Feminism and Attractiveness

Photographs were taken of 30 young women whose attitudes toward the feminist movement identified them as supporters or nonsupporters of the movement. Ratings of the photographs for physical attractiveness yielded no differences between the 2 groups. However, when 40 male and 29 female undergraduates were asked to identify the women who supported the women's liberation movement, Ss significantly chose the photographs of the less attractive women. Both male and female Ss responded this way irrespective of their own professed attitudes toward the feminist movement. The findings are related to research in the areas of stereotyping and sexism.


Goldberg, Philip A., Marc Gottesdiener, and Paul R. Abramson. "Another put-down of women? Perceived attractiveness as a function of support for the feminist movement." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 32.1 (1975): 113.

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In Study 1, we examined predicted linkages between feminism, beauty, and romance for heterosexual women and men. In line with Goldberg et al. (1975), we expected female targets to be perceived as feminists to the extent they were judged as unattractive. However, we sought to explain this negative relationship by assessing beliefs about targets' (a) sex appeal and (b) lesbianism. If the link between perceived beauty and feminism is accounted for by beliefs that unattractive targets are likely to be unpopular with men and/or to be lesbians, results would suggest that feminists are stigmatized as “unsexy” and thereby underscore the importance of romance and sexuality vis-à-vis judgments of female targets' feminism. We also tested feminist identity as a moderator of reactions to female targets. Although Goldberg et al. (1975) found no evidence for feminism as a moderator, contemporary feminists might not stereotype plain female targets as feminists.

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Target ratings Participants rated each of the eight targets on four items, using 7-point scales ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). Two of the items were: “In my opinion, she is attractive” and “She was probably popular (dating-wise) in high school.” In addition, following Goldberg et al. (1975), we told people that we knew what had happened to these women, and we asked them to respond to two other items: “She likely became a lesbian” and “She probably grew up to become a feminist.” These four ratings were reliable across the four pretty women (α > .72 for all) and the four plain women (α > .65 for all). Therefore, we averaged them to form four indexes for both pretty and plain targets (collapsed across photos). We labeled these the attractive index, the sex appeal index (derived from dating popularity), the lesbian index, and the feminist index. It is important to note that these ratings were administered in randomized order for each of the eight targets.

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For feminism, results again showed a main effect for target, F(1, 95) = 32.29, p < .001, with plain targets rated as more likely to be feminists than pretty targets by both genders. However, there was also a significant Target × Gender × Feminist Identity interaction, F(1, 95) = 5.05, p < .01. Among women, feminist identity was positively and significantly related to judging the feminism of pretty targets, r(59) = .42, p < .01, but not the feminism of plain targets, r(59) =−.11, ns. Among men, feminist identity was not significantly linked to judging the feminism of either pretty targets, r(37) = .17, ns, or plain targets, r(37) =−.07, ns. The remaining effects in this analysis were not significant.

In sum, these results revealed strong effects for target attractiveness on measures of perceived attractiveness, sex appeal, lesbianism, and feminism, which were not moderated by gender or, for the most part, feminist identity. However, for female participants, feminist identity was positively linked to judging pretty targets as feminists, whereas feminist identity did not relate to reactions to plain targets for either gender. Thus, there was weak evidence to support the notion that contemporary feminists might be more resistant to the stereotype that feminists are unattractive.

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Study 1 supported our central hypotheses. As expected, there was evidence that the unattractive feminist stereotype is robust. However, we found that perceptions of female targets' sex appeal and lesbianism fully mediated the negative link between targets' perceived attractiveness and feminism. Moreover, the negative link between targets' perceived attractiveness and lesbianism was fully mediated by their perceived sex appeal. In concert, these findings suggest the importance of beauty and romance when predicting judgments of female targets' feminism and sexuality, and they shed light on why feminisim has become a stigmatized label. Women who subscribe to the view that feminists are unattractive or sexually unappealing may distance themselves to preserve their own romantic appeal. Moreover, they may well fear that others will stereotype them as lesbians if they embrace an overt feminist identity (Swim et al., 1999). Moreover, men who perceive feminists to be lesbians might view them as unlikely to fulfill their sexual needs, which could lead to negative attitudes toward feminist women (Glick & Fiske, 1996).

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For women, feminist identity predicted judging pretty (but not plain) targets as likely feminists; men's feminist identity did not predict these ratings for either plain or pretty targets. Finally, and again in contrast to Goldberg et al. (1975), female participants who rated themselves as attractive showed low enthusiasm for feminism on the identity and attitude measures. That is, the present sample showed some evidence that the unattractive feminist stereotype contains a kernel of truth. However, we caution against overinterpreting this unexpected finding. It is possible that feminists resist the beauty myth (Wolff, 1991; cf. Rubin, Nemeroff, & Russo, 2004) by not spending a great deal of time on their appearance or that they surround themselves with people unlikely to comment on their attractiveness because they are more interested in achievement than personal appearance. By contrast, women who are not feminists may be more committed to romantic ideals and may report themselves to be more attractive to be consistent with this ideal. They may even request attractiveness feedback from others frequently and remember it easily for this reason. Thus, the present findings are suspect, and future research should use independent raters' assessment of attractiveness, following Golberg et al. (1975).


Rudman, Laurie A., and Kimberly Fairchild. "The F word: Is feminism incompatible with beauty and romance?." Psychology of Women Quarterly 31.2 (2007): 125-136.

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[Still looking for studies that analyze the question more than simply testing whether people think feminists are less attractive.]