Gender Stereotypes & Biases

Historical depictions of women

women were invisible and not depicted, more male characters than female

• Types of depictions: biased, sorceress, virtous

Evil women

Judeo-Christian beliefs, Eve from Adam&Eve story

• Biased representation

Sorceress women

Europe and North America, many women were executed on charges of witchcraft

• Greek mythology: sirens who lure men into the sea with their beauty and voice to kill them

• Biased representation

Virtuous women

• Isis & Horus

• Virgin Mary & Jesus

• Vestal Virgins of Rome

Stereotypes

Biased beliefs about a group

• Ex: “women are not good at math”

Prejudice

Negative emotions or attitudes toward a group

• Ex: “I do not like female lawyers”

Discrimination

Biased behaviors towards group members

• Women report more frequent discrimination or sexism

• Ex: pay gap

• Ex: “I won’t hire a woman for this job”

Explicit gender stereotype

Stereotypes that you are aware of and express willingly

Implicit gender stereotype

Stereotypes that are outside of your conscious awareness

• Differ from explicit stereotypes

• Can be measured using Implicit Associations Test (IAT)

Implicit Associations Test (IAT)

Tracks how quickly a person sorts words or images

• Measures mental associations and biases

Gender prejudices: attitudes about women’s competence

Women are perceived as less competent

• By men more than women

• When there’s little info about the person’s qualifications

• When evaluators are expert in an occupation

• Women are acting in a masculine way

• When evaluators show implicit bias

Fiske et al. competence-warm dimension

Women are viewed as warmer and pleasant than men whereas men are viewed as more competent

• Housewives: viewed high on warmth, low warmth

• Feminists/Business women: low on warmth

• Welfare recipients: low warmth, low competence

Self fulfilling prophecy

A prediction that ensures, by the behavior it generates that it’ll come true

• Can apply to people who are stereotyped

• People can internalize the stereotypes about their group

Stereotype threat

Being at risk of personally confirming a negative stereotype about one’s group

Stereotype threat: Spencer et al. 1999

Study conducted on men’s and women’s performance on easy/difficult math tests

• Results: performance was similar on easy tests but men outperformed women on difficult tests

• Hypothesis: women’s lowered math scores stem from stereotype threat because women performed worse when the stereotype was mentioned

Stereotype threat: Shenouda and Danovitch (2014)

Stereotype threat is present amoung younger children

• Preschool girls in the experimental condition on lego block task are slower

• Among older children, boys are faster than girls regardless of condition

How can stereotype threat be reduced?

• Stating that the test does not produce gender differences

• Emphasizing group memberships associated with positive stereotypes

• Presenting positive in-group member as a role model

• Giving test-takers a chance to talk about test anxiety