A test of three hypotheses to explain the dominance penalty for sexually agentic women

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.