dissertations on gender discrimination

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Social Media and Women Empowerment in Nigeria: A Study of the #BreakTheBias Campaign on Facebook , Deborah Osaro Omontese

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Going Flat: Challenging Gender, Stigma, and Cure through Lesbian Breast Cancer Experience , Beth Gaines

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Criminalizing LGBTQ+ Jamaicans: Social, Legal, and Colonial Influences on Homophobic Policy , Zoe C. Knowles

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Transfat Representation , Jessica "Fyn" Asay

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Ain't I a Woman, Too? Depictions of Toxic Femininity, Transmisogynoir, and Violence on STAR , Sunahtah D. Jones

“The Most Muscular Woman I Have Ever Seen”: Bev FrancisPerformance of Gender in Pumping Iron II: The Women , Cera R. Shain

"Roll" Models: Fat Sexuality and Its Representations in Pornographic Imagery , Leah Marie Turner

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Reproducing Intersex Trouble: An Analysis of the M.C. Case in the Media , Jamie M. Lane

Race and Gender in (Re)integration of Victim-Survivors of CSEC in a Community Advocacy Context , Joshlyn Lawhorn

Penalizing Pregnancy: A Feminist Legal Studies Analysis of Purvi Patel's Criminalization , Abby Schneller

A Queer and Crip Grotesque: Katherine Dunn's , Megan Wiedeman

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"Mothers like Us Think Differently": Mothers' Negotiations of Virginity in Contemporary Turkey , Asli Aygunes

Surveilling Hate/Obscuring Racism?: Hate Group Surveillance and the Southern Poverty Law Center's "Hate Map" , Mary McKelvie

“Ya I have a disability, but that’s only one part of me”: Formative Experiences of Young Women with Physical Disabilities , Victoria Peer

Resistance from Within: Domestic violence and rape crisis centers that serve Black/African American populations , Jessica Marie Pinto

(Dis)Enchanted: (Re)constructing Love and Creating Community in the , Shannon A. Suddeth

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"The Afro that Ate Kentucky": Appalachian Racial Formation, Lived Experience, and Intersectional Feminist Interventions , Sandra Louise Carpenter

“Even Five Years Ago this Would Have Been Impossible:” Health Care Providers’ Perspectives on Trans* Health Care , Richard S. Henry

Tough Guy, Sensitive Vas: Analyzing Masculinity, Male Contraceptives & the Sexual Division of Labor , Kaeleen Kosmo

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Let’s Move! Biocitizens and the Fat Kids on the Block , Mary Catherine Dickman

Interpretations of Educational Experiences of Women in Chitral, Pakistan , Rakshinda Shah

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Incredi-bull-ly Inclusive?: Assessing the Climate on a College Campus , Aubrey Lynne Hall

Her-Storicizing Baldness: Situating Women's Experiences with Baldness from Skin and Hair Disorders , Kasie Holmes

In the (Radical) Pursuit of Self-Care: Feminist Participatory Action Research with Victim Advocates , Robyn L. Homer

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Significance is Bliss: A Global Feminist Analysis of the Liberian Truth and Reconciliation Commission and its Privileging of Americo-Liberian over Indigenous Liberian Women's Voices , Morgan Lea Eubank

Monsters Under the Bed: An Analysis of Torture Scenes in Three Pixar Films , Heidi Tilney Kramer

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An Interactive Guide to Self-Discovery for Women , Elaine J. Taylor

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Gender Trouble In Northern Ireland: An Examination Of Gender And Bodies Within The 1970s And 1980s Provisional Irish Republican Army In Northern Ireland , Jennifer Earles

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Women in Wargasm: The Politics of Womenís Liberation in the Weather Underground Organization , Cyrana B. Wyker

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Opportunities for Spiritual Awakening and Growth in Mothering , Melissa J. Albee

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Reforming Dance Pedagogy: A Feminist Perspective on the Art of Performance and Dance Education , Jennifer Clement

Narratives of lesbian transformation: Coming out stories of women who transition from heterosexual marriage to lesbian identity , Clare F. Walsh

The Conundrum of Women’s Studies as Institutional: New Niches, Undergraduate Concerns, and the Move Towards Contemporary Feminist Theory and Action , Rebecca K. Willman

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A Feminist Perspective on the Precautionary Principle and the Problem of Endocrine Disruptors under Neoliberal Globalization Policies , Erica Hesch Anstey

Asymptotes and metaphors: Teaching feminist theory , Michael Eugene Gipson

Postcolonial Herstory: The Novels of Assia Djebar (Algeria) and Oksana Zabuzhko (Ukraine): A Comparative Analysis , Oksana Lutsyshyna

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Loving Loving? Problematizing Pedagogies of Care and Chéla Sandoval’s Love as a Hermeneutic , Allison Brimmer

Exploring Women’s Complex Relationship with Political Violence: A Study of the Weathermen, Radical Feminism and the New Left , Lindsey Blake Churchill

The Voices of Sex Workers (prostitutes?) and the Dilemma of Feminist Discourse , Justine L. Kessler

Reconstructing Women's Identities: The Phenomenon Of Cosmetic Surgery In The United States , Cara L. Okopny

Fantastic Visions: On the Necessity of Feminist Utopian Narrative , Tracie Anne Welser

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The Politics of Being an Egg “Donor” and Shifting Notions of Reproductive Freedom , Elizabeth A. Dedrick

Women, Domestic Abuse, And Dreams: Analyzing Dreams To Uncover Hidden Traumas And Unacknowledged Strengths , Mindy Stokes

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Safe at Home: Agoraphobia and the Discourse on Women’s Place , Suzie Siegel

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Women, Environment and Development: Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America , Evaline Tiondi

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Gender Discrimination

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• First Online: 28 January 2022
• Cite this living reference work entry

• Kailing Shen 2  

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This chapter provides a bird’s eye view of the literature on gender discrimination. The presentation of studies is grouped into five parts. Part 1 presents evidence of gender discrimination measured via various dimensions in various countries and contexts. Part 2 discusses in detail the gender wage gap – one of the most important measures of gender discrimination – as well as gender segregation and its origins. Part 3 discusses the close relationship between female empowerment and violence, and the experience of women of color. Part 4 covers gender behavioral differences. Part 5 presents studies on the experience of women trying to break the glass ceiling, as well as the differential effects of education on boys and girls.

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Acknowledgments

Responsible section editor: Klaus F. Zimmermann.

The article has benefited from the valuable comments of the editor, and Peter Kuhn and Jacquelyn Zhang. No financial support is received for this work. There is no conflict of interest.

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Research School of Economics, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, Australia

Kailing Shen

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Correspondence to Kailing Shen .

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UNU-MERIT & Princeton University, Maastricht, The Netherlands

Klaus F. Zimmermann

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Center for Population, Development and Labour Economics at UNU – MERIT, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands

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Shen, K. (2022). Gender Discrimination. In: Zimmermann, K.F. (eds) Handbook of Labor, Human Resources and Population Economics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57365-6_304-1

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DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57365-6_304-1

Received : 26 November 2021

Accepted : 09 December 2021

Published : 28 January 2022

Publisher Name : Springer, Cham

Print ISBN : 978-3-319-57365-6

Online ISBN : 978-3-319-57365-6

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6 Gender Discrimination in the Workplace

Madeline E. Heilman Department of Psychology New York University New York, NY, USA

Suzette Caleo EJ Ourso College of Business Louisiana State University Baton Rouge, LA, USA

• Published: 03 February 2015
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This chapter reviews the conditions and processes that give rise to gender discrimination in the workplace, impeding women’s career advancement. It explores how descriptive and prescriptive gender stereotypes—through distinct mechanisms—promote inequities in the selection, promotion, and evaluation of women. The paper examines how descriptive gender stereotypes, which describe what men and women are like , encourage gender discriminatory behavior by contributing to the expectation that women are ill equipped to succeed in traditionally male positions. It also considers how prescriptive gender stereotypes, which prescribe what men and women should be like , encourage gender discriminatory behavior by spurring disapproval and social penalties for women who behave in stereotype-inconsistent ways—whether explicitly or by merely being successful in roles considered to be male-typed. The chapter discusses existing research, considers the conditions that minimize or exacerbate gender discrimination, and identifies questions for future study.

In today’s organizations, women not only comprise approximately half of the workforce but also occupy half of managerial and professional positions ( U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2013 ). A quick overview of these labor statistics might suggest that men and women have reached equal footing in the workplace. Yet, this picture fails to hold up across all jobs, and women remain underrepresented in organizational roles that hold the most status, prestige, and remuneration. Within the Fortune 500, for example, women account for only 5% of CEOs, 14.6% of executive positions, and 16.9% of board members (Catalyst, 2014a , 2014b ). They also earn a fraction of what their male counterparts make—a number that has stagnated in recent years ( Hegewisch, Williams, Hartmann, & Hudiburg, 2014 ). Growing evidence suggests that these disparities exist even when men and women have comparable qualifications, experience, and education and despite efforts by organizations to promote the career development of women. This chapter focuses on the processes that give rise to gender discrimination and the role that gender stereotypes play in perpetuating these inequities between male and female employees.

Gender discrimination in the workplace occurs when applicants or employees are treated unfavorably because of their sex ( Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, 2014 ). It manifests itself in the form of barriers that impede the career progress of women—whether “glass ceilings” that block progress to the top of organizations ( Morrison, White, & Van Velsor, 1987 ) or “labyrinths” that female leaders must continually navigate ( Eagly & Carli, 2007 ). In short, the obstacles created by gender discrimination pervade various stages of employment, including the recruitment ( Gaucher, Friesen, & Kay, 2011 ), selection ( Bowles, Babcock, & Lai, 2007 ), compensation ( Moss-Racusin, Dovidio, Brescoll, Graham, & Handelsman, 2013 ), appraisal ( Lyness & Heilman, 2006 ), and promotion of women ( Heilman & Okimoto, 2008 ). In order to establish an understanding of this type of discrimination, we review existing research that sheds light on gender bias and its effects on evaluative decisions made about women in the workplace. Gender bias is the conduit to gender discrimination, as gender-biased perceptions form the basis of discriminatory decisions and actions. We provide an overview of theoretical perspectives and consider evidence that illustrates why and when gender bias occurs in organizations and how gender stereotypes contribute to its occurrence.

Gender Stereotypes

At the root of gender bias and the discriminatory behavior it provokes are gender stereotypes—widely held preconceptions about the attributes of men and women. Decades ago, researchers identified the central adjectives that people use to characterize men and women ( Broverman, Vogel, Broverman, Clarkson, & Rosenkrantz, 1972 ), and these characterizations have remained remarkably consistent over time. According to gender stereotypes, women are thought to be communal (kind, sensitive, and relationship-oriented) and men are thought to be agentic (dominant, ambitious, and achievement-oriented). Because these stereotypes are also oppositional in nature, women tend to be viewed as not agentic and men tend to be viewed as not communal.

Also important to understanding gender bias and discrimination is the distinction between descriptive and prescriptive stereotypes. Gender stereotypes not only describe what men and women are like, but they also prescribe what men and women should be like. Although both descriptive and prescriptive gender stereotypes produce discrimination, they do so through different processes. We therefore separately discuss the theories, processes, and empirical findings related to each.

Descriptive Gender Stereotypes

Descriptive gender stereotypes refer to people’s perceptions of what men and women are like. As we already have pointed out, men are thought to possess agentic but lack communal qualities, whereas women are thought to possess communal but lack agentic qualities. These characterizations have been said to originate from the distribution of men and women in social roles ( Eagly & Steffen, 1984 ). Yet, despite marked societal changes, research indicates that descriptive stereotypes persist across time, culture, and context ( Hentschel, Heilman, & Peus, 2013 ; Schein, 2001 ; Williams & Best, 1990 ). In short, the evidence suggests that gender stereotypes are “alive and well” ( Heilman & Eagly, 2008 ).

These preconceptions about men and women have significant implications. Descriptive stereotypes work as heuristics or shortcuts that allow evaluators to quickly and easily form impressions of others. By judging men and women on the basis of their group membership instead of their individuating characteristics, people can conserve mental energy, easily interpret incoming information, and simplify the complex environment around them. In addition, stereotypes tend to be used reflexively and outside of conscious awareness ( Banaji, Hardin, & Rothman, 1993 ; Scott & Brown, 2006 ). Because stereotypes are universal, easy to use, and automatic, they can profoundly shape impressions of men and women.

