ORIGINAL PAPER Gendered Ableism: Media Representations and Gender Role Beliefs’ Effect on Perceptions of Disability and Sexuality Alexandria L. Parsons 1 • Arleigh J. Reichl 1 • Cory L. Pedersen 1 Published online: 14 November 2016 Ó Springer Science+Business Media New York 2016 Abstract This study explored the impact of advertisements featuring individuals either with or without a physical disability on attitudes towards sexuality and disability. In addition, the authors sought to determine whether there is a relationship between these attitudes and endorsement of traditional versus egalitarian gender role beliefs. A total of 707 online participants completed the Gender Role Belief Scale, then rated a series of ads featuring individuals with or without a disability (or served as a no ad control), and completed the Attitudes toward Sexuality Questionnaire and Perceptions of Sexuality Scale. Results demonstrated a complex relationship between gender role beliefs and exposure to adver- tisements on attitudes towards the sexuality of women and men with physical disabilities. As hypothesized, the endorsement of traditional gender role beliefs was related to more negative attitudes towards the sexuality of women with physical disabilities. Keywords Disability Á Sexuality Á Gender roles Á Media Á Advertisements Á Attitudes Á Canada Introduction Ableism is most often used to describe the negative treatments of individuals with dis- ability; defined more broadly, ableism is a set of ‘‘beliefs, processes and practices that produce a particular understanding of oneself, one’s body, and one’s relationship with This paper is based on an honor’s thesis submitted to the Department of Psychology at Kwantlen Polytechnic University, British Columbia, Canada. Portions of this paper were presented at the Association for Psychological Science, San Francisco, CA, 2014. & Cory L. Pedersen cory.pedersen@kpu.ca 1 Department of Psychology, Kwantlen Polytechnic University, 12666 72nd Avenue, Surrey, BC V3W 2M8, Canada 123 Sex Disabil (2017) 35:207–225 DOI 10.1007/s11195-016-9464-6