Gender stereotypes: social impacts and representations

Women Were Still Stereotyped in 1998

According to its dictionary definition, a stereotype can be an innocent thing, a mere stencil, or a preexisting form or stencil that can be used to make a template for an image. However, when a stereotype is a cultural and a psychological rather than a physical or artistic device, and is wielded against an entire gender, and filled with the copier's notions of correct behavior to the extent that it limits the ability of another person to be a fully functional and fully fledged human being, the stereotype must be questioned and subsequently broken down.

In 1998, although feminism was officially en vogue, the popularity of "chick lit" was at its height, and speculations about it being easier for a woman to be killed by lightening than to be married over the age of thirty or so had become less vociferously promoted by the media, there was still a notable cultural prejudice against women. Stereotypes that limited, calcified and smothered rather than sustained a fuller conception of what it mean to be female were still expressed and held within the American cultural dialogue and framework.

In seeking hard evidence for this fact, one must first ask what are the most detrimental stereotypes about women. According to the stereoyped, female gender role, women are considered to have more social qualities. Women are traditionally perceived to be more emotional, sensitive, supporting, gentle, kind, and affectionate than men. In contrast, again, according to stereotype, men are assumed to possess more "agentic" qualities, in terms of having the extroverted qualites of independence, assertiveness, competitiveness, daring, and courage under fire -- thus, in the modern media conception of leadership, "agency" is the dominant label in the male stereotype and whereas "communality" is the attribute most assigned to females. thus "typical" males are said to emphasize goal attainment and leadership, whereas their female counterparts emphasize social relationships and making others feel good about themselves. (Rodler, Ashmore, DelBoca, & Wohlers, 1986, cited by Kirchler, Holzl,2000, p.1)

Of course, one could say that placing a strong emphasis on social qualities and nurturance is not necessarily a negative stereotype, or one contrary to leadership. But when such a rubric of the male vs. female dichotomy of relationality is present within the American societal cognifive cultural structure, that values individualism, and although such stereotypes are not necessarily bad in and of themselves, when applied to individuals within leadership positions and seeking leadership positions, they can be deliterious.

To demonstrate this fact a study by Kirchler, Holzl, and Rodler resorted to an unusual but perspacious source of cultural data, namely those of obituaries. These obitiuaries were written by the organization in which a deceased leader had been employed and published in various newspapers of record in the years 1974, 1980, 1986, 1992, and 1998. 894 obituaries reported explicitly on persons who had been working in leadership positions. 39 of the obituaries pertained to deceased females and 757 to deceased males. The greater number of the latter was due to the fact that more males could be identified as organizational leaders and thus more male obituaries of leaders could be found in the pages of the columns.

In the study, a person was defined as leader when he or she had been a director or head of a business firm, school or other public organization, chair of a department, etc. Although the authors found that stereotypes of women had grown less inflexible since the 1970's, male stereotypes of leaders had remained constant up to 1998, and still, women's nurturance and flexbility were stressed even when they were leaders, rather than forcefulness, dynamism and drive. Leadership was still seen as male cognitive skill, and women were judged upon their ability to either imperfectly emulate male characteristics, or act in a surrogage and supportive motherly capacity, even while possessing the title of leader. Again, this is not to say that applying gender specific attrubutes to male and female leadership is necessarily a negative for women as a group, but given this perception of leadership as requiring extrovertive and active male attributes, the retention of such cultural stereotypes within organizations could potentially result in a loss of leadership oppotuniteis for women, and a potential loss of presitige in business nad politics as well as income and social advancement.

The authors noted that "research on gender and leadership style has focused on gender differences. Men were and often still are evaluated more positively when scoring high on the initiation dimension, whereas women are evaluated more positively when scoring high on the consideration dimension." (citing Bartol & Butterfield, 1976). Also according to gender stereotypes, men were rated as having a stronger advantage on measures of task-related leadership, whereas female leaders were rated as having stronger advantage on social factors of leadership.