Double Standards in the Evaluation of Men and Women

Foschi, Martha

doi:10.2307/2787021

Cited by 316 publications

(272 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…Foschi's (1992Foschi's ( , 1996Foschi's ( , 2000 theory about double standards for competence is also relevant to this issue. According to Foschi, different standards are used in scrutinizing equal performance by a man and a woman to make judgments about competence, with performance by members of lower status groups (e.g., women) assessed by stricter standards than similar performance by members of higher status groups (e.g., men).…”

Section: Performance Evaluation and Promotionmentioning

confidence: 99%

When fit is fundamental: Performance evaluations and promotions of upper-level female and male managers.

Lyness

Heilman

2006

Journal of Applied Psychology

548

422

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Using archival organizational data, the authors examined relationships of gender and type of position (i.e., line or staff) to performance evaluations of 448 upper-level managers, and relationships of performance evaluations to promotions during the subsequent 2 years. Consistent with the idea that there is a greater perceived lack of fit between stereotypical attributes of women and requirements of line jobs than staff jobs, women in line jobs received lower performance ratings than women in staff jobs or men in either line or staff jobs. Moreover, promoted women had received higher performance ratings than promoted men and performance ratings were more strongly related to promotions for women than men, suggesting that women were held to stricter standards for promotion.Keywords: gender bias, gender stereotypes, performance appraisal, promotion, glass ceiling Although their presence in the management ranks is increasing, women continue to be underrepresented in senior management at many large private-sector companies (Lyness, 2002;Powell, 1999). One possible explanation is that there are gender differences in performance evaluations, and how women managers' performance is evaluated relative to men's performance influences women's subsequent career success. Yet, relatively little is known about whether or when performance evaluations of women in upper-level management jobs differ from those of their male counterparts, or if female managers' performance ratings differ depending on the types of jobs they hold. Moreover, it is not clear from prior research how performance evaluations are related to the actual career progress of men and women managers. The present study addresses these issues. Performance EvaluationsThe perceived lack of person-job fit has been used to explain the occurrence of gender bias against women in organizational decisions about managers including performance evaluations. That is, the perceived incongruity between stereotypically based attributes ascribed to women (e.g., kind, caring, and relationshiporiented) and the attributes ascribed to men (e.g., tough, forceful, and achievement-oriented) believed to be necessary for success at male gender-typed jobs, is thought to give rise to expectations that women will perform poorly in these positions, and the greater the perceived lack of fit, the more negative the expectations (Heilman, 1983(Heilman, , 1995(Heilman, , 2001). The lack-of-fit model further asserts that these expectations play a key role in evaluative processes because there is a tendency to perpetuate and confirm them. These expectations become the lens through which information is filtered, including what behavior is attended to, how that behavior is interpreted, and whether it is remembered when critical decisions are made. As a consequence, the negative expectations resulting from perceptions of lack of fit detrimentally affect how women are regarded and how their work is evaluated when they are in traditionally male jobs.There is empirical evidence to support the lack-of-fit mo...

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Section: Performance Evaluation and Promotionmentioning

confidence: 99%

When fit is fundamental: Performance evaluations and promotions of upper-level female and male managers.

Lyness

Heilman

2006

Journal of Applied Psychology

548

422

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“…Glass, 1990;England et al, 1994). Research has also demonstrated the existence of a double standard in the evaluation of the work done by men and women, through which equal job tasks are more highly appraised when done by men than when done by women (Bose and Rossi, 1983;McArthur, 1985;Foschi, 1996). If the work commonly performed by women is undervalued with respect to the work commonly performed by men, individuals working in female-dominated occupations will have less power in the bargaining process which precedes household migration ceteris paribus.…”

Section: -The Effects Of Occupational Sex-segregation On Family Migramentioning

confidence: 99%

Occupational Characteristics, Occupational Sex Segregation, and Family Migration Decisions

