about
her support for the goals of the women's liberation
movement (r=-.15, p<.01) . The scores of women who
answered the Single-item Feminist were negatively
associated with the Impaired Relationships scale of the
depression inventory. Their responses indicated that the
more they supported the goals of the feminist movement,
the less they were afflicted with Impaired Relationships.
Table 5 indicates that every subscale of both the
Womanist Identity Attitudes Scale and the Feminist
Identity Development Scale that theoretically measures
some stage of feminist and womanist development that is
less developed than the highest stages (Internalization
and Synthesis) , is significantly and positively
correlated with all subscales of depression with the
exception of Embeddedness-emanation which is correlated
with depression on only 1 subscale, Impaired
Relationships (r=.14, p<.05). Additionally, all but two
of the six subscales are negative correlated with the
"Positive Affect" subscale of depression.
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82
Hypothesis 2:
Women who define themselves according to an
internalized, self-defined standard of
womanhood will have lower depression levels
than women who define themselves according to
an external, societal definition of womanhood.
This hypothesis was operationalized by utilizing the
Internalization subscale of the Womanist Identity
Attitude Scale and the Synthesis subscale of the Feminist
Identity Development Scale and performing a correlational
analyses to determine if these scales are negatively
associated with the Center for Epidemiologic Studies -
Depression Scale. A hierarchical regression analyses
was also performed to see if the Internalization subscale
and Synthesis subscale would add to the variance when
added last after other statistically significant
variables in this research were added.
The hypothesis was supported. Higher scores on the
Womanist Identity Attitudes Scale of Internalization,
representing a rejection of external, societal-based
self-definition in exchange for a self-determined
internalized standard of womanhood, were negatively
associated with depression (r=-.19, pc.Ol). The
Synthesis stage of Feminist Identity Development Scale,
representing a positive evaluation of being female as
well as an authentic and positive feminist identity, was
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83
also negatively associated with depression (r=-.41,
p<.001). In addition, high scores on Internalization
were positively associated with the "Positive Affect"
subscale of the CES-D (r=.32, pc.001), as were higher
scores on Synthesis positively and significantly
associated with the "Positive Affect" subscale of the
CES-D (r=.45, pc.001).
Table 5 indicates that every subscale of both the
Womanist Identity Attitudes Scale and the Feminist
Identity Development Scale that theoretically measures
some stage of feminist and womanist development that is
less developed than the highest stages (Internalization
and Synthesis), is significantly and positively
correlated with all subscales of depression with the
exception of Embeddedness-emanation which is correlated
with depression on only 1 subscale, Impaired
Relationships (r=.14, pc.05). Additionally, all but two
of the six subscales are negative correlated with the
"Positive Affect" subscale of depression.
"Active Commitment," theoretically described as a
high level of feminist identity was, surprisingly, highly
associated with lower developed levels of feminist
identity, Revelation (r=.55, pc.001), Embeddedness-
emanation (r=.51, pc.001) and lower stages of Womanist
Identity development, Encounter (r=.28, pc.Ol, Immersion-
emersion (r=.22, pc.Ol). However, Active Commitment was
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84
not associated with depressive symptomology and was
positively associated with the Positive Affect subscale
of the CES-D (r=.13, p<.05).
Hypothesis 3:
Women who score high on measures of
traditional, stereotypical female gender
roles, while simultaneously scoring low
on measures of masculine gender roles,
will have higher depressive symptomology
than women who score high on measures of
masculine gender roles (regardless of their
corresponding female gender role scores).
This hypothesis was operationalized by performing a
correlational analysis to determine if there is an
inverse relationship between the Passive Acceptance scale
of the Feminist Identity Development Scale
(theoretically thought to represent stereotypical and
traditional female gender roles), and the Masculine scale
of the Personality Attributes Questionnaire
(theoretically thought to represent personality
attributes that are considered to be desirable to
possess, but are thought to occur more often in men in
our society) . A similar analysis will be made, using the
Preencounter stage (the counterpart of the Passive
Acceptance scale), of the Womanist Identity Attitudes
Scale.
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85
There is support for this hypothesis, although it is
somewhat indirect. There is a significant, negative
correlation between Passive Acceptance and the Masculine
scale of the Personal Attributes Questionnaire (r=-.22,
pc.001, See Table 5). The Passive Acceptance is
positively correlated with depression (r=.12, p<.05),
while the Masculine scale is negatively correlated with
depression, (r=-.39, pc.001).
The correlate to Passive Acceptance, Preencounter,
has significant associations in the same directions.
While the Preencounter sate of the Womanist scale is
positively associated with depression, (r=.26, pc.001),
there is a negative correlation between the Preencounter
stage and the Masculine scale of the Personal Attributes
Questionnaire (r=-.17, pc.Ol).
Further support for this hypothesis is evidenced by
the most mature stage of the Feminist scale, Synthesis
(by definition not a measure of the traditional,
stereotypical female gender role) being positively
correlated with the Masculine scale of the Personal
Attributes Questionnaire, (r=.30, pc.001). Also, the
most mature stage of the Womanist scale, Internalization,
is likewise positively and significantly correlated with
the Masculine subscale of the Personal Attributes
Questionnaire, (r=34, pc.001).
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86
This rather confusing account of the data that
indicates support for Hypothesis 3 can be summarized as
follows: Women who conform more to the traditional,
stereotypical female gender role are associated with
higher depressive symptomology as well as lower scores on
measures of masculine gender roles, while women who score
high on Feminist and Womanist development scales are
negatively associated with depressive symptomology and
those women are positively associated with higher scores
on the measures of masculine gender roles. So-called
masculine gender roles in women are negatively associated
with depression in women and account for 15% (rsq. = .15)
of the variance in depression in women in this study
(r=.39, pc.OOl).
H ypothesi s 4;
A planful problem solving way of coping
with daily environmental stressors by
women will be negatively associated with
depressive symptomology.
This hypothesis was operationalized by performing a
correlational analysis between the Ways of Coping
Questionnaire Planful Problem Solving subscale and the
Center for Epidemiologic - Depression Scale. A
hierarchical regression analysis was also performed.
This hypothesis was also operationalized by comparing the
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87
mean item scores on the depression inventory to verify
the relative scores for the subscale scores.
The Planful Problem Solving subscale of the Ways of
Coping Questionnaire was not negatively associated with
depressive symptomology and thus this hypothesis was not
supported exactly as it is stated. Table 5 presents the
correlations between the Planful Problem Solving scale
with the total depression scores and the subscales of the
depression inventory. While there are no negative
associations there is, however, some indirect support for
this hypothesis. First, the subscale of the Center for
Epidemiologic Studies - Depression scale measuring
Positive Affect was positively associated with Planful
Problem Solving (r=.16, p>.01).
Secondly, in the Ways of Coping Questionnaire which
contains the Planful Problem Solving subscale, there are
8 scales that measure coping methods and they were all
positively correlated with depression with the exception
of the Planful Problem Solving subscale (although one
subscale of the depression inventory had a low but
significant correlation with Planful Problem Solving
(r=.13, p<.05). It is likely that higher scores on the
Likert scale for the entire Ways of Coping Questionnaire
scale indicate more use or employment of the coping
methods because of the testee's higher depressive state
than lower scores; therefore higher scores will correlate
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88
highly with depression. To clarify, subjects who choose
higher scores on the Likert scale are more likely to be
coping with higher stress loads so it is not surprising
that most of the scales correlate with depression. It is
therefore meaningful that Planful Problem Solving is not
correlated on the total depression scale, although there
is a small positive correlation on the Impaired
Motivation subscale (r=.13, p<.05).
Thirdly, it is also useful to consider the relative
size of the correlations; thus, Table 5 shows that,
compared with all other methods utilized for coping with
stress, those who chose Planful Problem Solving were less
depressed than those who chose other coping methods. In
addition, there was a positive association with the
Positive Affect subscale (r=.l6, pc.Ol).
Furthermore, comparing the mean scores per item of
the Ways of Coping Questionnaire is useful because the
above results could occur simply because the subjects
chose not to score the Planful Problem Solving items.
However, it is noteworthy that Planful Problem Solving
had the highest mean per item score, 1.58 (see Table 2).
Also, Table 9 indicates that Planful Problem Solving was
the coping method most often used, compared with the
other Ways of Coping subscales. Percentage wise this
method of coping was used more than any other coping
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89
behaviors on the scale yet, while as stated, it is not
associated with depression with the exception mentioned.
Hypothesis 5;
A coping style by women that utilizes a
confrontive style will be positively
associated with depressive symptomology.
This hypothesis was operationalized by performing a
correlational analyses between the Center for
Epidemiologic Studies - Depression scale and the Ways of
Coping Questionnaire subscale, Confrontive Coping. In
addition, a hierarchical regression analysis was also
performed to see if the Confrontive Coping Subscale would
add to the variance of the depression scores when added
after other variables which are statistically significant
associated with depression had been added.
Table 5 indicates that this hypothesis was rather
weakly supported. The zero-order correlation, while low,
provided some support for this hypothesis. Confrontive
Coping was positively correlated with the total scale of
the depression inventory (r= .14, p<.05). The Negative
Affect subscale had correlations slightly higher, (r=.18,
pc.Ol). The hierarchical multiple regression analysis
did not support the hypothesis when other correlates were
entered into the equation first.
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Hypothesis 6;
It is hypothesized that the results of
the Brown and Harris (1978) study will
be further confirmed. It is hypothesized
that women who have the following life
situations women will have higher
depressive symptomology: loss of a
mother before age 11; having no job;
having no one in their life with whom
they have a supportive relationship;
and having 3 or more children in the
household under the age of 14.
