Abstract
Research suggests that gendered languages are associated with gender inequality. However, as languages are embedded in cultures, evidence for causal effects are harder to provide. We contribute to this ongoing debate by exploring the relationship between gendered languages and the gender gap in mathematics achievements. We provide evidence for causality by exploiting the prominent (but not exclusive) practice in gendered languages of using masculine generics to address women. In an experiment on a large representative sample of the Hebrew-speaking adult population in Israel, we show that addressing women in the feminine, compared to addressing them in the masculine, reduces the gender gap in mathematics achievements by a third. These effects are stronger among participants who acquired the Hebrew language early in childhood rather than later in life, suggesting that it is the extent of language proficiency that generates one’s sensitivity to being addressed in the masculine or in the feminine. Moreover, when women are addressed in the masculine, their efforts (in terms of time spent on the maths test) decrease and they report feeling that “science is for men” more than when addressed in the feminine. We supplement the analysis with two experiments that explore the roles of general and task-specific stereotypes in generating these effects.
Highlights
Languages vary by whether they require speakers to grammatically mark gender
In an experiment on a large representative sample of the Hebrew-speaking adult population in Israel, we show that addressing women in the masculine, compared to the feminine, negatively affects their performance
When women are addressed in the masculine, their efforts decrease and they report feeling that “science is for men” more than when addressed in the feminine
Summary
Languages vary by whether they require speakers to grammatically mark gender. In gendered languages such as French, Spanish, German, and Hebrew, parts of speech—pronouns, nouns, adjectives, and/or verbs—have feminine and masculine forms. To provide evidence for a causal relationship between the gendering of the language and the gender gap in mathematics achievements, we asked a large random representative sample of the adult Hebrew-speaking population in Israel to complete an SAT-type maths exam online when addressed in the feminine or in the masculine. Such exams are designed to measure a high school student’s readiness for college. We predicted that the effects of being addressed in the masculine compared to the feminine, will be smaller when the age at immigration to Israel is greater
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