Many factors underlie these disparities, but likely sources include subtle forms of gender stereotypes that associate women with less prestigious, agentic, or lucrative roles. Most strikingly, in the United States gender correlates with a significant pay gap ( Blau & Kahn, 2006), unequal professional advancement opportunities ( Bohnet, Van Geen, & Bazerman, 2016), unequal division of household labor ( Bird, 1999), and occupational segregation ( Charles & Grusky, 2004). Beyond these relatively benign and presumably voluntary gender-typed preferences, gender also becomes a source of inequality. It is little surprise then, that gender becomes a defining feature of life, affecting friendship patterns ( Howes & Phillipsen, 1992), clothing ( Cox & Dittmar, 1995), and play preferences ( Francis, 2010). Further, the world also sees children through a prism of gender: from early infancy male and female babies, though difficult to tell apart in the absence of imposed gender cues such as clothing or names, are interpreted quite differently by observers, with infants thought to be male interpreted as more active and agentic, and infants thought to be female as more delicate and sweet ( Rubin, Provenzano, & Luria, 1974).
From the color of congratulations cards and nursery walls to the toys, names, and clothing they are exposed to, gender is presented as an important cultural distinction that must be mastered ( Bridges, 1993). Implications for gender stereotyping and the representation of women in different fields are discussed.įrom the first moments of life children are bombarded with rich cues that pervasively convey gender roles and stereotypes. We support this hypothesis in four studies (total N > 900), finding that at both the explicit and implicit level, reason is preferentially associated with male, feeling is preferentially associated with female, male faces prime unrelated judgments of reason/rationality, and gendered associations are related to interest in academic disciplines as well as estimates of the (mis)representation of women within those disciplines. This claim has frequently been dismissed as incoherent, but a straightforward interpretation is readily available: The concept reason is semantically associated with the concept male. Specifically, feminist philosophers have argued that rationality is associated with male rather than female discourse. However, some theorists have argued that this common ground may not be level, in that subtle assumptions embedded within lay views of rationality marginalize some would-be participants. Shared rationality is the common ground of scientific progress.
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