Oldal 82 [82]
IZOLDA TAKÁCS: THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY
create some kind of ideological unity aside from the dissimilarity, and to
balance out whomens lesser status.?"
Models of gender identity
Van Breen and associates have visualised the female identity in two types of
orthogonal dimensions: along (1) the identification with women and (2) the
identification with feminists.”
According to their position, the degree of identification with women (fem¬
ininity) reflects most appropriately the attitude society associates with being
a member of the female collective, and can answer the question “what does it
mean to be a woman?” from the aspect of group characteristics, interests and
values. It can also forecast the attitudes towards group characteristics, such
as femininity and self-stereotypes.?°°
Identification with feminists primarily means everything that “is related to
increased perceptions of sexism in society, discontent with current power
distributions and the status quo, and increased involvement in collective ac¬
tion”.”*! Relying on these conclusions, the authors define the content of iden¬
tification with feminists on the basis of the group of women the members of
which recognise and refuse their own disadvantageous social status, i.e. are
taking action against gender inequalities. They show furthermore what it means
to be a disadvantaged woman, having an unequal and relative status.”
They have finally established four identity profiles based on their surveys.
Women (1) identifying neither with women nor with feminists fall into the
“non-identifier” group. Women (2) identifying strongly with women but not with
248 Acsády ].: A hazai feminizmus fénykora — A mozgalom előzményei és kibontakozása a szá¬
zadelőn, in Csapó, I. — Török, M. (eds.): Feminista Almanach, 2005, Budapest, MINŐK¬
NŐTÁRS Alapítvány, 2005; Czibere: Az asszonyok történetének megírásáról...
Van Breen and associates (Van Breen et al.: A Multiple Identity) have studied women through
four different samples. The 1st sample consisted of 91 female students of the University of
Groningen, the average age of the group was 20.8 years, the youngest being 18, the oldest 48
years old. The 2nd sample consisted of 121 participants from the University of Granada, ages
18 to 50, the average age being 19.75. The 3rd sample included 201 women, of ages 16 to 68,
with the average age being 30.6 years. The 4th sample was put together from 200 students,
also from the University of Groningen. Their age was between 17 and 31, 19.7 years on aver¬
age. All four groups have identified much stronger with women than with feminists, but the
results of the various surveys have been further analysed in light of a multiple identity ap¬
proach. The analyses further reinforced that identifying with women and identifying with
feminists are two distinctly separate aspects of gender identity, which clearly demonstrates
that gender identity is far from being unified, even in these groups. Significant overlaps could
however be found, as this paper also elaborates.
250 Van Breen et al.: A Multiple Identity, 19.
251 Ibidem, 2.
252 Ibidem.
249
+ 80°