Yet, on their own, descriptive gender stereotypes do not necessarily spell negative consequences for women. In fact, evidence suggests that women and the characteristics used to describe them are often highly regarded and valued ( Eagly, Mladinic, & Otto, 1991 ). Scholars tend to agree that it is not the negativity of stereotypes about women that drives gender discrimination in work settings, but rather their perceived mismatch with the requirements of traditionally male positions ( Eagly & Karau, 2002 ; Heilman, 2012 ).

Theoretical Perspectives

Both the lack of fit model (Heilman, 1983 , 2012 ) and the closely related role congruity theory of prejudice ( Eagly & Karau, 2002 ) suggest that gender discrimination is a function not only of gender stereotypes, but also of the skills and abilities perceived as necessary for success in male gender-typed jobs and roles. These theories propose that the perception of misfit between stereotypes about women and the requirements of these positions provides the impetus for gender discrimination. They also suggest that the greater the extent of this perceived misfit, the more discrimination will be evident.

Important to this formulation is the idea that there are particular jobs and roles that are associated with men and labeled as male gender-typed. These jobs and roles, which are often regarded as the most prestigious and status-laden ( Conway, Pizzamiglio, & Mount, 1996 ), include a wide array of positions, ranging from management and executive leadership to finance; science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM); and the military. Even within a particular occupation, there are male gender-typed specialties, such as surgery in medicine. Typically, positions are labeled as “male” for two reasons: (1) they have a large proportion of men as workers, and (2) the work is thought to require masculine attributes. Researchers have found a great degree of correspondence between these two operationalizations ( Gaucher et al., 2011 ), and people have generally been found to believe that male-dominated occupations necessitate masculine attributes ( Cejka & Eagly, 1999 ).

Evidence indicates that there is a perceived inconsistency between the attributes associated with women and those thought necessary for success when the job is male in gender-type. Beginning with the “think manager-think male” paradigm, Schein (1973) found that people tended to associate managerial success with attributes characteristic of men rather than women. Subsequent studies demonstrate additional support. Not only has a strong link between agency and career success been demonstrated ( Abele, 2003 ), but good managers ( Powell, Butterfield, & Parent, 2002 ) also continue to be described in masculine terms rather than feminine terms. Although much work on this issue has been done with managerial positions as the focus, similar findings also exist for male gender-typed positions that are not managerial ( Nosek, Banaji, & Greenwald, 2002 ). The evidence is clear: the perceived requirements for work in male-typed fields fit well with stereotypes about men.

Female stereotypes, however, do not coincide with these desired skills and abilities. Women are perceived as communal and not agentic—qualities that, though desirable in other contexts, simply do not fit with the parameters of male-typed jobs. They are thought to lack the decisiveness, toughness, and competitiveness that is required for success ( Heilman, Block, Martell, & Simon, 1989 ). This “lack of fit” promotes the assumption that women are poorly equipped to thrive in male-typed occupations, thereby creating unfavorable expectations about their performance. It is these negative performance expectations that form the basis of gender bias in evaluative decision-making.

Consequences of Stereotype-Based Expectations

Negative performance expectations produced by lack of fit perceptions can profoundly affect how evaluators judge information about female applicants and employees. Once formed, performance expectations are tenacious and very difficult to change. They operate in a self-sustaining way, and cognitive distortion helps maintain them even in the face of disconfirming evidence. Evaluators see and process information through the prism of their expectations, affecting the way it is attended to, recalled, and interpreted.

Expectations influence the information that evaluators focus on and attend to. Not only do perceivers overlook and not attend to information that is inconsistent with expectations, but they also fixate on evidence that validates them—leaving original performance expectations intact. Thus, evaluators have been shown to avoid disconfirming information by consciously or unconsciously ignoring it ( Johnson & Judd, 1983 ), deeming it irrelevant ( Norton, Vandello, & Darley, 2004 ; Uhlmann & Cohen, 2005 ), or attributing it to external circumstances ( Swim & Sanna, 1996 ). Consistent with this, people have been found to spend more time attending to ( Favero & Ilgen, 1989 ) and documenting stereotype-consistent evidence than they do stereotype-inconsistent evidence ( Biernat, Fuegen, & Kobrynowicz, 2010 ).

In forming their impressions, perceivers must not only attend to information but also commit that information to memory ( DeNisi, Cafferty, & Meglino, 1984 ). Encoding and retrieval present further occasions in which stereotype-based expectations can bias the processing of information. Research demonstrates that people tend to recall information that confirms expectations more readily than information that refutes them ( Cantor & Mischel, 1979 ). In fact, people have a tendency to falsely remember expectation-consistent behaviors that never occurred ( Fiske & Neuberg, 1990 ). This evidence suggests that people will more likely remember behaviors that confirm stereotype-based expectations about women and forget those behaviors that do not.

Interpretation

Even when evaluators consider and remember all information provided, they can still exercise discretion in its interpretation. The construal of behavior lies in the eye of the beholder, and people have a tendency to project their expectations when evaluating the actions of others. Kunda, Sinclair, and Griffin (1997) , for example, noted that people tend to construe information in a way that is stereotype-consistent. When considering the behavior of men and women, this can translate to different interpretations of the same behavior. For example, actions that might come across as “flexible” or “laid-back” when enacted by a man could be construed as “passive” or “indecisive” when enacted by a woman. When people interpret information in a way that fits their expectations, it allows them to continue to hold them.

These types of cognitive distortion are the direct result of stereotype-based expectations. Each of them can contribute to gender bias in evaluations and ultimately to discriminatory decision-making. When women receive less favorable evaluations than men, they are prone to be selected less often for the job ( Moss-Racusin et al., 2013 ), paid less ( Brett & Stroh, 1997 ), overlooked for challenging assignments ( Hoobler, Lemmon, & Wayne, 2014 ), and promoted less often ( Heilman & Okimoto, 2008 ). Thus, gender stereotypes can influence the way women are treated throughout the employment process—damaging their prospects and thwarting their opportunities.

Moderators of Descriptive Bias

Although gender stereotypes and the performance expectations they produce are powerful, their consequences do not manifest themselves in all conditions. In fact, various researchers emphasize the importance of context when considering gender discrimination ( Paustian-Underdahl, Walker, & Woehr, 2014 ; Vecchio, 2002 ). In this section, we review factors that minimize or exacerbate gender discrimination

Degree of Stereotype Activation

Consistent with the theoretical perspectives discussed thus far, negative expectations about women’s performance arise in part because of the stereotypes used to describe women. Work in male-typed occupations demands agency, and women’s perceived characteristics fall short of these requirements. Thus, gender discrimination in masculine jobs will depend on the degree to which women are viewed as feminine. When a woman is characterized in highly stereotypical terms, she will be considered especially deficient in the attributes necessary for success, thereby intensifying unfavorable expectations about her performance and promoting more biased evaluations and judgments.

Accordingly, gender discrimination tends to be exacerbated under conditions that heighten the salience of a woman’s gender. Both personal and structural factors have been shown to enhance femininity and make gender more noticeable. For example, several personal qualities, such as motherhood status and physical attractiveness, tend to bias evaluations of women. Those women who are physically attractive ( Heilman & Stopeck, 1985 ) and those who are parents ( Heilman & Okimoto, 2008 ) not only receive more negative evaluations than their male counterparts but also receive more negative evaluations than women without those attributes. Structural arrangements also play a role in enhancing the visibility of gender. Research suggests that women with token or minority status are categorized as more stereotypical ( Kanter, 1977 ) and are also less likely to be selected or promoted ( Heilman & Blader, 2001 ; Sackett, DuBois, & Noe, 1991 ). Finally, policies that are meant to benefit women, such as affirmative action ( Heilman, Block, & Stathatos, 1997 ) and diversity initiatives ( Heilman & Welle, 2006 ), also tend to highlight a woman’s gender and can therefore promote unfavorable performance expectations.

Gender-Type of Job

As implicated in the lack of fit model, female stereotypes conflict with the perceived requirements of male-typed positions , setting into motion a process that fuels gender bias. As a result, we would expect to see a greater incidence of gender discrimination when a position is male in gender-type than when it is not—an assumption that is supported by existing evidence ( Davison & Burke, 2000 ). Such studies have focused on positions in a variety of fields and occupations, and all point to the same conclusion: Gender discrimination is strongest in jobs that are male in gender-type. Research, for example, demonstrates that women are evaluated less favorably than men in line, but not in staff jobs ( Lyness & Heilman, 2006 ), and in financial, but not in human resources jobs ( Heilman, Wallen, Fuchs, & Tamkins, 2004 ).

Although leadership has been conceptualized as a largely male endeavor, studies also indicate that the “maleness” of managerial positions can vary. For instance, leadership in more neutral arenas such as education is perceived as less masculine ( Koenig, Eagly, Mitchell, & Ristikari, 2011 ), suggesting that women would encounter less adversity in those areas. In addition, middle management is viewed as less masculine than upper management ( Koenig et al., 2011 )—a trend that is represented in current labor statistics. Women seem to have less trouble ascending to middle management, but plenty of trouble getting out of it. Research suggests that biased evaluations against women are a greater issue in higher organizational levels ( Lyness & Judiesch, 1999 ).

However, gender discrimination is not specific to management and leadership. Studies indicate that it also is a pervasive problem in the sciences, such that women receive less favorable evaluations and are less likely to be hired than men in STEM fields ( Moss-Racusin et al., 2013 ). Additional work demonstrates that the discrepant evaluations that arise between men and women in the male-typed sciences fail to arise in comparable disciplines that are not male in gender-type ( Heilman & Caleo, 2017 ; Heilman, Manzi, & Caleo, 2017 ).

It is interesting to note that efforts to broaden conceptions of what it takes to successfully perform in a traditionally male job could alleviate some of the negative consequences of gender bias. Gaucher et al. (2011) demonstrated that inserting the need for stereotypically female skills in advertisements promotes the perception that more women work in those occupations. This research suggests that differing descriptions of the same job, because they affect the degree to which the job is thought to be male in gender-type, could potentially produce different evaluative consequences for women.

Ambiguity, which is often built into the fabric of organizations, contributes to gender discrimination by allowing expectations to take over and bias evaluations ( Heilman & Haynes, 2008 ). When making personnel decisions, evaluators are frequently faced with inadequate information, subjective criteria, and imprecise structure. This uncertainty provides room for interpretation and encourages people to draw inferences that are consistent with their expectations. In the case of women in male-dominated fields, ambiguity allows people to fill in the blanks with their expectations about women’s performance and consequently creates conditions that are ripe for gender discrimination. Ambiguity can take on many forms, and we discuss the different kinds below.

Quantity and Quality of Information.

Judgments can be biased by the amount of information that is available to evaluators. Specifically, stereotype-based expectations are more likely to take over when information is lacking ( Davison & Burke, 2000 ; Heilman et al., 2004 ), and this overreliance on expectations results in unequal assessments of men and women ( Swim, Borgida, Maruyama, & Myers, 1989 ). Abundant information, however, is not enough to discourage the use of stereotype-based expectations. Even when information is plentiful, negative expectations can still wield their effect if the quality of that information is lacking. The information that is presented must be specific, relevant to the job, and indicative of performance success; otherwise, expectations about women’s incompetence will dominate and women will be evaluated more negatively than men ( Heilman, Martell, & Simon, 1988 ). In short, both quantity and quality are important when it comes to presenting information about employees.

Clarity of the Evaluative Criteria.

Ambiguity can also manifest itself in the criteria that are used to evaluate employees. Evaluative criteria that are vague, subjective, and abstract encourage evaluators to use their stereotype-based expectations ( Nieva & Gutek, 1980 ). When measures and standards are poorly defined, much is left to interpretation, and it becomes easy for evaluators to rely on their expectations. Research indicates several ways in which this type of ambiguity plays a role in the evaluation process, and the key conclusion is that discrimination is less likely to arise when performance is measured using objective rather than subjective measures. For example, performance measured on the basis of concrete outcomes, such as number of sales, is more resistant to distortion than performance measured on the basis of abstract outcomes, such as ratings of drive and determination. Supporting evidence suggests that supervisory judgments of vaguely defined skills and abilities (i.e., interpersonal competence and communication competence) are rated less reliably than judgments of the actual volume of work produced ( Viswesvaran, Ones, & Schmidt, 1996 ).

Ambiguity about the importance of various judgment criteria can also be a problem. It gives people an opportunity to redefine their ideas of what good performance entails depending on whom they are evaluating. Doing so allows individuals to justify their evaluations and modify their standards so that they line up with expectations. According to several studies, people have a tendency to shift the importance they place on particular evaluative criteria by overemphasizing those aspects of performance that favor men’s ratings and underemphasizing those that favor women’s ratings ( Norton et al., 2004 ; Uhlmann & Cohen, 2005 ). The more flexibility that is afforded, the more possibility there is for expectations to guide decision-making.

