Indicators of Sex Typing: Traditional and Egalitarian, Situational and Ideological Responses

A new latent class model yields estimates of the prevalence of ideological and situational responses by Detroit mothers to four questions on assigment of household chores to boys and girls. In 1953 there was virtually no ideological traditionalism (although the modal response pattern was the most traditional one) but a significant number of ideologically egalitarian responses. Both kinds of ideological response had become more frequent by 1971. By 1976 the modal response was the ideologically egalitarian one, as the entire response distribution had shifted toward the egalitarian pole. Yet the highest ratio of ideological to situational responses was observed among the consistently traditional respondents. The trend in ideological traditionalism suggests that ideological justifications for traditional definitions of sex roles develop as a reaction to the emergence and promulgation of egalitarian ideologies.