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The sexual double standard is often investigated as unequal tolerance for sexual experience, but recent research has found resistance to female sexual agency as well (i.e., enjoyment of being sexualized; Infanger, Rudman, & Sczesny, 2016). This pattern imitates rejection of female agency in employment contexts (e.g., competing for leadership roles; Rudman, Moss-Racusin, Phelan, & Nauts, 2012). Female agency, whether sexual or professional, evokes perceptions that targets are “too dominant,” which results in social or economic penalties. The current study sought to conceptually replicate Infanger et al.’s findings while examining three potential moderators of the dominance penalty for sexually powerful women. Specifically, sexually powerful women may be viewed as too dominant because they (1) threaten men’s higher status (the status incongruity hypotheses; Rudman et al., 2012), (2) decrease the value of other women’s sexual favors (sexual economics theory; Baumeister & Vohs, 2004), or (3) threaten women’s protected status, which depends on women being chaste and submissive (the male protection hypothesis). However, results did not support a dominance penalty for female sexual power. Instead, male and female targets who espoused a powerful, manipulative form of sexuality, compared to those who did not, were (1) viewed as more dominant and less communal, (2) disliked, and (3) sabotaged on a future task. Further, results of mediation analyses were consistent with the idea that sexually powerful targets, compared to low power targets, were sabotaged because they were disliked, and disliked because they were viewed as less communal, not too dominant.

Previous research has found that young women consistently anticipate “the second shift” (Hochschild, 1989) in their future marriages, defined as disparities in domestic work that disadvantage them, even when they envision situations that should facilitate domestic equality (e.g., earning more money than their spouse; Fetterolf & Eagly, 2011; Fetterolf & Rudman, 2012). The present study examined (1) the influence of information about marital trends on young women’s expected domestic equality, and (2) the influence of young women’s expected domestic equality on their future career ambitions. Participants, who were undergraduate women, read one of three different newspaper articles indicating trends in the distribution of domestic work: (1) domestic equality as the new norm, (2) stalled progress toward domestic equality, or (3) a reversal of inequality, with men responsible for more of the domestic work than women. Participants then indicated their plans for their future careers, as well as their expectations for domestic equality in their own future marriages. Surprisingly, the domestic trends in the articles did not have much of an influence on participants’ expected domestic or paid labor. Across all conditions, participants expected to do a larger proportion of the housework than their spouse, and to earn less money for their work, while also working the same number of hours outside the home as their spouse (except in the stalled condition, where they expected to work less hours in paid employment). Additionally, participants’ anticipated domestic labor was negatively correlated with their anticipated work hours, although it was not associated with other future career outcomes (e.g., salary). Overall, the present study suggests that domestic inequality is entrenched in young women’s expectations. The implications for gender equality are discussed.