Pro-equality initiatives increase expressed sexism among men but may improve trust among women football fans

Araújo Silva, V. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5392-5646 and A.C. Gatto, M. (2025) Pro-equality initiatives increase expressed sexism among men but may improve trust among women football fans. Journal of Experimental Political Science. ISSN 2052-2649 doi: 10.1017/XPS.2025.10009

Abstract/Summary

Globally, prejudicial attitudes toward women persist. By taking anti-discriminatory stances, value-oriented organizations – e.g., political parties and religious denominations – can tap into group identities to shape their members’ attitudes. We know much less about the role of organizations that are not inherently value-oriented – such as sports teams – in accomplishing the same. Yet, as various campaigns by sports teams worldwide indicate, this is precisely what non-value-oriented organizations increasingly attempt to do. Can football team fandom be leveraged to promote gender-egalitarian attitudes? We address this question with data from a national survey in Brazil and a survey experiment conducted in partnership with a major Brazilian football club. We find that while football team identity is salient and may be leveraged to change displayed social attitudes, the Club’s anti-sexism campaign inadvertently increased men’s expressed prejudice toward women in football – although it may have also improved institutional trust among women.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://centaur.reading.ac.uk/id/eprint/123923
Identification Number/DOI	10.1017/XPS.2025.10009
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Arts, Humanities and Social Science > School of Politics, Economics and International Relations > Politics and International Relations
Publisher	Cambridge University Press
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