Women's Work
A Change Will Do Us Good: Threats Diminish Typical Preferences for Male Leaders
Elizabeth Brown, Amanda Diekman & Monica Schneider
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, forthcoming
Abstract:
The current research explores role congruity processes from a new vantage point by investigating how the need for change might shift gender-based leadership preferences. According to role congruity theory, favorability toward leaders results from alignment between what is desired in a leadership role and the characteristics stereotypically ascribed to the leader. Generally speaking, these processes lead to baseline preferences for male over female leaders. In this research, the authors propose that a shift in gender-based leadership preferences will emerge under conditions of threat. Because the psychological experience of threat signals a need for change, individuals will favor candidates who represent new directions in leadership rather than consistency with past directions in leadership. Specifically, they find that threat evokes an implicit preference for change over stability (Experiment 1) and gender stereotypes align women with change but men with stability (Experiments 2a and 2b). Consequently, the typical preference for male leaders is diminished, or even reversed, under threat (Experiments 3 and 4). Moreover, the shift away from typical gender-based leadership preferences occurs especially among individuals who highly legitimize the sociopolitical system (Experiment 4), suggesting that these preference shifts might serve to protect the underlying system.
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Marital Name Change as a Window into Gender Attitudes
Laura Hamilton, Claudia Geist & Brian Powell
Gender & Society, April 2011, Pages 145-175
Abstract:
The need to revise scholars' approach to the measurement of gender attitudes - long dominated by the separate-spheres paradigm - is growing increasingly timely as women's share of the labor force approaches parity with men's. Recent years have seen revived interest in marital name change as a gendered practice with the potential to aid in this task; however, scholars have yet to test its effectiveness as one possible indicator of gender attitudes. In this article we present views toward marital name change as a potential window into contemporary gender attitudes and most centrally as an illustration of the types of measures that hold great potential for attitudinal research. Using quantitative analyses from a national survey, we show that views on name change reflect expected sociodemographic cleavages and are more strongly linked to a wide array of other gender-related attitudes than are views regarding gendered separate spheres - even net of sociodemographic factors. We then turn to interlinked qualitative data to illustrate three reasons why name-change measures so effectively capture broader beliefs about gender. We conclude by looking at what attitudes about name change can tell us about future directions for the conceptualization and measurement of gender attitudes.
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Gender and overconfidence: Are girls really overconfident?
L. Dahlbom, A. Jakobsson, N. Jakobsson & A. Kotsadam
Applied Economics Letters, March 2011, Pages 325-327
Abstract:
Previous research finds that people are overconfident and that men are more overconfident than women. Using a very precise confidence measure, this article shows, however, that whereas boys are overconfident, girls are actually underconfident regarding their mathematics performance. We conducted a survey where 14-year-old high school students were asked what grade they thought they would get in a mathematics test a week later. These results were then compared with their actual grade. Boys were overconfident about their grades, whereas girls were underconfident.
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Kristin Kanthak & George Krause
Journal of Theoretical Politics, April 2011, Pages 188-214
Abstract:
We offer a model of colleague valuation to illuminate the coordination challenges women legislators face. Our model predicts that women members' strategies depend upon whether they value women colleagues as much as men do, or instead value fellow women colleagues more highly. We test these predictions by analyzing leadership PAC campaign contributions U.S. Senators made to incumbent and challenger women during the 105th-108th Congresses. We find that women Senators value fellow incumbent women colleagues less highly than do men Senators, whereas they value women challengers more highly than do men. Attaining a critical mass of women in legislatures is thus not sufficient for creating a successful working environment, but instead creates a coordination problem that supplants the previous token minority problem.
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Sapna Cheryan et al.
Social Psychological and Personality Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Women who have not yet entered science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields underestimate how well they will perform in those fields (e.g., Correll, 2001; Meece, Parsons, Kaczala, & Goff, 1982). It is commonly assumed that female role models improve women's beliefs that they can be successful in STEM. The current work tests this assumption. Two experiments varied role model gender and whether role models embody computer science stereotypes. Role model gender had no effect on success beliefs. However, women who interacted with nonstereotypical role models believed they would be more successful in computer science than those who interacted with stereotypical role models. Differences in women's success beliefs were mediated by their perceived dissimilarity from stereotypical role models. When attempting to convey to women that they can be successful in STEM fields, role model gender may be less important than the extent to which role models embody current STEM stereotypes.
