1. GENDER EQUALITY AND DOMINANCE
Week 6
GENDER EQUALITY AND DOMINANCE

2. The Big Question:
If women are as capable as men, why are there so few great female artists?
Where are the eminent women novelists, composers, philosophers, economists, chemists, film directors, and politicians?

3. Some statistics ( ):
Women remain underrepresented in parliament in a number of countries:
Approx. 22% in Canada
12% in United States
18% UK
45% Sweden
*men have received 98% of Nobel prizes in science in the 20th century.
*6 female CEOs of Fortune 500 companies.

4. 2 approaches to the question:
Attitudes/experiences/behaviors of men and women
-motivation
-interest
-fear
Attitudes toward men and women
-social expectations
-gender roles
-barriers

5. Motivation
2 types of motives:
Power
Achievement

6. Thematic Apperception Test (Murray & Morgan, 1930’s)

7. Achievement McClelland (1953) For men:
achievement = performance in competitive situations and career performance
achievement involving task instructions

8. Gender differences in achievement…
1. W>M AM scores under neutral conditions
2.Women’s AM scores relate to their performance in the same way that men’s do
3. Women do not show an increase in AM scores when given achievement-involving instructions in intelligence/ability

9. Gender-role contingency
Women responded with increased achievement arousal when given achievement-involving instructions that emphasize social skills.

10. FEAR OF SUCCESS

11. Horner (1968)
because achievement is inappropriate for women in many areas, a woman achieving in one of these areas may feel that she was losing an aspect of her femininity
successful career women felt compelled to demonstrate that they were “real women”
If the negative consequences of success outweigh the positive ones  women avoid “success”
>Michigan study

12. Complete the sentence:
“Ann finds herself at the top of her medical school class…”

13. Research Support: Challenge:
perhaps not really an internal motive rather EXPECTATIONS OF THE NEGATIVE CONSEQUENCES OF SUCCESS
Research Support:
male students also wrote negative consequences for her success
Women write about male target w/o negative consequences

14. Cherry and Deaux (1978)
Found that men indicated a fear of success when “John” in nursing school
Therefore, fear of success may be a fear of the negative consequences of succeeding in a “gender-inappropriate” situation.

15. Strength of underlying AM Probability of success
MOTIVATION TO
ACHIEVE
Incentive/reward
Probability of success

16. Power Motivation Similar research
No difference under neutral conditions
Men responded with more PM to power-arousing procedures.
For both W+M, high need for power ~ experience in institutional power position and ~ choosing careers that involve having power over others.

17. Power and Influence
“Strong”, authoritative versus “weak”, passive tactics

18. Strategies of Influence
Paula Johnson (1976)
There are 3 dimensions that are affected by gender stereotypes:
Directness
Concreteness
Competence

19. Johnson (1976) WOMEN Indirect MEN Personal Direct
Helplessness or Dependence
MEN
Direct
Concrete
Competent

20. Do men and women use power differently?
Ps asked if male or female influencer when presented with a list of 15 different methods:
Coercion based on resources, legitimacy and expertise- predicted of male influencers
Coercion based on personal resources and sexuality –predicted of female influencers

21. Do they, in fact, use it differently?
In leadership roles:
Men are seen to use more persuasive messaging that stress their own expertise
Women- messages that emphasized their helplessness and dependency
Women are also more likely to report using more compromising strategies

22. Defining Achievement and Power
Definition of achievement
Achievement- broken down into components…
Thus, different styles of achieving goals reflects differences inherent in gender-role expectations (i.e., differences can be seen as a rxn to social expectations)

23. Defining Achievement and Power
Definition of power
(personal authority vs. controlling others)
Men: dominating others
Women: developing sense of own abilities and strengths
No differences when explicitly asked to define

24. Access to Resources
Money
education,
employment,
status, and
Time

25. Attitudes toward women in power
Carli (1999)- women are less likely to be perceived as competent experts
-making them less likely to use direct strategies
even when perceived as competent not perceived as having legitimate AUTHORITY

26. Politics
Werhun & Pancer (2005; under review)- stereotype: women are not interested in politics
Governmental vs. Nongovernmental

28. Attitudes toward female candidates
Voting biases shown in a number of studies
Media portrayals
Gender-typing of skills and social policies
Double-bind for women

29. The relative position of women and men in relation to the power structures
Perceptions of and attitudes toward power
Attitudes against