Warm-hearted businessmen, competitive housewives? Effects of gender-fair language on adolescents’ perceptions of occupations

Abstract

Recent studies from countries with grammatical gender languages (e.g., French) found both children and adults to more frequently think of female jobholders and to consider women’s success in male dominated occupations more likely when the jobs were described in pair forms (i.e., by explicit reference to male and female jobholders, e.g., inventeuses et inventeurs; French feminine and masculine plural forms for inventors), rather than masculine only forms (e.g., inventors). To gain a better understanding of this phenomenon, we systematically varied the gender connotation of occupations (males overrepresented, females overrepresented, equal share of males and females) and measured additional dependent variables, predicting that gender fair language would reduce the impact of the gender connotation on participants’ perceptions. In a sample of 222 adolescents (aged 12–17) from French speaking Switzerland, we found that pair forms attenuated the difference in the ascription of success to male and female jobholders in gendered occupations and attenuated the differential ascription of warmth to prototypical jobholders in male vs. female dominated jobs. However, no effect of language form on the ascription of competence was found. These findings suggest that language policies are an effective tool to impact gendered perceptions, however, they also hint at competence-related gender stereotypes being in decline.

Does Gender-Fair Language Pay Off? The Social Perception of Professions from a Cross-Linguistic Perspective

“…In addition, we examined whether the perceived competence and warmth of the professional groups was also affected. But as there was only one published study with French-speaking children (Vervecken et al, 2015 ), which had produced rather unexpected findings for warmth, we were reluctant to formulate specific hypotheses. Therefore, perceptions of warmth and competence were investigated in an exploratory way.…”

“…The authors concluded that word pairs shifted perceptions of warmth toward the mid-point and somehow balanced these perceptions, whereas masculine forms tended to evoke gender-stereotypic perceptions of warmth. It should be noted, though, that this was the very first study measuring competence and warmth perceptions of professions (Vervecken et al, 2015 ). Another study with Belgian and German children showed similar effects for perceptions of success: when professions were presented with word pairs, children estimated female job holders in typically masculine professions as more successful.…”

“…This seems to suggest that word pairs promote gender equality. However, recent findings also document detrimental effects of gender-fair language in the professional context, especially on status-related measures (e.g., Formanowicz et al, 2013 ; Vervecken et al, 2015 ). These contradictory findings concerning effects of gender-fair language (vs. masculine generics) on gender equality were obtained in different studies under different conditions.…”

“…However, the different studies are based on a wide range of methods and study designs (between- vs. within-participants), which renders a direct comparison difficult. Some studies, for instance, tested one profession only (e.g., Formanowicz et al, 2013 ), while others included a larger number of professions (e.g., Vervecken et al, 2015 ). Also, different participant populations (i.e., children, adolescents, students, adults) have been used.…”

“…In some cases, opposing reactions to gender-fair language were found in different languages (e.g., support of social initiatives in German, but rejection in Polish; Formanowicz et al, 2015 ). Also, some studies focused on the individual level (perception of one person, e.g., Formanowicz et al, 2013 ), others on the group level (perception of professions, Vervecken et al, 2015 ). Thus, it is unknown whether gender-fair forms decrease adults' perceptions of professional status on a group level, as is true for children (e.g., Vervecken and Hannover, 2015 ), and on the individual level (e.g., Mucchi-Faina, 2005 ; Formanowicz et al, 2013 ).…”