Sexism

TYPE OF PSYCHOLOGY: Social psychology

Sexism is prejudice against persons on the basis of their gender. Sexism may exist at the interpersonal level, where it is expressed in individual beliefs and behaviors; alternatively, it may become institutionalized when social institutions and practices encourage gender bias.

Introduction

The psychological basis for sexism, as for other forms of prejudice, is the human tendency to form stereotypes about persons who are members of certain social groups. Stereotypes may be either positive or negative; they consist of sets of interrelated beliefs and expectations that a person holds about a particular social group. When these stereotypes affect people’s interpersonal behavior, sexism can result, leading to prejudice—a negative attitude toward a social group—and discrimination.

Gender stereotypes are reflected in beliefs and attitudes about the general nature of men and women as members of distinct social groups. In addition, gender stereotypes are related to the development of expectations about men’s and women’s psychological characteristics, interests, aptitudes, and behaviors. For example, if a person believes that women are more nurturant than men, then he or she might expect that women are more likely than men to be employed as childcare workers. In turn, these expectations may affect how people behave in social situations. The presence of different expectations for male and female performance may lead to differential treatment on the basis of gender. For example, if the director of a childcare center expects women to be superior nursery school teachers, then he or she may be likely to discriminate against men who apply for an available teaching position.

American Gender Stereotypes

Psychological research has established that gender stereotypes are quite pervasive in American culture. Considerable attention has been directed toward identifying the content of gender stereotypes. Psychologists are interested in the particular nature of beliefs that individuals hold about men and women in American culture. In a classic study, Paul Rosenkrantz, Inge Broverman, and their colleagues asked Americans to describe characteristics of the typical American man and woman. Their findings, which were first reported in the late 1960s, have been supported by subsequent research. Thus, their research appears to provide an accurate portrayal of the gender stereotypes commonly held by American adults.

These researchers found that subjects tended to describe men and women in terms of two different clusters of psychological traits, or personality characteristics. Women were more likely to be characterized by a group of traits that could be summarized as representing an expressiveness cluster. That is, men and women agreed that, as a group, women were caring, warm, and emotionally expressive. In contrast, men were characterized by a group of traits that could be described as an instrumentality cluster. In this instance, the typical man was perceived to be assertive, dominant, and competent. Thus, perceptions of men and women, as members of social groups, were conceived in terms of opposing psychological characteristics.

In the early 1980s, Kay Deaux and Laurie Lewis conducted a series of studies that elaborated on this pioneering research. They hypothesized that instrumentality and expressiveness are only two possible distinctions between men and women. Deaux and Lewis believed that additional factors were likely to play an important role in gender stereotyping. In their research program, male and female subjects were given a list of gender-relevant characteristics. Subjects then were asked to estimate the likelihood that a man or woman possessed each characteristic. The results of these studies indicated that gender stereotypes do, in fact, consist of a number of related components. Subjects reliably associated certain psychological traits, role behaviors, occupations, and physical characteristics with gender.

The male stereotype consisted of the instrumentality cluster coupled with masculine psychological and physical characteristics. Subjects perceived the typical male to be strong, masculine, likely to hide his feelings, sexy, and muscular. Men typically were described as breadwinners and as being likely to take the initiative in encounters with women. The typical male roles included blue-collar worker, businessman, athlete, and “macho man.” In contrast, the female stereotype consisted of the expressiveness personality cluster coupled with feminine psychological and physical characteristics. Subjects described the typical woman as being smart and attractive, but also feminine, sensitive, and emotional. Women often were stereotyped as housewives and were perceived to be likely to be engaged in domestic chores such as child-rearing and cooking. On the other hand, female stereotypes were not simply relegated to the domestic role. Subjects also held stereotypes that were representative of female athletes, businesswomen, and “sexy women.”

Although there appears to be some overlap between male and female categories, it is clear that gender stereotypes do parallel the common roles that men and women typically assume in society. In addition, men and women are perceived to be members of distinctly different social groups. For the most part, people expect men and women to display opposing psychological characteristics and role behaviors. Finally, it should be noted that psychologists have found remarkable cross-cultural similarity in the content of gender stereotypes.

The Constraints of Stereotypes

A large body of psychological research has investigated the effects of sexism. Some psychologists have investigated how gender stereotypes may influence people’s perceptions of women in certain social roles (for example, as leaders). Others have studied how the use of sexist language might be related to the formation and maintenance of gender stereotypes.

The effects of gender stereotypes are particularly pronounced when people must form first impressions and make social judgments about others on the basis of little information. Natalie Porter and her colleagues have studied the factors that persons consider when they are asked to identify the leader of a small group. They asked subjects to view a photograph of an all-male group, an all-female group, or a mixed-sex group. Subjects were then asked to guess which person in the photograph held the position of group leader.

First, Porter and her colleagues found that subjects were likely to rely on spatial configuration as an important cue in determining which person was the leader of the group. In the cases of all-male and all-female groups, the majority of subjects identified the person at the head of the table as the group leader. When the group consisted of both male and female members and a male was seated at the head of the table, this person also was designated as leader by a majority of subjects. When a female occupied the head position in a mixed-sex group, however, her position at the table was disregarded. In this situation, any of the other males in the group was selected. It is clear from these results that women are less likely than men to be seen as leaders of mixed-sex groups. The results of this study are consistent with the content of gender stereotypes described by Deaux and Lewis.

