Gender Stereotype

We examined possible explanations for the underrepresentation of women among university faculty, in two different national contexts. In the Netherlands, a sample of doctoral students (N = 132) revealed no gender differences in work commitment or work satisfaction. Faculty members in the same university (N = 179), however, perceived female students to be less committed to their work and female faculty endorsed these gender-stereotypical perceptions most strongly. A second study, in Italy, replicated and extended these findings. Again, no gender differences were obtained in the self-descriptions of male and female doctoral students (N = 80), while especially the female faculty (N = 93) perceived female students as less committed to their work than male students. Additional measures supported an explanation in social identity terms, according to which individual upward mobility (i.e. of female faculty) implies distancing the self from the group stereotype which not only involves percei...

Previous research on gender and engineering education has often tended to work with limited understanding of technology and gender. For instance, the gender equality approach relies on liberal discourses and incorporates a deficit model of women. In the early nineties a paradigm shift took place and post-modern approaches received more attention. But empiricism has often become trapped in comparing women with men. As a result, most studies continue to be reductive and contribute to confirming gender stereotypes. Recently, there have been some attempts to find new ways to transgress such general and dichotomous characterizations of gender. This paper also concerns the methodology of feminist research on gender and technology. The empirical material is based on a data collection of 859 first-semester students studying engineering in higher education in Germany. In this paper their attitudes and interests concerning computers and technology will be analyzed. Technical attitudes and int...

The purpose of this study was to examine gender role socialization as a function of parenting experience in an actual toy play situation and as a function of adults' perceptions of typically gender-stereotyped children's toys. Each of 48 children (24 boys and 24 girls) played with 3 adults: either his or her own mother or father, a matched mother or

Infants’ knowledge of conventional and metaphorical gender stereotypes was examined using a “violation of expectancy” task. Eighteen- and twenty-four-month-old infants were shown identical pictures of masculine or feminine items (e.g., hammer, bear; dress, cat) on two computer screens, with an accompanying gender-neutral prompt saying, “This is the one I like. Can you look at me?” Immediately following the pictures, two

This paper explores young children's motivation for gender-stereotypical preferences by comparing two theories, both based on Kohlberg's stages of cognitive understanding within the cognitive developmental tradition. The first, elaborated by Kohlberg, suggests that gender-stereotypical preferences are the result of the child's cognitive understanding of the constancy of their gender. The second theory suggests that it is precisely the lack of

A developmental model of gender-stereotype acquisition (Martin, 1989) proposes that by the age of 8 years children draw upon information about gender-stereotyped interests as well as other children's sex when deciding how much other children would like different activities; ...

... “Islam and Woman: Where Tradition Meets Modernity”: History and Interpretations of Islamic Women's Status1 Jeri Altneu Sechzer2 ... is a Muslim, that person means that he has committed himself to God. Since its creation, Islam has followed its one basic scripture, the Qur'an. ...

Gender stereotyping and under-representation of girls and women have been documented in children’s picture books in the past, in the hope that improvements would follow. Most researchers have analyzed award-winning books. We explored sexism in top selling books from 2001 and a 7-year sample of Caldecott award-winning books, for a total of 200 books. There were nearly twice as many male as female title and main characters. Male characters appeared 53% more times in illustrations. Female main characters nurtured more than male main characters did, and they were seen in more indoor than outdoor scenes. Occupations were gender stereotyped, and more women than men appeared to have no paid occupation. Few differences were found between Caldecott award books and other books. A comparison of our book sample to 1980s and 1990s books did not reveal reduced sexism. The persistence of sexism in picture books and implications for children and parents are discussed.

