Negative Gender Ideologies and Gender-Science Stereotypes Are More Pervasive in Male-Dominated Academic Disciplines

Abstract

Male-dominated work environments often possess masculine cultures that are unwelcoming to women. The present work investigated whether male-dominated academic environments were characterized by gender ideologies with negative implications for women. A survey of 2622 undergraduates across a variety of academic majors examined how gender imbalance within the major corresponded with students' gender ideologies. We hypothesized that men in male-dominated domains might justify their dominance and prototypical status by adopting gender ideologies and stereotypes that denigrate women and treat men as the normative and superior group. Confirming this hypothesis, men in increasingly male-dominated academic majors were more likely to endorse Assimilationism-that women should adapt and conform to masculine work norms in order to succeed-and Segregationism-that men and women should pursue traditional social roles and careers. Moreover, they were less likely to endorse Gender Blindness-that attention to gender should be minimized. They were also more likely to agree with the gender-science stereotype that men do better in math and science than women. In contrast, gender imbalance in the major did not influence women's gender ideologies, and women in increasingly male-dominated majors were significantly less likely to endorse the gender-science stereotype.

Pipped at the Post: Knowledge Gaps and Expected Low Parental IT Competence Ratings Affect Young Women’s Awakening Interest in Professional Careers in Information Science

“…Clayton et al (2009, p. 153) in a research review on the role of gender stereotypes in ICT came to the conclusion that gender stereotypes “provide misleading ideas about ICT as a career discouraging both girls and boys.” In a more recent study published by Banchefsky and Park (2018, p. 1), the authors researching gender-science stereotypes in male-dominated academic disciplines could prove that their female participants were “significantly less likely to endorse the gender-science stereotype.” In the introduction to this article the question was asked “ Can the interest in ICT counteract the masculine image of computer science? ” Based on the lessons learned from their projects, the two research teams of Lasen (2010) and Sáinz et al (2016) agreed that a new understanding of the tasks and professions in the ICT business already show a positive impact on the interest of girls and young women in ICT careers.…”

Contemporary Challenges for the Academic

“…This reflection did not directly take into account dimensions such as the connection and impact of the academic's activity on the surrounding community (Ross, 2018), or cultural difficulties, for example, of gender or ethnic, in the academic's activity (Banchefsky & Park, 2018;Misra, Smith-Doerr, Dasgupta, Weaver, & Normanly, 2017;Sang, 2018;Ustun, & Gümüseli, 2017). These are aspects to be developed if we want more just and equitable societies.…”

Who Is Writing About Women in STEM in Higher Education in the United States? A Citation Analysis of Gendered Authorship

“…women students and faculty, including recruitment and retention (Blackburn, 2017). These studies explore everything from student motivation (Graziano et al, 2012;Smith et al, 2012;Chumbley et al, 2015;Talley and Ortiz, 2017;Leaper and Starr, 2018), self-concept (Sax et al, 2015;Koul et al, 2016;Morton and Parsons, 2018), self-efficacy (Dugan et al, 2013;Verdín and Godwin, 2018), and identity (Robnett et al, 2015;Beals, 2016) to biases (Handley et al, 2015;LaCosse et al, 2016;Moss-Racusin et al, 2018), stereotypes (Cheryan et al, 2015;Barth et al, 2017;Banchefsky and Park, 2018), campus culture (Crenshaw et al, 2017;Dresden et al, 2018), and lived experiences (Maltese and Tai, 2011;Alexander and Hermann, 2016;Smith and Gayles, 2018). Studies covering women faculty members include barriers to tenure (Soto, 2014;Williams and Ceci, 2015;Skewes et al, 2017), promotion (Gumpertz et al, 2017), worklife balance (O'Brien and Hebl, 2008;Adamo, 2013;Pedersen and Minnotte, 2017), and administrative advancement (Avallone et al, 2013;Lopez et al, 2018).…”