Conceptualizing and measuring gender ideology as an identity

Although gender ideology is sometimes conceptualized as an identity, researchers invariably measure it with attitude scales. The author introduces a self-administered, vignette-style instrument that measures gender ideology as an identity. Using a sample of 309 married or cohabiting respondents, she demonstrates the instrument's construct validity by showing it is strongly related to measures of the evaluation and the potency of three cultural categories: a feminist, a traditionalist about women's roles, and a househusband. The author discusses the benefits of using such an instrument as an alternative to attitude scales in housework studies. She also discusses how this measurement approach can be useful for measuring variation in the meaning of a marital identity and for operationalizing gender in "doing gender" investigations.