Sexism and Language

Gender stereotypes are also apparent in the everyday use of language. For example, many linguists have pointed out that the English language traditionally has regarded the male linguistic forms as normative. The male-as-normative principle refers to the tendency for “man” to be used to refer to all human beings. Thus, the male is considered to be the representative, or prototype, of the human species. An example of the male-as-normative principle has been the use of the pronoun “he” as a generic pronoun that is intended to refer to both males and females. An example is, “While stress is a normal concomitant of our daily lives, man’s ever-increasing pace of life may in fact shorten his life span.”

The use of the male-as-normative principle has been subjected to two primary criticisms. First, the use of a male-gendered pronoun is often ambiguous. When a writer asserts that “man’s ever-increasing pace of life may in fact shorten his life span,” the reader may assume that men are more susceptible to the negative effects of stress than women. An alternative interpretation is that humans, regardless of sex, are negatively affected by stress. The second criticism focuses on issues of gender equality. The use of the male-as-normative principle implies that women are exceptions to the general rule. Critics argue that the use of the male generic encourages people to think exclusively of males rather than including all genders. Further, they claim that language and thought are closely related and that sexist language may foster gender stereotypes.

In the early 1980s, psychologist Janet Shibley Hyde investigated the effects of sexist language on children’s thought processes. She was particularly interested in discovering whether children understood the male-as-normative principle. She asked elementary school children to complete a story about another child. Each of the children was given a sentence with which to begin his or her story (for example, “When a kid goes to school, ‗‗‗‗‗ often feels excited on the first day.”). One-third of the sentences provided “he” in place of the blank, one-third included “they,” and one-third included “he or she.” Hyde found that children’s stories indeed were influenced by the use of gender pronouns. When “he” or “they” was provided to the child, fewer than 20 percent of the stories were about females. This effect was especially pronounced when boys were tested. Not one boy who was provided with the pronoun “he” wrote a story about a girl. In contrast, when the pronouns “he or she” were supplied, 42 percent of the stories were about females. Hyde concluded that when children hear the word “he,” even when used as a generic pronoun, they tend to think of males.

A number of practical suggestions have been made to avoid the use of sexist language. One simple change is to use the pronoun “they” in place of “he.” Others have argued that the single pronouns “he” and “she” might be used with equal frequency throughout written text. Such suggestions are not trivial. Since the 1970s, many textbook publishers have issued guidelines that forbid the use of sexist language. The American Psychological Association (APA) has provided similar guidelines for manuscripts that are submitted for publication in journals published by the APA. In the early twenty-first century, debates around pronouns regularly made headlines, and the use of "they" as a singular, gender-neutral pronoun became increasingly acceptable, especially among concerns regarding transgender individuals and others who do not conform to the gender binary. Numerous studies found that the use of gender-neutral pronouns such as "they" decreased biases that favor males and helped increase positive feelings and inclusivity of women and LGBTQ people.

Differential Psychology

Psychological research investigating the causes and effects of sexism is rooted in the specialized field of differential psychology, which investigated ethnic and gender differences in psychological variables such as intelligence and mental abilities. As early as 1879, Gustave Le Bon provided a description of gender differences in which he noted women’s innate inferiority to men, an observation echoed by many other differential psychologists of that period. Hence, the tendency to observe differences between social groups was reflected in both the attitudes and the research efforts of early psychological researchers and continues today.

Historically, social psychologists have studied people’s beliefs about differences between social groups and their attitudes toward members of other social groups. The first study of stereotypes was conducted in 1922 by Walter Lippmann, a public opinion researcher. His identification of the stereotype concept provided a means for the scientific study of ethnocentrism. The rise of fascism and its thesis of group superiority and inferiority in pre-World War II Europe concerned many social scientists and provided an impetus for the development of systematic studies of intergroup relations. While perceptions of different ethnic groups were the focus of social psychological studies of stereotypes conducted before the 1940s, the study of gender stereotypes was initiated by the publication of a study conducted by Samuel Fernberger in 1948.

Social psychologists continued to study stereotypes and their relation to prejudice in the post-World War II era. Gordon Allport’s The Nature of Prejudice (1954) provided a theoretical model that explained the process of stereotyping and the development and maintenance of prejudice. In Allport’s view, stereotypes are negative attitudes toward the members of other groups that are accompanied by rigid, inflexible thought processes. His conceptualization of stereotypes and prejudice remained unchallenged until the late 1960s, when social psychological research demonstrated that categorization and stereotyping were normal consequences of human thought processes.

The political unrest that characterized American society during the Vietnam War era was reflected in an explosion of social psychological studies of racism and sexism. In addition, the prevailing societal concerns about political and social inequality coincided with demands among feminist scholars for the conduct of nonsexist psychological research. This resulted in the emergence of a new field in the early 1970s, the psychology of women. Nonsexist, gender-fair psychological research has been promoted as a legitimate field of study by the establishment of a specialized section within the APA (Division 35) that is dedicated to the psychology of women. Scholarship in this field is dedicated to the study of sexism, gender differences and similarities, and other aspects of gender role socialization. A recent field of psychological study looks at "benevolent sexism," in which men are likely to put woman on a pedestal but not view them as being able to attain specific career goals.

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