Feminist identities and preferred strategies for advancing women's positive self-concept

Revisiting Feminist Identity Development Theory, Research, and Practice

The model of feminist identity development proposed by Downing and Roush in 1985 is revisited as a potentially useful framework in counseling psychology theory, research, and practice. An examination of the historical context from which the model arose illustrates how it advanced theory in the psychology of women. A critical review of the extant empirical literature is generally supportive of the model's original tenets and is indicative of its promise for application to practice. However; measurement and methodological concerns point to the need for more research, especially on the model's relevance to more diverse populations. Recent social and scientific advances inform future directions for theory, research, and practice.

Feminist Identity Development

A review of the three articles on feminist identity development in this issue indicates that (a) the Feminist Identity Development Scale (FIDS) and the Feminist Identity Composite (FIC) perform similarly and acceptably in psychometric analyses, (b) no research has properly tested whether there are true stages of feminist identity development, and (c) existing scales do not specify scoring that permits the classification of an individual into a stage. Caution is urged in using the Downing and Roush model in practice, pending the accumulation of longitudinal evidence that true stages exist.

Feminist Identity Development Measures

Reliability and validity of three current instruments (Feminist Identity Scale [FIS], Feminist Identity Development Scale [FIDS]J Feminist Identity Composite [FIC]) used to operationalize Downing and Roush's model of feminist identity development were compared. A sample of 245 women completed all three instruments, and a separate sample of 35 women repeated them over a 2-week interval. Only the FIC had acceptable internal consistency reliability for all subscales. Subscale stability for all instruments generally was moderate, except for Active Commitment. Subscale relations with perceived sexist events, self-esteem, social desirability, and preference for a male or female therapist generally were supportive of discriminant and convergent validity for all instruments. Content validity based on three judges' item evaluations suggested the FIDS fared best overall Finally, confirmatory factor analysis procedures did not support definitively the structural validity of any of the instruments, but trends suggested the FIC, and perhaps the FIDS, were superior to the FIS.

A Black Feminist Model of Rape Myth Acceptance

A Black feminist model was used to investigate rape myth acceptance between African American antirape activists and a comparison group of nonactivists using Cross's (1991) racial identity model and Downing and Roush's (1985) feminist identity model. As predicted, activists rejected rape myths more than nonactivists; the earlier stages of both models were associated with rape myth acceptance; the later stages were associated with rape myth rejection; and activists evidenced more sociopolitical maturity (race and gender consciousness) than nonactivists. The findings suggest that researchers may need to investigate to what degree rape myth acceptance serves an overarching system of social domination where racism and sexism overlap.

Assessing Women's Feminist Identity Development: Studies of Convergent, Discriminant, and Structural Validity

Researchers have called for increasing sophistication in the assessment of women's feminist identity development (Enns & Hackett, 1990; Hackett, Enns, & Zetzer, 1992) to understand important psychological processes. This series of studies examined recent efforts to operationalize Downing and Roush's (1985) model of feminist identity development. Specifically, the psychometric properties of two existing measures—the Feminist Identity Development Scale (Bargad & Hyde, 1991) and the Feminist Identity Scale (Rickard, 1987)—were examined in two studies with separate samples of women (total N = 486). Results of Study 1 indicated the strengths and significant limitations associated with each scale (e.g., low internal consistency for some subscales, item-subscale inconsistency). A composite measure (derived from these scales) with better overall psychometric properties is described. In Study 2, we found good support for the composite instrument's internal consistency, as well as convergent, discriminant, and factorial validity in a sample that included a wide age range and nonstudent community residents.