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Informal Influences in Selecting Female Political Candidates
Christine Cheng & Margit Tavits
Political Research Quarterly, forthcoming
Abstract:
The authors argue that the gender composition of party gatekeepers - those responsible for candidate recruitment - plays a crucial role in either encouraging or discouraging women candidates to run for office. Using an original data set that includes constituency-level information for all parties and candidates in the 2004 and 2006 Canadian national elections, the authors find support for this proposition. Women candidates are more likely to be nominated when the gatekeeper - the local party president - is a woman rather than a man. The results underline the importance of informal factors for understanding women's political underrepresentation.
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What's in a Name? 361.708 Euros: The Effects of Marital Name Change
Marret Noordewier et al.
Basic and Applied Social Psychology, Winter 2010, Pages 17-25
Abstract:
Marital name change is not without consequences. Women who took their partner's name appear to be different from women who kept their own name on a variety of demographics and beliefs, which are more or less associated with the female stereotype (Study 1). Subsequent studies show that women's surnames are used as a cue for judgment (Studies 2-4). A woman who took her partner's name or a hyphenated name was judged as more caring, more dependent, less intelligent, more emotional, less competent, and less ambitious in comparison with a woman who kept her own name. A woman with her own name, on the other hand, was judged as less caring, more independent, more ambitious, more intelligent, and more competent, which was similar to an unmarried woman living together or a man. Finally, a job applicant who took her partner's name, in comparison with one with her own name, was less likely to be hired for a job and her monthly salary was estimated €861,21 lower (calculated to a working life, €361.708,20).
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It may not be what you think: Gender differences in predicting emotional and social competence
Scott Taylor & Jacqueline Hood
Human Relations, May 2011, Pages 627-652
Abstract:
Women and men leaders have been noted to be similar in terms of emotional and social competence in the workforce. We analyzed gender differences in self-ratings, others' ratings, and predicted ratings of men and women leaders on a multi-source feedback assessment of emotional and social competence. Findings revealed that there were significant differences between how leaders were rated on emotional and social competence versus how they predicted they would be rated. Furthermore, results indicated that when asked to predict how they were rated by their managers, direct reports, and peers, women were significantly poorer at predicting others' ratings compared with men. However, women self-rated their demonstration of emotional and social competence similar to men. Age was investigated, but not found to have an effect on men and women's predictions of others' ratings. The article concludes with a discussion of the implications of the findings and areas for future research.
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Female salaries and careers in British banking, 1915-41
Andrew Seltzer
Explorations in Economic History, forthcoming
Abstract:
Women were first employed in large numbers by the British banking industry during the First World War, and were an essential part of the industry's labour force thereafter. During the interwar period, women were often confined to routine back office positions, and could not advance past the level of clerk. Evidence from Williams Deacon's Bank shows that the salaries of younger women were very similar to their male counterparts; however, an ever-widening gender pay gap emerged after about 5 years seniority. The main reasons for this pay gap were higher exit rates for women, largely due to marriage bars, and lower returns to seniority. Promotion restrictions, though ubiquitous, account for a relatively small proportion of the gender pay gap. Despite the pay gap, the marriage bar, and the lack of promotion opportunities, a sizable proportion of female clerks were very loyal to the Bank and remained for 10 or more years. This was due to the absence of better opportunities elsewhere in the labour market.
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Joseph Paul Robinson & Sarah Theule Lubienski
American Educational Research Journal, April 2011, Pages 268-302
Abstract:
Using K-8 national longitudinal data, the authors investigate males' and females' achievement in math and reading, including when gender gaps first appear, whether the appearance of gaps depends on the metric used, and where on the achievement distribution gaps are most prevalent. Additionally, teachers' assessments of males and females are compared. The authors find no math gender gap in kindergarten, except at the top of the distribution; however, females throughout the distribution lose ground in elementary school and regain some in middle school. In reading, gaps favoring females generally narrow but widen among low-achieving students. However, teachers consistently rate females higher than males in both subjects, even when cognitive assessments suggest that males have an advantage. Implications for policy and further research are discussed.
