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• Activism and Social Movements
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Gender & Society promotes feminist scholarship and the social scientific study of gender. Gender & Society publishes theoretically engaged and methodologically rigorous articles that make original contributions to gender theory. The journal takes a multidisciplinary, intersectional, and global approach to gender analyses.

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Gender & Society is a top-ranked, peer-reviewed, sociological journal with a global audience. Articles in Gender & Society analyze gender and gendered processes in interactions, organizations, societies, and global and transnational spaces. The journal primarily publishes empirical articles, which are both theoretically engaged and methodologically rigorous, including both qualitative and quantitative methods. The journal also publishes theoretical articles that meaningfully advance sociological theories about gender. 

Gender & Society receives about 700 manuscripts a year and publishes fewer than five percent of all submissions. Before submitting, it’s important to determine whether Gender & Society is a good fit for your paper. Reading a current issue of the journal may help identify whether G&S is an appropriate outlet for your work. Keeping in mind the journal’s sociological focus and its worldwide reach, do you think the readers who would be most interested in your paper are already reading the journal? Does your paper follow the basic format for most Gender & Society articles? Does your paper focus on gender as a social structure or stratification system, and not only an individual attribute? For example, do you simply document differences between men and women, or do you analyze how and why gender operates as it does? Is an analysis of gender central to your paper’s argument? In addition, does your paper recognize that gendered processes may vary across intersections of race, class, and other global signifiers of identity and social location? Not all papers will analyze across these intersections, but they should recognize that these intersections exist.

Most articles published in Gender & Society fall into one of two categories: empirical articles and theoretical articles, although theoretical articles are relatively rare.

Empirical articles are based on original research using qualitative, quantitative, or mixed methods. This might include data collected through interviews, ethnographies, experiments, surveys, content/narrative analyses, archives, other comparative-historical sources, secondary data, social network analyses, case studies, and participatory action research, including emerging digital methodologies. Submissions should be approximately 9,000 words long. Most published articles are around that length, though a higher word count is sometimes acceptable. While all papers need not follow a specific template, reviewers and readers may be accustomed to seeing research presented in a particular format. For example, an empirical paper might be organized as follows:

• A 150-200 word abstract providing an overview of the paper’s main questions, methods, and contributions.
• A short introduction posing a research question focused on gender and noting the question’s importance. 
• A review of the literature placing the question in its appropriate theoretical and empirical context and making clear how the question has the potential to contribute to existing sociological theory. In some cases, this section might include hypotheses or theoretical expectations, or a section on “background,” which gives necessary information about the context of the study.
• A methods section systematically describing the methods used in collecting the data for the paper. This section should also explain the sampling approach and provide details about the sample. Finally, it should describe how the data was analyzed, providing a summary of how the results section will unfold.
• A results section, which systematically presents the major findings, providing detailed evidence (such as quotes or numbers), and connecting these findings back to theory. This section should consist of thematically organized subsections, to make it easier to follow the paper’s narrative. This should be the longest section of the paper.
• A conclusion reiterating the research question and findings and considering alternative explanations and limitations of the study. This section should identify the paper’s main contributions to gender knowledge and feminist theory, by identifying how the findings have extended, filled a gap, or contradicted previous research and theory.

While not all papers follow this format, it is important that all empirical papers include discussions of both theory and method. You might look at the following recently published articles in Gender & Society as potential models for empirical articles:

Sarah Patterson, Sarah Damaske, and Christen Sheroff

Gender and the MBA: Differences in Career Trajectories, Institutional Support, and Outcomes https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0891243217703630

Heather McLaughlin, Christopher Uggen, and Amy Blackstone

The Economic and Career Effects of Sexual Harassment on Working Women https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0891243217704631

William J. Scarborough, Ray Sin, and Barbara Risman

Attitudes and the Stalled Gender Revolution: Egalitarianism, Traditionalism, and Ambivalence from 1977  through 2016 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0891243218809604

Empirical comparative historical articles do not always follow the same format, but the following article in Gender & Society provides another model, one that is rich with evidence for the arguments that the author makes, but argued in a slightly different style:

Evelyn Nakano Glenn

Yearning for Lightness : Transnational Circuits in the Marketing and Consumption of Skin Lighteners http://gas.sagepub.com/content/22/3/281

Theoretical articles are focused arguments, highlighting key tensions in the literature, and making an argument regarding new theoretical directions. A review of existing literature does not qualify as a theoretical article.  Theoretical pieces should be timely, engaging to a wide audience, and logically presented. Some papers may rely on empirical data but take a “big picture” approach to the topic. Theoretical pieces do not always follow a particular format and may be shorter in length than an empirical article.

All papers published in Gender & Society must carry significant theoretical and empirical weight.

Online Process

Manuscripts should be submitted electronically to  http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/gendsoc . Submitting authors are required to set up an online account on the SageTrack system powered by ScholarOne. Manuscripts that are accepted for review will be sent out anonymously for editorial evaluation. Obtaining permission for any quoted or reprinted material that requires permission is the responsibility of the author. Submission of a manuscript implies commitment to publish in the journal. Authors submitting manuscripts to the journal should not simultaneously submit them to another journal, nor should manuscripts have been published elsewhere in substantially similar form or with substantially similar content. Authors in doubt about what constitutes prior publication should consult the Editor. The online process permits submission of a separate title page, a main manuscript document, and supplementary files. Prior to submission, we recommend consulting the  Gender & Society  Guide to First Submissions, available  here  as well as previous issues of the journal to get a sense of the kind of papers we publish.

Papers should be approximately 9,000 words, including an abstract (150-200 words), notes, and references. All tables, figures, and appendices must be submitted separately from the paper, and should be submitted together in one supplemental file. Authors should consult the  Chicago Manual of Style , Style B, for citations and references, or refer to the  Gender & Society  style manual, available  here . Authors should not number the pages; the online system will number the pages.

Plain Language Summary

A plain language summary (PLS) is an optional addition that can be submitted for any article type that requires an abstract. The plain language title (approx. 50 words) and plain language summary (approx. 300 words) should describe the article using non-technical language, making it accessible to a wider network of readers. More information and guidance on how to write a PLS can be found on our Author Gateway .

The PLS publishes directly below the scientific abstract and are open access making it available online for anyone to read. Peer review of the PLS will be conducted following our PLS reviewer guidelines . When submitting, authors should enter their plain language title and plain language summary into the box provided in the submission system when prompted. The PLS does not need to be provided in the manuscript text or as a separate file. If you are not submitting a PLS with your submission, please enter “N/A” in each box.

If you need professional help writing your Plain Language Summary, please visit our Author Services portal.

Anonymized Review Process

The review process for manuscripts submitted to  Gender & Society  is anonymous; please remove all material from the manuscript that identifies you. Your submission should be anonymized, meaning there is no clear way for reviewers to identify you as the author. All references to your own work should be cited in the third person. Please do not make references to your own work unless they are absolutely necessary; for example, if the reviewer would be able to identify you if a citation was omitted. A reference to any previous work should read: “As Collins (2014) has found…” and NOT like: “As I previously demonstrated… (Collins 2014).” Only include acknowledgements on a separate title page, not on the manuscript document.

For additional information, contact the  Gender & Society  office at  [email protected] .

Book Reviews

Books for review should be sent to Kelsy Burke, Gender & Society Book Review Editor, University of Nebraska – Lincoln, Department of Sociology, 711 Oldfather Hall, Lincoln NE 68588-0324;  [email protected] .

Please note that the journal does not review textbooks, films/DVDs, or books that do not incorporate gender as a central category of analysis. The journal receives far more books than can be reviewed. The journal also does not accept or consider unsolicited book reviews, but instead invites appropriate scholars to review books germane to the scope and mission of  Gender & Society.

Guest Edited Special Issues

Gender & Society occasionally - but not frequently - publishes guest edited special issues. Please  click here  to see the full guidelines on special issues.

If you or your funder wish your article to be freely available online to nonsubscribers immediately upon publication (gold open access), you can opt for it to be included in Sage Choice, subject to payment of a publication fee. The manuscript submission and peer review procedure is unchanged. On acceptance of your article, you will be asked to let Sage know directly if you are choosing Sage Choice. To check journal eligibility and the publication fee, please visit  Sage Choice . For more information on open access options and compliance at Sage, including self author archiving deposits (green open access) visit  Sage Publishing Policies  on our Journal Author Gateway.

Supplementary Materials

This journal is able to host additional materials online (e.g. datasets, podcasts, videos, images etc) alongside the full-text of the article. For more information, please refer to our  guidelines on submitting supplementary files .

Guidelines for First-Time Submissions (2023)

Gender & Society is a top-ranked, peer-reviewed, sociological journal with a global audience. Articles in Gender & Society analyze gender and gendered processes in interactions, organizations, societies, and global and transnational spaces. The journal primarily publishes empirical articles, which are both theoretically engaged and methodologically rigorous, including both qualitative and quantitative methods. The journal also publishes theoretical articles that meaningfully advance sociological theories about gender.

Gender & Society receives nearly 700 manuscripts a year and publishes fewer than 5% of all submissions. Before submitting, it’s important to determine whether Gender & Society is a good fit for your paper. Reading a current issue of the journal may help identify whether G&S is an appropriate outlet for your work. You can access a sample issue here . Keeping in mind the journal’s sociological focus and its worldwide reach, do you think the readers who would be most interested in your paper are already reading the journal? Does your paper follow the basic format for most Gender & Society articles? Does your paper focus on gender as a social structure or stratification system, and not only an individual attribute? For example, do you simply document differences between men and women or across the gender spectrum, or do you analyze how and why gender operates as it does? Is an analysis of gender central to your paper’s argument? In addition, does your paper recognize that gendered processes may vary across intersections of race, class, and other global signifiers of identity and social location? Not all papers will analyze across these intersections, but they should recognize that these intersections exist. 

Most articles published in Gender & Society fall into one of two categories: empirical articles and theoretical articles , although theoretical articles are relatively rare.

All papers published in  Gender & Society must carry significant theoretical and empirical weight.

Online Submission

Manuscripts should be submitted electronically at http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/gendsoc . Submitting authors are required to set up an online account on the Sage Track system powered by ScholarOne. The online process permits submission of a separate title page, a main manuscript document, and supplementary files. Please do not submit any part of your manuscript in .pdf or .xls format; use only MS Word. Your submission should include:

• A separate title page, which includes an author’s note with acknowledgments to funders or colleagues who have commented on your work.
• An anonymized main manuscript document, including the abstract, text, and references, as a MS Word document. “Anonymized” means that you have obscured any references to your own work and have taken out any sentences that might lead readers to identify you. This includes specific references to your institution or funding sources- these belong on your title page. All references to your own work should be cited in the third person. Please do not make references to your own work unless they are absolutely necessary; for example, if the reviewer would be able to identify you if a citation was omitted. A reference to any previous work should read: As Collins (2014) has found… and NOT like: As I previously demonstrated…  (Collins 2014) . 
• If your paper includes tables and/or figures, submit them in ONE MS Word document. All tables and figures must appear in this document; do not submit nine different files if your paper refers to nine tables. Label each table and figure so that they clearly correspond to the appropriate position in the text.  For instance, in the document insert a note such as “[Table 1 about here]” where it would make sense for your table/figure to be located. Please look at recent issues of the journal in thinking about how to format your tables and figures.
• Pages should not be numbered; the online system numbers pages automatically.
• There is no need to submit a cover letter.

Manuscripts accepted for review will be sent out anonymously for editorial evaluation, with reviewers chosen from around the globe. Submission of a manuscript implies commitment to publish in the journal. Authors submitting manuscripts to the journal should not simultaneously submit them to another journal, nor should manuscripts have been published elsewhere in substantially similar form or with substantially similar content. Authors in doubt about what constitutes prior publication should consult the editors. Obtaining permission for any quoted or reprinted material or artwork that requires permission is the responsibility of the author. Manuscripts sent for external review will be under review two to three months from the date the manuscript is submitted.

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Handbook of the Sociology of Gender

This handbook provides a comprehensive view of the field of the sociology of gender. It presents the most important theories about gender and methods used to study gender, as well as extensive coverage of the latest research on gender in the most important areas of social life, including gendered bodies, sexuality, carework, paid labor, social movements, incarceration, migration, gendered violence, and others. Building from previous publications this handbook includes a vast array of chapters from leading researchers in the sociological study of gender. It synthesizes the diverse field of gender scholarship into a cohesive theoretical framework, gender structure theory, in order to position the specific contributions of each author/chapter as part of a complex and multidimensional gender structure. Through this organization of the handbook, readers do not only gain tremendous insight from each chapter, but they also attain a broader understanding of the way multiple gendered processes are interrelated and mutually constitutive. While the specific focus of the handbook is on gender, the chapters included in the volume also give significant attention to the interrelation of race, class, and other systems of stratification as they intersect and implicate gendered processes.

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• Published: 28 April 2020

The impact a-gender: gendered orientations towards research Impact and its evaluation

• J. Chubb   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-9716-820X 1 &
• G. E. Derrick   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-5386-8653 2  

Palgrave Communications volume  6 , Article number:  72 ( 2020 ) Cite this article

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• Science, technology and society

A Correction to this article was published on 19 May 2020

This article has been updated

Using an analysis of two independent, qualitative interview data sets: the first containing semi-structured interviews with mid-senior academics from across a range of disciplines at two research-intensive universities in Australia and the UK, collected between 2011 and 2013 ( n  = 51); and the second including pre- ( n  = 62), and post-evaluation ( n  = 57) interviews with UK REF2014 Main Panel A evaluators, this paper provides some of the first empirical work and the grounded uncovering of implicit (and in some cases explicit) gendered associations around impact generation and, by extension, its evaluation. In this paper, we explore the nature of gendered associations towards non-academic impact (Impact) generation and evaluation. The results suggest an underlying yet emergent gendered perception of Impact and its activities that is worthy of further research and exploration as the importance of valuing the ways in which research has an influence ‘beyond academia’ increases globally. In particular, it identifies how researchers perceive that there are some personality traits that are better orientated towards achieving Impact; how these may in fact be gendered. It also identifies how gender may play a role in the prioritisation of ‘hard’ Impacts (and research) that can be counted, in contrast to ‘soft’ Impacts (and research) that are far less quantifiable, reminiscent of deeper entrenched views about the value of different ‘modes’ of research. These orientations also translate to the evaluation of Impact, where panellists exhibit these tendencies prior to its evaluation and describe the organisation of panel work with respect to gender diversity.

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Introduction.

The management and measurement of the non-academic impact Footnote 1 (Impact) of research is a consistent theme within the higher education (HE) research environment in the UK, reflective of a drive from government for greater visibility of the benefits of research for the public, policy and commercial sectors (Chubb, 2017 ). This is this mirrored on a global scale, particularly in Australia, where, at the ‘vanguard’ (Upton et al., 2014 , p. 352) of these developments, methods were first devised (but were subsequently abandoned) to measure research impact (Chubb, 2017 ; Hazelkorn and Gibson, 2019 ). What is broadly known in both contexts as an ‘Impact Agenda’—the move to forecast and assess the ways in which investment in academic research delivers measurable socio-economic benefit—initially sparked broad debate and in some instances controversy, among the academic community (and beyond) upon its inception (Chubb, 2017 ). Since then, the debate has continued to evolve and the ways in which impact can be better conceptualised and implemented in the UK, including its role in evaluation (Stern, 2016 ), and more recently in grant applications (UKRI, 2020 ) is robustly debated. Notwithstanding attempts to better the culture of equality and diversity in research, (Stern, 2016 ; Nature, 2019 ) in the broader sense, and despite the implementation of the Impact agenda being studied extensively, there has been very little critical engagement with theories of gender and how this translates specifically to more downstream gendered inequities in HE such as through an impact agenda.

The emergence of Impact brought with it many connotations, many of which were largely negative; freedom was questioned, and autonomy was seen to be at threat because of an audit surveillance culture in HE (Lorenz, 2012 ). Resistance was largely characterised by problematising the agenda as symptomatic of the marketisation of knowledge threatening traditional academic norms and ideals (Merton, 1942 ; Williams, 2002 ) and has led to concern about how the Impact agenda is conceived, implemented and evaluated. This concern extends to perceptions of gendered assumptions about certain kinds of knowledge and related activities of which there is already a corpus of work, i.e., in the case of gender and forms of public engagement (Johnson et al., 2014 ; Crettaz Von Roten, 2011 ). This paper explores what it terms as ‘the Impact a-gender’ (Chubb, 2017 ) where gendered notions of non-academic, societal impact and how it is generated feed into its evaluation. It does not wed itself to any feminist tradition specifically, however, draws on Carey et al. ( 2018 ) to examine, acknowledge and therefore amend how the range of policies within HE and how implicit power dynamics in policymaking produce gender inequalities. Instead, an impact fluidity is encouraged and supported. For this paper, this means examining how the impact a-gender feeds into expectations and the reward of non-academic impact. If left unchecked, the propagation of the impact a-gender, it is argued, has the potential to guard against a greater proportion of women generating and influencing the use of research evidence in public policy decision-making.