Perales

Vidal

2012

Population Space and Place

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This paper examines the effects of occupational characteristics on family migration within Britain. For the first time in the literature, we explicitly theorise and later test the impact of the sex composition of husbands' and wives' occupations on mobility decisions. The empirical analysis consists of panel regression models estimated on dyadic couple‐level information from the British Household Panel Survey combined with occupational‐level data from the UK Labour Force Survey. Results suggest that some occupational characteristics are significantly associated with family migration, whereas occupational sex segregation has limited impact. Although working in female‐dominated occupations is related to a lower propensity to become a lead mover and a higher propensity to become a tied mover, these associations are mediated by the socio‐economic and occupational characteristics of the spouses. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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“…Men's stronger interest in and greater likelihood of persistence in STEM fields is also driven by gender-differentiated self-perceptions of fit and ability (Cheryan et al 2009;Wynn and Correll 2017) and the application of double standards for competence Foschi 1996). Both of these mechanisms arise from the mismatch between expectations for STEM workers and expectations for women's behavior.…”

Section: Stereotype Content and Inequality In Stemmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…On the demand side, the most obvious intermediary mechanisms are discrimination against workers and applicants whose gender does not "fit," or align with, the gender of the job, gendered recruitment practices, and biased assessments of individuals' relative qualifications (Becker 1957;Phelps 1980;Bielby and Baron 1986;Foschi 1996;Heilman 2001). On the supply side, stereotyping reinforces segregation by leading people to make gender-conforming choices that affirm their masculinity or femininity, and avoid social sanctions and discriminatory work environments (West and Zimmerman 1987;Ridgeway 2011;Cech 2013;Blair-Loy et al 2017;Weisgram and Diekman 2017).…”

Section: Micro-macro Interactions: Cultural Stereotypes Into Aspirationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Segregation, Stereotypes, and STEM

2018

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Scientific, technical, engineering, and mathematical (STEM) occupations are strongholds of gender segregation in the contemporary United States. While many Americans regard this segregation as natural and inevitable, closer examination reveals a great deal of variability in the gendering of STEM fields across time, space, and demographic groups. This article assesses how different theoretical accounts accord with the available evidence on the gender composition of scientific and technical fields. We find most support for accounts that allow for a dynamic interplay between individual-level traits and the broader sociocultural environments in which they develop. The existing evidence suggests, in particular, that Western cultural stereotypes about the nature of STEM work and STEM workers and about the intrinsic qualities of men and women can be powerful drivers of individual aptitudes, aspirations, and affinities. We offer an illustrative catalog of stereotypes that support women's STEM-avoidance and men's STEM-affinity, and we conclude with some thoughts on policy implications.Keywords: gender; STEM; segregation; stereotypes; culture; work; occupations; science; inequality For more than three decades, American educators, policy makers, activists, and business leaders have engaged in research and policy initiatives to increase the presence of women and other underrepresented groups in scientific, technical, engineering, and mathematical (STEM) occupations and fields of study. These efforts have been motivated by interests in broadening opportunities in lucrative, high-status occupations and in ameliorating acute STEM labor shortages that are believed to threaten national prosperity, private profits and the public welfare.Despite wide-ranging research and policy efforts, STEM occupations remain strongholds of gender segregation in the contemporary United States. Women made up nearly half of the US labor market in 2015, but only 28% of all scientific and technical workers. Within STEM, gender segregation is also very strong, with women comprising 48% of life scientists and 60% of social scientists, but only 28% of physical scientists and 15% of engineers (NSF 2018, Appendices 3-12). 1 While some fields have integrated over time, others have become more segregated. Women's share of US bachelor's degrees in computer science, for instance, declined from 28% to 18% between (NSF 2018.While many Americans understand men's dominance of scientific and technical work as natural and universal, the gender typing of STEM fields varies a great deal across space, time, and socio-demographic groups. Recent comparative studies have shown that scientific degree recipients are disproportionately female in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Romania, and Georgia, for example, and that the gender gap in children's STEM aspirations is larger in more affluent societies (Charles 2011a(Charles , 2017 1 Even within engineering women and men tend to do different work: about 10% of mechanical and electrical engineers are women, compared to 20...

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Double Standards in the Evaluation of Men and Women

Cited by 316 publications

References 26 publications

When fit is fundamental: Performance evaluations and promotions of upper-level female and male managers.

When fit is fundamental: Performance evaluations and promotions of upper-level female and male managers.

Occupational Characteristics, Occupational Sex Segregation, and Family Migration Decisions

Segregation, Stereotypes, and STEM

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