It was not possible to test this hypothesis exactly
as it is stated because the sample population of the
groups belonging to "having 3 or more children in the
household under the age of 14 is too small," while there
was no one at all (n=0) in the group, "loss of a mother
before age 11." Therefore, the hypothesis was
operationalized by using the two remaining predictor
variables in the hypothesis. There was support for the
other two proposed correlates of depression which are
(1) , "having no job" and (2), "having no one in their
life with whom they have a supportive relationship."
Employment was negatively associated with depression (r=-
.13, p<.05) and two subscales, Impaired motivation and
Impaired Relationship also were negatively (and
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91
identically) associated with employment (r=-.13, p<.05
and (r=-.13, pc.05), respectively.
As can be seen in Table 6, all categories of the
various, perceived support from others which were
analyzed are negatively correlated with depression. The
following negative associations with depression were
found: friend, r=-.l8, pc.Ol; sibling, r=-.26, pc.001;
spouse/partner r=-.24, pc.Ol; parent r=-.23, pc.001.
Significant negative correlations were also found with
all of the subscales of the depression inventory.
Additionally, the following perceived support from others
categories was positively correlated with the Positive
Affect subscales: friend r=.16, pc.05; sibling, r=.13,
pc.05; and parent, r=.17, pc.Ol.
Hypothesis 7:
It is hypothesized that women who self report
victimization in the form of sexual harassment,
woman/wife battering, childhood sexual abuse,
rape, acquaintance/date rape and childhood
physical abuse will have higher levels of
depressive symptomology than those women who
report no victimization.
Although the questions in this study in regard to
victimization did ask for the number of times the
victimization or abuse occurred, the number of times was
not used in this analysis because of the inconsistency of
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92
reporting. The respondents answered inconsistently in
that some marked an X or simply checked the answer while
others wrote a number in the blank. Therefore, this study
only reflects whether or not the subject experienced a
single incidence of each category, regardless of the
actual number experienced.
Out of a total sample of 230 women, 69 women (30%)
reported sexual harassment; 40 women (17.4%) reported
childhood physical abuse; 52 women (22.6%) reported
childhood sexual abuse; 37 women (16.1%) reported woman
battering; 11 (4.8%) reported rape (non-acquaintance);
and 36 women (15.7%) reported acquaintance rape.
This hypothesized was operationalized by performing
a correlational analyses. It was supported for all
categories of victimization with the exception of the
association of acquaintance/date rape. It can be seen in
Table 6 that the association of childhood physical abuse
with depressive symptomology is r=.20, pc.OOl); Rape
(non-acquaintance) has an association with depression of
r=.17, p<.01; Sexual Harassment has an association of
r=.16, pc.Ol; and Childhood Sexual Abuse has an
association with depression of r=.14, p<.05.
Additionally, the foregoing four categories of
victimization were positively and significantly
correlated with all subscales of the depression
inventory.
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93
Woman Battering and Acquaintance rape were not
correlated on the total scale, but Woman Battering, was
positively associated with the depression subscale
Impaired Relationship (r=.ll, p<.05). The highest
association found was between Childhood Physical Abuse
and the depression subscale, Impaired Relationships
(r=.23, p<.001).
Acquaintance Rape was not associated with depressive
symptomology but was positively correlated with Positive
Affect (p=.ll, p<.05) . This will be discussed further in
Chapter 4, the Discussion section.
Addit i onal .Findings
Table 5 indicates that as women progress through the
stages of feminist development, their mean depression
scores rise, no doubt as they come in direct contact with
experiences which they may respond to with helplessness
or feelings of unempowerment. As they progress to the
highest stages of feminist and womanist development,
their depression scores decrease.
Table 6 reports that age is negatively associated
with depression in that increases in age were associated
with less depression (r=-.13, p<.05).
Ethnicity was a predictor of depression. Table 10
provides the results from Post Hoc tests following an
analysis of variance which indicates that Asian-American
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94
and Hispanic/Latino women were significantly more
depressed than European-American women.
Table 10 indicates that married women were
significantly less depressed than single women (pc.Ol).
On Table 6 it can be seen that Employment was
negatively associated with depression, (r=-.13, p<.05).
Socioeconomic status was not correlated with the
exception of the subscale, Impaired Relationships, where
higher socioeconomic status was negatively correlated
with the "Impaired Relationship" category of the
depression inventory.
An unexpected finding in this study was the extent
to which a particular coping method is heavily used by
depressed women compared with women low in depressive
symptomology. Out of a questionnaire with over 200
questions associated with depression in women, one tiny
subset of eight questions accounted for 36% of the
variance in depressive symptomology. Escape Avoidance
correlates highly with depression (r=.60, <.001) and it
also is correlated with many other correlates of
depression in this study, e.g. Preencounter, .35;
Revelation, .27; Immersion-emersion, .40; Synthesis, -
.27; Age, -.28; and Rape (Non-acquaintance), .21.
Following are Tables 3 through 10, which are the
remaining tables of this study. Chapter 4 will discuss in
more detail the results which have just been presented.
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95
Table 3
A comparison of the Group Keans of this research study with the original Group Means on which
the scales were normed for the Komanist Identity Development Scale and the Feminist Identity
Development Scale.
Komanist Identity Development Scale
PresentResearch OriginalResearch Differences
n=230 n=630 in means ( t
Means St. Dev. Means St.Dev.
Preencounter 2.34 . 6 0 2.06 . 46 6.42
Encounter 3.07 . 4 5 2.97 .44 .34
Immersion-emersion 2.42 . 4 9 2.40 . 4 8 . 5 3
Internalization 4.16 . 4 2 4.01 . 47 4.50
Feminist Identity Development Scale
PresentResearch OriginalResearch Differences
n=230 n=39 in means ( t
Means St. Dev. Means St.Dev.
Passive Acceptance 2.45 .6 4 2.29 not available 1.44
Revelation 3.11 . 6 5 3.12
1 1
.06
Embeddedness-emanation 3.00 .71 2.93
1 1
.57
Synthesis 3.85 . 5 3 3.93
1 1
. 7 2
Active Commitment 3.45 .6 4 3.44
1 1
.09
Rote: The KIAS subjects in the original research (n-630) were taken from 24 classes including
behavioral, social sciences, human and community resource classes. Mean age: 20.6
Ethnicity: Khite 76.51, Black 12.91, Asian 7.71, Hispanic 21 and American Indian .81.
Group Kean scores are divided by I of items for mean item score
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96
Table 4
Intercorrelations of the Romanist Identity Attitude Scale, the
Feminist Identity Development Scale and the Feminist Question (single-item).
Scale 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
RIAS
l.PreBncounter -
2.Encounter .27***
3.Immersion-
emersion
4.Internal
ization
.28***
.13*
.59***
-.00 -.29***
FIDS
5. Passive
Acceptance
6.Revelation
.44**
.0 2
.14*
.40**
.13*
.49**
-.22**
.02 -.16**
7.Bmbeddedness-
emanation
8.Synthesis
.0 2
.17**
.47**
-.23**
.47**
-.54**
.02
.42**
-.07
-.13*
.52***
-.18** -.11*
9.Active
Commitment
10.Feminist
Question
(single-item)
.0 6
. 0 2
.28**
.14*
.22**
.1 1
.31**
.13*
-.30***
-.34***
.55***
.30***
.51***
.25***
.11* ..
. 0 2 .41*** — -
*p<.05 **p>. 0 1 ***p<.001
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97
Table 5
Correlations of Predictor and Dependent Variables for all Measurement Scales
Center for Bpidemiologic Studies - Depression
Total negative Positive Impaired Impaired
Affect Affect Motivation Relationships
Romanist Identity Attitudes Scale:
Preencounter .26*** .23*** -.18** .25*** .7**
Encounter .34*** .34*** -.16** .33*** .29***
Immersion\emersion .42*** .37*** -.34*** .32*** .44***
Internalization -.19** -.10 .32*** -.10 -.18**
Feminist Identity Development Scale:
Passive Acceptance .12* . 1 0 .02 .17** .07
Revelation .28*** .28*** -.16** .23*** .26***
Embeddedness-emanation . 0 9 .12 .00 .06 .14*
Synthesis -.41*** -.32*** .45*** -.31*** -.37***
Active Commitment -.04 -.00 .13* -.02 .02
Personal Attributes Questionnaire (gender)
Pemininity -.14* .01 .25*** -.11 -.24***
Masculinity -.39*** -.29*** .41*** -.29*** -.36***
Masculinity-femininity -.27*** -.29*** .24*** -.20** -.15*
Rays of Coping Questionnaire:
Accept Responsibility .33*** .34*** -.15** .33*** .22***
Confrontive Coping .14* .18** -.02 .14* .11*
Distancing .11* .10 .04 .13** . 0 9
Bscape-avoidance .60*** .57*** -.37*** .56*** .47***
Positive Reappraisal .12* .17** .10 .18** .08
Planful Prob. Solving . 0 3 . 0 5 .16** .13* .01
Self-controlling .24*** .25*** .01 .31*** .15**
Seeking Social Support .16** .17** .02 .24*** .15
Hote: CSS-D Positive scale: scores are reversed for total score but not reversed for
individual 'Positive' scale
*p<.05. **p<.01. ***p<.001.
