Sexism - Gender Stereotypes

Gender Stereotypes

Gender stereotypes are widely held beliefs about the characteristics and behavior of women and men and transgender people. Gender stereotypes are not only descriptive, but also prescriptive beliefs about "how men and women should be and behave". Members of any gender who deviate from prescriptive gender stereotypes are punished. Assertive women; for example, are called "bitches," whereas men who lack physical strength are seen as "wimps" or "sissies".

Empirical studies have found widely shared cultural beliefs that men are more socially valued and more competent than women at most things. As well as specific assumptions that men are better at some particular tasks (e.g., mechanical tasks) while women are better at others (e.g., nurturing tasks). For example, Fiske and her colleagues surveyed nine diverse samples, from different regions of the United States, and found that members of these samples, regardless of age, consistently rated the category "men" higher than the category "women" on a multidimensional scale of competence.

Gender stereotypes can facilitate and impede intellectual performance. For instance, stereotype threats can lower women's performance on mathematics tests be due to the stereotype that women have inferior quantitative skills compared to men's. Stereotypes can also affect the assessments people make of their own competence. Studies found that specific stereotypes (e.g., women have lower mathematical abilities) affect women's and men’s perceptions of those abilities such that men assess their own task ability higher than women performing at the same level. These "biased self-assessments" have far-reaching effects because they can shape men and women’s educational and career decisions.

Gender stereotypes are sometimes applied and created at an early age. Various interventions were reviewed including the use of fiction in challenging gender stereotypes. One study was done by A. Wing in which children were read Bill's New Frock by Anne Fine and then discussed its content. Wing observed that children were able to articulate, and reflect on their stereotypical constructions of gender and those in the world at large. There was evidence of children considering 'the different treatment that boys and girls receive' during classroom discussion which enabled and encouraged them to challenge those stereotypes.

As a result of many gender stereotypes, women are more likely to be raped than men. The only country in which the numbers even come close is the United States, almost exclusively because of the massive scale of the United States penitentiary system and its ingrained rape culture.