Scholars continue to reflect on ‘science as a gendered endeavour’ (Amâncio, 2005 ). The extensive corpus of historical literature on gender in science and its originators (Merton, 1942 ; Keller et al., 1978 ; Kuhn, 1962 ), note the ‘pervasiveness’ of the ‘masculine’ and the ‘objective and the scientific’. Indeed, Amancio affirmed in more recent times that ‘modern science was born as an exclusively masculine activity’ ( 2005 ). The Impact agenda raises yet more obstacles indicative of this pervasiveness, which is documented by the ‘Matthew’/‘Matilda’ effect in Science (Merton, 1942 ; Rossiter, 1993 ). Perceptions of gender bias (which Kretschmer and Kretschmer, 2013 hypothesise as myths in evaluative cultures) persist with respect to how gender effects publishing, pay and reward and other evaluative issues in HE (Ward and Grant, 1996 ). Some have argued that scientists and institutions perpetuate such issues (Amâncio, 2005 ). Irrespective of their origin, perceptions of gendered Impact impede evaluative cultures within HE and, more broadly, the quest for equality in excellence in research impact beyond academia.

To borrow from Van Den Brink and Benschop ( 2012 ), gender is conceptualised as an integral part of organisational practices, situated within a social construction of feminism (Lorber, 2005 ; Poggio, 2006 ). This article uses the notion of gender differences and inequality to refer to the ‘ hierarchical distinction in which either women and femininity and men and masculinity are valued over the other ’ (p. 73), though this is not precluding of individual preferences. Indeed, there is an emerging body of work focused on gendered associations not only about ‘types’ of research and/or ‘areas and topics’ (Thelwall et al., 2019 ), but also about what is referred to as non-academic impact. This is with particular reference to audit cultures in HE such as the Research Excellence Framework (REF), which is the UK’s system of assessing the quality of research (Morley, 2003 ; Yarrow and Davies, 2018 ; Weinstein et al., 2019 ). While scholars have long attended to researching gender differences in relation to the marketisation of HE (Ahmed, 2006 ; Bank, 2011 ; Clegg, 2008 ; Gromkowska-Melosik, 2014 ; Leathwood et al., 2008 ), and the gendering of Impact activities such as outreach and public engagement (Ward and Grant, 1996 ), there is less understanding of how far academic perceptions of Impact are gendered. Further, how these gendered tensions influence panel culture in the evaluation of impact beyond academia is also not well understood. As a recent discussion in the Lancet read ‘ the causes of gender disparities are complex and include both distal and proximal factors ’. (Lundine et al., 2019 , p. 742).

This paper examines the ways in which researchers and research evaluators implicitly perceive gender as related to excellence in Impact both in its generation and in its evaluation. Using an analysis of two existing data sets; the pre-evaluation interviews of evaluators in the UK’s 2014 Research Excellence Framework and interviews with mid-senior career academics from across the range of disciplines with experience of building impact into funding applications and/ or its evaluation in two research-intensive universities in the UK and Australia between 2011 and 2013, this paper explores the implicitly gendered references expressed by our participants relating to the generation of non-academic, impact which emerged inductively through analysis. Both data sets comprise researcher perceptions of impact prior to being subjected to any formalised assessment of research Impact, thus allowing for the identification of unconscious gendered orientations that emerged from participant’s emotional and more abstract views about Impact. It notes how researchers use loaded terminology around ‘hard’, and ‘soft’ when conceptualising Impact that is reminiscent of long-standing associations between epistemological domains of research and notions of masculinity/femininity. It refers to ‘hard’ impact as those that are associated with meaning economic/ tangible and efficiently/ quantifiably evaluated, and ‘soft’ as denoting social, abstract, potentially qualitative or less easily and inefficiently evaluated. By extending this analysis to the gendered notions expressed by REF2014 panellists (expert reviewers whose responsibility it is to review the quality of the retrospective impact articulated in case studies for the purposes of research evaluation) towards the evaluation of Impact, this paper highlights how instead of challenging these tendencies, shared constructions of Impact and gendered productivity in academia act to amplify and embed these gendered notions within the evaluation outcomes and practice. It explores how vulnerable seemingly independent assessments of Impact are to these widespread gendered- associations between Impact, engagement and success. Specifically, perceptions of the excellence and judgements of feasibility relating to attribution, and causality within the narrative of the Impact case study become gendered.

The article is structured as follows. First, it reviews the gender-orientations towards notions of ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ excellence in forms of scholarly distinction and explores how this relates to the REF Impact evaluation criteria, and the under-representation of women in the academic workforce. Specifically, it hypothesises the role of how gendered notions of excellence that construct academic identities contribute to a system that side-lines women in academia. This is despite associating the generation of Impact as a feminised skill. We label this as the ‘Impact a-gender’. The article then outlines the methodology and how the two, independent databases were combined and convergent themes developed. The results are then presented from academics in the UK and Australia and then from REF2014 panellists. This describes how the Impact a-gender currently operates through academic cultural orientations around Impact generation, and in its evaluation through peer-review panels by members of this same academic culture. The article concludes with a recommendation that the Impact a-gender be explored more thoroughly as a necessary step towards guiding against gender- bias in the academic evaluation, and reward system.

Literature review

Notions of impact excellence as ‘hard’ or ‘soft’.

Scholars have long attempted to consider the commonalities and differences across certain kinds of knowledge (Becher, 1989 , 1994 ; Biglan, 1973a ) and attempts to categorise, divide and harmonise the disciplines have been made (Biglan, 1973a , 1973b ; Becher, 1994 ; Caplan, 1979 ; Schommer–Aikins et al., 2003 ). Much of this was advanced with a typology of the disciplines from (Trowler, 2001 ), which categorised the disciplines as ‘hard’ or ‘soft’. Both anecdotally and in the literature, ‘soft’ science is associated with working more with people and less with ‘things’ (Cassell, 2002 ; Thelwall et al., 2019 ). These dichotomies often lead to a hierarchy of types of Impact and oppose valuation of activities based on their gendered connotations.

Biglan’s system of classifying disciplines into groups based on similarities and differences denotes particular behaviours or characteristics, which then form part of clusters or groups—‘pure’, ‘applied’, ‘soft’, ‘hard’ etc. Simpson ( 2017 ) argues that Biglan’s classification persists as one of the most commonly referred to models of the disciplines despite the prominence of some others (Pantin, 1968 ; Kuhn, 1962 ; Smart et al., 2000 ). Biglan ( 1973b ) classified the disciplines across three dimensions; hard and soft, pure and applied, life and non-life (whether the research is concerned with living things/organisms) . This ‘taxonomy of the disciplines’ states that ‘pure-hard’ domains tend toward the life and earth sciences,’pure-soft’ the social sciences and humanities, and ‘applied hard’ focus on engineering and physical science with ‘soft-applied’ tending toward professional practice such as nursing, medicine and education. Biglan’s classification looked at levels of social connectedness and specifically found that applied scholars Footnote 2 were more socially connected, more interested and involved in service activities, and more likely to publish in the form of technical reports than their counterparts in the pure (hard) areas of study. This resonates with how Impact brings renewed currency and academic prominence to applied researchers (Chubb, 2017 ). Historically, scholars inhabiting the ‘hard’ disciplines had a greater preference for research; whereas, scholars representing soft disciplines had a greater preference for teaching (Biglan, 1973b ). Further, Biglan ( 1973b ) also found that hard science scholars sought out greater collaborative efforts among colleagues when teaching as opposed to their soft science counterparts.

There are also long-standing gendered associations and connotations with notions of ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ (Storer, 1967 ). Typically used to refer to skills, but also used heavily with respect to the disciplines and knowledge domains, gendered assumptions and the mere use of ‘hard’ or ‘soft’ to describe knowledge production carries with it assumptions, which are often noted in the literature; ‘ we think of physics as hard and of political science as soft ’, Storer explains, adding how ‘hard seems to imply tough, brittle, impenetrable and strong, while soft on the other hand calls to mind the qualities of weakness, gentleness and malleability’ (p. 76). As described, hard science is typically associated with the natural sciences and quantitative paradigms whereas normative perceptions of feminine ‘soft’ skills or ‘soft’ science are often equated with qualitative social science. Scholars continue to debate dichotomised paradigms or ‘types’ of research or knowledge (Gibbons, 1999 ), which is emblematic of an undercurrent of epistemological hierarchy of the value of different kinds of knowledge. Such debates date back to the heated back and forth between scholars Snow (Snow, 2012 ) and literary critic Leavis who argued for their own ‘cultures’ of knowledge. Notwithstanding, these binary distinctions do few favours when gender is then ascribed to either knowledge domain or related activity (Yarrow and Davies, 2018 ). This is particularly pertinent in light of the current drive for more interdisciplinary research in the science system where there is also a focus on fairness, equality and diversity in the science system.

Academic performance and the Impact a-gender

Audit culture in academia impacts unfairly on women (Morley, 2003 ), and is seen as contributory to the wide gender disparities in academia, including the under-representation of women as professors (Ellemers et al., 2004 ), in leadership positions (Carnes et al., 2015 ), in receiving research acknowledgements (Larivière et al., 2013 ; Sugimoto et al., 2015 ), or being disproportionately concentrated in non-research-intensive universities (Santos and Dang Van Phu, 2019 ). Whereas gender discrimination also manifests in other ways such as during peer review (Lee and Noh, 2013 ), promotion (Paulus et al., 2016 ), and teaching evaluations (Kogan et al., 2010 ), the proliferation of an audit culture links gender disparities in HE to processes that emphasise ‘quantitative’ analysis methods, statistics, measurement, the creation of ‘experts’, and the production of ‘hard evidence’. The assumption here is that academic performance and the metrics used to value, and evaluate it, are heavily gendered in a way that benefits men over women, reflecting current disparities within the HE workforce. Indeed, Morely (2003) suggests that the way in which teaching quality is female dominated and research quality is male dominated, leads to a morality of quality resulting in the larger proportion of women being responsible for student-focused services within HE. In addition, the notion of ‘excellence’ within these audit cultures implicitly reflect images of masculinity such as rationality, measurement, objectivity, control and competitiveness (Burkinshaw, 2015 ).

The association of feminine and masculine traits in academia (Holt and Ellis, 1998 ), and ‘gendering its forms of knowledge production’ (Clegg, 2008 ), is not new. In these typologies, women are largely expected to be soft-spoken, nurturing and understanding (Bellas, 1999 ) yet often invisible and supportive in their ‘institutional housekeeping’ roles (Bird et al., 2004 ). Men, on the other hand are often associated with being competitive, ambitious and independent (Baker, 2008 ). When an individual’s behaviour is perceived to transcend these gendered norms, then this has detrimental effects on how others evaluate their competence, although some traits displayed outside of these typologies go somewhat ‘under the radar’. Nonetheless, studies show that women who display leadership qualities (competitiveness, ambition and decisiveness) are characterised more negatively than men (Rausch, 1989 ; Heilman et al., 1995 ; Rossiter, 1993 ). Incongruity between perceptions of ‘likeability’ and ‘competence’ and its relationship to gender bias is present in evaluations in academia, where success is dependent on the perceptions of others and compounded within an audit culture (Yarrow and Davis, 2018). This has been seen in peer review, reports for men and women applicants, where women were disadvantaged by the same characteristics that were seen as a strength on proposals by men (Severin et al., 2019 ); as well as in teaching evaluations where women receive higher evaluations if they are perceived as ‘nurturing’ and ‘supportive’ (Kogan et al., 2010 ). This results in various potential forms of prejudice in academia: Where traits normally associated with masculinity are more highly valued than those associated with femininity (direct) or when behaviour that is generally perceived to be ‘masculine’ is enacted by a woman and then perceived less favourably (indirect/ unconscious). That is not to mention direct sexism, rather than ‘through’ traits; a direct prejudice.

Gendered associations of Impact are not only oversimplified but also incredibly problematic for an inclusive, meaningful Impact agenda and research culture. Currently, in the UK, the main funding body for research in the UK, UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) uses a broad Impact definition: ‘ the demonstrable contribution that excellent research makes to society and the economy ’ (UKRI website, 2019 ). The most recent REF, REF2014, Impact was defined as ‘ …an effect on, change or benefit to the economy, society, culture, public policy or services, health, the environment or quality of life, beyond academia ’. In Australia, the Australian Research Council (ARC) proposed that researchers should ‘embed’ Impact into the research process from the outset. Both Australia and the UK have been engaged in policy borrowing around the evaluation of societal impact and share many similarities in approaches to generating and evaluating it. Indeed, Impact has been deliberately conceptualised by decision-makers, funders and governments as broad in order to increase the appearance of being inclusivity, to represent a broad range of disciplines, as well as to reflect the ‘diverse ways’ that potential beneficiaries of academic research can be reached ‘beyond academia’. The adoption of societal impact as a formalised criterion in the evaluation of research excellence was initially perceived to be potentially beneficial for women, due to its emphasis on concepts such as ‘public engagement’; ‘duty’ and non-academic ‘cooperation/collaboration’ (Yarrow and Davies, 2018 ). In addition, the adoption of narrative case studies to demonstrate Impact, rather than adopting a complete metrics-focused exercise, can also be seen as an opportunity for women to demonstrate excellence in the areas where they are over-represented, such as teaching, cultural enrichment, public engagement (Andrews et al., 2005 ), informing public policy and improving public services (Schatteman, 2014 ; Wheatle and BrckaLorenz, 2015). However, despite this, studies highlight how for the REF2014, only 25% of Impact Case Studies for business and management studies were from women (Davies et al., 2020 ).

With respect to Impact evaluation, previous research shows that there is a direct link between notions of academic culture, and how research (as a product of that culture) is valued and evaluated (Leathwood and Reid, 2008 ; p. 120). Geertz ( 1983 ) argues that academic membership is a ‘cultural frame that defines a great part of one’s life’ influences belief systems around how academic work is orientated. This also includes gendered associations implicit in the academic reward system, which in turn influences how academics believe success is to be evaluated, and in what form that success emerges. This has implications in how academic associations of the organisation of research work and the ongoing constructions of professional identity relative to gender, feeds into how these same academics operate as evaluators within a peer review system evaluation. In this case, instead of operating to challenge these tendencies, shared constructions of gendered academic work are amplified to the extent that they unconsciously influence perceptions of excellence and the judgements of feasibility as pertaining to the attribution and causality of the narrative argument. As such, in an evaluation of Impact with its ambiguous definition (Derrick, 2018 ), and the lack of external indicators to signal success independent of cultural constructions inherent in the panel membership, effects are assumed to be more acute. In this way, this paper argues that the Impact a-gender can act to further disadvantage women.

The research combines two existing research data sets in order to explore implicit notions of gender associated with the generation and evaluation of research Impact beyond academia. Below the two data sets and the steps involved in analysing and integrating findings are described along with our theoretical positioning within the feminist literature Where verbatim quotation is used, we have labelled the participants according to each study highlighting their role and gender. Further, the evaluator interviews specify the disciplinary panel and subpanel to which they belonged, as well as their evaluation responsibilities such as: ‘Outputs only’; ‘Outputs and Impact’; and ‘Impacts only’.

Analysis of qualitative data sets

This research involved the analysis and combination of two independently collected, qualitative interview databases. The characteristics and specifics of both databases are outlined below.

Interviews with mid-senior academics in the UK and Australia

Fifty-one semi-structured interviews were conducted between 2011 and 2013 with mid-senior academics at two research-intensive universities in Australia and the UK. The interviews were 30–60 min long and participants were sourced via the research offices at both sites. Participants were contacted via email and invited to participate in a study concerning resistance towards the Impact agenda in the UK and Australia and were specifically asked for their perceptions of its relationship with freedom, value and epistemic responsibility and variations across discipline, career stage and national context. Mostly focused on ex ante impact, some interviewees also described their experiences of Impact in the UK and Australia, in relation to its formal assessment as part of the Excellence Innovation Australia (EIA) for Australia and the Research Excellence Framework (REF) in the UK.

Participants comprised mid to senior career academics with experience of winning funding from across the range of disciplines broadly representative of the arts and humanities, social sciences, physical science, maths and engineering and the life and earth sciences. For the purposes of this paper, although participant demographic information was collected, the relationship between the gender of the participants, their roles, disciplines/career stage was not explicitly explored instead, such conditions were emergent in the subsequent inductive coding during thematic analysis. A reflexive log was collected in order to challenge and draw attention to assumptions and underlying biases, which may affect the author, inclusive of their own gender identity. Further information on this is provided in Chubb ( 2017 ).

Pre- and post-evaluation interviews with REF2014 evaluators

REF2014 in the UK represented the world’s first formalised evaluation of ex-post impact, comprising of 20% of the overall evaluation. This framework served as a unique experimental environment with which to explore baseline tendencies towards impact as a concept and evaluative object (Derrick, 2018 ).

Two sets of semi-structured interviews were conducted with willing participants: sixty-two panellists were interviewed from the UK’s REF2014 Main Panel A prior to the evaluation taking place; and a fifty-seven of these were re-interviewed post-evaluation. Main Panel A covers six Sub-panels: (1) Clinical Medicine; (2) Public Health, Health Services and Primary Care; (3) Allied Health Professions, Dentistry, Nursing and Pharmacy; (4) Psychology, Psychiatry and Neuroscience; (5) Biological Sciences; and (6) Agriculture, Veterinary and Food Sciences. Again, the relationship between the gender of the participants and their discipline is not the focus for the purposes of this paper.