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98
Table 6
Correlations of Predictor and Dependent Variables
Center for Epidemiologic Studies -
Variable Total negative Positive
Affect Affect Motivation Relationships
Depression
Impaired Impaired
Victimization:
Childhood .20*** .18** -.11* .17** .23***
Physical
Abuse
Rape .17** .11* -.10 .20*** .11*
Sexual .16** .15* -.08 .14* .17**
Harassment
Childhood .14* .13* -.10 .12* .16**
Sexual Abuse
Roman . 0 3 . 0 5 . 0 8 .03 .11*
Battering
Acquaintance . 0 0 .06 .11* .01 .05
Rape
Parents
Dgprgissd;
mother .10 . 0 9 -.11* .04 .16**
father .15* .20*** -.03 .10 .16**
SuppM
Received:
friend -.24*** -.23*** .27*** -.14* -.23***
sibling -.19** -.23*** .11* -.14* -.17**
spouse\partner -.16** -.15* . 0 5 -.14* -.25***
parent -.12* -.14* . 0 8 -.08 -.13*
Biployid
-.13* -.08 . 0 9 -.13* -.13*
(vs.unemployed)
Children in
household .05 -.04 -.03 .01 .11*
(vs.no children
in household)
Income -.09 -.08 . 0 8 -.11 -.04
Socioeconomic
status -.10 -.10 . 0 7 -.04 -.19**
Age -.13* -.16*** . 0 6 -.12* -.07
*p<.05. **p<.01. ***p<.001.
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99
Table 7
Hierarchical Multiple Regression Analyses Predicting Depression in Women
Dependent Variable: Center for Epidemiologic Studies - Depression
Independent Variables:
Effects of specific variables in women after controlling for the effects of
demographics and other self-reported experiences
STEP/VARIABLE EHTERED
HEIGHT
BBTA
CHANGE
RSQ F F
AHALYSIS 1:
mi 1 ;,
Block l - Demographics and other self-
reported experiences:
1 . Perceived support from others(a)
2. Employment vs. Unemployment
3. Socioeconomic Status
4. Children in household
5 . Age of Participant
6 . Victimization reported(b)
7 . Depressed Mother
8 . Depressed Father
-.26
-.10
-.05
.05
-.21
-.21
.05
.06
. 18 6.07***
STEP 2: - Unique effect of:
Feminist stage: Synthesis -.34 . 2 9 9.99*** 33.93**
AHALYSIS 2:
Block l (See Analysis 1 ) . 1 8 6.07***
Step 2 : - Unique effect of:
Feminist stage: Passive Acceptance .17 . 2 1 6.38*** 7.38**
AHALYSIS 3
STEP 1 :
Block 1 (See Analysis 1 )
SJSLIl
Romanist stage: Preencounter .27 . 2 5 8.06*** 19.73**
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100
STEP/VARIABLE EHTBEED
WEIGHT
BETA
CHANGE
ESQ P P
ANALYSIS 4
S t e p 1 :
Bloclc 1 (See Analysis 1 )
S t e f i- L : .
Hoaanist stage: Internalization -.19 .22 6.65*** 9.40**
ANALYSIS 5
S te p .ij
Bloch 1 (See Analysis 1 }
S te p J j
PAQ subscale: Masculine attributes -.34 . 2 9 9.59*** 30.99**
ANALYSIS 6
S t e p 1 ;
Bloch 1 (See Analysis 1 )
S .t e p _ L
WCQ subscale: Escape Avoidance .55 . 4 3 18.45*** 96.16**
ANALYSIS 7
Step 1::
Bloch 1 (See Analysis l )
Step 2 :
WCQ subscale: Bscape-Avoidance
PAQ subscale: Masculine attributes
.49
-.22 .47 19.46*** 59.78**
Step 3 :
Peainist stage: Synthesis -.21 .51 20.32*** 15.70**
Reoression Equation with 5 variables .50 44.62***
Coping aethod:Bscape-avoidance
Peainist stage: Synthesis
Stereotypical trait: Masculine
Support froa others (coabined average)
Victimization (coabined average)
. 4 3
-.20
-.18
-.12
. 1 7
Hotes:(a) Support froa others: This variable was derived by averaging the scores of self-
reported, perceived support froa subjects' parents, spouse or current partner, sibling and
friend.
( b ) Victimization: This variable vas derived by averaging the self reported scores froa the
questions regarding subjects' experience of rape, sexual harassaent, childhood physical abuse
and childhood sexual abuse.
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101
Table 8
Correlations of Single-Item Feminist Question vith Center for Epidemiologic - Depression Scale
Center for Epidemiologic Studies - Depression
Total negative Positive Impaired Impaired
Affect Affect Motivation Relationships
Single-Item
Feminist Question -.15** -.14* .13* -.ID* -.17**
Means and Standard Deviations of Single-Item Feminist Question
Question Likert Scale N Means St.D.
Number Answer Category
1. Strongly Disagree
2. Disagree
3. Uncertain
4. Agree
5 . Strongly Agree
6 . 99 . 8 2
21 1.02 . 6 5
68 .89 . 5 1
100 .80 . 5 4
33 .65 . 5 8
*p<.05. **p<.01. ***p<.001.
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102
Table 9
Relative Scores for Rays of Coping Questionnaire
Escape Avoidance 9.8
Distancing 10.3
Accepting Responsibility 11.5
Confrontive Coping 12.1
Positive Reappraisal 13.2
Self-Control 13.3
Seeking Social Support 14.4
Planful Problem Solving 15.4
100. Ok
Rote: These are the Proportion of effort represented for each type of coping for this research
sample.
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103
Table 10
Means and AHOVA of Scales and Sobscales for Che Categories of Ethnicity, Living Status and Age
Center for Epidemiologic Studies - Depression
H Total Negative Positive Impaired Impaired
Affect Affect Motivation Relationships
BtMcity
Asian-American 38 1.00 1.02a 2.05 1.13 . 68
Hispanic/Latino 23 1.03 1.15b 1.99 1.13 .58
African-American 8 .84 .68 2.44 1.06 .92
European-American 135 .75 .72ab 2.27 .90 .44
Native-American 6 .96 1.23 2.33 1.15 . 39
Other 20 .72 .84 2.39 . 81 .43
P Ratio 2.02 2.31* 1.49 1.70 1.79
Living Status
Harried 46 .58a .47a 2.42 ,74a . 3 3
Divorced 1 2 .86 . 93 2.33 1.03 . 56
Hidoved 2 1.28 1.20 1.25 1.38 .50
Single 152 .90a .93a 2.17 1.04a .58
Cohabiting 16 .74 .81 2.16 . 7 7 .40
F Ratio 3.53** 3.70** 2.15 3.17* 1.62
Age
17-19 51 .91 .95 2.18 1.04 . 60
20-29 117 .86 .89 2.19 . 9 9 .50
30-39 32 .69 .64 2.34 . 8 4 . 45
40-49 21 .75 .66 2.23 . 9 2 .46
50-70 5 .52 .44 2.5 . 6 8 .27
F Ratio 1.3 1.67 .48 1.02 .64
Note: a , b, or c denotes significant differences betveen 2 groups, according to Post Hoc
analyses. For instance, a , b , or c to the right of a mean score denotes significant
differences betveen that score and other scores vith an identical letter ( a , b, or c ) to its
right.
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104
Chapter 4
Discussion
This chapter begins with a review of the purpose and
objectives of this research project as well as a review
of the method, the sample and the measurements that were
used to collect the data. Next is a discussion of the
similarities and differences of the instruments which
measured the feminist and womanist identity developments.
Following the discussion of the identity developments
will be the discussion of the major findings of this
research, including implications for the general theory
supporting the hypotheses and the meaning that this
research has for practice and prevention. The next
section includes a discussion of general problems and
limitations with the outcome of this project and
suggestions for future research. The chapter ends with a
general summary.
Review of the Purpose and Objectives
As stated previously, this study sought to measure
whether an inner psychological process, depression, is
related to women's social-political value and belief
system. Relatively little research has studied whether
depression in women might correlate with traditional
values and lifestyles as well as negative attitudes
toward current feminist issues. Alternatively, women who
have adopted feminist ideology and who have developed an
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105
identity based on an'awareness of gender discrimination
in our society may experience empowerment from
"permission" to ignore what may be experienced as
oppressive societal expectations. This research has
tested the hypothesis that women who define their lives
according to an external, societal and somewhat sexist
definition of womanhood will have higher depression
levels than feminist women, or women who define
themselves based on an internalized, self-defined
standard of womanhood.
Furthermore, this study proposed to demonstrate that
this distinction between women who conform to present
societal expectations of women, as well as women who do
not conform as such, can be measured on a continuum which
measures a stage-wise process of identity development.
This identity development measures women's growing
awareness of environmental gender bias, their increasing
reliance on their own internal self-evaluation, and their
self-definition as being increasingly based on their own
personal, internal experience of womanhood. In Chapter
3, the statistical results demonstrated that there is
support for the general hypothesis of this research study
that sociological forces have an effect on depression in
women. This chapter will discuss those results.
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106
Review of Method and Research Sample
The researcher, in attempting to reach a broad
cross-section of adult women, recruited subjects from 22
separate college classes over two semesters. These
classes include archaeology, psychology, art, art history
and appreciation, intermediate and advanced clothing
technique, sewing skills assessment, computer application
in fashion, ethnic studies, native American studies,
anthropology, gender issues, a parenting class and one
student union group. Nearly 100% of the women who were
invited to participate accepted the questionnaire to take
home with them, and 56% of those women actually returned
a completed questionnaire to the researcher. The
completed questionnaires were gathered a week later when
the researcher returned to the classroom, or in some
cases, two or three weeks later. A few were returned by
mail in an envelope provided by the researcher. A total
of 241 questionnaires were received and 11 were discarded
due to incomplete data, leaving a total of 230
participants.
The participants in this study were 230 women who
were students at three community colleges and one large
private university in Southern California. The
participants were both part-time and full-time status
students, whose ages ranged between 17 and 70 years old.
The average age of the participants was 26 years. The
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107
ethnic diversity was as follows: Asian-American, 16.5%;
Hispanic/Latino, 10%; African-American, 3.5%; European-
American, 58.7%; Native-American, 2.6%; and "Other" were
8.7%. The category "Other" were those women who defined
themselves ethnically as identifying with more than one
of the above groups. Table 1 (in Chapter 2) provides
more information in regard to the diversity of the women,
including socioeconomic status, marital/living status,
number of children living in the household and employment
status.
