Sexism

Sex Stereotypes

Studies find that widely held gender beliefs exist in the United States. In general, these beliefs hold that women are more communal and men are more agentic. Accordingly, women are often believed to be more competent at tasks that are characterized as more expressive and socioemotional in nature (e.g., nurturing and caring for others), while men are believed to be more competent at tasks that are more instrumental in nature (e.g., starting a business). In addition to these specific assumptions, men are considered to be generally more status worthy and more competent at tasks that “count.” Because communal tasks are often devalued, women are usually seen as less competent than men, although they are generally considered the “nicer” sex.

Sex stereotypes are pervasive in that they are learned during childhood and maintained throughout the life course. From an early age, children learn that sex is a significant attribute of self and that being female is supposedly different from being male. To make sense of this difference, children often imitate behaviors of their same-sex parent, and parents may in turn encourage genderappropriate behaviors through endorsing genderspecific hobbies (e.g., cooking for girls and sports for boys), rewarding gender-typical acts (e.g., girls behaving well and boys being assertive), and punishing or discouraging gender-atypical acts (e.g., girls acting aggressively and boys playing with dolls).

In addition, in childhood and adolescence, teachers and peers may help reinforce not only the notion that women and men are different but also the belief that men are more status worthy than women. Within the classroom, teachers may subconsciously pay more attention to boys, thereby creating a heightened sense of superiority and importance among the male students. Outside the classroom, peers may ostracize both girls who are tomboys and boys who “act like girls,” but such stigmatization is often harsher on boys than on girls. The differential sanctioning of gender-deviant behavior is hence suggestive of men's higher status because it implies that it is more acceptable for women to partake in male-typed activities but less acceptable for men to exhibit feminine behaviors.

The early socialization of gender beliefs can significantly constrain perceptions of self-competence. For instance, research finds that given the cultural belief that boys are better at mathematics than girls are, parents often attribute boys' successes in mathematics to talent but girls' successes in mathematics to effort. Such attribution bias can lead to feelings of competence among boys and feelings of incompetence among girls, even if the two groups do not objectively differ in their actual performance in mathematics. Thus, sex stereotypes can prevent and discourage girls from pursuing a male-dominated field even if they are as competent as the male sex in that field. Indeed, a number of studies find that, when exposed to the belief that men are more competent than women at a task, men develop not only higher ratings of self-competence in that task but also higher aspirations to work in a field related to that task, even if there is no actual gender difference in competence. One implication, then, is that sex stereotypes can help explain the persistent segregation of men and women in different fields of study, occupations, and jobs.

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