Database combination and identification of common emergent themes

The inclusion of data sets using both Australian and UK researchers was pertinent to this study as both sites were at the cusp of implementing the evaluation of Impact formally. These researcher interviews, as well as the evaluator interviews were conducted prior to any formalised Impact evaluation took place, but when both contexts required ex ante impact in terms of certain funding allocation, meaning an analysis of these baseline perceptions between databases was possible. Further, the inclusion of the post-evaluation interviews with panellists in the UK allowed an exploration of how these gendered perceptions identified in the interviews with researchers and panellists prior to the evaluation, influenced panel behaviour during the evaluation of Impact.

Initially, both data sets were analysed using similar, inductive, grounded-theory-informed approaches inclusive of a discourse and thematic analysis of the language used by participants when describing impact, which allowed for the drawing out of metaphor (Zinken et al., 2008 ). This allowed data combination and analysis of the two databases to be conducted in line with the recommendations for data-synthesis as outlined in Weed ( 2005 ) as a form of interpretation. This approach guarded against the quantification of qualitative findings for the purposes of synthesis, and instead focused on an initial dialogic approach between the two authors (Chubb and Derrick), followed by a re-analysis of qualitative data sets (Heaton, 1998 ) in line with the outcomes of the initial author-dialogue as a method of circumventing many of the drawbacks associated with qualitative data-synthesis. Convergent themes from each, independently analysed data set were discussed between authors, before the construction of new themes that were an iterative analysis of the combined data set. Drawing on the feminist tradition the authors did not apply feminist standpoint theory, instead a fully inductive approach was used to unearth rich empirical data. An interpretative and inductive approach to coding the data using NVIVO software in both instances was used and a reflexive log maintained. The availability of both full, coded, qualitative data sets, as well as the large sample size of each, allowed this data-synthesis to happen.

Researcher’s perceptions of Impact as either ‘hard’ or ‘soft’

Both UK and Australian academic researchers (researchers) perceive a guideline of gendered productivity (Davies et al., 2017 ; Sax et al., 2002 ; Astin, 1978 ; Ward and Grant, 1996 ). This is where men or women are being dissuaded (by their inner narratives, their institutions or by colleagues) from engaging in Impact either in preference to other (more masculine) notions of academic productivity, or towards softer (for women) because they consider themselves and are considered by others to be ‘good at it’. Participants often gendered the language of Impact and introduced notions of ‘hard’ and ‘soft’. On the one hand, this rehearses and resurfaces long-standing views about the ‘Matthew Effect’ because often softer Impacts were seen as being of less value by participants, but also indicates that the word impact itself carries its own connotations, which are then weighed down further by more entrenched gender associations.

Our research shows that when describing Impact, it was not necessarily the masculinity or femininity of the researcher that was emphasised by participants, rather researchers made gendered presumptions around the type of Impact, or the activity used to generate it as either masculine or feminine. Some participants referred to their own research or others’ research as either ‘hard’ or as ‘soft and woolly’. Those who self-professed that their research was ‘soft’ or woolly’ felt that their research was less likely to qualify as having ‘hard’ impact in REF terms Footnote 3 ; instead, they claimed their research would impact socially, as opposed to economically; ‘ stuff that’s on a flaky edge — it’s very much about social engagement ’ (Languages, Australia, Professor, Male) . One researcher described Impact as ‘a nasty Treasury idea,’ comparing it to: a tsunami, crashing over everything which will knock out stuff that is precious ’ . (Theatre, Film and TV, UK, Professor, Male) . This imagery associates the concept of impact with force and weight (or hardness as mentioned earlier) particularly in disciplines where the effect of their research may be far more nuanced and subtle. One Australian research used force to depict the impact of teaching and claimed Impact was like a footprint, and teaching was ‘ a pretty heavy imprint ’ (Environment, UK, Professor, Male) . Participants characterised ‘force and weight’ as masculine, suggesting that some connotations of Impact and the associated activities may be gendered. The word ‘Impact’ was inherently perceived by many researchers as problematic, bound with linguistic connotations and those imposed by the official definitions, which in many cases are perceived as negative or maybe even gendered (Chubb, 2017 ): ‘ The etymology of a word like impact is interesting. I’ve always seen what I do as being a more subtle incremental engagement, relevance, a contribution ’. (Theatre, Film and TV, UK, Professor, Male) .

Researchers associated the word ‘impact’ with hard-ness, weight and force; ‘ anything that sorts of hits you ’ (Languages, UK, Senior Lecturer, Female) . One researcher suggested that Impact ‘ sounds kind of aggressive — the poor consumer! ’ (History, Australia, Professor, Female) . Talking about her own research in the performing arts, one Australian researcher commented: ‘ It’s such a pain in the arse because the Arts don’t fit the model. But in a way they do if you look at the impact as being something quite soft ’ (Music, Australia, Professor, Female) . Likewise, a similar comparison was seen by a female researcher from the mechanical engineering discipline: ‘ My impact case study wasn’t submitted mainly because I’m dealing with that slightly on the woolly side of things ’ (Mechanical Engineering, Australia, Professor, Female) . Largely, gender related comments hailed from the ‘hard’ science and from arts and humanities researchers. Social scientists commented less, and indeed, one levelled that Impact was perhaps less a matter of gender, and more a matter of ability (Chubb, 2017 ): ‘ It’s about being articulate! Both guys and women who are very articulate and communicate well are outward looking on all of these things ’ ( Engineering Education, Australia, Professor, Female).

Gendered notions of performativity were also very pronounced by evaluators who were assessing the outputs only, suggesting how these panel cultures are orientated around notions of gender and scientific outputs as ‘hard’ if represented by numbers. The focus on numbers was perceived by the following panellist as ‘ a real strong tendency particularly amongst the Alpha male types ’ within the panel that relate to findings about the association of certain traits—risk aversion, competitiveness, for example, with a masculinised market logic in HE;

And I like that a lot because I think that there is a real strong tendency particularly amongst the Alpha male types of always looking at the numbers, like the numbers and everything. And I just did feel that steer that we got from the panel chairs, both of them were men by the way, but they were very clear, the impact factors and citations and the rank order of a journal is this is information that can be useful, but it’s not your immediate first stop. (Panel 1, Outputs and Impact, Female)

However, a metric-dominant approach was not the result of a male-dominated panel environment and instead, to the panels credit, evaluators were encouraged not to use one-metric as the only deciding factor between star-rating of quality. However, this is not to suggest that metrics did not play a dominant role. In fact, in order to resolve arguments, evaluators were encouraged to ‘ reflect on these other metrics ’ (Panel 3, Outputs only, Male) in order to rectify arguments where the assessment of quality was in conflict. This use of ‘other metrics’ was preferential to a resolution of differences that are based on more ‘soft’ arguments that are based on understanding where differences in opinion might lie in the interpretation of the manuscript’s quality. Instead, the deciding factor in resolving arguments would be the responsibility, primarily, of a ‘hard’ concept of quality as dictated by a numerical value;

Read the paper, judge the quality, judge the originality, the rigour, the impact — if you have to because you’re in dispute with another assessor, then reflect on these other metrics. So I don’t think metrics are that helpful actually if and until you’ve got a real issue to be able to make a decision. But I worry very much that metrics are just such a simple way of making the process much easier, and I’m worried about that because I think there’s a bit of game playing going on with impact factors and that kind of thing. (Panel 3, Outputs Only, Male)

Table 1 outlines the emergent themes, which, through inductive coding participants broadly categorised domains of research, their qualities and associations, types of activities and the gendered assumption generally made by participants when describing that activity. The table is intended only to provide an indicative overview of the overall tendencies of participants toward certain narratives as is not exhaustive, as well as a guide to interpret the perceptions of Impact illustrated in the below results.

Table one describes the dichotomous views that seemed to emerge from the research but it’s important to note that researchers associated Impact as related to gender in subtle, and in some cases overt ways. The data suggests that some male participants felt that female academics might be better at Impact, suggesting that female academics might find it liberating, linked it to a sense of duty or public service, implying that it was second nature. In addition, some male participants associated types of Impact domains as female-orientated activity and the reverse was the case with female and male-orientated ‘types’ of Impact. For example, at one extreme, a few male researchers seemed to perceive public engagement as something, which females would be particularly good at, generalising that they are not competitive ‘ women are better at this! They are less competitive! ’ (Environment, UK, Professor, Male) . Indeed, one male researcher suggested that competitiveness actually helps academics have an impact and does not impede it:

I get a huge buzz from trying to communicate those to a wider audience and winning arguments and seeing them used. It’s not the use that motivates me it’s the process of winning, I’m competitive! (Economics, UK, Professor, Male)

Analysis also revealed evidence that some researchers has gendered perceptions of Impact activities just as evaluators did. Here, women were more likely to promote the importance of engaging in Impact activities, whereas men were focused on producing indicators with hard, quantitative indicators of success. Some researchers implied that public engagement was not something entirely associated with the kinds of Impact needed to advance one’s career and for a few male researchers, this was accordingly associated with female academics. Certain female researchers in the sciences and the arts suggested similarly that there was a strong commitment among women to carry out public engagement, but that this was not necessarily shared by their male counterparts who, they perceived, undervalued this kind of work:

I think the few of us women in the faculty will grapple with that a lot about the relevance of what we’re doing and the usefulness, but for the vast majority of people it’s not there… [She implies that]…I think there is a huge gender thing there that every woman that you talk to on campus would consider that the role of the university is along the latter statement (*to communicate to the public). The vast majority of men would not consider that’s a role of the university. There’s a strong gender thing. (Chemical Engineering, Australia, Professor, Female)

Notwithstanding, it is important to distinguish between engagement and Impact. This research shows that participants perceive Impact activities to be gendered. There was a sense from one arts female researcher that women might be more interested in getting out there and communicating their work but that crucially, it is not the be-all and end- all of doing research: ‘ Women feel that there’s something more liberating, I can empathise with that, but that couldn’t be the whole job ’. Music, Australia, Professor, Female Footnote 4 . When this researcher, who was very much orientated towards Impact, asked if there were enough interviewees, she added ‘ mind you, you’ve probably spoken to enough men in lab coats ’. This could imply that inward-facing roles are associated with male-orientated activity and outward facing roles as perceived as more female orientated. Such sentiments perhaps relate to a binary delineation of women as more caring, subjective, applied and of men as harder, scientific and theoretical/ rational. This links to a broader characterisation of HE as marketised and potentially, more ‘male’ or at least masculinised—where increasing competitiveness, marketisation and performativity can be seen as linked to an increasingly macho way of doing business (Blackmore, 2002 ; Deem, 1998 ; Grummell et al., 2009 ; Reay, n.d. ). The data is also suggestive of the attitude that communication is a ‘soft’ skill and the interpersonal is seen as a less masculine trait. ‘ This is a huge generalisation but I still say that the profession is so dominated by men, undergraduates are so dominated by men and most of those boys will come into engineering because they’re much more comfortable dealing with a computer than with people ’ (Chemical Engineering, Australia, Professor, Female) . Again, this suggests women are more likely to pursue those scientific subjects, which will make a difference or contribute to society (such as nursing or environmental research, certainly those subjects that would be perceived as less ‘hard’ science domains).

There was also a sense that Impact activity, namely in this case public engagement and community work, was associated with women more than men by some participants (Amâncio, 2005 ). However, public engagement and certain social impact domains appeared to have a lower status and intellectual worth in the eyes of some participants. Some inferred that social and ‘soft’ impacts are seen as associated. With discipline. For instance, research concerning STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Medicine) subjects with females. They in turn may be held in low esteem. Some of the accounts suggest that soft impacts are perceived by women as not ‘counting’ as Impact:

‘ At least two out of the four of us who are female are doing community service and that doesn’t count, we get zero credit, actually I would say it gets negative credit because it takes time away from everything else ’. (Education Engineering, Australia, Professor, Female)

This was intimated again by another female UK computer scientist who claimed that since her work was on the ‘woolly side’ of things, and her impacts were predominantly in the social and public domain, she would not be taken seriously enough to qualify as a REF Impact case study, despite having won an award for her work:

‘ I don’t think it helps that if I were a male professor doing the same work I might be taken more seriously. It’s interesting, why recently? Because I’ve never felt that I’ve not been taken seriously because I’m a woman, but something happened recently and I thought, oh, you’re not taking me seriously because I’m a woman. So I think it’s a part ’. (Computer Science, UK, Professor, Female)

Researchers also connect the ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ associations with Impact described earlier to male and female traits. The relationship between Impact and gender is not well understood and it is not clear how much these issues are directly relatable to Impact or more symptomatic of the broader picture in HE. In order to get a broader picture, it is important to examine how these gendered notions of Impact translate into its evaluation. Some participants suggested that gender is a factor in the securing of grant money—certainly this comment reveals a local speculation that ‘the big boys’ get the grants, in Australia, at least: ‘ ARC grants? I’ve had a few but nothing like the big boys that get one after the other ,’ (Chemical Engineering, Australia, Professor, Female) . This is not dissimilar to the ‘alpha male’ comments from the evaluators described below who note a tendency for male evaluators to rely on ‘hard’ numbers whose views are further examined in the following section.

Gendered excellence in Impact evaluation

In the pre-evaluation interviews, panellists were asked about what they perceived to be ‘excellent’ research and ‘excellent’ Impact. Within this context, are mirrored conceptualisations of impacts as either ‘soft’ or ‘hard’ as was seen with the interviews with researchers described above. These conceptualisations were captured prior to the evaluation began. They can therefore be interpreted as the raw, baseline assumptions of Impact that are free from the effects of the panel group, showed that there were differences in how evaluators perceived Impact, and that these perceptions were gendered.

Although all researchers conceptualised Impact as a linear process for the purposes of the REF2014 exercise (Derrick, 2018 ), there was a tendency for female evaluators to be open to considering the complexity of Impact, even in a best-case scenario. This included a consideration that Impact as dictated within the narrative might have different indicators of value to different evaluators; ‘ I just think that that whole framing means that there is a form of normative standard of perfect impact ’ (Main Panel, Outputs and Impacts, Female) . This evaluator, in particular, went further to state how that their impression of Impact would be constructed from the comparators available during the evaluation;

‘ Given that I’m presenting impact as a good story, it would be like you saying to me; ‘Can you describe to me a perfect Shakespearean play?’…. well now of course, I can’t. You can give me lots of plays but they all have different kinds of interesting features. Different people would say that their favourite play was different. To me, if you’re taking interpretivist view, constructivist view, there is no perfect normative standard. It’s just not possible ’. (Panel 1, Outputs and Impacts, Female)

Female evaluators were also more sensitive to other complex factors influencing the evaluation of Impact, including time lag; ‘ …So it takes a long time for things like that to be accepted…it took hundreds of studies before it was generally accepted as real ’ (Panel 1, Outputs and Impacts, Female ); as well as the indirect way that research influences policy as a form of Impact;

‘ I don’t think that anything would get four stars without even blinking. I think that is impossible to answer because you have to look at the whole evidence in this has gone on, and how that does link to the impact that is being claimed, and then you would then have to look at how that impact, exactly how that research has impacted on the ways of the world, in terms of change or in terms of society or whatever. I don’t think you can see this would easily get four stars because of the overall process is being looked at, as well as the actual outcome ’ . (Panel 3, Outputs and Impact, Female)

Although these typologies were not absolute, there was a lack of complexity in the nuances around Impact. There was also heavily gendered language around Impacts as measurable, or not, that mirrored the association of Impact as being either ‘hard’, and therefore measurable, or ‘soft, and therefore more nuanced in value. In this way, male evaluators expressed Impact as a causal, linear event that occurred ‘ in a very short time ’ (P2, Outputs and Impact, Male) and involved a single ‘ star ’ (P3, Impacts only, Male) or ‘ impact champion ’ (Main Panel, Outputs and Impacts, Male) that drove it from start (research), to finish (Impact). These associations about Impact being ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ made by evaluators, mirror the responses from researchers in the above sections. In the example below, the evaluator used words such as ‘ strong ’ and ‘ big way ’ to describe Impact success, as well as emphasises causality in the argument;

‘ …if it has affected a lot of people or affected policy in a strong way or created change in a big way, and it can be clearly linked back to the research, and it’s made a difference ’. (Panel 2, Outputs and Impact, Male)

These perhaps show disciplinary differences as much as gendered differences. Further, there was a stronger tendency for male evaluators to strive towards conceptualisations of excellence in Impact as measurable or ‘ it’s something that is decisive and actionable ’ (Panel 6, Impacts, Male) . One male evaluator explained his conceptualised version of Impact excellence as ‘ straightforward ’ and therefore ‘ obviously four-star ’ due to the presence of metrics with which to measure Impact. This was a perception more commonly associated with male evaluators;

‘ …if somebody has been able to devise a — let’s say pancreatic cancer — which is a molecular cancer, which hasn’t made any progress in the last 40 years, and where the mortality is close to 100% after diagnosis, if someone devised a treatment where now suddenly, after diagnosis of pancreatic cancer, 90 percent of the people are now still alive 5 years later, where the mortality rate is almost 0%, who are alive after 5 years. That, of course, would be a dramatic, transformative impact ’. (Panel 1, Outputs and Impact, Male)

In addition, his tendency to seek various numeric indicators for measuring, and therefore assessing Impact (predominantly economic impact), as well as compressing its realisation to a small period of time ( ‘ suddenly ’ ) in a causal fashion, was more commonly expressed in male evaluators. This tendency automatically indicates the association of impacts as either ‘soft’ or ‘hard’ and divided along gendered norms, but also expresses Impact in monetary terms;

‘ Something that went into a patient or the company has pronounced with…has spun out and been taken up by a commercial entity or a clinical entity ’ (Panel 3, Outputs and Impacts, Male) , as well as impacts that are marketised; ‘ A new antimicrobial drug to market ’. (Panel 6, Outputs and Impact, Male) .