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Equity or Essentialism? U.S. Courts and the Legitimation of Girls' Teams in High School Sport
Adam Love & Kimberly Kelly
Gender & Society, April 2011, Pages 227-249
Abstract:
Feminist scholars have critically analyzed the effects of sex segregation in numerous social institutions, yet sex-segregated sport often remains unchallenged. Even critics of sex-segregated sport have tended to accept the merits of women-only teams at face value. In this article, we revisit this issue by examining the underlying assumptions supporting women's and girls' teams and explore how they perpetuate gender inequality. Specifically, we analyze the 14 U.S. court cases wherein adolescent boys have sought to play on girls' teams in their respective high schools. The courts' decisions reveal taken-for-granted, essentialist assumptions about girls' innate fragility and athletic inferiority. While the courts, policy makers, and many feminist scholars see maintaining teams for girls and women as a solution to the problem of boys' and men's dominance in sport, the logic supporting this form of segregation further entrenches notions of women's inferiority.
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Politeness as a strategy of attack in a gendered political debate - The Royal-Sarkozy debate
Béatrice Fracchiolla
Journal of Pragmatics, forthcoming
Abstract:
This article examines the televised debate between Ségolène Royal and Nicolas Sarkozy, which took place on 2 May 2007, a few days before the second round of the French presidential election. The objective is to assess whether or not the presence of a woman candidate in the second round, for the first time in French history, had an impact on the debate, and to examine how the two French presidential candidates addressed each other during the two-hour debate. Transcriptions analyzed using the Lexico3 software developed by the SYLED-CLA2t at University of Paris 3 serve as the basis of the content and statistical analysis. Results indicate differential strategies: Nicolas Sarkozy makes excessive displays of deferential politeness and uses a wide range of registers; Ségolène Royal is more combative and formal. While Ségolène Royal makes use of a series of coordinated sentences, concrete explanations and examples, Nicolas Sarkozy tends to refer to abstraction. I hypothesize that this is informed by gender assumptions about politeness and the ethos of discourse of power - meaning manipulation and control through discourse in the political domain.
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Time spent in housework and leisure: Links with parents' physiological recovery from work
Darby Saxbe, Rena Repetti & Anthony Graesch
Journal of Family Psychology, April 2011, Pages 271-281
Abstract:
Spouses' balancing of housework and leisure activities at home may affect their recovery from work. This paper reports on a study of everyday family life in which 30 dual-earner couples were tracked around their homes by researchers who recorded their locations and activities every 10 min. For women, the most frequently pursued activities at home were housework, communication, and leisure; husbands spent the most time in leisure activities, followed by communication and housework. Spouses differed in their total time at home and their proportion of time devoted to leisure and housework activities, with wives observed more often in housework and husbands observed more often in leisure activities. Both wives and husbands who devoted more time to housework had higher levels of evening cortisol and weaker afternoon-to-evening recovery. For wives, husbands' increased housework time also predicted stronger evening cortisol recovery. When both spouses' activities were entered in the same model, leisure predicted husbands' evening cortisol, such that husbands who apportioned more time to leisure, and whose wives apportioned less time to leisure, showed stronger after-work recovery. These results suggest that the division of labor within couples may have implications for physical health.
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Gender in Twentieth-Century Children's Books: Patterns of Disparity in Titles and Central Characters
Janice McCabe et al.
Gender & Society, April 2011, Pages 197-226
Abstract:
Gender representations reproduce and legitimate gender systems. To examine this aspect of the gendered social order, we analyze the representation of males and females in the titles and central characters of 5,618 children's books published throughout the twentieth century in the United States. Compared to females, males are represented nearly twice as often in titles and 1.6 times as often as central characters. By no measure in any book series (i.e., Caldecott award winners, Little Golden Books, and books listed in the Children's Catalog) are females represented more frequently than males. We argue that these disparities are evidence of symbolic annihilation and have implications for children's understandings of gender. Nevertheless, important differences in the extent of the disparity are evident by type of character (i.e., child or adult, human or animal), book series, and time period. Specifically, representations of child central characters are the most equitable and animals the most inequitable; Little Golden Books contain the most unequal representations; and the 1930s-1960s - the period between waves of feminist activism - exhibits greater disparities than earlier and later periods. Examining multiple types of books across a long time period shows that change toward gender equality is uneven, nonlinear, and tied to patterns of feminist activism and backlash throughout the century.