Evaluative Structure.

When evaluating employees, supervisors are often faced with different pieces of information about a single employee. How they go about integrating these various criteria depends on the amount of structure that exists in the evaluation process. An evaluative structure that is ambiguous enables individuals to adopt evaluation standards that fit their expectations ( Baltes & Parker, 2000 ). This occurs when the evaluative structure allows for nonuniform standards—when not all elements of information must be assessed for everyone and/or there is not a standardized way of organizing this information. The importance of a clear and specific evaluative structure has been demonstrated, as has the value of a structured evaluative procedure using ratings of previously identified observed behaviors rather than an overall evaluative judgment ( Bauer & Baltes, 2002 ).

The issue of reconciling various pieces of information is present in the continuous evaluation process, where an employee’s performance can improve or deteriorate over time. Research suggests that this process can be difficult for managers, who are sometimes unwilling to let go of their initial impressions ( Heslin, Vandewalle, & Latham, 2005 ). Recent evidence suggests that gender stereotypes can similarly bias the appraisal of individuals over time, with people evaluating performance changes differently for men and women. Specifically, evaluators responded to decrements in performance more severely for women than for men, and they reacted to improvements in performance more favorably for men than for women ( Heilman et al., 2017 ).

Source of Performance.

Although teamwork has definite benefits, group conditions are likely to create ambiguity about which member bears the most responsibility for a joint outcome. This type of ambiguity allows individuals to use their stereotype-based expectations to fill in the blanks about who is responsible. Heilman and Haynes (2005) demonstrated that women were credited less than their male counterparts for a joint success when there was source ambiguity—a phenomenon they termed attributional rationalization. They further found that when ambiguity-reducing information was provided—about prior performance, task structure, or individual ability—the difference in attributed responsibility for the success abated. These findings were recently extended, and attributional rationalization was shown to be deterred only when the joint work was completed in a field that is not male gender-typed or in teams in which women were paired with women, not men ( Heilman & Caleo, 2017 ). The nature of the work outcome also has been explored, and women have been shown not only to be credited less than men for successful joint outcomes but also to be blamed more than men for failed joint outcomes ( Heilman & Caleo, 2017 ). Thus, teamwork, which is such a large part of organizational life, can inadvertently provide fertile ground for gender-based expectations.

Strong motivation to make accurate judgments can override reliance on stereotypes. Instead of trying to expend as little cognitive energy as possible, people who are motivated to be accurate are likely to be more systematic and more deliberative in their information processing ( Chaiken, 1980 ). This type of motivation can originate in the expectation of interdependence—as when evaluators expect their outcomes to be tied to the evaluated person’s performance. In this case, self-interest can promote both the search for relevant information and a careful consideration of it ( Fiske, 2000 ). The motivation to be accurate can also stem from a desire to “do the right thing.” That is, concern about potentially being bigoted can weaken the effects of stereotype-based expectations and prompt more deliberative strategies—whether the concern is based on personal values or on making a good impression.

Motivation to be accurate also can be affected by the degree to which the evaluator is held accountable for his or her judgments. When accountability motivates people to appear competent and/or unbiased, it tends to inhibit the use of expectations in evaluation and encourage the use of more complex strategies ( Tetlock, 1983 ). Holding people accountable prompts them to be more attentive to performance and gather information more systematically ( Mero, Motowidlo, & Anna, 2003 )—actions that eventually allow them to justify their judgments. Having to explain the evaluative judgments they make appears to encourage people to expend cognitive resources and rely less on stereotype-based expectations in making judgments and decisions.

Prescriptive Gender Stereotypes

In addition to functioning in a descriptive way, gender stereotypes are also prescriptive ( Eagly & Karau, 2002 ; Heilman, 2001 ). That is, they not only dictate the attributes that describe men and women but also prescribe what men and women should be like. Although their content is similar to that of descriptive gender stereotypes ( Prentice & Carranza, 2002 ), the mechanisms through which they produce gender discrimination are different. In this section, we discuss how prescriptive gender stereotypes can negatively affect women in work settings and review research that documents these effects.

Whereas descriptive gender stereotypes label men as agentic and women as communal, prescriptive gender stereotypes establish that men should be agentic and that women should be communal. These directives have long been reflected in people’s beliefs about ideal men and women and in their attitudes about sex roles and responsibilities ( Spence & Helmreich, 1978 ). To understand how prescriptive stereotypes work, researchers have likened them to injunctive social norms ( Cialdini & Trost, 1998 ), which delineate how people should act ( Eagly & Karau, 2002 ; Heilman, 2001 ). Typically, evaluators react to social norm violation by punishing the offender, and the same is the case for women who violate prescriptive gender stereotypes. Thus, when women act in ways that are contrary to those “shoulds”—either by being agentic ( Rudman, 1998 ) or by failing to be communal ( Heilman & Chen, 2005 )—they tend to be penalized.

Women who deviate from prescriptive stereotypes are subject to the same consequences that people encounter when they violate social norms—censure, disapproval, and distaste ( Heilman, 2001 ). Thus, whereas descriptive gender stereotypes promote perceptions of women’s incompetence, a violation of prescriptive gender stereotypes induces derogation and social rejection. In behaving counter to female stereotypes, women are thought deficient in communality, which promotes the perception that they are interpersonally hostile ( Heilman, 1995 ), cold ( Porter & Geis, 1981 ), pushy, selfish, and manipulative ( Heilman, 2001 ). Not surprisingly, they also are disliked (Heilman, 2001 , 2012 ).

Although stereotype-violating women are often regarded as competent ( Rudman, 1998 ), the dislike and derogation they face can translate to unfavorable work outcomes—diminished pay and fewer recommendations for hiring, rewards, and promotion. People who are disliked—whether man or woman—tend to be evaluated negatively on the job ( Heilman et al., 2004 ). Because success in many organizational roles depends on social capital, employees who are considered likable are more likely to establish high-quality relationships ( Casciaro & Lobo, 2005 ), which ultimately translate to more challenging work assignments and better performance evaluations ( Dienesch & Liden, 1986 ; Harris, Kacmar, & Witt, 2005 ).

Engaging in Stereotypically Male Behaviors

Prescriptive gender stereotypes create a dilemma for working women. In their quest to dispel stereotype-based expectations and appear competent, women must often engage in behaviors that are stereotypically male in nature. However, these behaviors are considered to be “off limits” for women, and those who display the requisite behaviors for success tend to face backlash for “behaving like men” ( Rudman, 1998 ). Research has shown that women who behave in masculine ways pay a price for their norm violation.

Communication.

Direct and assertive communication is imperative to success. However, research suggests that people react differently to men and women who engage in these stereotypically masculine communication styles. For example, Carli, LaFleur, and Loeber, (1995) found that when women communicated directly and assertively, they had less influence on male listeners than when they communicated in a hesitant and tentative style. They also demonstrated that men were less influenced by a competent woman than by either a competent man or an incompetent woman. It therefore seems that communicating effectively, although a boon for men, is harmful for women.

Style is not the only aspect of communication that matters. Engaging in “too much” communication can also result in disapproval for women. Brescoll (2012) found that female executives who talked disproportionately more than others received unfavorable evaluations relative to their male counterparts. Instead, female leaders were seen as adequately effective only when they talked disproportionately less than others. Taking up too much “time on the floor” implies brashness, lack of consideration, and a grab for power. Evidently, speaking up is good for men, but it is a negative for women.

Leadership Behaviors.

Leadership is often thought of as a male role requiring male attributes, but recent work has shown that not all styles of leadership are thought to be masculine in nature ( Koenig et al., 2011 ). This suggests that there are some leadership behaviors and styles that do not violate prescriptive gender norms. Although this is welcome news, it does not erase the fact that women are limited in their access to the full range of leadership behaviors accessible to men. Thus, research shows that women are penalized for engaging in autocratic or directive forms of leadership, although not for leadership behavior that is more democratic and participative ( Eagly, Makhijani, & Klonsky, 1992 ). Similarly, female leaders who discipline their subordinates tend to be viewed more negatively than men ( Atwater, Carey, & Waldman, 2001 ), though there is some indication that this does not occur when they deliver discipline using a more “considerate,” gender-appropriate leadership style ( Brett, Atwater, & Waldman, 2005 ). These examples demonstrate the contracted range of leadership behaviors available to women; they are restricted to those that are consistent with gender prescriptions if they are not to be penalized in the leadership role.

Research suggests that women are expected to be more emotional than men ( Prentice & Carranza, 2002 ). However, two emotions that may be functional in work contexts—anger and pride—are seen as distinctly male, and women are likely to face penalties when they display them. For example, Brescoll and Uhlmann (2008) demonstrated that angry women were conferred less status and received lower salaries than angry men. Moreover, although not directly examined in work settings, the display of pride has been shown to have a negative effect on women. Tracy and Beall (2011) found that pride was regarded as attractive when enacted by men, but as unattractive when displayed by women—a finding that is likely to be indicative of negativity toward working women.

Self-Promotion.

Many have touted self-promotion as integral to career success. Yet, the practice of promoting oneself runs counter to directives that women should be modest and self-effacing. This incongruity paints a complex picture for women’s self-promotion prospects. Although both men and women receive favorable competence assessments when they promote themselves, self-promoting women are liked less than self-promoting men ( Rudman, 1998 ). Self-promotion—a necessary quality for getting ahead—can backfire for women.

Negotiation.

Effective negotiations are linked to better outcomes for employees, including increased compensation, opportunities, and promotions. Yet, women are prevented from bargaining successfully, as doing so necessitates self-promotion and agency. For example, Bowles et al. (2007) found that women who initiated a negotiation for higher pay were rated as less hirable than men who engaged in the same behavior. Additional studies suggest that these negative ratings are a result of prescriptive stereotype violation. When a negotiation was said to serve communal aims, such as when women negotiated on behalf of others or invoked relational concerns during negotiations, they were not found to incur negative consequences ( Amanatullah & Morris, 2010 ; Bowles & Babcock, 2013 ).

Misbehaviors.

Workplace misbehaviors are punishable for all employees, but the prescriptions of women as “wholesome” and men as “rebellious” ( Prentice & Carranza, 2002 ) indicate that women may face stiffer penalties than men for “behaving badly.” Recent research supports this idea. Bowles and Gelfand (2010) found that men displayed a greater propensity to punish female deviants than male deviants—an effect that remained regardless of the severity of the misbehavior. Even behaviors that are deemed “should nots” for everyone can be especially costly for women.

Failing to Engage in Stereotypically Female Behaviors

Although most of the literature on prescriptive gender stereotype violation focuses on the consequences for women who engage in stereotypically male behaviors, women can also incur punishment for failing to act in ways that are stereotypically female. Below, we review the ways in which women incur negative consequences when they “shirk their duties.”

Altruistic Citizenship Behavior.

According to prescriptive gender stereotypes, women are expected to be sensitive, friendly, and cooperative ( Prentice & Carranza, 2002 ). Thus, behaviors that involve helping and assisting others may be regarded as compulsory for women. If women are more expected than men to help others, altruistic behaviors that are traditionally thought to be discretionary may become required for women and remain optional for men. A study by Heilman and Chen (2005) bears this out. Women were evaluated unfavorably when they failed to help a coworker, but men were not. When they did help, women’s help was devalued relative to men, and this was reflected in their organizational rewards. Organizational data provides additional support: Citizenship behaviors yield stronger effects on the salary and promotion of men than of women ( Allen, 2006 ).

Interpersonal Justice.

Prescriptive gender stereotypes suggest that women should be kind and considerate ( Prentice & Carranza, 2002 ), and these requirements overlap with the rules of interpersonal justice. Interpersonal justice requires that decision-makers treat subordinates with politeness and respect during the decision-making process. Although this form of justice is expected of all managers, women who fail to engage in it may encounter more adversity than men because of its convergence with female gender prescriptions. Research has shown this to be the case. It has been demonstrated that not behaving in an interpersonally fair manner results in more negativity directed at women than men; however, there are no differences in reactions to men and women when they engage in unfair behavior that is not associated with gender prescriptions ( Caleo, 2016 ).

Collaboration.