There was also the perception that female academics would be better at engagement (Johnson et al., 2014 ; Crettaz Von Roten, 2011 ) due to its link with notions of ‘ duty ’ (as a mother), ‘ engagement ’ and ‘ public service ’ are reflected in how female evaluators were also more open to the idea that excellent Impact is achieved through productive, ongoing partnerships with non-academic stakeholders. Here, the reflections of ‘duty’ from the evaluators was also mirrored by in interviews with researchers. Indeed, the researchers merged perceptions of parenthood, an academic career and societal impact generation. One female researcher drew on her role as a mother as supportive of her ability to participate in Impact generation, ‘ I have kids that age so… ’ (Biology, UK, Senior Lecturer, Female) . Indeed, parenthood emerged from researchers of both genders in relation to the Impact agenda. Two male participants spoke positively about the need to transfer knowledge of all kinds to society referencing their role as parents: ‘ I’m all for that. I want my kids to have a rich culture when they go to school ’ (Engineering, Australia, Professor, Male, E2) , and ‘ My children are the extension of my biological life and my students are an extension of my thoughts ’ (Engineering, Australia, Professor, Male, E1) . One UK female biologist commented that she indeed enjoys delivering public engagement and outreach and implies a reference to having a family as enabling her ability to do so: ‘ It’s partly being involved with the really well-established outreach work ,’ (Biology, UK, Senior Lecturer, Female) .

For the evaluators, the idea that ‘public service’ as second nature for female academics, was reflected in how female evaluators perceived the long, arduous and serendipitous nature of Impact generation, as well as their commitment to assessing the value of Impact as a ‘pathway’ rather than in line with impact as a ‘product’. Indeed, this was highlighted by one male evaluator who suggested that the measurement and assessment of Impact ‘ …needs to be done by economists ’ and that

‘ you [need] to put in some quantification one everything…[that] puts a negative value on being sick and a positive large value on living longer. So, yeah, the greatest impact would be something that saves us money and generates income for the country but something broad and improves quality of life ’. (Panel 2, Impacts, Male)

Since evaluators tend to exercise cognitive bias in evaluative situations (Langfeldt, 2006 ), these preconceived ideas about Impact, its generation and the types of people responsible for its success are also likely to permeate the evaluative deliberations around Impact during the peer review process. What is uncertain is the extent that these messages are dominant within the panel discourse, and therefore the extent that they influence the formation of a consensus within the group, and the ‘dominant definition’ of Impact (Derrick, 2018 ) that emerges as a result.

Notions of gender from the evaluators post-evaluation

Similar notions of gender-roles in academia pertaining to notions of scientific productivity were echoed by academics who were charged with its evaluation as part of the UK’s 2014 Research Excellence Framework. Interviews with evaluators revealed not only that the panel working-methods and characteristics about what constituted a ‘good’ evaluator were implicitly along gendered norms, but also that the assumed credit assumptions of performativity were also based on gender.

In assessments of the Impact criterion, an assessment that is not as amenable to quantitative representation requiring panels to conceptualise a very complex process, with unstandardised measures of significance and reach, there was still a gendered perception of Impact being ‘women’s work’ in academia. This perception was based on the tendency towards conceptualising Impact as ‘slightly grubby’ and ‘not very pure’, which echoes previously reported pre-REF2014 tensions that Impact is a task that an academic does when they cannot do real research (de Jong et al., 2015 );

But I would say that something like research impact is — it seems something slightly grubby. It’s not seen as not — by the academics, as not very pure. To some of them, it seems women’s work. Talking to the public, do you see what I mean? (Main Panel, Outputs and Impact, Female)

In addition, gendered roles also relate to how the panel worked with the assessment of Impact. Previous research has outlined how the equality and diversity assessment of panels for REF2014 were not conducted until after panellists were appointed (Derrick, 2018 ), leading to a lack of equal-representation of women on most panels. Some of the female panellists reflected that this resulted not only in a hyper-awareness of one’s own identity and value as a woman on the panel, but also implicitly associating the role that a female panellist would play in generating the evaluation. One panellist below, reflected that she was the only female in a male-dominated panel, and that the only other females in the room were the panel secretariat. The panellist goes further to explain how this resulted in a gendered-division of labour surrounding the assessment of Impact;

I mean, there’s a gender thing as well which isn’t directing what you’re talking about what you’re researching, but I was the only woman on the original appointed panel. The only other women were the secretariat. In some ways I do — there was initially a very gendered division of perspective where the women were all the ones aggregate the quantitative research, or typing it all up or talking about impact whereas the men were the ones who represented the big agenda, big trials. (Main Panel, Outputs and Impact, Female)

In addition, evaluators expressed opinions about what constituted a good and a bad panel member. From this, the evaluation showed that traits such as the ability to work as a ‘team’ and to build on definitions and methods of assessment for Impact through deliberation and ‘feedback’ were perceived along gendered lines. In this regard, women perceived themselves as valuable if they were ‘happy to listen to discussions’, and not ‘too dogmatic about their opinion’. Here, women were valued if they played a supportive, supplementary role in line with Bellas ( 1999 ), which was in clear distinction to men who contributed as creative thinkers and forgers of new ideas. As one panellist described;

A good panel member is an Irish female. A good panel member was someone who was happy to — someone who is happy to listen to discussions; to not be too dogmatic about their opinion, but can listen and learn, because impact is something we are all learning from scratch. Somebody who wasn’t too outspoken, was a team player. (Panel 3, Outputs and Impact, Female)

Likewise, another female evaluator reflected on the reasons for her inclusion as a panel member was due to her ‘generalist perspective’ as opposed to a perspective that is over prescribed. This was suggestive of how an overly specialist perspective would run counter to the reasons that she was included as a panellist which was, in her opinion, due to her value as an ethnic and gender ‘token’ to the panel;

‘ I think it’s also being able to provide some perspective, some general perspective. I’m quite a generalist actually, I’m not a specialist……So I’m very generalist. And I think they’re also well aware of the ethnic and gender composition of that and lots of reasons why I’m asked on panels. (Panel 1, Outputs and Impact, Female)

Women perceived their value on the panel as supportive, as someone who is prepared to work on the team, and listen to other views towards as a generalist, and constructionist, rather than as an enforced of dogmatic views and raw, hard notions of Impact that were represented through quantitative indicators only. As such, how the panel operated reflects general studies of how work can be organised along gender lines, as well as specific to workload and power in the academy. The similarity between the gendered associations towards conceptualising Impact from the researchers and evaluators, combined with how the panel organises its work along gendered lines, suggests how panel culture echoes the implicit tendencies within the wider research community. The implications of this tendency in relation to the evaluation of non-academic Impact is discussed below.

Discussion: an Impact a-gender?

This study shows how researchers and evaluators in two, independent data sets echoed a gendered orientation towards Impact, and how this implies an Impact a-gender. That gendered notions of Impact emerged as a significant theme from two independent data sets speaks to the importance of the issue. It also illustrates the need for policymakers and funding organisations to acknowledge its potential effects as part of their efforts towards embedding a more inclusive research culture around the generation and evaluation of research impact beyond academia.

Specifically, this paper has identified gendered language around the generation of, and evaluation of Impact by researchers in Australia and the UK, as well as by evaluators by the UK’s most recent Research Excellence Framework in 2014. For the UK and Australia, the prominence of Impact, as well as the policy borrowing between each country (Chubb, 2017 ) means that a reliable comparison of pre-evaluation perceptions of researchers and evaluators can be made. In both data sets presumptions of Impact as either ‘soft’ or ‘hard’ by both researchers and evaluators were found to be gendered. Whereas it is not surprising that panel culture reflects the dominant trends within the wider academic culture, this paper raises the question of how the implicit operation of gender bias surrounding notions of scientific productivity and its measurement, invade and therefore unduly influence the evaluation of those notions during peer-review processes. This negates the motivation behind a broad Impact definition and evaluation as inclusive since unconscious bias towards women can still operate if left unchecked and unmanaged.

Gendered notions of excellence were also related to the ability to be ‘competitive’, and that once Impact became a formalised, countable and therefore competitive criterion, it also become masculine where previously it existed as a feminised concept related to female academic-ness. As a feminised concept, Impact once referred to notions of excellence requiring communication such as public engagement, or stakeholder coordination—the ‘softer’ impacts. However, this association only remains ‘soft’ insofar as Impact remains unmeasurable, or more nuanced in definition. This is especially pertinent for the evaluation of societal impact where already conceived ideas of engagement and ‘ women’s work ’ influence how evaluators assess the feasibility of impact narratives for the purposes of its assessment. This paper also raises the question that notions of gender in relation to Impact persist irrespective of the identities assumed for the purposes of its evaluation (i.e., as a peer reviewer). This is not to say that academic culture in the UK and Australia, where Impact is increasingly being formalised into rewards systems, is not changing. More that there is a tendency in some evaluations for the burden of evidence to be applied differently to genders due to tensions surrounding what women are ‘good’ at doing: engagement, versus what ‘men’ are good at doing regarding Impact. In this scenario, quantitative indicators of big, high-level impacts are to be attributable to male traits, rather than female. This has already been noted in student evaluations of teaching (Kogan et al., 2010 ) and of academic leadership performance where the focus on the evaluation is on how others interpret performance based on already held gendered views about competence based on behaviours (Williams et al., 2014 ; Holt and Ellis, 1998 ). As such, when researchers transcend these gendered identities that are specific to societal impact, there is a danger of an Impact-a-gender bias arising in the assessment and forecasting of Impact. This paper extends this understanding and outlines how this may also be the case for assessments of societal impact.

By examining perceptions, as well as using an inductive analysis, this study was able to unearth unconsciously employed gendered notions that would not have been prominent or possible to pick up if we asked the interviewees about gender directly. This was particularly the case for the re-analysis of the post-evaluation interviews. However, future studies might consider incorporating a disciplinary-specific perspective as although the evaluators were from the medical/biomedical disciplines, researchers were from a range of disciplines. This would identify any discipline-specific risk towards an Impact a-gender. Nonetheless, further work that characterises the impact a-gender, as well as explores its wider implications for gender inequities within HE is currently underway.

How research evidence is labelled as excellent and therefore trustworthy, is heavily dictated by an evaluation process that is perceived as impartial and fair. However, if evaluations are compounded by gender bias, this confounds assessments of excellence with gendered expectation of non-academic impact. Consequently, gendered expectations of excellence for non-academic impact has the potential to: unconsciously dissuade women from pursuing more masculinised types of impact; act as a barrier to how female researchers mobilise their research evidence; as well as limit the recognition female researchers gain as excellent and therefore trustworthy sources of evidence.

The aim of this paper was not to criticise the panellists and researchers for expressing gendered perspectives, nor to present evidence about how researchers are unduly influenced by gender bias. The results shown do not support either of these views. However, the aim of this paper was to acknowledge how gender bias in research Impact generation can lead to a panel culture dominated by academics that translate the implicit and explicit biases within academia that influence its evaluation. This paper raises an important question regarding what we term the ‘Impact a-gender’, which outlines a mechanism in which gender bias feeds into the generation and evaluation of a research criterion, which is not traditionally associated with a hard, metrics-masculinised output from research. Along with other techniques used to combat unconscious bias in research evaluation, simply by identifying, and naming the issue, this paper intends to combat its ill effects through a community-wide discussions as a mechanism for developing tools to mitigate its wider effect if left unchecked or merely accepted as ‘acceptable’. In addition, it is suggested that government and funding organisations explicitly refer to the impact a-gender as part of their wider EDI (Equity, Diversity and Inclusion) agendas towards minimising the influence of unconscious bias in research impact and evaluation.

Data availability

Data is available upon request subject to ethical considerations such as consent so as not to compromise the individual privacy of our participants.

Change history

19 may 2020.

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.

For the purposes of this paper, when the text refers to non-academic, societal impact, or the term ‘Impact’ we are referring to the change and effect as defined by REF2014/2021 and the larger conceptualisation of impact that is generated through knowledge exchange and engagement. In this way, the paper refers to a broad conceptualisation of research impact that occurs beyond academia. This allows a distinction between Impact as central to this article’s contribution, as opposed to academic impact, and general word ‘impact’.

Impact scholars or those who are ‘good at impact’ are often equated with applied researchers.

One might interpret this as meaning ‘economic impact’.

This is described in the next section as ‘women’s work’ by one evaluator.

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Acknowledgements

This research was funded by the UK Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Future Research Leaders Programme (ES/K008897/2). We would also like to acknowledge their peers for offering their views on the paper in advance of publication and in doing so thank Dr. Richard Watermeyer, University of Bath, Professor Paul Wakeling, University of York and Dr. Gabrielle Samuel, Kings College London.

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Chubb, J., Derrick, G.E. The impact a-gender: gendered orientations towards research Impact and its evaluation. Palgrave Commun 6 , 72 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-020-0438-z

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Social Perceptions of Gender Differences and the Subjective Significance of the Gender Inequality Issue

Svetlana d. gurieva.

a Saint Petersburg State University, Saint Petersburg, Russia

Tatiana V. Kazantseva

Larisa v. mararitsa, olga e. gundelakh.

Gender inequality continues to reproduce itself in hidden and ambivalent forms and leads to invisible barriers in women’s careers and lives. The authors were interested in how social perceptions of gender differences would relate to the maintenance of gender inequality in various spheres of life.

The purpose of the presented research was to study social perceptions of gender differences in relation to the subjective significance of the gender inequality issue.

The study was conducted via an online survey throughout February-September of 2019. The sample included 106 people aged 18 to 68 (M = 30.2, σ = 10.5), 49% of respondents were women. The authors have developed and tested a questionnaire assessing the adherence to ideas regarding evident gender differences in various spheres of life. The reliability of all scales of the questionnaire has been tested. Respondents also completed a questionnaire identifying their perceptions of gender inequality and shared their life experience with respect to this phenomenon in the form of free description.

The following two latent factors reflecting different aspects of gender perceptions have been identified: “Career Inequality” and “Differences in Social Spheres”. Indicators of the subjective significance of gender inequality (which include gender awareness, frequency of gender inequality witnessing, personal experience of gender discrimination and the emotional significance of this experience) were positively correlated with perceptions of career inequalities (these support ideas regarding gender differences when it comes to opportunities for professional realization) and negatively correlated with perceptions of differences within social spheres (these support ideas regarding the existence of essential gender differences within the family, politics and everyday life).

Articulation of personal experiences of gender inequality is associated with social perceptions of the absence of essential gender differences in various social domains (egalitarianism) and sensitivity to gender inequality with regards to career opportunities.

Introduction

The problem of perception of gender differences and, as a result, gender inequality remains a topical issue today. Gender inequality in society, organizations, business and politics continues to exist despite the fact that the nature of gender inequality and social circumstances have changed. The persistence of gender inequality has been called a phenomenon of “stalled progress” ( Cohen, Huffman, & Knauer, 2009 ). An example of this according to Andresen, Biemann and Pattie (2015) is the unceasing inequality between men and women as far as status and income are concerned, despite the significant increase in the share of women participating in the economy. There is an increased interest in gender differences due to the rapid growth of women’s wealth and the resulting economic behavior. Studies ( Charness & Gneezy, 2012; 2018 ) have confirmed that women subjectively perceive themselves as less financially literate than men and, therefore, trade less frequently on stock exchanges (Charness & Gneezy, 2012) and invest with less risk compared to men ( Barber & Odean, 2001 ). Similarly, behavioral differences between genders were found in other social domains, such as communication and negotiation ( Mazei et al., 2015 ), networking (Forret & Dougherty, 2004) and parenting ( Yaffe, 2020 ), commonly claiming more self-assertive and dominating behaviors in men. The data show that these behavioral differences are linked by several cognitive phenomena inhibiting women’s success, such as fear of success, attribution of failure as a lack of abilities, a decrease in self-efficacy ( Mednick & Thomas, 2008 ) as well as the stereotype threat effect — poorer performance out of fear of fulfilling a negative stereotype ( Nelson, 2009 ).

The socio-psychological view of the problem of gender involves the study of social representations of gender differences, gender stereotypes and their influence on different spheres of human life. Stereotypes become social norms, prescribing appropriate behavior for men and women, and simultaneously transforming gender differences into gender inequality.

