antigay prejudice" (p. 338). In summary, there is a strong link between traditional gender role ideologies and homonegativity. More important are the potential differences in the links between gender role ideologies and homonegavity that may exist based on gender. Earlier research supports that greater levels of homonegativity are derived from more stringent gender role ideologies, that men succumb to more stringent ideologies than women, and that men are more homonegative.

      Research has continually identified the existence of gender differences in attitudes toward gays with emphasis that men tend to be more homonegative. Empirical reasoning explaining this distinction lacks development. "Heterosexuality is equated ideologically with 'normal' masculinity and 'normal' femininity, whereas homosexuality is equated with violating the norms of gender" (Herek 1988, p. 97). Society has polarized understandings of gender (Bemn 1993); forcing individuals to either conform or face consequences. Polar ideologies are not new to social understanding but rather indicative of human schematic understandings (e.g., black or white, fat or thin, male or female, good or evil, heaven or hell).

      Heterosexuals tend to expresses more negative attitudes toward homosexual

individuals of the same sex; this pattern is more pronounced among men than women (Kite and Whitley 1996). Researchers typically do not distinguish between attitudes toward gays and lesbians. Most often the terms gay or homosexual are used to describe both. Gender biases could lead respondents to consider attitudes toward gay men before they consider attitudes toward lesbians. Herek (2002) proposes that individual attitudes toward gays and lesbians may reflect that individuals attitudes toward her or his own sexuality.