Gender Stereotypes

Conceptual Overview

The American journalist Walter Lippmann introduced the concept of stereotype in 1922. It has since then been widely used in the social sciences to denote a typical representation of a social grouping that is neither correct nor a result of firsthand experience. It is usually a simplification and resistant to change, since people tend to perceive reality through stereotypes. They see what they expect to see. The concept of a stereotype is likely to be used to describe representations that are pejorative rather than positive.

The concept of gender was introduced in social sciences as there was a need to discriminate between biological sex and socially constructed sex, i.e., what is considered to be masculine or feminine. Feminists observed that physical differences between men and women were too often used to legitimate social differences, even when there was no obvious reason for this. There are few, if any, systematic sex differences that have any necessary social implications. Studies of sex differences consistently show that the overlap between the sexes is much larger than the mean difference, if any, between the groups. This means that people differ, but the differences are not systematically related to a person's physiological sex.

Masculinity and femininity are constructed as each other's opposites. The one is what the other is not, and the resulting gender order often reinforces male superiority. The psychologist Sandra Bem showed in 1981 that people in the United States thought that to be masculine meant to be self-reliant, assertive, forceful, self-sufficient, individualistic, dominant, aggressive, competitive, and ambitious. To be feminine was to be [Page 545]loyal, gentle, shy, yielding, gullible, childlike, affectionate, sympathetic, understanding, compassionate, warm, tender, and flatterable. These are examples of gender stereotypes.

Even if gender stereotypes have little basis in how people actually are configured, they still have social effects. Men and women, as they each learn how they and the other sex are supposed to be, try to live up to the norm in their thoughts and actions, and they expect others to do the same. People “think” and “do” gender, and thus reproduce a certain gender order. Even when people choose to do otherwise, their actions are still interpreted in relation to these norms. People who go against the norms therefore risk being seen as deviating and are labeled, for example, “tomboys,” “sissies,” or “iron ladies.”

Organization scholars have shown that gender stereotypes affect organizing processes. In her now classic study, Rosabeth Moss Kanter found that people in token positions, i.e., those in which they were the only present representative of their kind, were seen not as individuals, but as representatives of their sex. Gender stereotypes influenced the way they were perceived and treated. A woman manager in a maledominated management group not only had to act as a manager, but also had to deal with stereotyped expectations of what a woman is like—both those of her own and those of others. Due to its long tradition of male dominance, management is male gendered, and as femininity is perceived as its opposite, fulfilling both roles may imply great difficulties for a woman manager. She may find herself in a losing situation, no matter what she does. Conversely, a male manager who opts out of a management career to care for small children or to do something else considered female, may have his masculinity questioned.

...