Research indicates that stereotypes, as a derivative of the social context and social structures, influence the emergence and maintenance of sexism and gender inequality ( Morgenroth & Ryan, 2018 ; Stewart et al., 2021 ). Human society has done a lot to reduce the gender gap in healthcare and education, but it is still far from establishing equal income for women and men ( Shawn & Glenn, 2010 ). Psychologists describe several mechanisms of discrimination persistence. Firstly, according to gender-role theory ( Eagly & Wood, 1991 ), women and men are represented differently in different social roles. The biological ability of women to bear children leads to the perception of them as vulnerable, weak and in need of protection and, as a result, men are perceived as strong and responsible for them ( Hollander, 2001 ; Koening, 2018 ). Secondly, the nature of intergroup relations, that is, relations between men and women as social groups, plays a role. Relations between any groups are characterized by two basic criteria: the distribution of power and the valence of the relationship (hostility or benevolence). According to the theory of ambivalent sexism ( Glick & Fiske, 2001 ; Connor, Glick & Fiske, 2017 ), gender discrimination contains both negative and positive prejudices against men and women. Women, for example, may be perceived as requiring nurturing and patronage (a phenomenon of “protective paternalism”) ( Salomon et al., 2020 ) and this fact has both desirable and undesirable consequences for women, because it essentially demonstrates gender inequality.

However, most socio-psychological models emphasize how gender-specific behavioral patterns emerge, are shaped, and supported ( Table 1 ). Thus, for example, biological models ( Hutt, 1972 ; Wilson, 2000 ) argue that genetic, hormonal, and physiological factors influence gender differences; meanwhile psychoanalytic theory, the theory of social learning and the theory of cognitive development suggest that early learning fully defines the differences in adult gendered behavior. Sociological models such as social role theory ( Eagly & Sczesny, 2019 ; Eagly & Wood, 1991 ; Thang, 2002 ) and expectation states theory ( Berger, Rosenholtz, & Zelditch, 1980 ) suggest that specific aspects of social structure, such as the distribution of women and men into different social roles, contribute to persistent behavioral differences between women and men. The existence of gender stereotypes and restrictions for women in the professional sphere has been described in many works ( Abraham, 2020 ; Acker, 1990 ; 2006; Benschop, 2009 ; Cohen et al., 2009 ; Coleman, 1988 ; Gurieva et al., 2016 ; Gurieva & Udavikhina, 2015 ). The main manifestations of gender segregation in employment are the traditional divisions of professions into “female” and “male” ones, the difference in wages and unemployment rates. The theoretical perspective takes a cross-cultural approach, claiming that gender behavior is conditioned by cultural and historical context ( Lytton & Romney, 1991 ; Rudman & Fairchild, 2004 ; Rudman & Phelan, 2008 ; Vandello & Bosson, 2013 ).

Theoretical approaches to studying gender behavior

Studies show that gender stereotypes also exist in modern Russia (including within the professional sphere) and that these stereotypes have specific cultural features ( Mararitsa, Kazantseva, & Gurieva, 2019 ; Uryvaev, 2018 ). According to the Global Gender Gap Report (WEF, 2021), in 2021 Russia ranked 81 st among 156 countries on gender parity, that is 32 positions lower than 15 years ago. At the moment, Russia is performing well in education and health equality, ranking 1 st , with the largest gap observed in the domains of politics and economic participation / career opportunities. Russian social policy is currently characterized by domestic researchers as pro-natalist, aimed at solving demographic problems ( Ryabova & Ovcharova, 2016 ). Ideas regarding the “natural” mission of the sexes and conservative ideas about male and female roles are making a comeback in Russia ( Voronina, 2013 ), configuring gender relations as rooted in power and subordination. Since the situation has recently worsened for Russia, the research described in this study is of high relevance.

Works that address the problem of gender inequality in the professional domain mostly describe career building by female leaders and social-role mechanisms that maintain inequality in organizations ( Mararitsa et al., 2019 ). Most of the research is conducted from the role approach perspective and does not employ a poly-theoretical approach. We were interested in how social representations of gender differences influence the formation of gender inequality in various spheres of life. In fact, we investigated the subjective dimension of gender inequality. In order to study social perceptions of gender differences, the questionnaire was developed and probed. We identified four areas of life in which gender inequalities mostly manifest themselves: family, professional, politics and everyday interaction. Each scale of the questionnaire had its own theoretical foundation, since different spheres of social life were explained by specific theoretical approaches or conceptions, for example, professional issues — by structural (“glass”) phenomena ( Folke & Rickne, 2016 ), family interaction — by the gender-role approach ( Eagly & Wood, 1991 ), everyday interaction — by the phenomenon of “doing gender” ( West & Zimmerman, 1987 ) and gender stereotypes in interpersonal interaction ( Stewart et al., 2021 ).

Based on contemporary research, it is believed that individuals differ a lot in their perceptions of gender inequality ranging from gender blindness, in other words, not taking gender aspects under consideration when it is relevant ( Verdonk et al., 2009 ), to gender awareness, that is awareness of gender-based discrimination and sensitivity to such cases ( Morrison, Bourke & Kelley, 2005 ). The possible correlations of such variability remain under-investigated. It could be a kind of cognitive bias: information that women’s social status is getting better inspires women with an illusion of getting rid of gender prejudice ( Spoor & Schmitt, 2011 ). One could hypothesize that life experience may account for gender awareness, since it grows with age ( Neff, Cooper & Woodruff, 2007 ). Meanwhile, women that have experienced gender discrimination themselves tend to show reluctance to recognize and articulate these events as discrimination ( Morrison, Bourke & Kelley, 2005 ).

The data regarding the positive and negative effects of both polarities in perceptions of gender inequality seem contradictory. Some studies show gender blindness was related to actions — such as risk-taking and negotiation — necessary for reducing gender disparities ( Martin & Phillips, 2017 ), others claim that only recognition of gender differentiation may help to combat gender inequality ( Morrison, Bourke & Kelley, 2005 ).

Driven by inconsistency of empirical studies, the presented research was conducted with an objective to study social perceptions of gender differences in relation to the subjective significance of the gender inequality issue (which includes 4 criteria: gender awareness, frequency of gender inequality witnessing, personal experience of gender discrimination and emotional significance of the experience).

Research question: How does experience and perceptions of gender inequality manifest itself in the content of social perceptions of gender differences? We have focused on the following issues in particular:

Hypothesis 1. Social perceptions of gender differences in various spheres are interrelated with the subjective significance of the gender inequality issue.

Hypothesis 2. People who articulate their personal experience of gender inequality more readily agree with the idea that gender differences exist in the professional/ career opportunities sphere.

Participants

106 people aged 18 to 68 years participated in the study (M = 30.2, σ = 10.5). The respondents were men (54) and women (52) living in megacities (St. Petersburg and Moscow). Most of our respondents had a full-time day job (as they mentioned in the survey). The absence of statistically significant differences between the samples of men and women in terms of demographic characteristics allowed further comparative analysis.

The study was conducted through an online survey in February–September 2019. The sample was formed by the “snowball” technique within social networks. The time taken to complete the questionnaires was 25–35 minutes. The survey was anonymous.

“Social perceptions of gender differences” questionnaire.

The questionnaire consisted of two parts and each part was comprised of four scales. There were two versions of the measure. The first version contained 38 items formulated according to the criteria of gender inequality in various spheres of life. After an expert’s evaluation, 10 items with duplicating content were eliminated, and the wording of the remaining items was corrected. In the 2019 survey, this revised 28-item questionnaire was tested. Respondents were asked to evaluate their agreement with the items on a 5-point scale, where 1 signified “absolutely disagree” and 5 “absolutely agree”. Both direct and reverse items were used, where a greater degree of agreement meant less agreement with gender differences. When calculating the resulting score, the points of reverse items were converted.

The first part of the questionnaire (items 1-20) included four scales concerning gender relations in four spheres of life. We have conditionally named the scales “Family” ( e.g. “The main task of a woman is housekeeping and caring for her husband and children”), “Work” ( e.g. “It is more difficult for a woman to stay in a managerial position than for a man”), “Politics” ( e.g. “A woman is able to succeed in politics”) and “Everyday life” ( e.g. “Men are better drivers than women”). The second part of the questionnaire (items 21–28) aimed to define social perceptions of gender inequality in an organization where the respondent currently works, according to the criteria of the organizational “glass ceiling” ( Folke & Rickne, 2016 ). The second part also included four scales: “Conditional Vertical Inequality” ( e.g. “There are more male leaders than female leaders in organizations”), “Bottom-to-top Inequality Acceleration” ( e.g. “In business, there are far more female middle managers than female top managers”), “Career Advancement Inequality” ( e.g. “A man moves up the career ladder faster than a woman of the same professional level”), “Diverging Career Trajectories” ( e.g. “The career paths of women and men in business differ”). For the scales of the first part of the questionnaire (“Work”, “Family”, “Politics”, “Everyday life”) the minimum possible score was 5 points and the maximum possible score was 20 points. For the scales of the second part of the questionnaire, the minimum possible score was 2 points and the maximum possible was 10 points. The higher the score, the more pronounced the perceptions of gender differences in a particular area.

“Gender Inequality” Questionnaire.

The questionnaire included four direct questions aimed at identifying the respondents’ perceptions of gender inequality and describing their life experiences related to this phenomenon. The questionnaire was also used to identify the degree of subjective significance of the gender inequality issue. The questionnaire included the following questions:

• Free description of manifestations of gender inequality: “In your opinion, what manifestations/confirmations of gender inequality are there in society? Please list them.” Received responses were classified according to the four categories considered in the first part of the “Social perceptions of gender differences” questionnaire, and the number of mentioned situations was used as a measure of gender awareness.
• A question about the frequency of observation of such situations: “How often have you observed and heard about such situations?” The question had possible answers rated on a 5-point scale: “never”, “very rarely”, “rarely”, “sometimes”, “often”.
• A description of the situation of gender inequality in their own life experiences, case studies: “Describe the last unpleasant or offensive situation of manifestation of gender inequality/discrimination that affected you the most.” When coding the data, it was taken into account whether the respondent has described the situation or not; the situations described by the respondents were classified into one of the four categories outlined above (family, work, politics and everyday life).
• A question aimed to assess the emotional significance of situations of gender inequality: “How upset would you be if you were in this situation?” The question had possible answers rated on a 5-point scale: “not at all”, “a little”, “difficult to answer”, “very”, “extremely”.

Thus, the subjective significance for respondents of the gender inequality issue was assessed by the following 4 indicators used in data processing independently: the number of known manifestations of gender inequality listed by the respondent (gender awareness); the frequency of gender inequality observation (witnessing frequency); the presence or absence of a description of the gender inequality situation in their own life (articulated personal experience) and the degree of unpleasant emotions felt in situations of inequality and discrimination (emotional significance).

Social and Demographic Characteristics.

This questionnaire contained questions about the age, employment, gender, and city of residence of the respondents.

Mathematical and Statistical Methods of Data Analysis

The assessment of the internal consistency of the scales was carried out using Cronbach’s alpha. When analyzing the reliability of differences between samples, we used the Mann–Whitney U test. Correlation analysis was used to assess the relationships between quantitative variables (indicators of the subjective significance of the gender inequality problem and the degree of agreement with ideas about gender differences in various spheres of life). Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient was used. Factor analysis was employed to analyze the possibility of reducing the eight scales of the questionnaire, which describe ideas about gender differences in various spheres of life, to a smaller number of latent variables. Data analysis was carried out using the SPSS Statistics.

Social perceptions of gender differences in various spheres of life

Reliability scores, calculated for the scales included in the “Social perception of gender differences” questionnaire, are presented in Table 2 . The results of the study confirm the reliability of the following scales: “Work”, “Politics”, “Everyday life”, “Career Advancement Inequality” (Cronbach’s alpha > 0.7 ( Furr, 2021 ; Nasledov, 2011 )). Other scales required item corrections (“Family”, “Bottom-to-top Inequality Acceleration”, “Diverging Career Trajectories”; “Conditional Vertical Inequality”).

Average scores obtained from the questionnaires and the reliability of scales

Note. * —p < 0.05; ** —p < 0.01, U-test.

Skewness, kurtosis, mean and standard deviation were calculated for each item. This was done in order to test item discrimination of each item and to sift out unfit items. Since the questionnaire is gender-sensitive, descriptive statistics were obtained separately for women and men. This made it possible to identify significant differences in the responses of men and women and meaningfully interpret these differences. According to the indicators of skewness and kurtosis (module of indicators of skewness and kurtosis do not exceed 2 ( Furr, 2021 ; Nasledov, 2011 )), the distribution of answers to all the items except item 1 (“A person, regardless of gender, can be successful in any profession”) and item 10 (“A man and a woman should participate equally in the upbringing of children”) can be considered close to normal. The majority of respondents fully agreed that a person, regardless of gender, can be successful in any profession (60.4%) and that a man and a woman should take equal part in the upbringing of children (78.3%).

For each scale of the questionnaire, mean values were calculated both for the sample as a whole and separately for men and women. Differences in the average scores of men and women were assessed using the U-test ( Table 2 ).

It can be concluded that the most pronounced spheres where perceptions about gender differences are varied to a greater extent between men and women can be considered the spheres of politics, family and everyday interaction. There is a dissimilarity in the views of men and women about gender differences in career advancement.

In order to study psychological factors of gender inequality and to analyze the possibility of reducing the eight scales of the questionnaire to a smaller number of not-directly-measurable spheres of representation, exploratory factor analysis was performed ( Table 3 ).

Factor loadings of questionnaire scales

The first factor in the manifestation of the socio-psychological phenomenon of gender inequality is characterized by a high degree of expression of ideas about manifestations of gender inequality in the professional sphere. This can concern career advancement, career trajectories, or vertical gender inequality and its increase in higher positions. We named this factor “Career Inequality”.

The second factor in the manifestation of the phenomenon of gender inequality is characterized by a higher expression of perceptions about gender differences in the family, politics and everyday life. We called the second factor “Differences in Social Spheres”. It implies a comprehensive assessment of the perceptions of gender differences in various social contexts that are not related to employment.

Social perceptions of gender inequality

When answering the question “In your opinion, what manifestations/confirmations of gender inequality are there in society?” respondents listed 0 to 11 different manifestations, M = 1.79, SD = 2.03. According to the χ 2 -Pearson criterion, men significantly more often did not indicate any manifestation (they gave answers like “I don’t know”, “didn’t notice” or refused to answer) (χ 2 = 15.63, p < 0.001). Comparative analysis (Mann–Whitney U test) showed that women, on average, described more manifestations of gender inequality known to them (p < 0.001).

We analyzed 190 different manifestations of gender inequality in society described by the respondents and divided them into several categories ( Table 4 ). The first four categories corresponded to the four areas of life that we identified when creating the questionnaire “Social perceptions of gender differences”: traditional distribution of roles in family, gender inequality in the professional sphere, gender inequality in politics, and gender inequality and sexism in everyday life. The category “General descriptions of inequality” included descriptions of inequality and sexism that were not related to any specific sphere. The category “Other” included obscure or ambiguous descriptions that could not be assigned to any category without further clarification.

Manifestations of gender inequality in the perceptions of respondents

The frequency of observed situations of gender inequality is presented in Table 5 .

Frequency of encountering situations of gender inequality

If we consider the response options as an ordinal scale (from 0 — “never” to 4 — “often”), then according to the Mann-Whitney U-test, the women in the study experienced manifestations of gender inequality more often than the men (p < 0.001).

The experienced situation was described by 54.7% of respondents (73.1% of women and 35.7% of men), the rest refused to answer or answered that they did not remember / did not notice such situations. In some cases, respondents described situations that affected their acquaintances, and we considered these situations in the same way as those that happened to the respondent personally, since we were interested in all situations that the respondents considered as a part of their experience.

Men described a total of 20 situations ( Table 6 ). We were not able to classify 3 situations into any of the four categories without clarification (these were placed in the category “Other”). Men most often described situations related to gender-based injustice and the pressure of male gender norms and did not describe a single situation regarding family interaction. Women described 38 situations ( Table 6 ). Four situations were not classified in any of the four categories considered (“Other”). Women most often described situations of gender inequality related to the performance of traditional female roles in the family, situations of inequality in the professional sphere and manifestations of sexism in everyday life. Women did not describe a single situation regarding inequality in politics.

Situations of gender inequality in respondents` experience

For both men and women, situations of gender inequality were most prominently encountered in everyday life. However, for women, manifestations of gender inequality such as the performance of a traditional female role in the family and situations of gender inequality in the professional sphere were also relevant.

The emotional significance of situations of gender inequality was assessed by the answers to the question “How upset would you be if you were in this situation?” ( Table 7 ).

Emotional significance of situations of gender inequality

High emotional significance of situations of manifestation of gender inequality was found in 50.0% of women and 33.3% of men.

Social perceptions of gender differences and the subjective significance of the gender inequality issue

The first hypothesis was that social perceptions of gender differences in various spheres are interrelated with the subjective significance of the gender inequality issue.

The number of known manifestations of gender inequality listed by the respondents (gender awareness) was positively correlated with the “Career Inequality” factor (scale “Work” (r = 0.364, p < 0.001) and scales of the second part of the questionnaire: “Conditional Vertical Inequality” (r = 0.210, p = 0.024), “Bottom-to-top Inequality Acceleration” (r = 0.229, p = 0.018), “Career Advancement Inequality” (r = 0.251, p = 0.009), “Diverging Career Trajectories” (r = 0.216, p = 0.026)); and negatively correlated with the “Differences in Social Spheres” factor (scales: “Family” (r = –0.425, p < 0.001), “Politics” (r = –0.470, p < 0.001), “Everyday life” (r = –0.406, p < 0.001)).

Similar interrelations have been found for the frequency of witnessing gender inequality situations and the emotional significance of such situations.

