Hostile and Benevolent Sexism and College Women’s STEM Outcomes

Abstract

We examined associations of perceived ambivalent sexism with women's outcomes in university Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) courses as a function of their STEM identity. Women (N ¼ 592) who varied in STEM identification reported on their personal experiences with benevolent and hostile sexism and indicated their STEM major intentions, STEM self-efficacy, and STEM grade point average (GPA). Women perceived more benevolent sexism (i.e., protective paternalism and complementary gender differentiation) than hostile sexism in STEM courses, and their STEM identity moderated the associations between sexism and STEM outcomes. Among weakly-identified (but not strongly-identified) women, protective paternalism predicted lower STEM major intentions, STEM self-efficacy, and STEM GPA; hostile sexism predicted lower STEM GPA. Male STEM students (N ¼ 163) reported more protective paternalism attitudes than hostile sexism attitudes, suggesting that women's perceptions were not without warrant. We discuss implications of these results for understanding women's underrepresentation in STEM and advise STEM educators to avoid well-intended, but paternalistic, messages that convey negative stereotypes about women's STEM competence.

Sexism and Aggression in Adolescence—How Do They Relate to Perceived Academic Achievement?

“…This discrimination creates barriers for girls for the chance to enrol in higher technical education, which would allow them to achieve highly qualified technical jobs. These results confirm that benevolent sexism is associated with traditional gender roles, which associate women with communal values (e.g., concern for others) and men with agentic values (e.g., competence), which might be the reason why benevolent sexism had no significant relationship with perceived academic achievement in boys and it was negatively related to perceived academic achievement in girls [19,40].…”

“…Likewise, perceived hostile sexism was related to low levels of academic achievement [38][39][40]. While for hostile sexism women havean inferior competence compared to men, for benevolent sexism, which is more subtle than hostile sexism, women are associated with the relational domain and communal values and men with the achievement domain and agentic values [19].…”

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“…11 Benevolent sexism undermines women's self-efficacy, sense of engagement and performance. 18,19 Bluntly, benevolent sexism breeds imposter syndrome.…”

“…20 In other words, if we continue to value adherence by women doctors to stereotypes, they will be less likely to challenge these stereotypes and change the system. 18,21 Warmth traits encouraged in women are 'other profitable' with direct beneficial consequences to more dominant males. 22 It will be easy for Fiona to struggle to establish and maintain appropriate boundaries as a senior paediatrician with patient-centred, learner-centred and family-centred values and focus.…”

Methods for Running a Successful Women-in-STEM Organization on an Academic Campus

“…6 Indeed, not just overt bias, but ambivalence towards sexism and bias has been reported to negatively affect female trainees. 7 The marginalization of women in STEM was publicly recognized in a landmark study conducted at MIT in the late 1990s. 8 Many of the identified inequities have persisted, leaving female scientists dissatisfied with the limited extent of reform within academic institutions and STEM communities more generally.…”