gender bias

Examples of gender bias in the following topics:

• Gender Bias in the Classroom

  • Gender-based achievement gaps suggest the existence of gender bias in the classroom.
  • Teachers may reinforce gender bias simply by drawing distinctions between boys and girls.
  • Teachers may reinforce gender bias simply by drawing distinctions between boys and girls.
  • Gender-based achievement gaps (especially in math and science) suggest the existence of gender bias in the classroom.
  • If test score gaps are evidence of gender bias, where does that gender bias come from?

• Family and Gender Issues

  • Social expectations that women manage childcare contribute to the gender pay gap and other limitations in professional life for women.
  • In the United States, there is an observable gender pay gap, such that women are compensated at lower rates for equal work as men.
  • The gender pay gap is measured as the ratio of female to male median yearly earnings among full-time, year-round (FTYR) workers.
  • The gender pay gap has also been attributed to differences in personal and workplace characteristics between women and men (education, hours worked, occupation etc.) as well as direct and indirect discrimination in the labor market (gender stereotypes, customer and employer bias etc.).
  • Recall at least three reasons why there might be a gender pay gap

• Institutional Prejudice or Discrimination

  • Usually the bias targets specific, easily stereotyped and generalizable attributes, such as race, gender, nationality, sexual orientation and age.
  • The achievement gap refers to the observed disparity in educational measures between the performance of groups of students, especially groups defined by gender, race/ethnicity and socioeconomic status.

• Feminist Theory

  • Feminist theorists thus argue that understanding the social or natural world also requires interrogating our own conscious or unconscious bias, perspective, beliefs, and values, and our own positions within systems of racial, class, gender, sexual, political, and scientific social systems.
  • Liberal feminists believe that men and women both are disadvantaged by society's gender expectations.
  • They advocate working within institutions to "level the playing field" through changing laws, education, and socialization to bring about gender equality.
  • Black feminists believe that many inequalities are important in society today, not only gender.
  • In addition to gender inequalities, they focus on race, ethnicity, and class — and sometimes also add sexuality, nationality, age, disability, and others.

• The Feminist Perspective

  • Feminist theory is a conflict theory that studies gender, patriarchy, and the oppression of women.
  • Most toy stores use gendered displays to market different toys to boys and girls.
  • No formal rules keep girls from shopping in the boys section or vice versa, but the gendered marketing nevertheless reinforces gender stereotypes.
  • Contemporary feminist thought tends to dismiss essentializing generalizations about sex and gender (e.g., women are naturally more nurturing) and to emphasize the importance of intersections within identity (e.g., race and gender).
  • Heterosexism is a system of attitudes, bias, and discrimination that favor male-female sexuality and relationships.

• Gender Identity in Everyday Life

  • Gender identity is one's sense of one's own gender.
  • Gender identity is one's sense of being male, female, or a third gender.
  • Gender identity is not only about how one perceives one's own gender, but also about how one presents one's gender to the public.
  • What causes individuals to sense a sort of confusion between their biological gender and their gender identity?
  • Gender identities, and the malleability of the gender binary, vary across cultures.

• Theories of Socialization

  • Gender socialization Henslin (1999) contends that "an important part of socialization is the learning of culturally defined gender roles" (p. 76).
  • Gender socialization refers to the learning of behavior and attitudes considered appropriate for a given sex.
  • The family is certainly important in reinforcing gender roles, but so are one's friends, school, work, and the mass media.
  • Gender roles are reinforced through "countless subtle and not so subtle ways," said Henslin (1999, p. 76).
  • Cultural socialization refers to parenting practices that teach children about their racial history or heritage and, sometimes, is referred to as "pride development. " Preparation for bias refers to parenting practices focused on preparing children to be aware of, and cope with, discrimination.

• Gender Messages from Peers

  • Peer groups can serve as a venue for teaching gender roles, especially if conventional gender social norms are strongly held.
  • Division of labor creates gender roles, which in turn lead to gendered social behavior.
  • Peer groups can serve as a venue for teaching members gender roles.
  • If a peer group strongly holds to a conventional gender social norm, members will behave in ways predicted by their gender roles, but if there is not a unanimous peer agreement, gender roles do not correlate with behavior.
  • These gender differences are also representative of many stereotypical gender roles within these same-gendered groups.

• In-Groups and Out-Groups

  • People tend to hold positive attitudes towards members of their own groups, a phenomenon known as in-group bias.
  • A key notion in understanding in-group/out-group biases is determining the psychological mechanism that drives the bias.
  • Intergroup aggression is a by product of in-group bias, in that if the beliefs of the in-group are challenged or if the in-group feels threatened, then they will express aggression toward the out-group.
  • "they are alike; we are diverse. " The out-group homogeneity effect has been found using a wide variety of different social groups, from political and racial groups to age and gender groups.

• Women as a Minority

  • It should be noted that gender discrimination also ties in with race and class discrimination -- a concept known as "intersectionality," first named by feminist sociologist Kimberlé Crenshaw.
  • For example, the intersectionality of race and gender has been shown to have a visible impact on the labor market.
  • Most studies have shown that people who fall into the bottom of the social hierarchy in terms of race or gender are more likely to receive lower wages, to be subjected to stereotypes and discriminated against, or be hired for exploitive domestic positions.
  • Through the study of the labor market and intersectionality we gain a better understanding of economic inequalities and the implications of the multidimensional impact of race and gender on social status within society.
  • They differ from broader notions of human rights through claims of an inherent historical and traditional bias against the exercise of rights by women and girls in favor of men and boys.