Consistently, the frequency of observations of gender inequality situations was positively correlated with the factor of “Career Inequality” (scales: “Work” (r = 0,286, p = 0,003), “Bottom-to-top Inequality Acceleration” (r = 0, 295, p = 0.002), “ Career Advancement Inequality” (r = 0.309, p = 0.001)) and negatively correlated with the factor of “Differences in Social Spheres” (scales: “Family” (r = –0.397, p < 0.001), “Politics” (r = –0.362, p < 0.001), “Everyday life” (r = –0.370, p < 0.001)).

The emotional importance of gender inequality situations was positively correlated with the factor of “Career Inequality” (scales: “Work” (r = 0.305, p = 0.002), “Conditional Vertical Inequality” (r = 0.284, p = 0.005), “Bottom-to-top Inequality Acceleration” (r = 0.331, p = 0.001), “Career Advancement Inequality” (r = 0.327, p = 0.001)); and negatively correlated with the factor of “Differences in Social Spheres” (scales “Family” (r = –0.371, p < 0.001), “Politics” (r = –0.227, p = 0.025), “Everyday life” (r = –0.284, p = 0.005)).

Perceptions of gender differences in respondents with and without personal experience of gender inequality

According to the second hypothesis, we expected that people who articulate their personal experience of gender inequality more readily agree with the idea of gender differences in the professional career opportunities.

Using the U-test, significant differences were found in the responses of respondents who described the situation of gender inequality in their own experience and those who did not, the results are shown in Table 8 . They showed distinctions in perceived degree of gender differences on the factor of “Career Inequality” (scales: “Work” (p = 0.001), “Conditional Vertical Inequality” (p = 0.017), “Bottom-to-top Inequality Acceleration” (p = 0.048), “Career Advancement Inequality”, (p = 0.004), “Diverging Career Trajectories” (p = 0.009)). People with personal experience of inequality scored higher on perceptions of large differences in career opportunities for men and women compared to people who did not mention such experiences ( Table 8 ) .

Average scores obtained on scales for respondents who described and did not describe the situation of gender inequality in their experience

Note. * —p < 0.05; ** —p < 0.01; U-test.

Personal experience of inequality also affects factor 2 “Differences in Social Spheres”, but only in the family relationships domain, where people with personal experience of inequality scored significantly lower compared to those who did not mention such experiences (p = 0.025) ( Table 8 ).

The first hypothesis tested was whether social perceptions of gender differences in various spheres would be related to the subjective significance of the gender inequality issue. To this end, we developed two questionnaires within the framework of a poly-theoretical approach: one measure for assessing social perceptions of gender differences in various social domains (family life, professional sphere, politics and everyday interaction) and the other for assessing the subjective significance of the gender inequality issue. The concept of the subjective significance of the gender inequality issue was operationalized through four criteria: gender inequality awareness; frequency of witnessing inequality; articulated personal experience and emotional significance (the degree of unpleasant emotions felt in situations of inequality and discrimination).

Two latent factors were identified to reflect two aspects of gender perceptions: perceptions of gender differences regarding career opportunities (“Career Inequality”) and perceptions of the existence of differences related to gender in various social domains (“Differences in Social Spheres”). Interestingly, the most significant differences in the responses of men and women were found in the second factor: the degree of men’s consent to the existence of gender differences in these areas was higher than that of women.

Significant differences between men and women suggest that perceptions that support the idea of essential differences between genders and expect men to exhibit masculine behavior and women to play a feminine role in family interaction, politics and everyday life, are more pronounced in men. Some perceptions among men of whether gender differences exist are contradictory, which could be a sign of a propensity for hidden forms of sexism. The domain of power (i.e., political and leadership positions) was the most sensitive in terms of confrontational perceptions of gender differences. The revealed gender differences may indicate that women’s perceptions are characterized by greater adherence to perceptions of the absence of essential gender differences in various social domains and by sensitivity to gender inequality. This finding is consistent with other studies that have shown greater male adherence to traditional attitudes and beliefs about masculinity and femininity ( Kletsina, 2020 ).

We have obtained data that fully support Hypothesis 1. All indicators of subjective significance of gender issues were found to be intercorrelated with the two main factors of social perceptions of gender differences (“Career Inequality” and “Differences in Social Spheres”), but in opposing ways. Subjective significance of gender had positive correlations to perceptions of gender differentiation within career opportunities, and negative correlations to the perceptions of crucial differences between men and women. These results support the “gender awareness” proponents claiming that the first step in combating inequality is to be aware of gender-based discrimination and be sensitive to such cases ( Morrison, Bourke & Kelley, 2005 ).

The diversity in the understanding of gender differences in everyday life and in te perceptions of family role distribution can contribute to the “justification” of inequality and to exacerbating conflicts in close relationships. Sexist tendencies are formed and maintained in intimate relationships and the belief in the existence of gender differences functions as a way of controlling closeness in interpersonal relationships. Thus, the basic need for security is fulfilled ( Fisher & Hammond, 2019 ).

Hypothesis 2 was formulated to test the expectation that people who articulate their personal experience of gender inequality more readily agree with the idea of gender differences in the professional career opportunities. We used the term “articulating personal experience” while bearing in mind that certain experiences of gender inequality may be of high emotional significance and thus may be denied, rejected, or hidden ( Morrison, Bourke & Kelley, 2005 ). The results of our study show that when assessing their experience of gender inequality, participants tended to give polarized evaluations to the negative emotions felt in such situations ( Table 7 ) with 25.9% of males totally rejecting negative emotions, and 23.1% of females demonstrating high sensitivity to these kinds of situations.

Hypothesis 2 was also supported by the obtained data. Respondents who described their experiences of gender inequality noticed more gender differences in professional opportunities and career growth, and had an egalitarian perspective about gender differences in the family sphere. We can see now that the elaborated questionnaire “Social perceptions of gender differences” assesses not only perceptions of gender differences (traditionalist or egalitarian in the first part of the measure), but also gender inequality awareness (inequality blindness or sensitivity in the second part). The persistence of gender inequality may be due to interconnected social-psychological mechanisms i.e. traditionalist perceptions of gender differences as essential and inevitable, as well as an inability to detect gender inequality (gender inequality blindness).

It can be concluded that the subjective significance of the gender inequality issue is interrelated with the social perceptions of gender differences in various spheres of life: for people more committed to the idea of gender differences (rather than similarities) within the family, politics, and everyday life, the problem of gender inequality is less significant; at the same time, they are not aware of gender inequality in the professional sphere, especially when it comes to career opportunities.

The described features of social perceptions of gender differences can become the basis for the formation of hypotheses about their role in the reproduction of the phenomenon of gender inequality. It is possible to formulate hypotheses related to the mechanisms of social cognition and the influence of gender socialization on gender perceptions.

The potential zones of gender conflict were revealed to be the sphere of power, politics and leadership in particular, as well as the sphere of confrontation of ideas about gender differences. This suggests that the hierarchy of gender relations enshrined within culture can be a potential target for social programs to reduce the manifestation of gender inequality in various spheres.

Limitations

A limitation of the study is the complexity of the validation of non-metric data. Several items of the questionnaire “Social perceptions of gender differences” need revision to increase the reliability of scales. Also, it is necessary to take into account the latent factors identified in this questionnaire and collect a larger dataset to perform confirmatory factor analysis. Further verification of the psychometric properties of the measure is expected to be carried out (validity, social desirability etc.).

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by Grant No 22-18-00452 ‘‘Psychosocial design of the workspace as a factor in the employee subjective well-being and the innovative potential of the organization’’ from the Russian Scientific Foundation.

Ethics Statement

The project was approved by the Ethics Committee of the Herzen State Pedagogical University of Russia (IRB00011060 Herzen State Pedagogical University of Russia IRB #1). Participants gave informed consent before taking part.

Author Contributions

Svetlana Gurieva and Larisa Mararitsa conceived the idea and developed the design. Tatiana Kazantseva contributed to theoretical review, Olga Gundelakh performed the calculations and described the results. All authors contributed to the development of the questionnaire, provided data collection, discussed the results and contributed to the final manuscript.

Conflict of Interests

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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Article contents

Gender in a social psychology context.

• Thekla Morgenroth Thekla Morgenroth Department of Psychology, University of Exeter
•  and  Michelle K. Ryan Michelle K. Ryan Dean of Postgraduate Research and Director of the Doctoral College, University of Exeter
• https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190236557.013.309
• Published online: 28 March 2018

Understanding gender and gender differences is a prevalent aim in many psychological subdisciplines. Social psychology has tended to employ a binary understanding of gender and has focused on understanding key gender stereotypes and their impact. While women are seen as warm and communal, men are seen as agentic and competent. These stereotypes are shaped by, and respond to, social contexts, and are both descriptive and prescriptive in nature. The most influential theories argue that these stereotypes develop in response to societal structures, including the roles women and men occupy in society, and status differences between the sexes. Importantly, research clearly demonstrates that these stereotypes have a myriad of effects on individuals’ cognitions, attitudes, and behaviors and contribute to sexism and gender inequality in a range of domains, from the workplace to romantic relationships.

• gender stereotypes
• gender norms
• social psychology
• social role theory
• stereotype content model
• ambivalent sexism
• stereotype threat

Introduction

Gender is omnipresent—it is one of the first categories children learn, and the categorization of people into men and women 1 affects almost every aspect of our lives. Gender is a key determinant of our self-concept and our perceptions of others. It shapes our mental health, our career paths, and our most intimate relationships. It is therefore unsurprising that psychologists invest a great deal of time in understanding gender as a concept, with social psychologists being no exception. However, this has not always been the case. This article begins with “A Brief History of Gender in Psychology,” which gives an overview about gender within psychology more broadly. The remaining sections discuss how gender is examined within social psychology more specifically, with particular attention to how gender stereotypes form and how they affect our sense of self and our evaluations of others.

A Brief History of Gender in Psychology

During the early years of psychology in general, and social psychology in particular, the topic gender was largely absent from psychology, as indeed were women. Male researchers made claims about human nature based on findings that were restricted to a small portion of the population, namely, white, young, able-bodied, middle-class, heterosexual men [see Etaugh, 2016 ; a phenomenon that has been termed androcentrism (Hegarty, & Buechel, 2006 )]. If women and girls were mentioned at all, they were usually seen as inferior to men and boys (e.g., Hall, 1904 ).

This invisibility of women within psychology changed with a rise of the second wave of feminism in the 1960s. Here, more women entered psychology, demanded to be seen, and pushed back against the narrative of women as inferior. They argued that psychology’s androcentrism, and the sexist views of psychologists, had not only biased psychological theory and research, but also contributed to and reinforced gender inequality in society. For example, Weisstein ( 1968 ) argued that most claims about women made by prominent psychologists, such as Freud and Erikson, lacked an evidential grounding and were instead based on these men’s fantasies of what women were like rather than empirical data. A few years later, Maccoby and Jacklin ( 1974 ) published their seminal work, The Psychology of Sex Differences , which synthesized the literature on sex differences and concluded that there were few (but some) sex differences. This led to a growth of interest in the social origins of sex differences, with a shift away from a psychology of sex (i.e., biologically determined male vs. female) and toward a psychology of gender (i.e., socially constructed masculine vs. feminine).

Since then, the psychology of gender has become a respected and widely represented subdiscipline within psychology. In a fascinating analysis of the history of feminism and psychology, Eagly, Eaton, Rose, Riger, and McHugh ( 2012 ) examined publications on sex differences, gender, and women from 1960 to 2009 . In those 50 years, the number of annual publications rose from close to zero to over 6,500. As a proportion of all psychology articles, one can also see a marked rise in popularity in gender articles from 1960 to 2009 , with peak years of interest in the late 1970s and 1990s. In line with the aforementioned shift from sex differences to gender differences, the largest proportion of these articles fall into the topic of “social processes and social issues,” which includes research on gender roles, masculinity, and femininity.

However, as interest in the area has grown, the ways in which gender is studied, and the political views of those studying it, have become more diverse. Eagly and colleagues note:

we believe that this research gained from feminist ideology but has escaped its boundaries. In this garden, many flowers have bloomed, including some flowers not widely admired by some feminist psychologists. (p. 225)

Here, they allude to the fact that some research has shifted away from societal explanations, which feminist psychologists have generally favored, to more complex views of gender difference. Some of these acknowledge the fact that nature and nurture are deeply intertwined, with both biological and social variables being used to understand gender and gender differences (e.g., Wood & Eagly, 2002 ). Others, such as evolutionary approaches (e.g., Baumeister, 2013 ; Buss, 2016 ) and neuroscientific approaches (see Fine, 2010 ), focus more heavily on the biological bases of gender differences, often causing chagrin among feminists. Nevertheless, much of the research in social psychology has, unsurprisingly, focused on social factors and, in particular, on gender stereotypes. Where do they come from and what are their effects?

Origins and Effects of Gender Stereotypes

A stereotype can be defined as a “widely shared and simplified evaluative image of a social group and its members” (Vaughan & Hogg, 2011 , p. 51) and has both descriptive and prescriptive aspects. In other words, gender stereotypes tell us what women and men are like, but also what they should be like (Heilman, 2001 ). Gender stereotypes are not only widely shared, but they are also stubbornly resistant to change (Haines, Deaux, & Lofaro, 2016 ). Both the origin and the consequences of these stereotypes have received much attention in social psychology. So how do stereotypes form? The most widely cited theories on stereotype formation—social role theory (SRT; Eagly, 1987 ; Eagly, Wood, & Diekman, 2000 ) and the stereotype content model (SCM; Fiske, Cuddy, Glick, & Xu, J., 2002 )—answer this question. Both of these models focus on gender as a binary concept (i.e., men and women), as does most psychological research on gender, although they could potentially also be applied to other gender groups. Both theories are considered in turn.

Social Role Theory: Gender Stereotypes Are Determined by Roles

SRT argues that gender stereotypes stem from the distribution of men and women into distinct roles within a given society (Eagly, 1987 ; Eagly et al., 2000 ). The authors note the stability of gender stereotypes across cultures and describe two core dimensions: agency , including traits such as independence, aggression, and assertiveness, and communion , including traits such as caring, altruism, and politeness. While men are generally seen to be high in agency and low in communion, women are generally perceived to be high in communion but low in agency.

According to SRT, these gender stereotypes stem from the fact that women and men are over- and underrepresented in different roles in society. In most societies, even those with higher levels of gender equality, men perform less domestic work compared to women, including childcare, and spend more time in paid employment. Additionally, men disproportionately occupy leadership roles in the workforce (e.g., in politics and management) and are underrepresented in caretaking roles within the workforce (e.g., in elementary education and nursing; see Eagly et al., 2000 ). Eagly and colleagues argue that this gendered division of labor leads to the formation of gender roles and associated stereotypes. More specifically, they propose that different behaviors are seen as necessary to fulfil these social roles, and different skills, abilities, and traits are seen as necessary to execute these behaviors. For example, elementary school teachers are seen to need to care for and interact with children, which is seen to require social skills, empathy, and a caring nature. In contrast, such communal attributes might be seen to be less important—or even detrimental—for a military leader.

To the extent that women and men are differentially represented and visible in certain roles—such as elementary school teachers or military leaders—the behaviors and traits necessary for these roles become part of each respective gender role. In other words, the behaviors and attributes associated with people in caretaking roles, communion, become part of the female gender role, while the behaviors and attributes associated with people in leadership roles, agency, become part of the male gender role.

Building on SRT, Wood and Eagly ( 2002 ) developed a biosocial model of the origins of sex differences which explains the stability of gendered social roles across cultures. The authors argue that, in the past, physical differences between men and women meant that they were better able to perform certain tasks, contributing to the formation of gender roles. More specifically, women had to bear children and nurse them, while men were generally taller and had more upper body strength. In turn, tasks that required upper body strength and long stretches of uninterrupted time (e.g., hunting) were more often carried out by men, while tasks that could be interrupted more easily and be carried out while pregnant or looking after children (e.g., foraging) were more often carried out by women.

Eagly and colleagues further propose that the exact tasks more easily carried out by each sex depended on social and ecological conditions as well as technological and cultural advances. For example, it was only in more advanced, complex societies that the greater size and strength of men led to a division of labor in which men were preferred for activities such as warfare, which also came with higher status and access to resources. Similarly, the development of plough technology led to shifts from hunter–gatherer societies to agricultural societies. This change was often accompanied by a new division of labor in which men owned, farmed, and inherited land while women carried out more domestic tasks. The social structures that arose from these processes in specific contexts in turn affected more proximal causes of gender differences, including gender stereotypes.

It is important to note that this theory focuses on physical differences between the genders, not psychological ones. In other words, the authors do not argue that women and men are inherently different when it comes to their minds, nor that men evolved to be more agentic while women evolved to be more communal.

Stereotype Content Model: Gender Stereotypes Are Determined by Group Relations

The SCM, formulated by Fiske and colleagues ( 2002 ), was not developed specifically for gender, but as an explanation of how stereotypes form more generally. Similar to SRT, the SCM argues that gender stereotypes arise from societal structures. More specifically, the authors suggest that status differences and cooperation versus competition determine group stereotypes—among them, gender stereotypes. This model also suggests two main dimensions to stereotypes, namely, warmth and competence. The concept of warmth is similar to that of communion, previously described, in that it refers to being kind, nice, and caring. Competence refers to attributes such as being intelligent, efficient, and skillful and is thus different from the agency dimension of SRT.