Gender prescriptions also dictate that women be relationship-oriented rather than self-oriented. This suggests that women who are individualistic or competitive rather than collaborative in their orientation will be seen as in violation of gender norms. In the last section, we reported research indicating the negativity that greets women leaders who fail to adopt democratic leadership styles ( Eagly et al., 1992 ), and who fail to use two-way communication in their disciplinary behavior ( Brett et al., 2005 ). However, negativity for not being collaborative extends beyond leadership situations. Women who choose not to collaborate with others when the opportunity is presented to them have been shown to be rewarded less and viewed less favorably than men who similarly decide not to collaborate ( Chen, 2008 ).

Success as a Violation

Women need not explicitly violate prescriptive gender stereotypes in work settings to provoke dislike and derogation. Rather, they can provoke these reactions by indirectly defying prescriptive stereotypes and succeeding in male-typed jobs. Thus, even when women manage to disprove perceptions of their incompetence and overcome the barriers set by descriptive gender stereotypes, prescriptive gender stereotypes create a new obstacle. Evidence supports the notion that women are penalized for success. In one study of 30,000 managers, Lyness and Judiesch (1999) found that career advancement and promotion becomes more challenging for women than for men as they ascend the corporate hierarchy—a finding that remains after adjusting for age, tenure, and education. But why is this the case?

To understand how women’s success in male-typed fields violates gender norms, it is necessary to revisit the proposition that male-typed fields are thought to require agency. If a person succeeds in such a domain, raters assume that it is because he or she behaved in ways that are stereotypically male. For men, this is acceptable and gender-consistent. However, this same behavior is gender-inconsistent for women, and they consequently are perceived as inappropriately agentic and, by inference, lacking in communality. The consequences of this assumption stretch further. Because these successful women are seen as having behaved agentically and not communally, they are thought to have violated gender norms. As a result, they encounter the same reactions that they would for violating the prescriptive stereotypes discussed above—they are disliked, personally derogated, and characterized as cold, selfish, and interpersonally hostile ( Heilman et al., 2004 ). Instead of being admired for their successes, women are often vilified.

Evidence indicates that women are penalized for success only when the situation in which they are successful is male gender-typed. When the position is female-typed or when the job is thought to necessitate communality, women are not disliked or derogated for their success ( Heilman & Wallen, 2010 ). This research offers empirical support for the notion that people’s distaste for successful women is driven by the perception that a violation of prescriptive gender stereotypes has taken place. It is success in male-typed fields, not success in-and-of itself, that constitutes a violation of gender norms.

Though it is clear that the violation of prescriptive stereotypes is a driving force in reactions to successful women, are these reactions driven by the perception that women are overly agentic or by the perception that they lack communality? Research offers support for both hypotheses. Heilman and Okimoto (2007) found that the provision of information about a successful woman’s communality can eliminate the negative effects of her success, suggesting that it is the perceived deficit in communality that drives negative reactions to successful women. However, other research suggests that the negative reactions are driven by inflated perceptions of agency and dominance ( Rudman, Moss-Racusin, Phelan, & Nauts, 2012 ). It therefore is possible that agency and communality perceptions both play a key role in determining reactions to successful women. More work on this issue is needed.

Moderators of Prescriptive Bias

In our discussion of descriptive gender stereotypes, we presented a series of conditions that moderate the extent to which gender bias and discrimination will occur. The research related to moderators of the effects of prescriptive gender stereotypes is, however, less extensive. Unlike descriptive gender stereotypes, prescriptive gender stereotypes are based on beliefs about the way things should be ( Gill, 2004 ). These beliefs are deeply entrenched and value based—violations have been shown to provoke feelings of moral outrage ( Okimoto & Brescoll, 2010 ). Consequently, the bias and discriminatory behavior that result are not due to cognitive distortion and faulty information processing, and interventions that seek to encourage more deliberative information processing or eliminate ambiguity are not likely to be effective in curbing their detrimental effects.

There are, however, several conditions that affect whether prescriptive stereotypes give rise to gender bias—especially in reactions to women’s success. As with descriptive gender stereotypes, the activation of stereotypes is critical. If a woman’s gender is not salient, then gender norms are not operative and penalties for success or other perceived gender violations are not likely to be forthcoming; thus, all the issues we discussed earlier about the activation of stereotypes are relevant here as well. In addition, the gender-type of the context is key. We have already pointed out the importance of the gender-type of the field in determining whether women are penalized for success ( Heilman & Wallen, 2010 ). Because it is only male-typed fields that are thought to involve behavior that violates female stereotypes, women who thrive in other fields remain unscathed. This suggests that if traditionally male jobs and roles were characterized in ways that are less exclusively agentic, then a woman’s success would not imply violation of gender norms. Although there has been work on the feminization of jobs and occupations with respect to descriptive gender stereotypes, this work has not yet extended to prescriptive gender stereotypes. According to the ideas presented here, broadening of the conception of what behaviors are necessary for success should affect whether a woman’s success is perceived to be a violation of gender norms and the consequent reactions to her.

Other moderators of the effects of prescriptive gender stereotypes involve negating the negative perceptions of the prescription-violating woman. Because women who act contrary to gender norms tend to be seen as deficient in communality, conditions that amplify a woman’s communal qualities can undercut the negative effects of the violation ( Heilman & Okimoto, 2007 ). Doing so can take several forms, including emphasizing motherhood status or dressing femininely ( Heilman & Okimoto, 2007 ), providing information about communal hobbies and activities ( Heilman & Okimoto, 2007 ), or exhibiting “feminine charm” in negotiations ( Kray, Locke, & Van Zant, 2012 ). It also can take the form of externally attributing agentic behavior, such as justifying a negotiation request by saying that a supervisor encouraged it ( Bowles & Babcock, 2013 ). Many of these communality boosts can be enacted by women themselves, and thus appear to provide a way for women to navigate around prescriptive gender stereotypes. However, it is important to remember that heightening the salience of femininity can actually contribute to descriptive bias and perceptions of incompetence. Therefore these strategies, if not closely monitored, can ultimately create new problems for the women using them.

Additional Issues and Questions for Future Research

Consequences for men.

In this chapter, we largely considered women as the primary targets of gender discrimination. Although the overwhelming majority of studies examining gender discrimination focus on the barriers that women face, more recent endeavors have examined the consequences that men may encounter. If we are correct about the processes underlying gender discrimination, then men should also incur negative outcomes when working in certain contexts and for engaging in certain behaviors.

Evidence that men are evaluated negatively for violating prescriptive gender stereotypes is gradually accumulating. Studies show that men are evaluated less favorably than women when they engage in stereotypically female behaviors—when they behave modestly ( Moss-Racusin, Phelan, & Rudman, 2010 ), request family leave ( Rudman & Mescher, 2013 ), experience family conflict ( Butler & Skattebo, 2004 ), and display agreeableness ( Judge, Livingston, & Hurst, 2012 ). Men are also punished for failing to engage in behaviors that are stereotypically male in nature, such as when they fail to help a woman with a physically demanding task ( Chen, 2008 ) and when they do not speak up in positions of power ( Brescoll, 2012 ).

In addition, research suggests that men can be penalized for succeeding in female-dominated occupations. Whereas success in male-typed roles implies agency, success in female-typed roles implies communality—suggesting that success for men in feminine positions entails a violation of prescriptive stereotypes. Heilman and Wallen (2010) found support for this idea, demonstrating that men who succeeded in a female-dominated job received unfavorable evaluations. However, the consequences that they incurred were not the same as the consequences that women face. Rather than being disliked and characterized as interpersonally hostile, norm-violating men are not respected and are regarded as wimpy and passive.

From the perspective of descriptive stereotypes, the evidence is not entirely clear. If a lack of fit creates the perception that women in male-typed jobs are incompetent, then similar thinking would suggest that men’s competence would be questioned in female-typed jobs. However, there is not substantial evidence that men’s competence is questioned in these situations—rather only that men are not given the edge, and they and women are evaluated similarly ( Heilman & Caleo, 2017 ; Heilman et al., 2017 ). In fact, some evidence points to men being advantaged in occupations that are female-typed, with studies showing that men earn more than women in female-dominated jobs ( Hegewisch & Hudiburg, 2014 ). It also has been proposed that men ride a glass escalator in female-dominated professions ( Williams, 1992 ). Thus, the reactions predicted by the lack of fit model may not hold in the same way for men as they do for women. Additional research is necessary to systematically address this issue.

Evaluator Gender

There is good reason to think that differences would exist in men’s and women’s propensity to engage in gender bias. However, research does not bear this out. Most studies examining gender discrimination fail to yield differences in the responses of men and women—a result that is counterintuitive. It would seem likely that women would not only identify with other women, but also that they would be particularly attentive to the way in which women are pigeonholed by descriptive gender stereotypes. It also would seem likely that women would be more conscious of the constraints created by prescriptive gender stereotypes and consequently more forgiving than men when responding to women who violate them.

Yet, given the universality of gender stereotypes, perhaps we should not be surprised by the lack of difference between men and women as evaluators. Not only do men and women share the same gender stereotypes but they also share the same conceptions of male gender-type jobs, suggesting that both should perceive a lack of fit between the two. Moreover, they share the same expectations for how men and women “should” behave and therefore are likely to similarly view agentic behaviors enacted by women as violations of gender norms. Despite this, however, the fact that women have not been found to judge other women differently from how men judge them seems incongruous and disturbing—perhaps because it defies our ideas about in-group loyalty and solidarity as well as notions about the power of shared experience and common fate to shape perceptions and behavior. There are doubtlessly individual differences that influence this effect, such as the strength of gender identity and gender stereotype adherence. Individual differences in life experience, such as women’s personal experiences with discrimination ( Ellemers, Van den Heuvel, De Gilder, Maass, & Bonvini, 2004 ), can also moderate this effect.

Research has focused on men’s and women’s similarly negative reactions to successful women in the workplace, exploring divergent explanations for why they respond as they do. It has been suggested that unlike men, who are motivated to keep women in their place so they do not threaten male superiority in the workplace, women respond negatively to successful women because of social comparison processes and their desire to maintain their sense of competence ( Parks-Stamm, Heilman, & Hearns, 2008 ). Research has also demonstrated that perceptions of competitive threat are not limited only to peers, but also experienced by women in positions of authority, producing the queen bee syndrome ( Derks, Ellemers, Van Laar, & De Groot, 2011 ; Ellemers et al., 2004 ). More work is needed to provide insight into the potentially different motivations men and women have in responding to women’s success and the important implications these may have for gender differences in other reactions to working women.

Intersection of Gender with Other Social Categories

Although discrimination researchers have tended to investigate gender, race, and ethnicity as separate entities, these social categories do not exist in a vacuum. Thus, it is important to examine whether the findings discussed in this chapter change when other social categories are also taken into account. Do the effects become additive, suggesting that racial or ethnic minority women face additional adversity in the workplace? Or are they interactive? Some recent studies have focused on this issue, and the findings paint a complex picture.

In a study examining the notion that Black women suffer from relative “invisibility,” Sesko and Biernat (2010) found that people are least likely to correctly attribute statements made by Black women, suggesting that they are more often the target of bias than White women. However, other research suggests that things are more complicated. It has, for example, been shown that being Black is actually a deterrent against gender bias. Livingston, Rosette, and Washington (2012) found that White female leaders encountered derogation for displaying dominance, but that Black female leaders did not. Moreover, there is research indicating that patterns of gender discrimination may be reversed for certain ethnicities, with Derous, Ryan, and Serlie (2015) finding that recruiters evaluated Arab men less favorably than Arab women, and Livingston et al. (2012) finding that Black men, and not Black women, were penalized for exhibiting dominance.

Evidently, there is much more to do to understand how gender discrimination is affected by social category membership. Consistent with the literature discussed in this chapter, future research should examine whether characterizations of and gender prescriptions for women in differing racial and ethnic groups differ from stereotypes traditionally associated with women at large. It also should continue to chronicle the different reactions to women from differing social groups. Such work not only will enhance our understanding of the way in which gender bias and discrimination affects these women but also will enhance our understanding of the processes underlying gender discrimination more generally.

Tracking Changes

Although gender stereotypes continue to dog women in their attempts to advance their careers, small indications of change are coming to light. Today, there is greater personal and organizational awareness of the issues we have discussed in this chapter, and efforts to counteract gender stereotypes in evaluation processes abound. Moreover, ideas about what characteristics are required for effective leadership have shown signs of change—whether due to the rising numbers of women in the management ranks or to the change in perception of what it takes to be a good manager or leader.

