Varieties of feminism revisited: A new instrument to measure three paradigms of contemporary feminist thinking

The measurement of feminist attitudes has come a long way since Kirkpatrick’s first scale in 1936, and newer instruments do not only seek to integrate the growing complexity of contemporary feminist thinking but are also reflections or “archival records of feminist attitudes of the[ir] era” (Frieze & McHugh, 1998, p. 349). As feminist thinking and discourse seeks to address contemporary political and social issues, instruments to measure it are in constant need to evolve while at the same time they must satisfy psychometric criteria. I propose a new parsimonious 9-item scale to measure three paradigms of contemporary feminist thinking in Germany: Liberal-egalitarian, radical-differentialist and poststructuralist-queer. The items reflect differential feminist standpoints on contemporary political and social issues around gender such as gender quotas, the headscarf, prostitution and gender-equal language. The scale was tested and re-tested in 2018, 2021 and 2022 in both online and computer-assisted telephone interview (CATI) surveys in non-probability and probability samples representative of the German population. The data presented is from a probability sample (n = 2023) from a dual-frame random digit dialing CATI survey from 2022. It is validated by means of a confirmatory factor analysis and shows good model fit under maximum likelihood estimation with robust standard errors (RMSEA = .032 (CI: .019 - .044; RMSEA <= .05 = .993), CFI = .980, TLI = .968, SRMR = .028). Discriminant and content validity is ensured. While the instrument covers a broad range of feminisms, it is neglective of others, such as intersectionalist perspectives. Epistemological as well as methodological consequences are discussed.