Previous findings are inconsistent with regard to whether men are judged as being more or less competent leaders than women. However, masculine-relative to feminine-looking persons seem to be judged consistently as more competent leaders. Can this different impact of biological sex and physical appearance be due to the disparate availability of meta-cognitive knowledge about both sources? The results of Study 1 indicated that individuals possess meta-cognitive knowledge about a possible biasing influence of persons' biological sex, but not for their physical appearance. In Study 2, participants judged the leadership competence of a male versus female stimulus person with either masculine or feminine physical appearance. In addition, the available cognitive capacity was manipulated. When high capacity was available, participants corrected for the influence of stimulus persons' sex, but they fell prey to this influence under cognitive load. However, the effect of physical appe...

318 randomly selected television ads from India (from 2004) in three different languages (English, Hindi, and Tamil) were content analyzed to examine both the frequency of appearance and prevalence of gender stereotypes. Results indicate that there are more male than female central characters and voiceovers in Indian ads; stereotypical differences were also found in the type of credibility used by men and women, and the nature of the products they advertised and settings that males and females appeared in. Female central characters tended to be younger than their male counterparts and were more likely to be portrayed in relationship roles. Similarities and differences in gender role portrayals found in Indian television ads and those from other nations are also discussed.

Infants’ visual preferences for gender-stereotyped toys and their knowledge of stereotyped toys were examined in two experiments using an adaptation of the preferential looking paradigm. Girls and boys aged 12, 18, and 24 months were tested for their preference for photos of vehicles or dolls, and for whether they associated (“matched”) these two stereotyped sets of toys with the faces

The present study was designed to analyze gender stereotypes in U.S. print advertisements of police officers in a professional police magazine (n = 680). A decade (1996–2006) of advertisements was examined using E. Goffman's (1979) framework for content/frame analysis. The results suggest that women (n = 99) are numerically underrepresented and socially excluded from the imagery of crime-fighting; rather, they are portrayed as being in lower ranks, stereotypically as caretakers and nurturers. The implications for women police, the citizens they serve, and the administrators who hire them are critical, as advertisements function as a feedback loop whereby notions of what a female officer is are represented, digested, and recreated.

Women are surprisingly underrepresented in the chess world, representing less that 5% of registered tournament players worldwide and only 1% of the world's grand masters. In this paper it is argued that gender stereotypes are mainly responsible for the underperformance of women in chess. Forty-two male-female pairs, matched for ability, played two chess games via Internet. When players were unaware of the sex of opponent (control condition), females played approximately as well as males. When the gender stereotype was activated (experimental condition), women showed a drastic performance drop, but only when they were aware that they were playing against a male opponent. When they (falsely) believed to be playing against a woman, they performed as well as their male opponents. In addition, our findings suggest that women show lower chess-specific self-esteem and a weaker promotion focus, which are predictive of poorer chess performance. Copyright # 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Previous studies reveal the reinforcement of gender stereotypes by picture books children read during the formative years. In these books, boys tend to be portrayed as active leaders, and girls as passive followers. Women and girls are under-represented. Men often exhibit ...

In this study we examine the role of socially constructed gender stereotypes in entrepreneurship and their influence on men and women's entrepreneurial intentions. Data on characteristics of males, females, and entrepreneurs were collected from young adults in three countries. As hypothesized, entrepreneurs were perceived to have predominantly masculine characteristics. Additional results revealed that although both men and women perceive entrepreneurs to have characteristics similar to those of males (masculine gender-role stereotype), only women also perceived entrepreneurs and females as having similar characteristics (feminine gender-role stereotype). Further, though men and women did not differ in their entrepreneurial intentions, those who perceived themselves as more similar to males (high on male gender identification) had higher entrepreneurial intentions than those who saw themselves as less similar to males (low male gender identification). No such difference was foun...

This study, through the lens of narrative inquiry, examines the lived experiences of six lesbian and gay teachers working in primary and secondary school settings in the Midwest region of the USA. The heteronormative society in which we live has lead these individuals to keep their sexual identity separate from their identity as a teacher for a number of reasons. In addition to exploring these issues, this study aims to understand what it is like to be a queer teacher in the Midwest by focusing on how they construct and maintain their identities.