Despite leadership’s traditionally masculine connotation, popular opinion reflects shifting attitudes concerning what it means to be a good leader. Specifically, some communal qualities, such as the ability to build relationships, address the needs of followers, and minimize hierarchy, are now deemed important for leaders to have. This idea, termed the “female leadership advantage” ( Eagly & Carli, 2003 ; Vecchio, 2002 ), suggests that leadership positions may begin to necessitate behaviors that are more in line with female stereotypes. In fact, contemporary theories of leadership, such as transformational ( Bass & Avolio, 1994 ) and authentic leadership ( Gardner, Cogliser, Davis, & Dickens, 2011 ), emphasize meaningful and open leader-follower relationships, and these requirements correspond with stereotypically feminine behaviors. If this is indeed the case, women may be considered adequate and even exceptional leaders who are well suited to top positions. It also could temper the effects of prescriptive gender stereotypes because success in leadership will not necessarily imply the occurrence of agentic behavior. However, the evidence is mixed. Although some studies suggest that women in top management sometimes receive more favorable evaluations than their male counterparts ( Rosette & Tost, 2010 ), most research still finds a pro-male leadership bias. However, if attitudes continue to change, so may the prevalence of gender discrimination in organizational contexts.

There also is indication of some change in the characterizations of women. According to recent research, people believe that women’s attributes have begun to converge with men’s ( Diekman & Eagly, 2000 ), and in at least one investigation, women were actually found to be described in more agentic terms now than they were 25 years ago ( Duehr & Bono, 2006 ). However, the results of other investigations do not bear this out. They have found gender stereotypes to be stable over time ( Lueptow, Garovich-Szabo, & Lueptow, 2001 ), and men and women to continue to be described very differently from one another ( Spence & Buckner, 2000 ). Still other investigations have found the current situation to be more mixed ( Hentschel et al., 2013 ). Thus, there are some signs that perceptions of women’s agency have shifted over time, and, if this is so, it bodes well for women’s future prospects. Even if coveted positions and roles continue to be seen as requiring agency rather than communality, women may no longer be as vulnerable to gender discrimination because of perceived lack of fit. Research should continue to monitor whether both of these changes are indeed afoot.

Summary and Conclusion

In this chapter, we considered the different ways in which gender stereotypes create obstacles for women in the workplace. These challenges are wide-ranging and troublesome, with descriptive gender stereotypes resulting in women not being seen as competent and prescriptive gender stereotypes resulting in them not being seen as likable. Specifically, we discussed how descriptive stereotypes promote the perception that women in male-typed jobs lack the requisite attributes for success. We also examined how prescriptive stereotypes create norms for how women “should” and “should not” behave and described the derogation and social penalties that women incur when they violate these norms. We also noted the conditions under which gender stereotypes are most and least likely to promote gender bias and discrimination.

Despite changes in the landscape for women in the workplace, considerable inequities continue to exist, and the evidence discussed in this chapter points to gender discrimination as a likely cause. Today, women are still thought to lack what it takes to thrive in male-typed positions, and they are often shunned for behaving in ways that conflict with gender prescriptions. Understanding why these inequities occur is an important first step in trying to minimize them, and we hope that scholars continue to heed this call.

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COLLEGIATE FEMALE TEAM COACH PERCEPTIONS OF GENDER DISCRIMINATION

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• Affiliation: College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Exercise and Sport Science
• Over forty years after the passing of Title IX, there is still a lack of gender equity at the intercollegiate level of athletics. The purpose of this research was to examine the perceptions of gender discrimination among the coaches of female athletes at the intercollegiate level. This study examined the perceptions of 243 NCAA Division I, Power 5 conference coaches of female athletes concerning gender discrimination on their campuses through a survey. The results indicated that, overall, coaches are still experiencing gender discrimination through both their own experiences and their athletes’. Results indicated a lack of Title IX education for these coaches. Additionally, male coaches were more likely to believe resources were equal than were females. This study attempted to emphasize the need to further Title IX education to reduce gender discrimination and further the ability for coaches to advocate for their female student-athletes.
• gender discrimination
• Sports management
• collegiate athletics
• https://doi.org/10.17615/dmw6-s381
• Masters Thesis
• Bates, Bradley
• Osborne, Barbara
• Weight, Erianne
• Master of Arts
• University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Graduate School

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What Researchers Discovered When They Sent 80,000 Fake Résumés to U.S. Jobs

Some companies discriminated against Black applicants much more than others, and H.R. practices made a big difference.

By Claire Cain Miller and Josh Katz

A group of economists recently performed an experiment on around 100 of the largest companies in the country, applying for jobs using made-up résumés with equivalent qualifications but different personal characteristics. They changed applicants’ names to suggest that they were white or Black, and male or female — Latisha or Amy, Lamar or Adam.

On Monday, they released the names of the companies . On average, they found, employers contacted the presumed white applicants 9.5 percent more often than the presumed Black applicants.

Yet this practice varied significantly by firm and industry. One-fifth of the companies — many of them retailers or car dealers — were responsible for nearly half of the gap in callbacks to white and Black applicants.

Two companies favored white applicants over Black applicants significantly more than others. They were AutoNation, a used car retailer, which contacted presumed white applicants 43 percent more often, and Genuine Parts Company, which sells auto parts including under the NAPA brand, and called presumed white candidates 33 percent more often.

In a statement, Heather Ross, a spokeswoman for Genuine Parts, said, “We are always evaluating our practices to ensure inclusivity and break down barriers, and we will continue to do so.” AutoNation did not respond to a request for comment.

Companies With the Largest and Smallest Racial Contact Gaps

Of the 97 companies in the experiment, two stood out as contacting presumed white job applicants significantly more often than presumed Black ones. At 14 companies, there was little or no difference in how often they called back the presumed white or Black applicants.

Source: Patrick Kline, Evan K. Rose and Christopher R. Walters

Known as an audit study , the experiment was the largest of its kind in the United States: The researchers sent 80,000 résumés to 10,000 jobs from 2019 to 2021. The results demonstrate how entrenched employment discrimination is in parts of the U.S. labor market — and the extent to which Black workers start behind in certain industries.

“I am not in the least bit surprised,” said Daiquiri Steele, an assistant professor at the University of Alabama School of Law who previously worked for the Department of Labor on employment discrimination. “If you’re having trouble breaking in, the biggest issue is the ripple effect it has. It affects your wages and the economy of your community going forward.”

Some companies showed no difference in how they treated applications from people assumed to be white or Black. Their human resources practices — and one policy in particular (more on that later) — offer guidance for how companies can avoid biased decisions in the hiring process.

A lack of racial bias was more common in certain industries: food stores, including Kroger; food products, including Mondelez; freight and transport, including FedEx and Ryder; and wholesale, including Sysco and McLane Company.

“We want to bring people’s attention not only to the fact that racism is real, sexism is real, some are discriminating, but also that it’s possible to do better, and there’s something to be learned from those that have been doing a good job,” said Patrick Kline, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley, who conducted the study with Evan K. Rose at the University of Chicago and Christopher R. Walters at Berkeley.

The researchers first published details of their experiment in 2021, but without naming the companies. The new paper, which is set to run in the American Economic Review, names the companies and explains the methodology developed to group them by their performance, while accounting for statistical noise.

Sample Résumés From the Experiment

Fictitious résumés sent to large U.S. companies revealed a preference, on average, for candidates whose names suggested that they were white.

To assign names, the researchers started with a prior list that had been assembled using Massachusetts birth certificates from 1974 to 1979. They then supplemented this list with names found in a database of speeding tickets issued in North Carolina between 2006 and 2018, classifying a name as “distinctive” if more than 90 percent of people with that name were of a particular race.

The study includes 97 firms. The jobs the researchers applied to were entry level, not requiring a college degree or substantial work experience. In addition to race and gender, the researchers tested other characteristics protected by law , like age and sexual orientation.

They sent up to 1,000 applications to each company, applying for as many as 125 jobs per company in locations nationwide, to try to uncover patterns in companies’ operations versus isolated instances. Then they tracked whether the employer contacted the applicant within 30 days.

A bias against Black names

Companies requiring lots of interaction with customers, like sales and retail, particularly in the auto sector, were most likely to show a preference for applicants presumed to be white. This was true even when applying for positions at those firms that didn’t involve customer interaction, suggesting that discriminatory practices were baked in to corporate culture or H.R. practices, the researchers said.

Still, there were exceptions — some of the companies exhibiting the least bias were retailers, like Lowe’s and Target.

The study may underestimate the rate of discrimination against Black applicants in the labor market as a whole because it tested large companies, which tend to discriminate less, said Lincoln Quillian, a sociologist at Northwestern who analyzes audit studies. It did not include names intended to represent Latino or Asian American applicants, but other research suggests that they are also contacted less than white applicants, though they face less discrimination than Black applicants.

The experiment ended in 2021, and some of the companies involved might have changed their practices since. Still, a review of all available audit studies found that discrimination against Black applicants had not changed in three decades. After the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, such discrimination was found to have disappeared among certain employers, but the researchers behind that study said the effect was most likely short-lived.

Gender, age and L.G.B.T.Q. status

On average, companies did not treat male and female applicants differently. This aligns with other research showing that gender discrimination against women is rare in entry-level jobs, and starts later in careers.

However, when companies did favor men (especially in manufacturing) or women (mostly at apparel stores), the biases were much larger than for race. Builders FirstSource contacted presumed male applicants more than twice as often as female ones. Ascena, which owns brands like Ann Taylor, contacted women 66 percent more than men.

Neither company responded to requests for comment.

The consequences of being female differed by race. The differences were small, but being female was a slight benefit for white applicants, and a slight penalty for Black applicants.

The researchers also tested several other characteristics protected by law, with a smaller number of résumés. They found there was a small penalty for being over 40.

Overall, they found no penalty for using nonbinary pronouns. Being gay, as indicated by including membership in an L.G.B.T.Q. club on the résumé, resulted in a slight penalty for white applicants, but benefited Black applicants — although the effect was small, when this was on their résumés, the racial penalty disappeared.

Under the Civil Rights Act of 1964, discrimination is illegal even if it’s unintentional . Yet in the real world, it is difficult for job applicants to know why they did not hear back from a company.

“These practices are particularly challenging to address because applicants often do not know whether they are being discriminated against in the hiring process,” Brandalyn Bickner, a spokeswoman for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, said in a statement. (It has seen the data and spoken with the researchers, though it could not use an academic study as the basis for an investigation, she said.)

What companies can do to reduce discrimination

Several common measures — like employing a chief diversity officer, offering diversity training or having a diverse board — were not correlated with decreased discrimination in entry-level hiring, the researchers found.

But one thing strongly predicted less discrimination: a centralized H.R. operation.

The researchers recorded the voice mail messages that the fake applicants received. When a company’s calls came from fewer individual phone numbers, suggesting that they were originating from a central office, there tended to be less bias . When they came from individual hiring managers at local stores or warehouses, there was more. These messages often sounded frantic and informal, asking if an applicant could start the next day, for example.

“That’s when implicit biases kick in,” Professor Kline said. A more formalized hiring process helps overcome this, he said: “Just thinking about things, which steps to take, having to run something by someone for approval, can be quite important in mitigating bias.”

At Sysco, a wholesale restaurant food distributor, which showed no racial bias in the study, a centralized recruitment team reviews résumés and decides whom to call. “Consistency in how we review candidates, with a focus on the requirements of the position, is key,” said Ron Phillips, Sysco’s chief human resources officer. “It lessens the opportunity for personal viewpoints to rise in the process.”

Another important factor is diversity among the people hiring, said Paula Hubbard, the chief human resources officer at McLane Company. It procures, stores and delivers products for large chains like Walmart, and showed no racial bias in the study. Around 40 percent of the company’s recruiters are people of color, and 60 percent are women.

Diversifying the pool of people who apply also helps, H.R. officials said. McLane goes to events for women in trucking and puts up billboards in Spanish.

So does hiring based on skills, versus degrees . While McLane used to require a college degree for many roles, it changed that practice after determining that specific skills mattered more for warehousing or driving jobs. “We now do that for all our jobs: Is there truly a degree required?” Ms. Hubbard said. “Why? Does it make sense? Is experience enough?”

Hilton, another company that showed no racial bias in the study, also stopped requiring degrees for many jobs, in 2018.

Another factor associated with less bias in hiring, the new study found, was more regulatory scrutiny — like at federal contractors, or companies with more Labor Department citations.

Finally, more profitable companies were less biased, in line with a long-held economics theory by the Nobel Prize winner Gary Becker that discrimination is bad for business. Economists said that could be because the more profitable companies benefit from a more diverse set of employees. Or it could be an indication that they had more efficient business processes, in H.R. and elsewhere.