Review of Measurement Instruments
A personal data questionnaire and five measures were
used in this study. The Center for Epidemiologic Studies
- Depression scale (CES-D) was used as the dependent
variable to determine depressive symptomology. The
Feminist Identity Development Scale (FIDS), the Womanist
Identity Attitudes Scale (WIAS), the Personal Attributes
Questionnaire (PAQ), and the Ways of Coping Questionnaire
(WCQ) were used as independent variables.
A Discussion of differences between and among the
Feminist Identity Development Scale and The Womanist
Identity Attitudes Scale
Comparison of Research Samples. Table 3 contains
means and standard deviations of the scores of the
present research sample for the Feminist Identity
Development Scale and the Womanist Identity Attitudes
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108
Scale, along with the original samples on which they were
normed.
An interesting difference was found between the
original research sample and the present sample in regard
to the results of the analyses of the Womanist Identity
Attitudes Scale. The scale was normed on a sample of 630
college women on the East Coast taken from 24 different
college classes in 1985. The present sample is comprised
of 230 women on the West Coast taken from 22 different
college classes, during the 1995-96 school year. The
ethnic group was more diverse in the present sample.
There were no differences in two of the four scales in
regard to how the women answered the questions, according
to t tests. However, on the Preencounter and
Internalization scales, the mean scores were
significantly different, indicating that differences
exists in this research sample from the original sample.
The mean scores were higher for the present research
sample.
It is difficult to speculate what these differences
indicate about the two populations because the two
scales, representing the nonfeminist, traditional group
and the mature feminist group, were actually negatively
correlated in this study. In other words, the West
Coast, 1995 women had higher means on both scales (on
which they differ) than the East Coast 1985, group even
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109
though the two scales in the present research study, when
correlated with the depression inventory, are inversely
associated. One explanation is that this indicates a
higher degree of interest in the subject matter by the
West Coast group for both groups of women who are more
traditional as well as the group who score higher on
questions regarding a feminist identity and thus each
group (feminist and traditional) chose to circle higher
scores. This of course would indicate rather polarized
positions in the area of feminist/nonfeminist ideology.
In regard to the Feminist Identity Attitudes Scale,
the sample population and original research population
did not appear to answer the scales differently,
according to t tests. However, the standard deviations
were not available for the original group so the standard
deviations from the present sample were used in the
analyses for both groups. Thus the lack of differences
between this research sample and the original research
population may not hold true if the original standard
deviations were available to be used in the analyses.
Intercorrelations of the Womanist Identity Attitudes
Scale (See Table 4) . The Womanist Identity Attitudes
Scale Internalization stage, representing the most mature
stage of the Womanist Identity Development Scale, as
expected, was negatively correlated with two of its
preceding stages, Pre-encounter and Immersion-emersion.
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110
No association was found between Internalization and
Encounter. The Preencounter stage of the Womanist
Identity Attitudes Scale was correlated with both the
Encounter and Immersion-emersion. Encounter was highly
correlated with Immersion-emersion. Thus, the
expectations were fulfilled that the stages closest to
each other would be correlated since the scale reflects a
process stage of development (Ossana, et al., 1992).
More importantly and as expected, the most undeveloped
stage of Womanist development, Preencounter, was
negatively associated with the highest stage of Womanist
development, Internalization. This negative association
lends support to the validity of the measurement, since
the lowest stage of womanist identity should measure
strong differences between women who score high on it and
women who score high on the most mature womanist stage.
Intercorrelations of the Feminist Identity
Development Scale (see Table 4) . On the Feminist
Identity Development Scale, Synthesis, representing the
most mature stage of the Feminist Identity Development
Scale, as expected, was negatively correlated with its
preceding stages, Passive Acceptance, Revelation and
Embeddedness-emanation. Strong associations were found
between Revelation and Embeddedness-emanation which was
expected because the stages closest to each other should
be correlated since the scale reflects a process stage of
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Ill
development (Downing & Roush, 1985) . There are, in
addition, negative correlations between Passive
Acceptance and the following subsequent stages:
Revelation and Synthesis. The negative correlation
between Passive Acceptance and Synthesis lends support to
the validity of the instrument since the lowest stage of
feminist identity should measure strong differences
between women who score high on it and women who score
high on the most mature feminist stage (Downing & Roush,
1985) .
The fifth stage of the Feminist Identity Development
Scale, Active Commitment, as expected, was negatively
correlated with Passive Acceptance. It was also
positively correlated with Revelation and
Embeddedness\emanation, which indicates that women going
through the beginning process stages of feminism are
identifying with activism although, surprisingly, the
highest developed stages of feminist and womanist
development indicate lower correlations with activism
than do less developed stages. The authors of this model
of feminist identity feel that few women truly evolve to
this stage of active commitment. They state that "most
women who are dedicated to working for women's rights may
actually be functioning out of needs from earlier stages,
particularly Revelation and Embeddedness-emanation"
(Downing & Roush, 1985, p.702). Thus the idealized,
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112
highly evolved stage envisioned by the authors at the
Active Commitment stage may not actually be measured by
the Active Commitment scale, according to the results of
this study. If this conclusion is accurate, the scale
will require some changes if it is to validly measure
what it seeks to measure.
A Comparison of the Feminist Identity Development Scale
and the Womanist Identity Attitudes Scale (See_Table _4.)
There are low but significant and consistent
intercorrelations between the first four subscales of the
Feminist Identity Development Scale and the four Womanist
Identity Attitudes Scales which, although there are some
theoretical differences, are nevertheless thought to
parallel similar developmental stages.
The Pre-encounter stage of the Womanist scale
correlated with its counterpart, the Passive Acceptance
stage of the Feminist scale. These are stages thought to
measure women who have not yet encountered or experienced
discrimination of any kind or if they have, they see it
as "normal," acceptable, or even advantageous. At this
stage, men may be seen as superior to women.
The second stage of the Womanist scale, Encounter,
also was correlated with the second stage of the
Feminist scale, Revelation. At this stage a woman has
come to have increasing awareness of the unfairness of
this stage and the corresponding lack of equal
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113
opportunity, but she has not yet discovered support or
understanding from others in regard to her feelings about
this new awareness. She may feel anger and guilt and
have negative feelings toward men.
The third stage of the Feminist scale, Embeddedness-
emanation was positively correlated with the third stage
of the Womanist scale, Immersion-emersion. Embeddedness-
emanation occurs when a woman embeds herself in the
women's culture, for instance through membership in a
support group or a close connection with other women who
are at the same stage. This is similar to the Immersion-
emersion stage of the Womanist Identity Attitudes Scale
where a woman begins to idealize women and their culture
and rejects her previous idealization of male culture.
The fourth and last stage of the Womanist scale,
Internalization, is theorized to represent a woman who
defines herself from her own internal standard of what
womanhood can be for her, and rejects her previously held
external, societal definition of womanhood. Similarly,
the fourth (but not last) stage of the Feminist scale is
the Synthesis stage, where a woman who realizes the
futility of the rage she has experienced in stage three
may move to this stage where she has reached a
transcendence of her sex-role and evaluates men on an
individual basis. She is more able to value the positive
aspects of being female and more likely to identity
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114
herself with the feminist movement. Thus the
correlations between each of the four stages of the two
measurements, although not high, are remarkably
consistent. It can be seen that the descriptions for the
parallel stages are very similar.
The Feminist scale has a fifth stage, Active
Commitment, thought to represent a stage where a woman
works to create her own future and is actively committed
to working for women's rights. However, although it is
correlated as expected with Synthesis and the
Internalization stage of the Womanist Identity Attitudes
Scale, it was, surprisingly, more highly associated with
the second and third stages of the Feminist scale,
Revelation and Embeddedness-emanation. It correlated
somewhat less with the second and third stages of the
Womanist Identity Scale, Encounter and Immersion-
emersion. The Active Commitment stage was, as expected,
negatively correlated with the Passive Acceptance Stage
of the Feminist Identity Development Scale. Active
Commitment was not significantly correlated with
Preencounter, but it was in the expected negative
direction.
Although the Active Commitment stage measures the
most highly developed stage of feminism according to the
developers of the instrument (Downing & Roush, 1985) , the
results of this study indicate that this stage is not
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115
associated with depressive symptomology, either
negatively or positively. However, according to these
results, women at the previous stage, Synthesis, have a
negative association with depression. Thus the Synthesis
stage evidently offers protection against depression but
a question still remains whether the Active Commitment
stage offers protection against depressive symptomology
in women.
As mentioned previously, there is a question in
regard to the validity of the Active Commitment subscale
of the Feminist Identity Development Scale. In
conclusion, with the exception just noted, these
instruments appear to have adequate reliability and
validity.
Maior Findings of this Research
Hypothesis 1:
Women who accept the traditional,
stereotypical female gender role while
eschewing a feminist identity will have
more depressive symptomology than feminist
women.
This hypothesis was supported (See Table 5). This
research study found strong evidence that women who have
adopted attitudes based on feminist ideology have less
depression than women who eschew feminism and maintain a
belief system based on stereotypical and traditional
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116
societal expectations of women1s gender roles and their
role in society. Those women who scored higher on the
Preencounter stage of the Womanist Identity Attitudes
Scale and the Passive Acceptance stage of the Feminist
Identity Development Scale, both representing the
traditional and stereotypical female gender role, had
higher levels of depression than those women whose scores
were lower. Moreover, when all important variables in
this research study were accounted for, the Synthesis
subscale continued to have a statistically significant
and negative association with depression.
