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Bingeing, purging, and estimates of parental attitudes regarding female achievement

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Abstract

A questionnaire measuring respondents' beliefs about the attitudes regarding female achievement held by their parents was distributed to 326 women attending a state university. Women who report frequent bingeing are more likely than other women to report that (1) their parents believed a woman's place is in the home (2) their mothers were unhappy with their own careers, (3) their fathers thought the respondents' mothers were not intelligent, and (4) their fathers treated a male as the most intelligent sibling in the family. Reports of fathers' attitudes regarding mothers' intelligence and the proper role for women are related to respondents' self-reports of purging, but only among those women who are much more concerned with academic achievement than with household skills.

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Silverstein, B., Perdue, L., Wolf, C. et al. Bingeing, purging, and estimates of parental attitudes regarding female achievement. Sex Roles 19, 723–733 (1988). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00288988

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