Claire Cain Miller writes about gender, families and the future of work for The Upshot. She joined The Times in 2008 and was part of a team that won a Pulitzer Prize in 2018 for public service for reporting on workplace sexual harassment issues. More about Claire Cain Miller

Josh Katz is a graphics editor for The Upshot, where he covers a range of topics involving politics, policy and culture. He is the author of “Speaking American: How Y’all, Youse, and You Guys Talk,” a visual exploration of American regional dialects. More about Josh Katz

From The Upshot: What the Data Says

Analysis that explains politics, policy and everyday life..

Employment Discrimination: Researchers sent 80,000 fake résumés to some of the largest companies in the United States. They found that some discriminated against Black applicants much more than others .

Pandemic School Closures: ​A variety of data about children’s academic outcomes and about the spread of Covid-19 has accumulated since the start of the pandemic. Here is what we learned from it .

Affirmative Action: The Supreme Court effectively ended race-based preferences in admissions. But will selective schools still be able to achieve diverse student bodies? Here is how they might try .

N.Y.C. Neighborhoods: We asked New Yorkers to map their neighborhoods and to tell us what they call them . The result, while imperfect, is an extremely detailed map of the city .

Dialect Quiz:  What does the way you speak say about where you’re from? Answer these questions to find out .

• Reverse gender identity discrimination? Yes, it's a thing.

What's good for the goose . . .

A person who is discriminated against for not being transgender can have a valid claim under Title VII for “sex” (really, gender identity) discrimination.

In McCreary v. Adult World, Inc. , a cisgender male sued after he was fired, for allegedly bogus reasons, from his position as a clerk/cleaner at an adult novelty store in, of all places, Quakertown, Pennsylvania. (A cisgender person is one who identities as a member of their biological sex.) He claimed that his transgender co-workers were treated more favorably. The store asked the court to dismiss his lawsuit right out of the starting gate.

But a federal judge refused to dismiss the lawsuit. That doesn’t mean that the plaintiff will win, but it does mean that his lawsuit stays alive.

To dismiss a lawsuit at this very early stage, the court has to assume that everything alleged by the plaintiff is true. (If the lawsuit is not dismissed, the defendant will have the chance to develop and present evidence supporting its side of the story.)

So the following is what's been alleged by the plaintiff:

According to the plaintiff's lawsuit, the store’s district manager hired two transgender employees when the plaintiff was already working there. The plaintiff complained to the manager that the two transgender employees frequently showed up late and kept the store open past its closing time. Not only did the manager refuse to do anything about it, but he also promoted one of the transgender employees to store manager – over the head of the plaintiff.

Then, a couple of months before the plaintiff’s termination, a customer complained about another co-worker – a cisgender female. Even though the plaintiff was a witness to the encounter and defended his co-worker, the district manager immediately wrote her up.

Not long afterward, the district manager “abruptly” fired the plaintiff for putting a drape over a fire exit and keeping a tip jar on the counter. He also accused the plaintiff of stealing. The district manager fired the female coworker the same day, and a month earlier, he had fired the only other cisgender employee in the store (a male). As a result of these firings, 100 percent of the remaining staff was (were?) transgender.

On the drape over the fire exit, the plaintiff said he did that only because the fire exit had a window to the outside and he didn’t want kids to be able to see inside. Also, he’d never been told that he couldn’t put a drape over the fire exit. The plaintiff denied stealing from the store. He admitted to the tip jar but said no one had ever told him that tip jars were not allowed.

When the plaintiff contacted the company’s Human Resources and Payroll departments about his termination, they told him they did not know he had been terminated.

Er . . . "interesting" arguments from Adult World 

In arguing that the lawsuit should be dismissed, the store said that the plaintiff’s “protected status” was male and the fact that his female co-worker was fired on the same day showed that the plaintiff was not discriminated against because he was a guy. Also, that cisgender people are not a protected class under Title VII.

The store also argued that putting a drape over a fire exit or putting a tip jar on the counter were neutral, non-sex-based reasons for termination.

But the plaintiff cited Bostock v. Clayton County , the 2020 Supreme Court decision that recognized for the first time that discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity were prohibited by Title VII.  

And the court found that Title VII post- Bostock protects not only transgender people from gender identity discrimination but also "reverse discrimination" against cisgender people.

In my opinion, that stands to reason. After all, white people can sue for race discrimination under Title VII, and men can sue for old-fashioned sex discrimination. Why should sexual orientation and gender identity be any different?

Then the court said that the plaintiff had alleged enough in his lawsuit to keep his Title VII claim alive:

“Plaintiff alleges that he complained to Defendant that Plaintiff’s transgender co-workers “frequently arrived late to work and kept the store open past the operating hours,” and yet that Defendant never disciplined them. To the contrary, one co-worker was promoted on a faster timeline than Plaintiff. By contrast, Plaintiff was allegedly terminated – without warning – for a first-time infraction. Likewise, Defendant immediately disciplined [the female co-worker] casting doubt on the validity of the underlying customer complaint.

And there was also the fact that, after the terminations, the store’s staff was entirely made up of transgender workers.

“[A]llegations that an employer impermissibly favors transgender employees over both similarly situated cisgender males and similarly situated cisgender females” is enough to create an inference of discrimination. And there was no indication that similarly situated transgender employees were treated the same as the plaintiff or his cisgender co-workers.

Again, the court’s decision means only that the case will move forward. It does not necessarily mean that the plaintiff will win. And, regardless of the outcome, I seriously doubt that we will be seeing a flood of reverse gender identity discrimination lawsuits.

That said, goose, meet gander.

Image Credit: Portrait of William Penn (1644-1718), founder of the Province of Pennsylvania, from Wikimedia Commons (public domain). Geese and ganders from Adobe Stock.

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Breaking down the gender wage gap in Utah: How much of it is due to discrimination, and what can be done?

Does utah have the largest wage gap in the country that depends on how you analyze the data..

(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Derek Miller, President and CEO of the Salt Lake Chamber and Pat Jones, CEO of the Women's Leadership Institute, release a proposal on how to close the gender wage gap in Utah during a news conference at the Salt Lake Chamber on Friday, Nov. 30, 2018.

I think it’s important to accurately describe a problem in order to solve it.

A perfect example of that is the gender wage gap. Many of the headlines you read are about how large the wage gap is, with the most recent reports saying the median woman in Utah makes 73 cents for every dollar paid to the median man. Advocates have created a holiday called “Equal Pay Day,” representing the number of days a woman works “for free” in an average year in order to match a man’s salary; this year, it took place on March 12.

The numbers are designed to shock you and they probably should — they are true.

But conservative advocates on the other side have a valid point: Once you adjust for controllable factors like occupation, experience, and education, the difference between the sexes shrinks dramatically. And they’ve used that to argue that state laws requiring equal pay shouldn’t be passed.

Here’s my thesis: The strength of both arguments detracts from solving the real situation.

Utah has the second-largest pay gap in the nation, according to U.S. census data, but only a fraction of that is due to employer discrimination. That employer discrimination needs to be addressed. The remaining amount of the pay gap comes from various societal and cultural phenomena. Those also need to be addressed.

Let’s dig in.

The current situation

Payscale is a company that tracks pay structure and makes recommendations to businesses on how they can make their wages competitive in the labor marketplace. Overall, 627,000 people have taken Payscale’s survey over the last two years about how much they make, their occupation, and other relevant factors. That’s an impressive sample size, though one the company admits is likely skewed toward those with a college degree.

Here’s what the survey found as the median wage gap among all 50 states.

(Christopher Cherrington | The Salt Lake Tribune)

As you can see, Utah women typically make just 75 cents on the dollar compared to Utah men. That’s also quite close to the 73.1 cent average reported by the Census Bureau, which is promising from a data point of view.

But what happens if you control for every compensable factor? Match job to job, experience to experience, education to education, and so on? This is the kind of data that companies like Payscale can have that the Census Bureau doesn’t.

The gap significantly shrinks — now Utah women make 97 cents to the dollar compared to Utah men.

The whole Payscale report is worth reading. It further breaks down the controlled and uncontrolled data by job, industry, race, education, age, work-from-home status, and much more. Some jobs, like truck drivers and religious directors, still have massive wage gaps even if you account for every factor.

Removing the discrimination portion of the wage gap

There are other estimates of the discrimination portion of the wage gap in Utah that are larger than 3%. For example, one University of Utah thesis put it at 14%. I think, given the Payscale tilt toward college-educated workers, that 3% is likely an underestimation. But let’s just go with 3%, for the sake of argument.

A 3% gap in pay simply due to discrimination is still hugely significant and needs to be addressed. That Utah women are being bilked out of thousands of dollars in salary per year needs to change.

Forty-three states in the nation have an equal pay law. Utah isn’t one of them. We’re the only state in the intermountain region not to have such a law, in fact. (Utah State University has an excellent report on the laws in all 50 states.)

What Utah does have is a wage anti-discrimination law. So what’s the difference? As always, it’s in the details.

Let’s choose Idaho as the counter-example — a state just as or more conservative than Utah. Utah’s law, meager as it is, exempts specific religious entities and any employer with fewer than 15 employees, or any employer asking people to work less than 20 weeks in a year. That’s a lot of employers who are allowed to discriminate! Idaho’s law has no such exemptions.

In Idaho, those discriminated against are allowed to and encouraged to take up a lawsuit in a relevant court. Utah’s law, meanwhile, forces those with a claim to go through the Utah Antidiscrimination and Labor Division of the Utah Labor Commission.

If an employee wants to sue their employer in Utah, they would have to get permission from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission before filing a case in federal court. But the UALD is the only process allowed under Utah law.

That’s a big deal because the UALD has proven to have trouble enforcing the law. A 2017 audit revealed that the division rules in favor of the employee just .7% of the time. In nearby states, the average is about 5.3%. That’s an especially big deal for those who lose their claims: Idaho’s law also prevents retaliation by employers on employees who seek action under their equal pay law, which Utah’s law doesn’t.

Utah’s law also has a statute of limitations, asking workers to file claims within 180 days of the discriminatory act. Idaho’s law is three years.

Maybe I can appeal to Utah’s Legislators via their competitive instincts: There is no reason for Idaho to have a better law than Utah on this matter. You’re gonna allow Idaho to keep things fair while Utah languishes? Those guys up north? Those wackadoodles play on blue football fields and are proud of potatoes! We can’t lose to them!

Addressing other factors

But the truth remains that the largest portion of Utah’s wage gap isn’t due to employer discrimination alone.

I thought this thesis from Curtis Miller at the U.’s economics school was well done. Essentially, using census data and fancy analytics, it tries to extract which causes can explain Utah’s wage gap. The different industries in which men and women work? The choice of occupation within an industry? Is it different levels of experience or other qualifications, referred to as an “endowment gap?” Overtime hours worked?

According to Miller, the endowment gap and industry are the largest factors. Interestingly, Miller’s analysis of the national data doesn’t show an endowment gap between men and women — if anything, women are more likely in their fields of interest to have experience or other qualifications nationally, but in Utah, the reverse is true. (Industry of employment differences are still a large driver of the wage gap nationwide and in Utah.)

As you probably know, Utah women are more likely to be mothers than those in other states. But in wage analysis, there’s what’s called the “motherhood penalty.” Mothers are more likely to take time off of work than fathers after the birth of a child, which in itself can lead to fewer opportunities for career advancement.

But even among those who take the same amount of time off work, the perceptions are different. The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights’s report on the wage gap in Utah noted that mothers were also nearly twice as likely as fathers to say taking time off had a negative impact on their careers. “Among those who took leave from work in the past two years following the birth or adoption of their child, 25 percent of women said this had a negative impact at work, compared with 13 percent of men,” the report says.

There’s an education gap in Utah that doesn’t exist in other states. Nationally, more women get graduate degrees than men, by a 13% to 12.4% score. In Utah, 9.3% of Utah women and 14.1% of Utah men earn graduate degrees. Those with higher degrees generally make more money. This, too, explains a statistically significant part of the gap.

Finally, the choice of an occupation within a profession represents a small portion of the gap in Utah. The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights’s report notes that women make up two-thirds of those who make minimum wage or just over it, for example.

But age, citizenship status, overtime hours worked, and public vs. private sector status didn’t measurably contribute to Utah’s wage gap, according to Miller’s work.

In the end, we can make inroads in these issues. Utah should get with the times and pass a comparable equal pay law to other states. Then, it should make strides in supporting women in achieving higher levels of education and higher-paying industries.