The scores on the Single Item Feminist Question
indicated that the more the women in this study supported
the goals of the feminist movement, the less they were
afflicted with Impaired Relationships.
Although these analyses have shown that a feminist
identity is associated with less depression than a belief
system based on stereotypical and traditional gender
roles, another outcome of this research analysis was that
some women who are moving through pre-feminist
developmental stages of feminist ideology are associated
with higher levels of depression than non-feminist women.
Therefore, it may be that only a rather mature feminist
identity is associated with less depression.
To fully understand depression in women, it may be
necessary to examine the stages of development of
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117
feminist identity. Some women may progress with relative
ease through a stage of negative moods and depressive
symptomology on their way to a self identity based on
equality and self-empowerment. The path to a feminist
identity based on respect for self and others,
egalitarianism, and a level playing field is the only
acceptable course to them. However, for other women, the
inequality and corresponding subordinate position may
create passivity and dependency (Kaplan, 1983).
Powerlessness and submissiveness can lead to a stage of
"learned helplessness" where a person is unable to get
what she wants no matter how hard she tries. (Seligman,
1990) . Although feminist ideology has understood that to
be mentally healthy, a woman needs to move from being
dependent upon others for defining her roles to achieving
her own definition of self and identity, this is
extremely difficult for many women.
The results of this study may have important
considerations for the feminist movement. The finding
that the stages of development between a nonfeminist
stage and a mature feminist stage are associated with
higher levels of depression indicates an urgent need. It
is necessary to discover a more healthy path from a
Prefeminist stage to a more mature egalitarian and
feminist stage.
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118
It is important to consider whether a mature
feminist identity is misunderstood by many people. Some
people develop stereotypes of feminists that include
anger and much blaming of men for womens' problems. A
definition of feminism that has guided this research is
as follows: feminism is defined as the insight and
awareness of women's need to transcend stereotypical,
rigid boundaries imposed on women externally bv society
and fulfill their inner potential in the outer world.
Likewise, the mature feminist and womanist identity,
as measured in this study, included questions designed to
measure a high degree of respect for both women and men.
For instance, "People, regardless of their sex, have
strengths and limitations" and "I care very deeply about
men and women having equal opportunities in all respects"
and "I evaluate men as individuals, not as
members of a group of oppressors." A mature feminist
ideology is informed by a movement with ideals of
egalitarianism for all people, that doesn't blame,
threaten and make unfair demands on any group but,
instead, works steadily to improve all humankind.
Hypothesis 2:
Women who define themselves according to
an internalized, self-defined standard of
womanhood will have lower depression levels
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119
than women who define themselves according to
an external, societal definition of womanhood.
The hypothesis was supported (see Table 5). Higher
scores on the Womanist Identity Attitudes Scale of
Internalization, representing a rejection of external,
societal-based self-definition in exchange for a self-
determined internalized standard of womanhood, were
negatively associated with depression. The Synthesis
stage of Feminist Identity Development Scale,
representing a positive evaluation of being female as
well as an authentic and positive feminist identity, was
also negatively associated with depression. All but one
subscale of both the Womanist Identity Attitudes Scale
and the Feminist Identity Development Scale that
theoretically measures some stage of feminist and
womanist development that is less developed than the
highest stages (which are the Internalization and
Synthesis stages), is significantly and positively
correlated with all subscales of depression.
In addition, after controlling for a block of eight
variables found to be associated with depression in women
in this study, a hierarchical regression analysis
provided evidence that the Preencounter stage still added
significantly to the variance in depression.
Women who have not achieved an awareness or who have not
questioned society's expectations of so-called female
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personality or behaviors with their inherent
contradictions may passively conform to gender role
expectations. This passive acceptance may in turn result
in a suppression of their inner self, goals and needs.
The stereotypical female gender role suppresses the
growth of a healthy, individuated autonomous self (Jack,
19'91; Jack & Dill, 1992; McGrath et al., 1990; McGrath,
1992) . Such women may unhesitantly assume a major role
in caregiving while simultaneously ignoring their own
needs for nurturance and growth or other aspects of their
identity. One reason may be that to the extent she has
assumed a caretaker role she may risk rejection and anger
from others when attempting to establish a more self
defined identity (Jack, 1991). Such selflessness can be
associated with depression, especially when the act of
putting others1 needs before one's own quells or
suppresses the need for self-fulfillment. For some
women, this scenario may occur repeatedly as a result of
gender schemas that encourage her to be the traditional
"good woman" (Enns, 1991).
Many theories of psychology espouse that healthy
psychological development is equated with the development
of an internal sense of an individualized self;
accordingly, the healthy person is free from external
boundaries that attempt to define her or him and strives
to make choices and decisions autonomously (Travis,
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121
1988) . However, if the individual allows external
societal norms to guide her or him in decision-making
behaviors it is likely that conflict can arise and that
feelings of powerlessness and ineptness can ensue. In
the case of women in American society, the acceptance and
adherence to certain living patterns by women may
contribute to "learned helplessness," the pathway to
depression whereby one learns to give up trying because
no matter what one does, his or her actions do not lead
to success (Seligman, 1990). The confusion and self
doubts encountered in attempting to satisfy both
external, societal expectations while at the same time
needing to meet internal needs and desires may feel
inpossible and a woman may find her actions are futile in
getting what she wants.
H ypothes is-3-L
Women who score high on measures
of traditional, stereotypical female gender
roles, while simultaneously scoring low on
measures of masculine gender roles, will have
higher depressive symptomology than women who
score high on measures of masculinity gender
roles (regardless of their corresponding
female gender role scores).
This hypothesis was supported and the results can be
summarized as follows. Women who conform more to the
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122
traditional, stereotypical female gender role are
associated with higher depressive symptomology and lower
scores on measures of masculine gender roles, while women
who score high on Feminist and Womanist development
scales are negatively associated with depressive
symptomology and positively associated with higher scores
on the measures of masculine gender roles.
The stereotypical masculine gender role traits that
are referred to in this hypothesis are sometimes labeled
"instrumental" or "agentic" and they have been
stereotypically thought of as male traits but it has been
proposed that they are present to some degree in both men
and women (Spence & Helmreich, 1978) . The results of
this research further supports the idea that these traits
are common to women. Furthermore, women who have these
traits have have less depressive symptomology than women
who do not.
This is an example of how differences between men
and women can become exaggerated and distorted while the
variability within men and women can be underestimated
(Spence & Helmreich , 1978). Socially sanctioned
behaviors that are polarized and stereotypical for men
and women are likely not healthy for either men or women.
Relatedly, Broverman et al. (1970) found that therapists'
criteria for labeling healthy men and women differed.
They found that these labels pointed to pervasive
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123
stereotypes that often characterize women as more
maladaptive than men. The criteria used to describe a
"healthy person" and a "healthy man" were similar.
However, for women to be labeled healthy they were
required to exhibit the characteristics of an "unhealthy
person." Thus, socially sanctioned behaviors for women
such as submissiveness, excitability, emotionality,
sensitivity, and dependency, were also those behaviors
cited as criteria for mental illness in that study. The
Broverman, et al. (1990) study thus implies a Catch-22
position for women, whereby reflecting qualities of an
"unhealthy person" is to exhibit socially sanctioned
characteristics, while exhibiting characteristics deemed
as healthy is to be portrayed as "deviant," or as
characteristically masculine.
This research strongly suggests it is not deviant,
nor is it "characteristically masculine" for women to
have "masculine" traits. In fact it not only is not
masculine, but it evidently is associated with better
mental health in women.
Hypothesis 4:
A planful problem solving way of coping with
daily environmental stressors by women will be
negatively associated with depressive
symptomology.
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124
The Planful Problem Solving subscale of the Ways of
Coping Questionnaire was not negatively associated with
depressive symptomology and thus this hypothesis was not
supported exactly as it is stated. One subscale,
Impaired Motivation, had a small positive correlation
with Planful Problem Solving; however, the Positive
Affect subscale also was positively associated with
Planful Problem solving. These two associations are in
conflict with each other.
Nevertheless, there is support for the Planful
Problem Solving subscale being a healthier way of coping
with stress. First, as stated, the subscale of the
Center for Epidemiologic Studies - Depression scale
measuring Positive Affect was positively associated with
Planful Problem Solving. Secondly, in the Ways of Coping
Questionnaire which contains the Planful Problem Solving
subscale, there are eight scales that measure coping
methods and they were all positively correlated with
depression with the exception of the Planful Problem
Solving subscale (although, as mentioned, one subscale of
the depression inventory, Impaired Motivation, had a low
but significant correlation with Planful Problem
Solving) . Compared with all other methods utilized for
coping with stress, those who chose Planful Problem
Solving were less depressed although there was no
association with depression on the total scale, with the
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125
exception mentioned above. That exception was that one
subscale, Inpaired Motivation, had a low but significant
positive correlation.
It is of course important for clinicians and
researchers to understand the cognitive and behavioral
schema which are utilized by non depressed women but less
used by more depressed people. Planful Problem Solving
was the coping method most frequently used, compared with
the other Ways of Coping subscales, yet there was no
association with depression on the total scale. One
explanation may be that the coping method represented by
the Planful Problem Solving subscale is under utilized by
depressed women because of the lethargy that can
interfere with energy level and the focus required for a
Planful Problem Solving approach.
Hypothesi s .5;
A coping style by women that utilizes a
confrontive style will be positively
associated with depressive symptomology.
This hypothesis was rather weakly supported. The
correlations, although low, were significant and provided
some support for this hypothesis.
This style of coping suggests aggression and some
degree of hostility, according to the authors (Folkman &
Lazarus, 1988) . It was not heavily utilized by the women
in this research (see Table 8).
