'Effete'

Men with egalitarian attitudes about the role of women in society earn significantly less on average than men who hold more traditional views about women's place in the world, according to a study being reported today. The study, published in the September issue of the Journal of Applied Psychology, is based on information collected by a federal government survey over a quarter-century.

• Men with traditional attitudes about gender roles earned $11,930 more a year than men with egalitarian views and $14,404 more than women with traditional attitudes.


• The comparisons were based on men and women working in the same kinds of jobs with the same levels of education and putting in the same number of hours per week.


• People who endorsed distinct roles in society for men and women were considered to have traditional views, while those who advocated equal roles for men and women at home and in the workplace were classified as having egalitarian views.

Livingston and Judge . . are organizational psychologists at the University of Florida. Judge conjectured:

"It could be that traditional men are hypercompetitive salary negotiators -- the Donald Trump prototype, perhaps. It could be on the employer side that, subconsciously, the men who are egalitarian are seen as effete."

From "Study Ties Wage Disparities To Outlook on Gender Roles" by Shankar Vedantam, Washington Post Staff Writer, published Monday, September 22, 2008.