Breaking down the wage gap into its component parts doesn’t serve to minimize it — in fact, it serves to identify places where we can make real changes, especially at the legislative level. Let’s push these improvements forward.

Editor’s note • This story is available to Salt Lake Tribune subscribers only. Thank you for supporting local journalism.

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School of Visual Arts MFA Thesis Exhibitions Feature Work by 61 Artists

Emily Taylor Rice (CFA’21,’24) (foreground) and Delaney Burns (CFA’24), both grad students in the College of Fine Arts Print Media & Photography program, working on their respective thesis projects ahead of the School of Visual Arts graduate thesis exhibitions.

Five shows by graduating students in painting, graphic design, sculpture, print media and photography, and visual narrative on view on and off campus through April 20

Sophie yarin, cydney scott.

As the academic year draws to a close and commencement season approaches, there’s no shortage of reasons to celebrate at the College of Fine Arts. Not only does 2024 mark the school’s 70th birthday— CFA was founded as the School of Fine and Applied Arts in 1954 —but it’s also a year of exciting firsts for the School of Visual Arts and its five Master of Fine Arts programs: painting, sculpture, print media and photography, visual narrative, and graphic design. 

This year marks the first that the print media and photography and the visual narrative MFA programs, both launched in 2022, will graduate a class. The 2024 exhibitions also mark the largest cohort to date—61 graduating MFA students—in the school’s history. And for the first time, this year’s shows include an off-campus venue: the sculpture exhibition is being shown at 1270 Commonwealth Ave., where what was once a CVS pharmacy has been transformed into a pop-up art gallery. 

All of the exhibitions, on view through April 20, are free and open to the public. Collectively, they offer a sense of the breadth and depth of work being done by MFA students across a range of mediums. For those who cannot make it to all five of this year’s shows, we’ve pulled together some works from each program for your viewing pleasure. But remember: there’s plenty more to see in person.

The visual arts are often compared to a written language, notes Josephine Halvorson , a CFA professor of art, painting, and chair of graduate studies in painting, in the 2024 painting thesis exhibition catalog. “Reading, literacy, and lexicons are terms we frequently cite in critique,” she writes. “Students [have turned] to language, either materially or analogically, to help them navigate meaning in their work.”

James Gold, Mosaic Excavation with Carpets . Egg tempera, India ink, acrylic gouache, and pigmented gesso on panel.

Abbi Kenny, Atlantic Cranberry Sauce (courtesy of Weight Watchers) . Acrylic, molding paste, acrylic gouache, black pepper, glitter, glass beads, muscovite mica, glass flakes, and yupo collage on canvas.

Some works in this year’s exhibition speak plainly, relying on a strong instinct toward realism and representation. James Gold (CFA’24) imbues his canvases with a photographer’s sense of discovery: his subjects—ancient tapestries, mosaics, and scrolls—are rendered so as to capture every detail and texture.

Paintings by Abigail Kenny (CFA’24) share Gold’s photorealistic sensibility, but her concerns are more outlandish, less rarefied. Vivid-hued reproductions of illustrated recipe cards, from Kenny’s own family collection, comment on Andy Warhol’s iconic soup cans from the early 1960s.

Ellen Weitkamp, Remembering 75 East Cove Lane . Oil on panel.

Cody Bluett, Where Are the Sleeping Fish . Oil and spray paint on canvas, wood carving on frame.

Yingxue Daisy Li, Tunnel. Oil and charcoal on canvas.

Ellen Weitkamp (CFA’24) and Cody Bluett (CFA’24) suffuse their paintings with a more surreal and symbolic language, more poetry than prose. Weitkamp’s works suggest the haziness of recalled memories, depicting domestic scenes through the glass of a storefront or the gauze of a curtain. Bluett is also concerned with memory; drawing from his background in working-class Pennsylvania, his scenes are nostalgic for the bucolic landscapes enjoyed by what he describes as “the proletariat during moments of respite, repetition, and reminiscence.”

Visual language dissolves into whispers and murmurs in paintings by Yinxue Daisy Li (CFA’24). Her abstract landscape works hover on the outer edges of representation, the result of a process of erasing and redrawing that transforms an idyllic outdoor scene into gesture, space, light, and shadow.

The MFA Painting Thesis Exhibition is at the Faye G., Jo, and James Stone Gallery, 855 Commonwealth Ave., through Saturday, April 20. Hours: Tuesday to Saturday, 11 am to 5 pm.

Graphic Design

The theme for this year’s graphic design thesis show, Side B , refers to the flip side of a record, and “a willingness to defy expectations, explore uncommon tools, and present a multifaceted expression of craft,” write thesis advisors Christopher Sleboda , a CFA associate professor of graphic design, and Kristen Coogan , a CFA associate professor of graphic design and chair of the MFA graphic design program, in the catalog for the show. 

For her thesis project, Between Waves , Bella Tuo (CFA’24) literally crowdsourced a new font. Over the course of a day, she encouraged strangers to contribute a hand-drawn line, curve, or serif until each letter of the alphabet was complete .

Bella Tuo, Between Waves project feat. Rainbow Hui. Digital media.

Arjun Lakshmanan, The Grand Tour-50 Iterations. Digital media.

Arjun Lakshmanan (CFA’24) was inspired by a NASA mock travel poster that imagined interplanetary tourism. With the same retro futuristic style, he produced a series of 50 similar postcards that emphasized three-dimensionality and warped perception. 

Lindsay Towle (CFA’24), whose design sensibility is informed by the graphic imprint of basketball and other facets of urban street culture, devised new aesthetic associations that make room for visual subcultures within the dominant narrative. A poster of her thesis concept, Backcourt , mixes graffiti lettering, a hallmark of elements of street culture, with classic typography and handwritten elements.

Lindsay Towle, The Backcourt . Digital media.

Carolina Izsák, Masking Tape Proportionality . Belgian linen.

Dhwani Garg, Firki typeface. Digital media.

“The relationships between structure and emotion, constraints and freedom, and a set of parts and pieces to create a whole have always been part of my practice as a designer,” Carolina Izsák (CFA’24) writes. Bursting with color and built to foster interaction and joy, Izsák’s thesis project—which includes prints she has laid onto fabric and wooden blocks—emphasizes playfulness and versatility.

Firki , a typeface created by Dhwani Garg (CFA’24), considers the scalability of typography in a new way. The font uses negative space to construct each figure, an inversion of the simple and expected formula used since the dawn of typesetting. 

The MFA Graphic Design Thesis Exhibition is at the 808 Gallery, 808 Commonwealth Ave., through Saturday, April 20. Hours: Tuesday to Saturday, 11 am to 5 pm.

Visual Narrative

The first graduating class of the MFA visual narrative program has created a collection of work that runs the storytelling gamut, crafting work that’s “humorous, poignant, and thought-provoking,” writes Joel Christian Gill , a CFA associate professor of art and chair of the visual narrative program. 

Sadie Saunders (CFA’24) and Ella Scheuerell (CFA’24) both opted to create graphic memoirs, and although their methodologies differ (Saunders uses digital drawing while Scheuerell relies on collage and mixed media), their stories are grounded in their experiences as young artists coming of age in the pandemic era. Scheuerell introduces readers to her uncle, whose art she discovered among his effects after his death by suicide. As she comes to terms with his loss, the drawings and his invisible presence keep her company. Saunders’ work reads more like a memoir-slash-sitcom, a self-deprecating tour of her barista job and the cast of characters who challenge her to find her voice. 

Sadie Saunders, pages from Spilled Milk and Other Reasons to Cry at Work . Digital drawing.

Ella Scheurell, Heavy Shoes , Colored pencil, watercolor sharpie on paper.

Avanji Vaze, page from Vrindavan House . Digital drawing.

Works by Avanji Vaze (CFA’24), Sandeep Badal (CFA’24), and Ariel Cheng Kohane (COM’22, CFA’24) have created stories that revel in invented universes and complex plotlines. Vaze’s graphic novel combines a Utopian fairytale (where Earth is run by a species of benevolent mushrooms) and MTV’s The Real World , centering a lovable-but-dysfunctional crew of artist roommates as her main cast. Badal’s thesis work is a comic within a comic; his protagonist, a graphic novelist, shares the stage with his own invented character, a trans-femme superhero who begins to feel like the world is treating her like a villain. And Cheng Kohane’s world is a reimagination of classic Western flicks, but populated by a cast of Asian and Jewish characters to match her own blended heritage.

Ariel Kohane, page from Hai Noon . Digital drawing.

Sandeep Badal, two-page spread from Phantom in a Jar . Digital drawing.

Lafleche Giasson, two-page spread from New Leaves on the Tree: How Intergenerational Trauma Affects Inheritable Gene Expression . Digital drawing.

For her thesis, Lafleche Giasson (CFA’24) chose an unconventional narrative, opting to blend her research on complex post-traumatic stress disorder with digital illustrations to create a comprehensive visual guide to the diagnosis.

The MFA Visual Narrative Thesis Exhibition is at the Commonwealth Gallery, 855 Commonwealth Ave., through Saturday, April 20. Hours: Tuesday to Saturday, 11 am to 5 pm. Students will present their thesis work on Wednesday, April 10, and Friday, April 12, from 3 to 5 pm at the Howard Thurman Center, 808 Commonwealth Ave.

Print Media & Photography

This year’s graduates of the print media and photography MFA program have created work that “disrupt[s] the viewer’s sense of the familiar and, in turn, prompt[s] more questions than answers,” write thesis advisors Lynne Allen , a CFA professor of art, printmaking, Toni Pepe , a CFA assistant professor of art and chair of photography, and Deborah Cornell , a CFA professor of art and chair of printmaking, in the show’s catalog. The four graduates whose work is in the thesis show have subverted the expected with their thesis work, in the process highlighting a core principle of printmaking: that it’s a medium of endless possibilities.

The photographs of Sofia Barroso (CFA’24) have been processed to the point of distortion, incorporating fabric, paper, thread, paint, and processes like cyanotype and silkscreen printing.

Sofia Barroso, Exploration of Possibilities . Cyanotype on fabric.

Julianne Dao, Walking Shadows . Collagraph, Chiné-colle archival inkjet print.

Julianne Dao (CFA’24) creates prints that play with negative space; each of her prints began with an object from nature, which she then processed through woodcut, embossing, and other techniques to create a bold design full of light and shadow.

Emily Taylor Rice (CFA’21,’24) and Delaney Burns (CFA’24) injected messages of social activism into their works: Rice creates prints that reflect the emotional turmoil of substance use disorders, using found textiles and colored pigments to reflect the chaos of alcohol dependence and utilizing embossing techniques to replicate emotional scars and ripped-and-torn sections to represent a process of deconstruction and rebirth. 

Emily Taylor Rice, Standing Smack in the Middle of the Truth About Myself . Silkscreen on found fabric.

Delaney Burns, One In Four. Screenprint on tea bags with peacock flower seeds and birth control pamphlets.

Burns incorporates items from all aspects of her life—plants from her mother’s garden; diary entries, notes, and cards written by women in her family; birth control pamphlets; and used teabags—to draw attention to what she says are the unseen, misunderstood, and taken-for-granted experiences of women. Techniques such as bookbinding and wood carving mirror domestic tasks, imbuing her process with a metaphysical interaction with traditional gender roles.

The MFA Print Media & Photography Thesis Exhibition is at the 808 Gallery, 808 Comm Ave., through Saturday, April 20. Hours: Tuesday to Saturday, 11 am to 5 pm.

The pieces in the MFA sculpture exhibition may have little in common visually, writes David Snyder , a CFA assistant professor of sculpture and chair of graduate studies in sculpture, “but what they have built together is…a conversation, a culture, a language, a heart.”

The works by the five students included in this year’s show respond to one another, playing on unconventional uses of space.

Yolanda He Yang, section of Sand Floor and Two Holes to the Basement and Happenings on the Wall. Piano strings, sand, LED spotlight and motor, glass, projector, wood, plastic sheet, mylar, telephone wires, marble.

Helena Abdelnasser, I think it’s dying. Wood, hinges, screws, white paint, soil, grass seeds, plastic bag, water, unfired clay, baby monitor.

In one area, a section of a piece by Yolanda He Yang (MET’21, CFA’24) shares room with a pillar constructed by Helena Abdelnasser (CFA’24). Yang’s sprawling narrative installations include materials that evoke personal significance, and the artist has painstakingly cataloged the origins of each object. The result: an annotated roadmap of a memory. Looming nearby is one of Abdelnasser’s sculptures: an obelisk made of whitewashed picket fences planted in a patch of earth—an untouchable idealization. In one corner of the work, blurred by decay and dirt, is a reproduction of a dead bird—a gruesome reality.