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Hypothesis. 5;
It is hypothesized that the results of the
Brown and Harris (1978) study will be further
confirmed. It is hypothesized that women who
have the following life situations will
have higher depressive symptomology: loss of a
mother before age 11; having no job; having no
one in their life with whom they have a
supportive relationship; and having 3 or more
children in the household under the age of 14.
It was not possible to test this hypothesis exactly
as it is stated because the sample population of the
groups belonging to "having 3 or more children in the
household under the age of 14" is too small and there is
no one at all in the group, "loss of a mother before age
11." Therefore, the hypothesis was operationalized by
using the two remaining predictor variables in the
hypothesis and there was support for the other two
proposed correlates of depression which are, "having no
job" and "having no one in their life with whom they have
a supportive relationship."
As can be seen in Table 6, Employment was negatively
associated with depression. All categories of the
variable Support Received are negatively and
significantly correlated with all of the subscales of
depression (with the exception that Parent and Impaired
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127
Motivation were not correlated). The subscale Positive
Affect was positively and significantly correlated with
friend and sibling, but it was not associated with either
Parent or Spouse\Current Partner.
In regard to the lack of subjects fulfilling the
criteria for having young children or losing a mother
before the age of 11, it seems possible that both
situations may have a negative impact on the possibility
or opportunity of attending college, which would limit
that population in this study.
It is likely that the association of Support From
Others to depressive symptomology has a circular effect.
Being depressed can cause one to have a negative view of
one's environment (Beck, et al., 1979) and thus have a
negative or pessimistic view of one1s relationships as
well. Nevertheless, many feminists authors (Jordan, et
al., 1991) have noted the importance of
interconnectedness and interpersonal relationships to
women's mental health. This study helps confirm the
importance of interrelatedness for women as a protection
against depression, particularly as it applies to women's
relationships with friends, siblings, spouse or partners,
and parents.
Hypothesis 7:
It is hypothesized that women who self report
victimization in the form of sexual harassment,
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128
woman/wife battering, childhood sexual abuse,
rape, acquaintance/date rape and childhood
physical abuse will have higher levels of
depressive symptomology than those women who
report no victimization.
This hypothesis was supported for all categories of
victimization with the exception of acquaintance/date
rape. Also, Woman Battering was not correlated on the
total scale of the CES-D, but it was positively and
significantly associated with the subscale, Impaired
Relationships. Acquaintance/date rape was positively
correlated with Positive Affect. The highest association
found was between Childhood Physical Abuse and the
depression subscale, Inpaired Relationships.
The reports of victimization to women in this study
were for the most part similar to previous reports.
Women in this research reported similar experiences of
childhood sexual abuse. The National Task Force on Women
and Depression (McGrath, et al., 1990) found the rate for
childhood sexual abuse to be 21.7% to 37%, while the
present study found 22.6% of women reported childhood
sexual abuse.
Acquaintance rape was reported to be between 12-14%
in the Task Force report and in this study it was 15.7%.
The Task Force reported a 5%-24% occurrence of forcible
rape while the present study found that 4.8% of the women
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129
respondents reported that they had been raped (non
acquaintance) .
Woman Battering in the 1990 Task Force report was
25% and in this study, 16.5% of the women reported they
had experienced at least one incidence of woman/wife
battering. The percentage of women who report woman
battering may be a function of the age of the women and
the percentage of women who are married. Therefore,
woman battering may have been reported less in this
research than in the National Task Force on Women and
Depression report because of the large number of women
who were unmarried in this research sample.
The findings in this study are similar to Brier's
study that victimization from rape and sexual harassment
are associated with depressive symptomology in women
(Brier, 1989; Briere & Runtz, 1991).
Although the association between depression and
victimization was strong and consistent, there are
several reasons why the correlations in this research
study may, nevertheless, be lower than they actually
exist. Underreporting in this sample may very well be a
factor because of several reasons. First, the study was
not specifically designed to focus on particular
victimization issues and as such the questions were very
simple and non-probing self-report questions and may not
have elicited thoughtful replies.
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130
Secondly, although the questions did ask for the
number of times the victimization or abuse occurred, the
number of times was not used in this analysis because of
the inconsistency of reporting. The respondents answered
inconsistently in that some marked an X or simply checked
the answer while others wrote a number in the blank.
Therefore, this study only reflects whether or not the
subject experienced at least a single incidence of each
category, regardless of the number of incidents actually
reported.
Thirdly, some types of victimization have been found
to be frequently underreported, probably because of fear
of discovery, embarrassment, shame or denial. Women who
experience discomfort with the matter of abuse
experienced may be less likely to commit to paper what
they may not have yet shared with others or worked
through with themselves. Kahn, Mathie & Torgler (1994)
found nearly half (47.5%) of women who were rape victims
(acquaintance) did not acknowledge it on an anonymous
questionnaire (such as the present study) when asked the
single direct question, "Have you ever been raped?"
However, when they asked more detailed follow-up
questions in that study, women participants revealed that
they actually had experienced non-consensual sexual
intercourse.
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131
The small but statistically significant association
of Acquaintance Rape to Positive Affect is a mystery. It
may be that those women who experience acquaintance rape
and are able to label it as acquaintance rape are
different in other ways than those woman who do not label
it as such. According to Kahn, et al., (1994), half of
their subjects, who gave other evidence of having
experienced acquaintance rape, actually answered they had
not experienced acquaintance rape.
The term acquaintance or date rape is relatively new
and may require a rather complex or sophisticated
understanding to label it. Therefore it is likely that,
for some women, labeling as acquaintance rape an
experience of forced intercourse with an acquaintance may
require some type of outside intervention, for instance,
counseling or participation in campus rape-awareness
programs. Then it would follow that those women who had
these interventions have access to mental health
facilities such as counseling, which may have a positive
affect on their mental health. In sum, psychologically
minded women, those women involved in womenrs groups,
women who have participated in campus rape-awareness
activities and women involved in therapy may have reduced
their reluctance to label non-consensual sexual
intercourse as acquaintance/date rape while also
presumably benefiting from those interventions by having
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132
less depressive symptomology. Thus, Acquaintance/date
rape may be statistically associated with Positive Affect
only because of their mutual association with positive
mental health, due to the interventions described.
Thus, the results of the victimization questions
makes it apparent that victimization is associated with
depression in women and previous studies in this area
were easily replicated, using very simple self-report
questions. The reduction of this abuse to women has been
an important part of feminist research, women's groups,
and feminist therapists for a long time.
implications for the General Theory
Discussion of feminism. The development of a mature
feminist identity is associated with less depression in
women. The adoption of feminist ideology is thought to
reduce negative symtomology in women by empowering them
and providing more equality of opportunity. However,
this study has found evidence that, while developing from
a stage of nonfeminist identity to a mature feminist
identity, women have increased levels of depressive
symptomology.
Many women's studies programs have been implemented
in the United States since the early 1970's. The main
goal of those programs is to raise awareness of the
social, economic and political inequality that exists
between men and women and to encourage women to become
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133
actively involved in the movement to create a climate of
fairness and to establish more egalitarianism. Some
research has focused on the increment of change in
attitudes toward feminism or women’s issues after they
have been exposed to women's studies classes. However,
those small movements may actually increase depressive
symptomology in women, and a warning may be needed before
undertaking classes in the area of Women's Studies. In
addition, it might be helpful to include a depression
inventory in the measurements that are used in future
studies.
As women develop from the middle to the highest
stages of feminism, their activist goals decrease,
according to the results of this study. It is possible
that self-empowerment decreases the need or desirability
for activist involvement which would explain why women
who score higher in the middle stages of feminist and
womanist development show a higher response to questions
regarding their activism than do women scoring high in
the higher stages of feminist and womanist developmental
stages. The authors of the model of feminist identity
used in this study feel that few women truly evolve to
the stage of active commitment as described for the fifth
stage of feminist identity. They state that "most women
who are dedicated to working for women's rights may
actually be functioning out of needs from earlier stages,
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134
particularly Revelation and Embeddedness-emanation"
(Downing & Roush, 1985, p.702). If Active Commitment is
correlated with less developed stages of feminist and
womanist identity, that may explain why some feminists
seem so vociferous. Perhaps more highly developed women
are more integrated and thus less vociferous. The
feminists in the public spotlight may not actually be
representative of the viewpoints of most feminist women.
Additional Findings
Escape Avoidance. An important finding in this
study was the extent to which a particular coping method
is heavily used by depressed women and used much less by
women low in depressive symptomology. Out of 230
questions on the research Questionnaire, most of which
are known to be related to depression in women, one tiny
subset of eight questions, the Ways of Coping
Questionnaire Escape Avoidance subscale, predicted more
depression than all of the other variables combined
(comprising 35% of the variance).
It is not known to what extent escape avoidance is
simply heavily utilized among depressed women as a way of
attempting to diffuse negative emotions and thus becomes
a dysfunctional way of coping with daily problems, or
whether the dysfunctional cognitive strategy employed by
some women causes them to be more susceptible to
depressive symptomology.
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135
Many experiences of women may add to a sense of
helplessness and powerless, especially victimization and
experiences of discrimination and gender bias (McGrath,
et al., 1990) . Confusion about stereotypical gender
roles, especially those considered stereotypically
masculine, may result when women are reinforced for more
passive or feminine attributes by society, but reinforced
in other ways, for instance by having success in
competitive sports and certain careers, when they display
stereotypical masculine attributes.
The learned helplessness paradigm (Seligman, 1990)
helps to explain how the experience of powerlessness and
submissiveness leads to a state where a person is unable
to get what he or she wants and in subsequent situations
does not exert any effort. This paradigm helps explain
why the victimization of women creates depression. It
may be circular, in that one's tendency to escape and
avoid painful feelings may place them in situational
outcomes whereby their avoidant reactions have resulted
in their feeling powerless as opposed to a more problem
solving way of dealing with a potentially victimizing or
depression-causing situation.