The SCM argues that the dimensions of warmth and competence originate from two fundamental dimensions—status and competition—which characterize the relationships between groups in every culture and society. The degree to which another group is perceived to be warm is determined by whether the group is in cooperation or in competition with one’s own group, which is in turn associated with perceived intentions to help or to harm one’s own group, respectively. While members of cooperating groups are stereotyped as warm, members of competing groups are stereotyped as cold. Evidence suggests that these two dimensions are indeed universal and can be found in many cultures, including collectivist cultures (Cuddy et al., 2009 ). Perceptions of competence, however, are affected by the status and power of the group, which go hand-in-hand with the group’s ability to harm one’s own group. Those groups with high status and power are stereotyped as competent, while those that lack status and power are stereotyped as incompetent.

Groups can thus fall into one of four quadrants of this model. Members of high status groups who cooperate with one’s own group are seen as unequivocally positive—as warm and competent—while those of low status who compete with one’s own group are seen as unequivocally negative—cold and incompetent. More interesting are the two groups that fall into the more ambivalent quadrants—those who are perceived as either warm but incompetent or competent but cold. Applied to gender, this model suggests—and research shows—that typical men are stereotyped as competent but cold, the envious stereotype, while typical women are stereotyped as warm but incompetent, the paternalistic stereotype.

However, these stereotypes do not apply equally to all women and men. Rather, subgroups of men and women come with their own stereotypes. Research demonstrates, for example, that the paternalistic stereotype most strongly applies to traditional women such as housewives, while less traditional women such as feminists and career women are stereotyped as high in competence and low in warmth. For men, there are similar levels of variation—the envious stereotype applies most strongly to men in traditional roles such as managers and career men, while other men are perceived as warm but incompetent (e.g., senior citizens), as cold and incompetent (e.g., punks), or as warm and competent (e.g., professors; Eckes, 2002 ). The section “Gender Stereotypes Affect Emotions, Behavior, and Sexism” discusses the consequences of these stereotypes in more detail.

The Effects of Gender Stereotypes

SRT and the SCM explain how gender stereotypes form. A large body of work in social psychology has focused on the consequences of these stereotypes. These include effects on the gendered perceptions and evaluations of others, as well as effects on the self and one’s own self-image, behavior, and goals.

Gendered Perceptions and Evaluations of Others

Our group-based stereotypes affect how we see members of these groups and how we judge those who do or do not conform to these stereotypes. Gender differs from many other group memberships in several ways (see Fiske & Stevens, 1993 ), which in turn affects consequences of these stereotypes. First, argue Fiske and Stevens, gender stereotypes tend to be more prescriptive than other stereotypes. For example, men may often be told to “man up,” to be tough and dominant, while women may be told to smile, to be nice, and to be sexy (but not too sexy). While stereotypes of other groups also have prescriptive elements, it is probably less common to hear Asians be told to be better at math or African Americans to be told to be more musical. The consequences of these gendered prescriptions are discussed in the section “Gender Stereotypes Affect the Evaluation of Women and Men.” Second, relationships between women and men are characterized by an unusual combination of power differences and close and frequent contact as well as mutual dependence for reproduction and close relationships. The section “Gender Stereotypes Affect Emotions, Behavior, and Sexism” discusses the effects of these factors.

Gender Stereotypes Affect the Evaluation of Women and Men

The evaluation of women and men is affected by both descriptive and prescriptive gender stereotypes. Research on these effects has predominantly focused on those who occupy counterstereotypical roles such as women in leadership or stay-at-home fathers.

Descriptive stereotypes affect the perception and evaluation of women and men in several ways. First, descriptive stereotypes create biased perceptions through expectancy confirming processes (see Fiske, 2000 ) such that individuals, particularly those holding strong stereotypes, seek out information that confirms their stereotypes. This is evident in their tendency to neglect or dismiss ambiguous information and to ask stereotype-confirming questions (Leyens, Yzerbyt, & Schadron, 1994 ; Macrae, Milne, & Bodenhausen, 1994 ). Moreover, people are more likely to recall stereotypical information compared to counterstereotypical information (Rojahn & Pettigrew, 1992 ) Second, descriptive gender stereotypes also bias the extent to which men and women are seen as suitable for different roles, as described in Heilman’s lack of fit model ( 1983 , 1995 ) and Eagly and Karau’s role congruity theory ( 2002 ). These approaches both suggest that the degree of fit between a person’s attributes and the attributes associated with a specific role is positively related to expectations about how successful a person will be in said role. For example, the traits associated with successful managers are generally more similar to those associated with men than those associated with women (Schein, 1973 ; see also Ryan, Haslam, Hersby, & Bongiorno, 2011 ). Thus, all else being equal, a man will be seen as a better fit for a managerial position and in turn as more likely to be a successful manager. These biased evaluations in turn lead to biased decisions, such as in hiring and promotion (see Heilman, 2001 ).

Prescriptive gender stereotypes also affect evaluations, albeit in different ways. They prescribe how women and men should behave, and also how they should not behave. The “shoulds” generally mirror descriptive stereotypes, while the “should nots” often include behaviors associated with the opposite gender. Thus, what is seen as positive and desirable for one gender is often seen as undesirable for the other and can lead to backlash in the form of social and economic penalties (Rudman, 1998 ). For example, women who are seen as agentic are punished with social sanctions because they violate the prescriptive stereotype that women should be nice, even in the absence of information indicating that they are not nice (Rudman & Glick, 2001 ). These processes are particularly problematic in combination with the effects of descriptive stereotypes, as individuals may face a double bind—if women behave in line with gender stereotypes, they lack fit with leadership positions that require agency, but if they behave agentically, they violate gender norms and face backlash in the form of dislike and discrimination (Rudman & Glick, 2001 ). Similar effects have been found for men who violate prescriptive masculine stereotypes, for example, by being modest (Moss-Racusin, Phelan, & Rudman, 2010 ) or by requesting family leave (Rudman & Mescher, 2013 ). Interestingly, however, being communal by itself does not lead to backlash for men (Moss-Racusin et al., 2010 ). In other words, while men can be perceived as highly agentic and highly communal, this is not true for women, who are perceived as lacking communion when being perceived as agentic and as lacking agency when being perceived as communal.

Gender Stereotypes Affect Emotions, Behavior, and Sexism

Stereotypes not only affect how individuals evaluate others, but also their feelings and behaviors toward them. The Behavior from Intergroup Affect and Stereotypes (BIAS) map (Cuddy, Fiske, & Glick, 2007 ), which extends the SCM, describes the relationship between perceptions of warmth and competence of certain groups, emotions directed toward these groups, and behaviors toward them. Cuddy and colleagues argue that bias is comprised of three elements: cognitions (i.e., stereotypes), affect (i.e., emotional prejudice), and behavior (i.e., discrimination), and these are closely linked. Groups perceived as warm and competent elicit admiration while groups perceived as cold and incompetent elicit contempt. Of particular interest to understanding gender are the two ambivalent combinations of warmth and competence: Those perceived as warm, but incompetent—such as typical women—elicit pity, while those perceived as competent, but cold—such as typical men—elicit envy.

Similarly, perceptions of warmth and competence are associated with behavior. Cuddy and colleagues ( 2007 ) argue that the warmth dimension affects behavioral reactions more strongly than competence because it stems from perceptions that a group will help or harm the ingroup. This leads to active facilitation (e.g., helping) when a group is perceived as warm, or active harm (e.g., harassing) when a group is perceived as cold. Competence, however, leads to passive facilitation (e.g., cooperation when it benefits oneself or one’s own group) when the group is perceived as competent, and passive harm (e.g., neglecting to help) when the group is perceived as incompetent.

How these emotional and behavioral reactions affect women and men has received much attention in the literature on ambivalent sexism and ambivalent attitudes toward men (Glick & Fiske, 1996 , 1999 , 2001 ). According to ambivalent sexism theory (AST), sexism is not a uniform, negative attitude toward women or men. Rather, it is comprised of hostile and benevolent elements, which arises from status differences between, and intimate interdependence of, the two genders. While men possess more economic, political, and social power, they depend on women as their mothers and (for heterosexual men) as romantic partners. Thus, while they are likely to be motivated to keep their power, they also need to find ways to foster positive relations with women.

Hostile sexism combines the beliefs that (a) women are inferior to men, (b) men should have more power in society, and (c) women’s sexuality poses a threat to men’s status and power. This form of sexism is mostly directed toward nontraditional women who directly threaten men’s status (e.g., feminists or career women), and women who threaten the heterosexual interdependence of men and women (e.g., lesbians)—in other words, toward women perceived to be competent but cold.

Benevolent sexism is a subtler form of sexism and refers to (a) complementary gender differentiation , the belief that (traditional) women are ultimately the better gender, (b) protective paternalism , where men need to cherish, protect, and provide for women, and (c) heterosexual intimacy , the belief that men and women complement each other such that no man is truly complete without a woman. This form of sexism is directed mainly toward traditional women.

While benevolent sexism may seem less harmful than its hostile counterpart, it ultimately provides an alternative mechanism for the persistence of gender inequality by “keeping women in their place” and discouraging them from seeking out nontraditional roles (see Glick & Fiske, 2001 ). Exposure to benevolent sexism is associated with women’s increased self-stereotyping (Barreto, Ellemers, Piebinga, & Moya, 2010 ), decreased cognitive performance (Dardenne, Dumont, & Bollier, 2007 ), and reduced willingness to take collective action (Becker & Wright, 2011 ), thus reinforcing the status quo.

With perceptions of men, Glick and Fiske ( 1999 ) argue that attitudes are equally ambivalent. Hostile attitudes toward men include (a) resentment of paternalism , stemming from perceptions of unfairness of the disproportionate amounts of power men hold, (b) compensatory gender differentiation , which refers to the application of negative stereotypes to men (e.g., arrogant, unrefined) so that women can positively distinguish themselves from them, and (c) heterosexual hostility , stemming from male sexual aggressiveness and interpersonal dominance. Benevolent attitudes toward men include maternalism , that is, the belief that men are helpless and need to be taken care of at home. Interestingly, while such attitudes portray women as competent in some ways, it still reinforces gender inequality by legitimizing women’s disproportionate amount of domestic work. Benevolent attitudes toward men also include complementary gender differentiation , the belief that men are indeed more competent, and heterosexual attraction , the belief that a woman can only be truly happy when in a romantic relationship with a man.

Cross-cultural research (Glick et al., 2000 , 2004 ) suggests that ambivalent sexism and ambivalent attitudes toward men are similar in many ways and can be found in most cultures. For both constructs, the benevolent and hostile aspects are distinct but positively related, illustrating that attitudes toward women and men are indeed ambivalent, as the mixed nature of stereotypes would suggest. Moreover, ambivalence toward women and men are correlated and national averages of both aspects of sexism and ambivalence toward men are associated with lower gender equality across nations, lending support to the idea that they reinforce the status quo.

Gender Stereotypes Affect the Self

Gender stereotypes not only affect individuals’ reactions toward others, they also play an important part in self-construal, motivation, achievement, and behavior, often without explicit endorsement of the stereotype. This section discusses how gender stereotypes affect observable gender differences and then describes the subtle and insidious effects gender stereotypes can have on performance and achievement through the inducement of stereotype threat (Steele & Aronson, 1995 ).

Gender Stereotypes Affect Gender Differences

Gender stereotypes are a powerful influence on the self-concept, goals, and behaviors. Eagly and colleagues ( 2000 ) argue that girls and boys observe the roles that women and men occupy in society and accommodate accordingly, seeking out different activities and acquiring different skills. They propose two main mechanisms by which gender differences form. First, women and men adjust their behavior to confirm others’ gender-stereotypical expectations. Others communicate their gendered expectations in many, often nonverbal and subtle ways and react positively when expectations are confirmed and negatively when they are not. This subtle communication of expectations reinforces gender-stereotypical behavior as people generally try to elicit positive, and avoid negative, reactions from others. Importantly, the interacting partners need not be aware of these expectations for them to take effect.

The second process by which gender stereotypes translate into gender differences is the self-regulation of behavior based on identity processes and the internalization of stereotypes (e.g., Bem, 1981 ; Markus, 1977 ). Most people form their gender identity based on self-categorization as male or female and subsequently incorporate attributes associated with the respective category into their self-concept (Guimond, Chatard, Martinot, Crisp, & Redersdorff, 2006 ). These gendered differences in the self-concepts of women and men then translate into gender-stereotypical behaviors. The extent to which the self-concept is affected by gender stereotypes—and in turn the extent to which gendered patterns of behavior are displayed—depends on the strength and the salience of this social identity (Hogg & Turner, 1987 ; Onorato & Turner, 2004 ). For example, individuals may be more likely to display gender-stereotypical behavior when they identify more strongly with their gender (e.g., Lorenzi‐Cioldi, 1991 ) or when their gender is more likely to be salient, which is more likely to be the case for women (Cadinu & Galdi, 2012 ).

However, many different subcategories of women exist—housewives, feminists, lesbians—and thus what it means to identify as a woman, and behave like a woman, is likely to be complex and multifaceted (e.g., Fiske et al., 2002 ; van Breen, Spears, Kuppens, & de Lemus, 2017 ). Moreover, research demonstrates that the salience of gender in any given context also determined the degree to which an individual displays gender-stereotypical behavior (e.g., Ryan & David, 2003 ; Ryan, David, & Reynolds, 2004 ). For example, Ryan and colleagues demonstrate that while women and men act in line with gender stereotypes when gender and gender difference are salient, these differences in attitudes and behavior disappear when alternative identities, such as those based on being a student or being an individual, are made salient.

Gender Stereotypes Affect Performance and Achievement

The consequences of stereotypes go beyond the self-concept and behavior. Research in stereotype threat describes the detrimental effects that negative stereotypes can have on performance and achievement. Stereotype threat refers to the phenomenon whereby the awareness of the negative stereotyping of one’s group in a certain domain, and the fear of confirming such stereotypes, can have negative effects on performance, even when the stereotype is not endorsed. The phenomenon was first described by Steele and Aronson ( 1995 ) in the context of African Americans’ intellectual test performance, but has since been found to affect women’s performance and motivation in counterstereotypical domains such as math (Nguyen & Ryan, 2008 ) and leadership (Davies, Spencer, & Steele, 2005 ). This affect holds true even when minority group members’ prior performance and interest in the domain are the same as those of majority group members (Spencer, Steele, & Quinn, 1999 ). Moreover, the effect is particularly pronounced when the minority member’s desire to belong is strong and identity-based devaluation is likely (Steele, Spencer, & Aronson, 2002 ).

Different mechanisms for the effect of stereotype threat have been proposed. Schmader, Johns, and Forbes ( 2008 ) suggest that the inconsistency between one’s self-image as competent and the cultural stereotype about one’s group’s lack of competence leads to a physiological stress response that directly impairs working memory. For example, when made aware of the widely held stereotype that women are bad at math, a female math student is likely to experience an inconsistency. This inconsistency, the authors argue, is not only distressing in itself, but induces uncertainty: Am I actually good at math or am I bad at math as the stereotype would lead me to believe? In an effort to resolve this uncertainty, she is likely to monitor her performance more than others—and more than in a situation in which stereotype threat is absent. This monitoring leads to more conscious, less efficient processing of information—for example, when performing calculations that she would otherwise do more or less automatically—and a stronger focus on detecting potential failure, taking cognitive resources away from the actual task. Moreover, individuals under stereotype threat are more likely to experience negative thoughts and emotions such as fear of failure. In order to avoid the interference of these thoughts, they actively try to suppress them. This suppression, however, takes effort. All of these mechanisms, the authors argue, take working memory space away from the task in question, thereby impairing performance.

The aim of this article is to give an overview of gender research in social psychology, which has focused predominantly on gender stereotypes, their origins, and their consequences, and these are all connected and reinforce each other. Social psychology has produced many fascinating findings regarding gender, and this article has only just touched on these findings. While research into gender has seen a great growth in the past 50 years and has provided us with an unprecedented understanding of women and men and the differences (and similarities) between them, there is still much work to be done.

There are a number of issues that remain largely absent from mainstream social psychological research on gender. First, an interest and acknowledgment of intersectional identities has emerged, such as how gender intersects with race or sexuality. It is thus important to note that many of the theories discussed in this article cannot necessarily be applied directly across intersecting identities (e.g., to women of color or to lesbian women), and indeed the attitudes and behaviors of such women continue to be largely ignored within the field.

Second, almost all social psychological research into gender is conducted using an overly simplistic binary definition of gender in terms of women and men. Social psychological theories and explanations are, for the most part, not taking more complex or more fluid definitions of gender into account and thus are unable to explain gendered attitudes and behavior outside of the gender binary.

Finally, individual perceptions and cognitions are influenced by gendered stereotypes and expectations, and social psychologists are not immune to this influence. How we, as psychologists, ask research questions and how we interpret empirical findings are influenced by gender stereotypes (e.g., Hegarty & Buechel, 2006 ), and we must remain vigilant that we do not inadvertently seek to reinforce our own gendered expectations and reify the gender status quo.