Alyssa Grey (CFA’24) is fascinated by the relationship between art and its modes of display—walk past one of her entries and a motion-sensing camera will project you onto a small television mounted on a plywood pedestal. Mae-Chu Lin O’Connell (CFA’24) injects a self-deprecating, almost paranoiac sensibility in each of her works, making liberal use of claustrophobia, clutter, sensory discomfort, and haphazardness in her installations and videos. Boxmaker , a scattered assemblage of objects in the shadow of an assembled piece of box furniture, brims with frustration, while her videos create an eerie sound collage out of the banal act of eating.

Alyssa Grey, HomeVideos . Wood, roof sealant, plywood, TV, electrical cords, camouflage duct tape, DC motor, camera.

Mae-Chu Lin O’Connell , Boxmaker (How to build a 36-drawer Wunderkabinett in a week) . Plywood, brass knobs, casters, wood screws, wood glue, epoxy, screws, nails, wood putty, and various objects.

Liam Coughlin, r/decks . OSB, dimensional lumber, towels, salvaged floor boards, adhesives and fasteners, plastic bags, garbage bags, Gatorade bottle full of spit, PEZ dispenser, sawhorses, sawdust.

Meanwhile, Liam Coughlin’s work addresses the sociopolitical landscape of the suburbs. Coughlin (CFA’24) encases trash—plastic bags and bottles, Halloween pumpkins, fast food cups—in plywood prisons to replicate “growing up in a homogenized, hermetically sealed, village-like culture of a small New England town.” 

The MFA Sculpture Thesis Exhibition is at 1270 Commonwealth Ave., through Saturday, April 20. Hours: Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays, 11 am to 5 pm, and Mondays and Thursdays by appointment.

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Associate Editor, BU Today; Managing Editor Bostonia

Sophie Yarin is a BU Today associate editor and Bostonia managing editor. She graduated from Emerson College's journalism program and has experience in digital and print publications as a hybrid writer/editor. A lifelong fan of local art and music, she's constantly on the hunt for stories that shine light on Boston's unique creative communities. She lives in Jamaica Plain with her partner and their cats, Ringo and Xerxes, but she’s usually out getting iced coffee. Profile

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Cydney Scott has been a professional photographer since graduating from the Ohio University VisCom program in 1998. She spent 10 years shooting for newspapers, first in upstate New York, then Palm Beach County, Fla., before moving back to her home city of Boston and joining BU Photography. Profile

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Fears of discrimination in Thailand despite looming same sex marriage bill

The bill is likely to become law soon, but activists and those from the LGBTQ community say more work needs to be done.

Bangkok, Thailand – Thanadech Jandee is thrilled that Thailand’s marriage equality bill, allowing same-sex couples to marry, is moving closer to becoming law.

Thanadech, who was born biologically female and had gender reassignment surgery to identify as male last year, lives with his girlfriend and her son from a previous relationship.

Keep reading

Uganda’s constitutional court rejects petition against anti-gay law, trump, biden clash over transgender day of visibility falling on easter, thai parliament passes same-sex marriage bill, two bar workers arrested in russia’s first lgbtq ‘extremism’ case.

“I want the equal marriage law to be passed. It will make my family complete like any other family of men and women,” the 34-year-old Grab delivery driver in Bangkok told Al Jazeera.

But along with many LGBTQ activists, Thanadech worries about the bill’s terminology.

Activists say using “parents” and “mother and father” in legal terms will affirm those who identify as LGBTQ on equal terms with other couples.

But efforts to get the wording into the bill have so far been unsuccessful.

The proposed marriage equality law will label marriage as a partnership between two individuals, instead of a man and a woman or a husband and a wife. Couples will have full rights, including receiving medical treatment, tax initiatives, inheritance rights and the right to adopt children.

“I just want to do whatever it takes to have rights that normal men and women have,” Thanadech said.

Thailand’s parliament moved closer to legalising same-sex marriage after the Senate approved the bill at its first hearing on Tuesday. The previous week, Thailand’s lower house approved the bill nearly unanimously – only 10 of the 415 sitting lawmakers did not vote in its favour.

The bill will be examined by the Senate vetting committee before two more readings, scheduled for July. The final step is for Thailand’s king to sign and approve it.

“It’s a cause for celebration,” Mookdapa Yangyuenpradorn, a Thailand human rights associate at Fortify Rights, told Al Jazeera.

“[But] it is important to ensure that the more inclusive and gender-neutral language “parents” is included in future revisions to prevent any discriminatory application of the Civil and Commercial Code. We remain steadfast in our call for full protection and recognition of LGBTI+ rights,” Mookdapa added.

In contrast to many other Asian countries, Thailand has long allowed for same-sex celebrations , including Pride. It also holds international transgender beauty pageants and is a global leader in gender reassignment surgery. In 2015, it passed the Gender Equality Act, aiming to protect all people from gender-based discrimination.

But despite having one of the most open LGBTQ communities in the Asian region, Thailand still provides no legal protection to transgender people.

Ariya Milintanapa was born biologically male but identifies as a trans woman. The 40-year-old is a parent to two boys with her husband Lee, whom she married in the United States in 2019. Ariya was the guardian for her younger brother and because of her birth gender as male, was allowed to adopt her now eight-year-old brother as his “uncle”. Their eldest son is a 10-year-old from her husband’s previous relationship.

She says the law makes it “difficult” for them to live as a family.

“It causes a lot of problems like travelling and insurance. We applied for one school but they kept asking for [legal proof] that we were “mum” and “dad”. Even bullies say [to our children] that their mum is different,” Ariya told Al Jazeera.

“We hope to hear the next move where the focus is mainly about the child’s benefit more than the concern of birth gender,” Ariya added.

Bullying risk

Without identifying same-sex and LGBTQ couples as “parents”, there could be a rise in discrimination and bullying between children, according to Nada Chaiyajit, a LGBTQ advocate and law lecturer at Mae Fah Luang University.

“If the law does not recognise “parents” status, it would potentially create discrimination in a form of social bullying,” Nada told Al Jazeera. “Your mother is not your real mother and is a f*****, something like that.”

Nada says it is unclear what other legal rights those who identify as LGBTQ will receive if they are not legally identified as parents and campaigners remain determined the term be described in the law.

“A lot of work is needed to be done. At least we still have some chances to work with the Senate to bring back the word “parents” to complete our rights to family establishment. We will keep pushing,” Nada added.

Emilie Palamy Pradichit, the founder of the Manushya Foundation, a human rights organisation in Bangkok, say the wording means the proposed law is not truly for marriage equality.

“It means only people of the same sex recognised as father or mothers will be allowed to marry, because it is a same-sex bill, not a truly marriage equality bill. For example, if a transgender woman wants to marry a non-binary person… they won’t be able to. Thailand does not have a legal gender identity law – that’s a core issue,” she told Al Jazeera.

That could change in the future though. According to one Thai MP, a draft gender recognition law is in the works.

“Draft gender recognition law… Intentional gender identity… I’m working on it. To allow people to define themselves in various ways to define their own gender. It is something that must be continuously pushed forward,” Tunyawaj Kamolwongwat, a lawmaker with the Move Forward Party posted on the X platform.

For now, Thailand’s focus remains on the marriage equality bill.

It has taken more than a decade of campaigning to get to this point and the draft legislation holds widespread political support. Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin, who became leader after elections last year has championed it.

“It is considered the pride of Thai society that together [we] walk towards a society of equality and respect diversity,” the Thai Prime Minister wrote on Twitter, formerly X, last week.

If the bill does become law, Thailand will become the first country in Southeast Asia to legalise same-sex marriage – and the third in the wider Asian region after Taiwan and Nepal.

Thailand has a population of more than 71 million people and market research firm Ipsos Group says about 9 percent of Thai people identify as LGBTQ.

Since the first reading of the law in December, enquiries about wedding ceremonies by the community have surged.

“There’s definitely an increase of interest. So that would be about like 25 percent of all the bookings. A lot of couples are looking to celebrate,” Wannida Kasiwong, the owner of Wonders and Weddings in Thailand, told Al Jazeera earlier this year.

Transgender inmate at Kansas women's prison didn't convince judge of discrimination claim

A transgender inmate at the Kansas women's prison in Topeka has so far failed to convince a federal judge she is being discriminated against.

Michelle Renee Lamb in November sued Gov. Laura Kelly plus the warden and other staff of Topeka Correctional Facility and the Kansas Department of Corrections, primarily seeking to be transferred to general population.

The court already dismissed some of Lamb's claims in January, and it appears that U.S. District Judge John Lungstrum will dismiss the rest — unless Lamb can convince him not to with a response to his show cause order, due May 3.

"Plaintiff has failed to show that she was discriminated against based on her transgender status," Lungstrum wrote. "Plaintiff should show good cause why her discrimination claim should not be dismissed for failure to state a claim."

He likewise said Lamb hasn't shown her housing status has subjected her to atypical or significant hardship compared to ordinary prison life, which could be a due process violation. He also said Lamb hasn't shown that managing her as a sex offender is an ex post facto violation.

Transgender inmate wants to be housed in general population

Lamb alleges she is being discriminated against by the prison system because she is being held in restricted housing instead of general population.

Part of the reason Lamb isn't in general population is because she is being managed as a sex offender, even though her convictions weren't sex crimes.

The state is allowed to manage inmates as sex offenders based on their conduct in prison, and Lamb has a disciplinary report for violating the lewd act rule by giving another inmate "a hug that continues through another squeeze — appearing to be a 'double hug.'"

Lamb alleged that disciplinary report was targeted discrimination. But a KDOC report said Lamb pleaded guilty to that violation and cited several other examples of Lamb ignoring no-contact orders. Lamb has been managed as a sex offender since 2002, and that status didn't change with her gender change.

The KDOC report said the former warden expected to house Lamb in general population. But that changed after she refused to answer questions about her crimes for the intake evaluation that is used to establish an inmate's psychological health.

Prison officials said the refusal to answer questions was "worrying" because her "most serious crimes are violent actions specifically against women, and because this would be the first time in 50 years that Plaintiff would be cohabitating with women, Plaintiff's refusal to answer was a red flag."

The report added that Lamb's security risk classification was also due to the nature of her crimes and the potential risk to other inmates. She was then placed in restrictive housing to provide individualized planning with a goal to eventually integrate into general population.

The prison report said Lamb has been allowed multiple exceptions to restrictive housing rules, including permission to buy makeup and earrings.

But the prison hasn't ended Lamb' security risk status because her behavior is "predatory towards another resident and manipulative towards security staff."

They cited examples, including when she asked a corrections officer if her genitals "looked good and natural" after the surgery, and when she asked a different officer about her anatomy and sexual habits. Such behavior led to an order from a supervisor that Lamb must always be escorted by two female officers.

More: Inmate seeking gender-affirming surgery moved to women's prison in Topeka

Transgender prison inmate received gender-affirming care at KU

Lamb, 82, was moved in January 2023 to the Topeka prison , the state's only women's prison. She was formerly known as Thomas lamb and was previously an inmate at El Dorado Correctional Facility, a men's prison.

Her convictions include first-degree murder and two counts of aggravated kidnapping in Johnson County in 1970, with at least one of the kidnappings allegedly being part of a scheme to get ransom money to pay for gender-affirming surgery.

When The Topeka Capital-Journal reported on Lamb's move to the women's prison last year, it was unclear if she had received gender-affirming surgery after years of seeking it. At the time, a prison spokesperson declined to discuss it due to patient privacy concerns but said any health care decisions would have been made by the contracted provider, Centurion.

Court documents now confirm that Lamb received gender-affirming surgery at the University of Kanas Health System on Jan. 25, 2023, two days before her transfer to TCF's infirmary.

Lamb was moved to TCF prior to the Legislature enacting Senate Bill 180 last session over Kelly's veto. The law strictly defines males and females based on reproductive anatomy at birth, which means receiving gender-affirming care or presenting as another gender does not change whether the state legally considers someone as male or female.

In a June 2023 opinion, Attorney General Kris Kobach said state law "requires that the Kansas Department of Corrections (KDOC) house only biological females in the specified portion of the Topeka Correctional Facility." But he added that agency policy or practices on housing inmates by sex aren't subject to the law as long as the policy or practice is not a rule or regulation.

Jason Alatidd is a Statehouse reporter for the Topeka Capital-Journal. He can be reached by email at [email protected]. Follow him on X  @Jason_Alatidd .