Women must disconfirm gender stereotypes to be considered for leadership roles

Evidence

The socioeconomic implications of this discrepancy were immediately clear to gender researchers. Gutek (1985) argued that the tendency for gender-based expectations to influence work roles (termed “sex-role spillover”) was costly for women. For example, female supervisors are expected to be more nurturant and sympathetic than men in the same positions, which may undermine their authority. Heilman’s (1983) “lack of fit” hypothesis argued that women were not considered to be suitable managers because they were perceived as insufficiently agentic. As a consequence, for women to gain entry into male-dominated positions, it was necessary for them to disconfirm gender stereotypes – in short, to act more like men. In fact, unless a woman provides evidence that she is not a “typical” female, she may not be seriously considered as a candidate for jobs that require leadership skills (Glick, Zion, & Nelson, 1988; Rudman & Glick, 1999). — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 753

Categorization

Category: Causal Relationships

• XREF: This is the classic double-bind narrative — connects to the existing articles on sacrifice (women sacrificing agency to fit male-model roles) and to earlier library material on identity signaling.
• ADDENDUM: Relates to ‘Grafting & Growth’ only loosely, but the ‘act more like men’ gatekeeping strongly parallels the sacrifice article’s theme of compulsory performance to enter a dominant structure.

Related

• Perceived low female agency forces women to disconfirm stereotypes to obtain leadership roles (similarity 0.94)
• Women must disconfirm gender stereotypes to enter male-dominated jobs (similarity 0.92)
• Agentic women face backlash because agency is accepted only in men (similarity 0.84)
• Role expectations derived from gendered social roles sustain agency as a male-associated trait (similarity 0.83)
• Women’s historical perception as non-agentic shapes expectations about their success (similarity 0.82)
• Benevolent stereotypes produce a backlash effect against agentic women (similarity 0.82)
• Occupational roles rather than sex drive gender stereotypes (similarity 0.81)
• Agentic women face backlash penalties that identical male counterparts do not (similarity 0.78)