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1. Psychology largely conceptualizes gender as binary. While this is problematic in a number of ways, which we touch upon in the Conclusion section, we largely follow these binary conventions throughout this article, as it is representative of the social psychological literature as a whole.

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An exploration of the relationships between the idea of "woman'' and the art of film. Issues addressed will include the role of woman as performer and director, questions of film genre, the identification of the female image as constitutive of the cinematic image, the historical and social dimensions of the female image projected in films of different times and different cultures. Film screenings, one three-hour seminar.

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An examination of changing patterns of manhood and womanhood, with an emphasis on women's experience. Topics include housekeeping, child rearing, birth control, sexuality, work, feminism, and the role of gender in religious and political movements and economic development. Two lectures, one preceptorial.

Islamic Family Law

Examines the outlines of Islamic family law in gender issues, sexual ethics, family structure, family planning, marriage and divorce, parenthood, and child guardianship and custody. Provides a general survey of the Islamic legal system: its history and developments, structure and spirit, and the attempts of the Muslim jurists to adapt law to changing times. One three-hour seminar.

Gender and Science

An exploration of two aspects of the gender and science literature: the historical participation of women (and men) in scientific work and the feminist critique of scientific knowledge. The seminar will explore ways in which women have been systematically excluded from science and assess the problems with that thesis. One three-hour seminar.

Topics in Gender and Sexuality Studies

This course explores early modern figurations of gender and sex in the literature and philosophy of Europe. We will look carefully at poetry, plays, utopian fiction, and natural philosophy from early modern England, France, Spain, the Netherlands, and the wider Atlantic world. Orienting our reading around the intersecting paradigms of faith, labor, and utopia, this course will offer us the chance to explore historical theories of gender, sex, and desire as well as consent, race, and property. We will also consider how early modern problems and assumptions inform more recent debates concerning gender and sexuality.

• Gender Studies

Why Study Gender

From the director’s desk.

One reason why most people refuse to participate in discussions on gender studies is because they understand gender as something that concerns women only. Therefore, as a student and teacher, I feel that the first step is to clarify that gender studies involves the study of both men and women. Gender, it has to be understood, is about a certain performance of identity, and gendered roles and norms are intrinsically woven into and practiced in our daily lives. Society has fixed standards and rules to validate both masculine and feminine identities. We are expected to perform these individual roles and reproduce the very conditions that perpetuate it. Starting with the clothes we wear, the spaces we occupy, the jobs we do, and the languages we speak, everything is gendered. This encoding of our daily life and habits directly impacts our sociocultural and economic status in society. Gender studies, therefore, is a study of production, reproduction, and resistance to norms that produce inequality between men and women. Only after this definition of gender studies is established proper dialogue is possible. Ironically, however, even though people practice gender in their everyday lives they feel awkward talking about it. This mindset poses unprecedented problems in the classroom. Therefore, in class discussions I strive to initiate students into thinking about gender as performative practices encoded since the moment of birth, or even prior to birth, through social, religious, and cultural institutions and texts.

Past Student Comments

Several former students speak out on why students should take Gender Studies courses.

My introduction to gender studies occurred when I enrolled in Dr. Virginia Husting’s Social Psychology of Gender class. I was a divorced mother of two grown children, the grandmother of one granddaughter, and a junior at Boise State University. I believed that feminists were wacky women who wanted to pretend they were men, to abandon their children, and to destroy important social structures. I had no idea feminist scholarship existed–let alone comprised a major part of the curriculum in gender studies. I expected Dr. Husting’s class to provide an academic version of “Men Are from Mars and Women Are from Venus,” and I assumed the class would be easy. Dr. Husting quickly dispelled those and many other of my misconceptions about gender studies. Furthermore, Dr. Husting’s class and the other classes I subsequently took to earn my minor in gender studies provided both personal and academic challenges that enhanced my critical thinking skills, opened my mind to new ways to analyze social issues, and helped me question what I had previously taken for granted as natural and unchangeable.

The concepts I learned in gender studies apply to many facets of life–far beyond gender issues. For example, learning about how many human behaviors and values are socially constructed rather than aspects of fixed human nature allowed me to discover how I had internalized negative beliefs about what it meant for me to be a blind person. I was inspired to challenge those negative beliefs about my blindness and share my knowledge with others. As a result of this transformation in my thinking, I completed two research projects encompassing rarely studied aspects of blind people’s lives, and I presented on my research in various settings–including two research conferences. I strongly recommend gender studies to anyone who is open to a highly rewarding challenge to their preconceptions and their academic abilities. -Deborah

Gender Studies seemed like a natural fit for me. I believe in equal opportunity for everyone. However, my life experience indicated that not everyone had the same opportunities nor lived the same life. I became interested in how people built their identities in this differentiated society. Studying communication gave me an insight into perceived communication differences between genders. Gender Studies classes explained these differences as a result of the different lived experiences of each actor.

In nearly every class I have taken since I began enrolling in Gender Studies classes, there has been an opportunity to discuss perceived differences between gender in relation to a number of different topics. From humanities to engineering, I have been able to nuance discussions of gender differences with a deeper understanding developed in Gender Studies classes. Nearly every time a difference is professed I am able to interpret the difference in terms of lived experience not inherent differences.

Perhaps the single most informative lesson is: There is more variation among people than between the genders. Gender Studies has informed and enriched my college experience, both in class and out. -Clay

Dr. Aiden Vanderstouwe, Director

GENDER & SEXUALITY STUDIES PROGRAM

Why study gender and sexuality.

“Girl or boy?” is often the first question anyone asks about us, preceding our own memories or our ability to speak for ourselves. In many ways, we never stop responding, consciously or otherwise. Our answers are expected to be automatic, and confined to these two options. Our female or male sex, our feminine or masculine gender, and our straight or gay desires are presumed as natural, individual facts, but at the same time, they are forced into binaries and regulated by culture at every level: in the clothing we wear, the popular culture we create or consume, the family structures we inhabit, the laws and public policies we obey or defy, and even the words we use. How do we navigate this paradox whereby sex, gender, and sexuality are taken to be fully natural but also profoundly cultural? How can we identify or alter the social inequalities built into these ways of thinking and being? In other words, how can we understand sex, gender, desire, and the complex relations among them as malleable products of culture, changing tremendously over time and across different societies?

The faculty and students in Gender and Sexuality Studies investigate these and related questions from multiple standpoints within the humanities and social sciences. Courses emphasize feminist, gay/lesbian, trans, queer, and other ways of knowing specific to sex and gender, as applied through fields like history, literature, sociology, anthropology, philosophy, film and media, political science, and public health. The program pays particular attention to how gender and sexuality intersect with race, class, ethnicity, national belonging, and transnational movement(s). In classes and in pursuing their own research, students focus on gender and sexuality as key categories of political, social and cultural analysis. For example, in recent years our students have done research on such topics as women’s empowerment and micro-loan programs in Uganda, “hook-up culture” on college campuses, depictions of trans identities in Hollywood films, medical diagnoses of female sexual dysfunction, and the effect of the 1977 Hyde Amendment on debates over abortion in the U.S.

Gender and sexuality are centrally important forces that shape every aspect of our lives:

• we know our bodies, minds and selves through our gender and our sex
• as a society, legal definitions and social expectations about women and men sex and reproduction organize our medical, legal, educational and political systems
• in the creative arts and culture, artists and writers move us through powerful images of masculinity and femininity, sex and desire

In GSS, we ask questions about gender and sexuality in the U.S., transnationally, and in history, and answer them using research tools from across the humanities and social sciences, as well as from feminist, masculinity, LGBT and queer studies.

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Pursuing a certificate in Women’s and Gender Studies at FHSU can bring an important perspective to your college experience. It's like putting on special glasses that help you see and understand the complexities of how people relate to each other and how societies are structured. Gender plays a big role in our lives, from our personal connections to our professional engagements. This certificate equips you with the skills and insights to make informed choices – whether you're at work, in your community, or navigating your personal life. By exploring gender studies, you'll gain a deeper understanding of the things that shape how people interact in society.

Dive into gender studies, and you're not just studying – you're honing skills that'll enrich your college experience:

Critical Thinking and Analytical Skills: A certificate in Women’s and Gender Studies challenges you to think critically about the construction of gender in society. You'll dissect how society builds gender roles, smashing assumptions along the way. It's like giving your brain a workout, making you question things and see the world from all angles.

Intersectionality: Think of life like a web – gender, race, class, and more are all tangled up. Our social world is interconnected – factors like race, gender, class, and sexuality all play important roles in our social and cultural experiences. An interdisciplinary and holistic examination of gender allows us better understand our interconnected world.

Career Opportunities: Employers look for people who get society. In our global and diverse workforce, employers increasingly value individuals with a broad understanding of societal dynamics. A Women’s and Gender Studies certificate can enhance your employability across various fields, including education, healthcare, social work, human resources, and public policy.

Social Justice Advocacy: Become a superhero for equality! A Women’s and Gender Studies certificate arms you with the knowledge to speak up for what's right. Imagine being the voice for inclusivity, diversity, and fairness – you're making waves of positive change in communities and big institutions.

Personal Growth and Empowerment: It's not just about grades; it's about you. Pursuing your certificate in Women’s and Gender Studies takes you on a journey into self-discovery. You'll uncover your own beliefs, biases, and privileges. This isn't just knowledge; it's personal power. You'll see the world with more empathy and understanding.

In a nutshell, a Women’s and Gender Studies Certificate is more than just a piece of paper; it's your guide to acing life with a deep understanding of how gender shapes the social world. Ready to be a force for good in the world? By embracing the complexities of gender, you can contribute to building a more inclusive and equitable future for all.

Fort Hays State University

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The Economic Case for More Gender Equality in Estonia

• Gender equality
• Gender equality and work

Cite this content as:

Gender equality is not just about fairness and equity; it is also about economic empowerment and economic growth. Estonia has made great strides towards gender equality. Girls today outperform boys in educational attainment, but they are less likely than boys to study mathematics or information and communication technology. The gender employment gap is small, but Estonian women are still less likely to make it to the top, and career breaks around childbirth contribute to the declining but still considerable gender wage gap.

This review considers the gender gaps in labour market outcomes and explores the gap in pay between men and women with equivalent skills within and across firms. It considers family support policies for households with young children, women’s bargaining position in firms, initiatives to combat gender-based discrimination as well as changing gender norms in education. It then explores the potential economic gains of greater gender equality under different scenarios. Indeed, a greater sharing of paid and unpaid work between men and women will lead to economic gains, but it requires changing norms, mindsets, and attitudes. Such changes take time, but policy has a role to play in raising public awareness of gender biases in society and promoting change.

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Negative Media Coverage as a Barrier to Accessing Care for Transgender Children and Adolescents

• 1 Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, Parkville, Australia
• 2 Department of Paediatrics, University of Melbourne, Parkville, Australia
• 3 Department of Medical Psychology, Amsterdam UMC, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
• 4 Center of Expertise on Gender Dysphoria, Amsterdam UMC, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
• Original Investigation Referrals to Child and Adolescent Gender Identity Clinics in Sweden Following Media Coverage Malin Indremo, MS; Anna Clara Jodensvi, MD; Hans Arinell, BSc; Johan Isaksson, PhD; Fotios C. Papadopoulos, PhD JAMA Network Open

The past decade has seen a marked increase in the visibility of transgender and gender diverse (TGD) individuals within Western society. From press coverage of celebrities, such as Caitlyn Jenner, Elliot Page, and Chelsea Manning, to broader representation of fictional TGD characters within the mainstream media, public awareness and understanding of gender diversity have grown substantially. Many of these stories have helped to empower TGD people and to depathologize gender diversity. In our clinical experience, TGD individuals often identify media as a helpful source of information that can facilitate exploration of their identity and act as a trigger to seek assistance from health professionals. Consistent with the latter, we previously observed an association between increased TGD-related media coverage and higher numbers of young people presenting to specialist pediatric gender clinics. 1

However, recent years have also seen greater public discussion questioning the rights of TGD individuals to access public spaces (eg, toilets and changerooms) and to participate in certain occupations (eg, the military) and sporting activities, all of which has been echoed and amplified in the press. Similarly, there has been an increase in negative media coverage focused on clinics that specialize in the provision of gender-affirming health care to TGD children and adolescents. These reports have helped to stoke various concerns. For example, some have suggested that the growing number of referrals to such clinics is not owing to greater awareness of gender diversity and empowerment of TGD young people but is instead being driven by other factors such as peer influence, 2 while others have warned that the use of gender-affirming hormonal interventions in TGD young people represents an undue risk.

The study by Indremo and colleagues 3 highlights the potentially pernicious influence of such negative media coverage on TGD children and adolescents. In particular, the authors examined whether referral numbers to specialist pediatric gender clinics across Sweden changed after the airing of a controversial 2019 Swedish television documentary series that highlighted the recent increase in pediatric referral numbers, featured stories of young adults who came to regret the gender-affirming treatment they received as adolescents, and raised concerns about the scientific basis for such treatment. The documentary, which was subsequently criticized for its negative bias, led to widespread debate within the Swedish press and, as Indremo and colleagues 3 observed, was associated with a decrease in total referral numbers of children and adolescents by 31% over the subsequent 6 months. 3 Although the mechanisms underlying this decrease were not formally explored in their study, the authors reasonably speculated that both parents and referring health professionals may have been less likely to support a child or adolescent’s attendance at a specialist pediatric gender clinic following the documentary. 3

In this way, one of the critical outcomes associated with negative media coverage on TGD young people is likely to be reduced access to gender-affirming health care. Such care, which is recommended by leading professional organizations, such as the Endocrine Society 4 and the American Academy of Pediatrics, 5 is associated with improved mental health in a population that is known to be at high risk of developing mental health problems compared with their cisgender peers. 4 - 6 Therefore, by decreasing the number of young people referred for gender-affirming care, negative media coverage may result in worse mental health among a vulnerable group of society who already face numerous barriers and risks in accessing such care. 7

Negative media portrayals of TGD individuals are likely to be associated with other adverse consequences beyond simply reducing referral rates. First, TGD youth qualitatively report that negative news stories can directly harm their mental well-being by triggering feelings of depression, anxiety, and fear. 8 Consistent with this, more frequent exposure to negative TGD-related media has been associated with higher rates of depression, anxiety, and posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms. 9 Second, negative media coverage may be associated with impairing access to treatment even among TGD young people who have already been referred to specialist clinical services. For example, with media reports undermining parental support for gender affirming care, some TGD young people may find themselves lacking the consent of their parents to commence hormonal treatment even though it has been recommended by their treating health professionals. After all, parental consent is required for initiation of hormonal treatment not only in TGD young people not yet mature or old enough to legally consent for themselves, but is also mandatory in some jurisdictions for any transgender or gender diverse individual younger than 18 years. 10 Third, it is clear that some TGD youth, when faced with difficulties accessing gender-affirming care from health professionals, may take matters into their own hands to self-initiate hormone treatment (eg, after sourcing hormones via the internet or from unlicensed or illegal sources). 7 Lacking appropriate medical oversight, such self-medication practices are dangerous and further increase the risk of harm. Last but not least, media that question the legitimacy of gender diversity or depict TGD identities as inherently pathological may contribute to disbelief and mistrust of TGD individuals within broader society and thus perpetuate the transphobia that still plagues the lives of TGD people worldwide. This transphobia may manifest as family rejection, social exclusion, discrimination, bullying, and violence, all of which contribute to poorer health and well-being.

Looking ahead, the work by Indremo and colleagues 3 raises important questions that could be addressed by future studies. For example, while their research focused on the outcomes associated with a Swedish documentary series, it would be helpful to examine whether similar media coverage in other countries has been associated with similar decreases in referral numbers and whether particular types of media stories are more prone to having this association. At the same time, it is unclear whether the apparent outcome associated with the Swedish documentary was to temporarily delay individual referrals or permanently suppress them altogether. Finally, social media is obviously a key source of information (and misinformation) for many individuals nowadays, and examining the associations of negative (and positive) social media with referral rates would also be important.

Finally, it is worth highlighting the role and responsibility of media organizations in ensuring that stories depicting health care for TGD young people are fair, balanced, nuanced, and accurate. Too often, reporting in this sphere has fallen short of these standards and lacked the voices of TGD young people who have benefitted from gender-affirming care or the perspectives of health professionals with expertise in providing such care. Perhaps this is understandable, given the myriad stories competing for audiences’ attention across various media platforms and the apparent need to maximize views, clicks, and likes via sensationalist reporting. However, when it comes to reporting that pertains to the health of TGD young people, who are, after all, one of the most vulnerable subgroups within our society, perhaps our media should recall one of the core tenets of health care and ensure their stories ‘First, do no harm.’

Published: February 2, 2022. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2021.38623

Open Access: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the CC-BY License . © 2022 Pang KC et al. JAMA Network Open .

Corresponding Author: Ken C. Pang, PhD, Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, 50 Flemington Rd, Parkville, VIC, Australia ( [email protected] ).

Conflict of Interest Disclosures: Dr Pang also reported being a member of the Australian Professional Association for Trans Health and its research committee. Dr Steensma reported being a member of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health.

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Pang KC , Hoq M , Steensma TD. Negative Media Coverage as a Barrier to Accessing Care for Transgender Children and Adolescents. JAMA Netw Open. 2022;5(2):e2138623. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2021.38623

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