It is likely that these experiences provide the
foundations for a response to stressors that is related
to the classic denial response. Thus a learned
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136
helplessness behavior can result from being victimized
and discriminated against.
Effects of Fathers1 Depression. The women in this
study reported their mothers were depressed two times as
often as they reported that their their fathers were
depressed. This in itself was not surprising since other
research reports that women are diagnosed with depression
about two times as often as men are diagnosed with
depression. However, the positive correlation of their
father's depression to their own depressive symptomology
was significantly higher than was the positive
correlation of their mother's depression to their own
depressive symptomology. This is a fascinating finding,
which leads to a number of speculations. One simple
explanation is that the role of fathers in women's lives
is extremely important and, at least in the area of
depressive syptomology, has a more significant effect
than the role of mothers.
However, it is necessary to first consider whether
the respondents were accurate in their evaluations of the
differences in their parents' depression. If men and
women experience depression differently, then by
definition (because they are not men) the women would be
more likely to recognize their mothers' depression than
their fathers' depression. Relatedly, they may be
emotionally closer and identify more closely with their
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137
mothers and thus their mothers' depressed affect may be
more apparent than their fathers' depressed affect.
Nevertheless, it is possible the women were as
accurate in labeling their fathers depression as they
were in labeling their mothers depression. If so, the
higher association with depression in women to their
report of their fathers having depression as compared to
their mothers having depression might have several
explanations. Where the father was the major wage earner
in the family, depressive symptomology might be more
stressful since loss of income might bring about fears of
homelessness or other frightening outcomes. Fear of
abandonment may more likely be present if the father is
perceived as unhappy than if the mother is perceived
similarly.
Additionally, women's depressive symptomology may
have a "feminine quality" (Nolen-Hoeksema, 1990) and thus
a mother's depressive symptomology may seem less
threatening since in many ways it may be equated with
stereotypical traits women have such as dependency,
helplessness, emotional rumination, passivity, and non
assertiveness. These are not considered acceptable
stereotypes for men in our society (Nolen-Hoeksema,
1990). Therefore it seems logical that a father's
depressive symptomology, if displayed by depressive
symptoms that included typical female stereotypes, might
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138
be more frightening and have a stronger aversive effect
than would the same behavior in their mothers.
Those results may have important considerations in
the area of familial depression to the extent that
depression has been believed by some clinicians to be of
genetic causation. For instance if parents are
depressed, some "genetic" explanation for depression
might seem logical. However, children on average inherit
their genetic makeup equally from both parents. The
women in this sample were affected with more depressive
symptomology when their fathers were perceived as
depressed than when they perceived their mothers as
depressed. Thus, what might otherwise be assumed to be
familial and genetically inherited, actually has a
significant social and environmental component. This
would seem to negate at least a portion of the variance
that would otherwise be assigned to a genetic model of
the causation of depression. The higher association with
depression in women to their report of their fathers
having depression, as compared to their mothers having
depression is an important avenue for further study.
Other Findings. According to an analyses of
variance (ANOVA), shown on Table 10, Asian-American women
and Hispanic/Latino women were significantly more
depressed than European-American.
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139
Age was negatively associated with depression, in
that increases in age were associated with less
depression.
Socioeconomic status was not correlated with the
total score of the depression inventory but one subscale,
Impaired Relationships, was negatively correlated with
the highest socioeconomic status. Employment was
negatively associated with depression.
Married women were significantly less depressed than
single women. Contrary to some research, marriage was
negatively associated with depression. McGrath, et al.,
(1990) found marriage a risk factor for women, with
married women being five times as likely as married men
to be depressed. This research is not necessarily
inconsistent with that finding since married women's
depression was not compared with married men's
depression; it was only compare with single women's rate
of depression.
Women who responded that there were one or more
children in the household were not associated with
depression on the total scale but there was a small but
positive and significant association on the Impaired
Relationships subscale.
Clinical Implications - Meaning for Practice & Prevention
A very important conclusion is that the
stereotypical female gender role, with its concomitant
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140
physical victimization, gender bias and glass ceilings,
may be difficult for some women to overcome. Women may
bend and twist in an effort to accommodate others and fit
into the stereotypical, societal mold of what a woman
should be. Possibly they just need to feel personally
entitled to equal treatment and feel worthy of
negotiating and establishing fairness for themselves.
This is certainly a theoretical orientation of many
clinicians.
Depressive symptomology is a vicious cycle that
probably prevents women from escaping from the very mire
that bogged them down; for instance, an escape avoidance
method of coping may recycle the depressive symptoms.
Like an injury that is so debilitating that it causes one
to actually lose the strength to regain former abilities
and necessitates outside physical therapy to regain the
previous level of functioning, so it may be that some
women may need outside help to be pulled out of the mire
of their hopelessness, cycles of depressive symptomology,
escape avoidance coping methods and messages perceived
from society that they are incompetent, unworthwhile,
helpless and powerless.
Women can request and insist upon a feminist
therapist. Women can be encouraged to organized their
own support groups and women's organizations. In
addition, taking social responsibility by being an
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141
activist for equal rights for all people may be
empowering for some women.
On the other hand, therapy that aims at
individualized change such as adjustment, self-assertion
or self-defense may not help women to recognize the need
for change in their environment and may inadvertently
demotivate them to make those changes. They may then be
"adjusted" to a harmful living situation rather than
toward growth and development (Enns, 1993) . In
psychotherapy, the integration of a focus on "inner
psychological processes and personal change" and the
"social-political context of women's lives" which
advocates social change as the means to improving women1 s
lives and well being is "the most pressing issue for the
future of feminist therapy" (Rawlings, 1993, p.90).
A unified theory of feminist therapy would
recognize the plurality and diversity of
women's lives and guide future refinements of
feminist therapy. It would integrate a feminist
political analysis with scientific data on the
psychology of women and knowledge about the
impact of life events on women's development.
Emotional disorders would be conceptualized as
disruptions in normal development that are
influenced by a particular social/environmental
system (Enns, 1993, p.65).
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142
The results of this study are probably not a
surprise to feminist therapists. However,
psychotherapists in general, for instance in their
treatment plans, may benefit from the knowledge that
developing a mature feminist ideology may be empowering
and beneficial for some depressed women. For several
decades, many feminist therapists have been actively
involved in helping women achieve a mature feminist
identity. However, many other mental health workers
probably would need more research evidence of its value
and it is hoped that this study will help provide that
evidence.
Methodological Limitations of this Study and Other
General Problems
Although this research study has referenced studies
where women are reported to be depressed two times the
rate of men, this has generally not been true in college
samples of men and women. For instance, Nolen-Hoeksema
(1990) in a review of the research found no differences
in depression rates between college men and women.
It is not known to what degree men suppress their
depressive symptomology by means of a "masked depression"
whereby they engage in overwork, compulsive sports or
self-medication with alcohol and or drugs or act out
irritability with physical violence and other negative
behaviors. It is possible that the differences in
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143
depression rate could be due to women in general being
more in touch with their emotions whereby men more often
distance from negative emotions (Nolen-Hoeksema, 1990).
However, the question remains as to why research studies
indicate that college men and women have no differences
in depressive symptomology, although in the general
populations women are diagnosed with depression twice as
frequently as men are diagnosed with depression.
This research has only attempted to study women1s
depression and therefore does not make assumptions about
depression in men. This study has not included the male
sex and while the hypothesis, results and discussion may
tend to infer that women1s roles and experience in
society may be associated with their depressive
symptomology, it does not intend to presume any
differences in particular in the way that men are
affected by their experiences. Also, the study does not
assume heterosexuality but is focused on gender-role
expectations and the subsequent experience and treatment
of women. While some or many women and men may have
escaped negative experiences, some or many men may also
suffer from societal expectations in ways similar to
women's experiences.
Other Limitations. Many items used in the
correlations were simple self-report questions and
undoubtedly many areas were underreported. For instance,
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144
depression in family members, victimization, and support
from others may have been answered in more detail and
perhaps had more validity in an interview situation where
there was an opportunity to explore the questions in
depth and the interviewer had more opportunity to ask
pertinent questions and the respondent, as well, could
clarify what information was being asked.
In regard to the association between depression and
victimization in women, as discussed in the previous
section, women who experience discomfort with the matter
of abuse experienced (and possibly some other personal
questions) may be less likely to commit to paper what
they may have not yet shared with others or worked
through.
Self-Selection of Participants. Although the
hypotheses were generally supported, the associations
with depression presented in this study may be smaller
than they exist in a larger sample or in the general
population. It is likely that more highly depressed
women did not respond. The lethargy which depressed
people experience might interfere with their committing
to spend 45 minutes completing a questionnaire.
Moreover, a college population may self-select away from
a depressed population, since depressed women may have
less energy to attend school. For instance, the
researcher noted in this study that those women who
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145
mailed their questionnaires in an envelope to the
researcher's post office mail box had lower depression
scores than the average participant, and those
questionnaires that had to be discarded because they were
incomplete, had higher depression scores than the average
participant. Thus, it may be that even the simple act of
mailing or completing a survey is influenced by
depressive symptomology.
Also, women with stereotypically traditional and
non-feminist values and viewpoints may not have
responded. In addition, Orange County is generally
politically conservative and therefore it is possible
that there may not be as wide a variance in feminism
ideology in this population sample. There is reason to
believe women who hold particularly anti-feminist or non
feminist attitudes chose not to respond. It seemed to
the researcher, who distributed all the questionnaires
and collected all the data, that there was a somewhat
polarized opinion on the part of many women in regard to
this research study. Some women had a strong reaction
when they looked through the questionnaire and saw the
word feminist. One woman was reported to have said to
the instructor in the classroom, "Is she a radical
feminist? I want to call her." Non-feminist or
traditional women may have refused to be a part of a
research project that made them uncomfortable. On the
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146
other hand, many women responded very positively and
enthusiastically and seemed eager to participate in a
research project about "women's lives today." The
researcher received many verbal comments when receiving
the completed questionnaires from the participants, such
as "This really made me think about things."
