The Measurement Of Feminist Identity And Its Relationship With Psychological Well-being

Feminism refers to theories,practices and movements which focus on fighting for gender equality.With the development of the feminist movements,more and more women have taken part in this group and we called them ‘Feminist'.Feminist Identity is a kind of social identity which need people identified themselves as feminists and form a close relationship with other members in the group.Some researchers have found that feminist identity has a positive effect on people's mental health.Women with higher feminist identity would have higher self-esteem,selfefficacy,better body images and a lower probability of suffering from eating disorders.There is also a positive correlation between feminist identity and psychological wellbeing.The previous studies results mainly focus on women in western countries,the positive relationship between feminist identity and psychological well-being for Chinese women remains to be verified.Therefore,the present study aim to explore how the feminist identity influence Chinese women's psychological well-being,which will help to provide cross-cultural evidence for the relationship.Obtaining an effective measurement for feminist identity is the basis of the feminism-related research.In previous studies,researchers provided different ways to measure women's feminist identity.Some people employ the willingness of selfidentifying as feminist to predict women's feminist identity;some researchers assess feminist identity based on their willingness of engaging in feminist behaviors.Feminist Identity Composite,which is based on feminist identity development theory,is widely used to measure women's feminist identity.However,the Multiracialism feminist theory indicated that the meaning of feminism may be different as a function of ethnic background.The reliability and validity of FIC for Chinese women need to be verified.Based on the above,the present study has two research aims.First,the study aims to find an effective measurement to assess Chinese women's feminist identity.Second,the study aims to explore the relationship between feminist identity and psychological wellbeing in Chinese women.Study one aim to explore the reliability and validity of Feminist Identity Composite with samples of Chinese women.Firstly,the exploratory factor analysis was conducted on FIC with 875 Chinese women and six-factor structured was obtained.Second,the structural validity was verified by structural equation model with 810 Chinese women.Third,the relationship between feminist identity with transphobia-genderism scale,as well as the willingness to engage in feminist movements supported the construct validity of FIC.The results in Study 1 showed that the psychometric properties of FIC in China did not reach the ideal standard,which indicated the development of new instrument is necessary.Study 2 developed a new scale basing on the three-dimensional model of identity formation.The new scale contains three factors named commitment,exploration,and reconsideration.After examined the validity and reliability with three different samples,we obtained a three-dimensional scale with 22 items.Study 3 measured the Chinese women's feminist identity by the new scale and explored the relationship between feminist identity and psychological well-being.In the meantime,the intermedia roles of sense of control and conformity to feminine norms were also examined.Finally,we got the following conclusions:(1)The revised Feminist Identity Composite contains six dimensions with 29 items,they are passive acceptance,revelation,embeddedness-emanation,f-synthesis,asynthesis,active commitment.The reliability and validity of the revised FIC met the requirements of psychometrics.(2)The self-made questionnaire contains three dimensions with 22 items,they are commitment,exploration and reconsideration.The internal consistency coefficient of three factors ranges from 0.65 to 0.89;confirmatory factor analysis indicated that the three factors model fits well.(3)Commitment and Exploration were positively correlated with embeddednessemanation,f-synthesis,a-synthesis,active commitment;women who get higher score in commitment and exploration,are more willing to engage in feminist behaviors.(4)There is a significant distinction in the commitment and exploration dimensions of feminist identity between Unmarried women and married women;high-income women got a significantly higher score in commitment and exploration than low-income women;women's ages are positively related to their scores in the commitment and exploration.(5)Feminist identity can positively predict the level of women's psychological wellbeing;Sense of control plays a mediating role between feminist identity and psychological well-being;sense of control and conformity to feminine norms played a role of chain mediation in the relationship between feminist identity and psychological well-being.