It was noted in the discussion following Hypothesis
6 that there were no participants who fulfilled the
criteria for "having 3 or more children in the
household under the age of 14" and there is no one at all
in the group, "loss of a mother before age 11." In
regard to the lack of subjects fulfilling the criteria
for having young children or losing a mother before the
age of 11, it was mentioned previously that it seems
possible that both situations may have a negative impact
on the possibility or opportunity of those women
attending college, which would limit that population in
this study. This may have had the effect of reducing the
number of participants from more stressed and possibly
depressed groups of women and thus possibly decreasing
the variance in depression scores that might actually
exist in the general population.
Thus, self-selection might result in the inclusion
of less depressed women and possibly less non-feminist
women which would presumably weaken the strength of the
statistical significance found in this study.
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147
Suggestions for Further Research
This study has demonstrated that studying how
women's depressive symptomology is affected by their
particular feminist ideology is a fruitful area of
research. This section will briefly discuss some further
questions for research that have arisen from the results
of this study.
Feminist Identity. This study has provided evidence
that women who have relatively underdeveloped levels of
feminist identity have more depression than those women
who have the highest levels of feminist identity
development. Therefore future research might focus on
what interventions help to develop women's feminist
identity, to see if that is an effective method for
treating depression in women. Conversely, the feminist
and womanist identity development models may be a helpful
way to assess progress in therapy and it is of course
especially suited for feminist therapy because it
describes a stage-wise process of development that makes
it possible to track an individual woman's progress.
Further research needs to determine whether what are
being referred to as "developmental" stages of feminist
and womanist identity may simply be differences among
women and not necessarily "stages" through which women
evolve. To test this developmental theory further, we
would need longitudinal research studies to measure
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148
individuals as they presumably progress through the
stages of feminist and womanist identity development.
The two middle stages of feminist identity and one
of the middle stages of womanist identity are associated
with depression and all four of the middle stages of both
measures are highly correlated with the activist stage.
Nevertheless, the activist stage is unassociated with
depression. Therefore future research might seek to
discover whether activism provides protection against
depressive symptomology.
Depression and Women's Motivation. A further avenue
for investigation might be to look at how depression
affects the motivation of women, their college attendance
and their achievements. If women suffer depressive
symptomology more than men, how much does that affect the
differences in the success and achievement between men
and women? Perhaps it is a circular process whereby the
glass ceiling and other forms of discrimination may "wear
women down" and create more depression, thus providing
even less chance for success in the working world. One
can readily see that this may create more helplessness
and hopelessness and powerlessness which may lead to more
dysfunctional methods of coping and then more depression,
and so on.
Acquaintance Rape. The discussion immediately
following Hypothesis 7 regarding the hypothetical reasons
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149
for the positive association of the variable,
"Acquaintance Rape" to the depression subscale Positive
Affect admittedly is a stretch, but it may be important
for the following reasons. Future Research could explore
if the association with Positive Affect is indeed
correlated with the interventions stated (women’s groups,
counseling, etc.) . If so, then that would provide
important information clinically in regard to helpful
interventions for women who have experienced non-
consensual intercourse.
Fathers' Effect on Women's Depression. The higher
association with depression in women to their report of
their fathers having depression, as compared to their
mothers having depression, is an important avenue for
further study.
Coping Methods. Future directions of this research
should be aimed at discovering whether women's coping
methods increase depression or whether a depressed woman
might resort to escape avoidance in self-protection as a
defense against her negative and painful emotions. It is
likely that denial is at the core of both adopting an
escape-avoidance coping habit and also remaining naively
unaware of the important women's issues needing to be
addressed.
Future research could focus on the subscale Planful
Problem Solving of the Ways of Coping Questionnaire to
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150
see how this method of coping is utilized by non
depressed women to see if such understanding could aid
therapists in designing treatment plans for depressed
women clients.
Summary
This research study has contributed evidence for the
sociological effect of depression on women. According to
these results, a covariation exists between women's
depressive symptomology and levels of compliance to the
traditional, stereotypical female gender role. Women who
transcend the gender role societal expectation of the
stereotypical female personality have less depression and
better coping methods although a surprise finding of this
research is the higher depression levels in women who are
in the middle stages of feminist development. In sum,
the development of a mature feminist identity is
associated with less depression in women.
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151
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Appendix
Informed Consent
Demographic Survey (Questionnaire)
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157
INFORMED CONSENT
Dear Participant:
Thank you very much for agreeing to participate in this
research project which is part of a doctoral
dissertation. This research is about women's lives in
today's world and involves the study of women's
attitudes, feelings and perceptions about their home and
work environments. It is estimated that 200 women will
take part in this study. The amount of time required to
complete the questionnaires will be approximately 45
minutes.
Although some of the questions are personal, no
discomfort is anticipated. However, if you should have
any questions regarding your participation and would like
to talk to someone, please telephone Janet Louise Fossum
at (714) 644-5587. In addition, three counseling
referrals are attached to this questionnaire packet.
Your answers to the attached questionnaires are intended
to be completely confidential and therefore you will not
be asked to sign this consent form. To further insure
your anonymity, if you return the questionnaire packet to
the researcher, you will be provided with a large
envelope in which to place your completed questionnaires.
Your participation is entirely voluntary and you may
choose to discontinue at any time without any penalty
whatsoever. The return of the completed questionnaire
packet to the researcher will constitute your consent to
participate. Your participation and time is greatly
appreciated.
Michael D. Newcomb, Ph.D.,
Professor and Chairperson
Janet Louise Fossum, M.A.,
Doctoral Candidate
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158
Q u e s t i o n n a . ± i r e
Please respond to the following questions about yourself
as carefully and accurately as you can. Please remember
that all parts of this research are anonymous and are for
research purposes only.
1. Your age:_______
2. Race/Ethnicity: (Although your heritage may consist
of more than one of the following racial/ethnic
groups, please check the one with which you most
identify. If you identify equally with more than
one, please check each of those with which you
identify.)
Asian-American
Hispanic/Latino
African-American/Black
European-American/White
Native-American/American Indian
_____ Other_________________
3. Are you currently:
married
divorced
widowed
single
cohabiting
4. Socioeconomic status of family of origin
(approximate) :
lower
lower-middle
middle
upper-middle
upper
Present Yearly Income-combined with
spouse/partner
$0 - $15,000
$15,000 - $30,000
$30,000 - $75,000
$75,000 - $125,000
$125,000+
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159
5. Highest level of education reached:
high school grade 9th 10th llth 12th
college ____1 ___2____3___4
Masters Degree____
Doctorate_____
6. Religion: (optional)
7. Are you presently employed?
yes _____ no
full time
part time
.monthly salary or earnings
_______________________ job title
8. How many children do you have who are presently
living in your household and who are under the age
of 18?
number of children in household
___________________ age of each child
9. Various people in our lives provide us with support.
For each of the following people, please indicate
the degree of support you experience from your
present relationship with them by circling the
number which is most accurate.
0 1 2 3 4
Not None Minimal Moderate Very
Applicable Support Support Supportive
current spouse or partner 0 1 2 3 4
my parents 0 1 2 3 4
my siblings 0 1 2 3 4
try best friend 0 1 2 3 4
anyone else _____________ 0 1 2 3 4
10. During your childhood, did you lose a parent by
death? If so, please indicate and write in your age
at the time the death occurred.
mother ____ your age at time of her death
father ____ your age at time of his death
11. Please check the appropriate blank(s) if you have
ever been a victim of any of the following crimes.
If there were multiple occurrences, write in the
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160
blank the number of times the victimization
occurred.
sexual harassment (workplace/school)
woman/wife battering
childhood sexual abuse
(definition: sexual contact between a
child and an adult; or sexual contact
between a child, who is under the age of
14, with a person 5 years or more older
than the child.)
acquaintance/date rape
rape
childhood physical abuse by parent or
guardian (not sexual abuse)
12. Has anyone in your family, including yourself,
suffered from serious depression in the past that
interfered with normal daily functioning? If the
answer is "yes," please write in the approximate
number of months of the depression, if you know.
YOURSELF: no yes Number of months
MOTHER: no yes Number of months
FATHER: no yes Number of months
Any of your siblings:
no yes Number of months
Any of your children:
no yes Number of months
13. Please read the following sentence:
"I consider myself a feminist (one who supports
the goals of the women's liberation movement) ."
Please circle the number which most closely
represents your agreement or disagreement with this
statement at this time.
1 2 3 4 5
Strongly Disagree Uncertain Agree Strongly
Disagree Agree
(Optional: If you wish to make additional comments
regarding any part of this research or the questions you
have just answered, please write below or on the back of
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Asset Metadata

Creator Fossum, Janet Louise (author)

Core Title A correlational study of feminist/womanist identity development and depression in women

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program Education - Counseling Psychology

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag OAI-PMH Harvest,psychology, clinical,psychology, personality,Social Work,women's studies

Language English

Contributor Digitized by ProQuest (provenance)

Advisor [illegible] (committee chair), [illegible] (committee member)

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c17-545769

Unique identifier UC11349931

Identifier 9720223.pdf (filename),usctheses-c17-545769 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier 9720223.pdf

Dmrecord 545769

Document Type Dissertation

Rights Fossum, Janet Louise

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the au...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus, Los Angeles, California 90089, USA