Feminine Traits Research Articles

The last pink straw: Children's and parents' judgements about gender nonconformity.

Gender nonconforming (GNC) boys often elicit negative reactions from peers and adults. However, it is unclear which aspects of nonconformity evoke negative social consequences. Are appearance characteristics, activity interests, or traits most impactful for peers' evaluations? Sixty-seven 6- to 11-year-old children and their parents interacted with a magnetic paper doll of a GNC boy who was displayed with feminine appearance characteristics, activity interests, and traits. Participants were allowed to physically remove feminine attributes and/or add masculine and neutral attributes to help the GNC boy make friends with boys. Participants were (1) more likely to change appearance and activities and less likely to change traits and (2) more likely to remove feminine attributes than add masculine and neutral attributes. Interactions between attribute type and gender differed across parents and children. Results suggest that interventions to reduce discrimination towards GNC boys should focus on reducing prejudice towards appearance- and activity-based nonconformity.

Professionalization and Gender in David Copperfield

ABSTRACT Charles Dickens’s David Copperfield (1849–1850) is a novel about the emergent profession of authorship, and its protagonist is the embodiment of Dickens’s idea of the professional novelist. The most significant qualities underlying David’s characterization relate to gender, and as a feminine male novelist, David blurs Victorian gender boundaries. Whereas many critics have illustrated the androgynous nature of the male novelist with a focus on his feminine traits, this article will show that his masculinity is crucial to his authorial identities and serves to foster his professionalization, and at the same time redefine his femininity in the context of the mid-nineteenth-century discourse on professionals. By doing so, this article will finally reveal how Victorian male novelists such as Dickens thought of their professional and gender identities, and especially their ideals and anxieties. This investigation will also shed light on the significant inter-relationship between Victorian professionalism and gender issues, especially in the world of authorship.

Whose misbehavior is inexcusable—And which one? Job‐related discrimination against ethnic minority and majority women

AbstractBased on the model of intersectional invisibility, we tested the consequences of work‐related misbehavior for women of Turkish and German descent (i.e., misbehavior involving mistakes that are stereotypically associated with masculine or feminine traits, eliciting negative evaluations). Across a series of four preregistered experiments (Ns = 746, plus two pre‐registered experiments in an Additional Supplement), we investigated evaluations of female targets in a male‐typed, highly qualified job context. We focus on exclusion and promotion decisions. A single‐paper meta‐analysis substantiates findings across samples who have different experiences regarding racism and in personnel selection. Our findings reveal a nuanced picture: Misbehavior associated with stereotypically feminine traits led to more negative consequences for Turkish women than for German women, resulting in more frequent exclusion and less frequent promotion for Turkish women. In contrast, misbehavior associated with stereotypically masculine traits led to more favorable outcomes for Turkish than German women. Thus, revealing a complex relationship between type of misbehavior and ethnicity, we identify leader prototypes as an explanatory mechanism, rather than aversive racism or shifting standards. Results suggest that Turkish women are discriminated against most for showing stereotypically feminine behavior confirming gendered racialized steretoypes, but may experience less backlash when showing counter‐stereotypical behavior than German women. We find double standards in evaluations of highly qualified women of Turkish versus German descent, with interactions with the type of misbehavior suggesting complex interplays of gender, ethnicity, and information provided about the individual in career advancement and exclusion.

Gender Representation in Education: Evidence from English National Tests in Indonesia

Gender representation in Indonesian school textbooks has been widely analysed. However, the compulsory national tests have lacked attention although these used to be a main tool to determine students’ competencies. This research aims to evaluate gender representation in the Indonesian Education System, especially in the national tests. Using content analysis, we examined both male and female representation in the Junior High School English national tests from 1994 to 2004. The findings reveal that the English national tests were content-valid tests. Before 1998, the tests reflected the patriarchal culture embraced by Indonesians during the New Order era. For example, female names were associated with feminine traits and the domestic sphere, while male names were associated with masculine traits and the public sphere. Meanwhile, the tests after 1998 indicated how female names were given more opportunities in the public sphere although male names still dominated the discussion on employment. This result is in line with the theoretical and practical implications, in which gender roles are represented based on the culture of the society.

Portrayals of the Shero: a critical discourse analysis on the representation of Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel

ABSTRACT Superhero films are currently the most commercially successful action films. They long relied on classical gender role divisions, representing physically strong male heroes. However, especially films published in the second decade of the 21st century have also shown women in more active roles. Wonder Woman (2017) and Captain Marvel (2019) were the first superhero films in which superheroines saved the world as protagonists. In this paper, I apply critical discourse analysis to investigate the contemporary film representations of Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel. My results suggest that both films depict female empowerment and address their superheroines’ struggles in rejecting women’s social roles and focusing on the pursuit of activities traditionally perceived as masculine. Both films also emphasize their superheroines’ womanhood; however, they represent these characters differently. Wonder Woman strongly emphasizes its superheroine’s feminine traits and shows her engaging in a heterosexual romantic relationship. Conversely, Captain Marvel depicts an obstinate woman whose psychological strength derives from her perseverance and support from a close female friend. I discuss my results with reference to the contemporary feminist movements postfeminism, neoliberal feminism and popular feminism.

The Relationship Between Sex-roles and Romantic Relationship Satisfaction

This research delves into the intricate interplay between gender roles and relationship satisfaction within romantic partnerships, with a nuanced exploration of masculinity, femininity, and androgyny. Drawing upon a comprehensive review of literature, including seminal studies such as those by Spitzberg and Cupach (2019), Bem (1993), Thompson and Pleck (1986), and Bem (1974), the study aims to elucidate the association between traditional gender roles and relationship contentment, while considering the emergence of androgynous traits in contemporary relationships. Synthesizing findings from these seminal works, the research endeavors to highlight how adherence to traditional sex roles, defined by societal expectations of masculinity and femininity, may influence the level of satisfaction experienced within romantic relationships. Spitzberg and Cupach's (2019) study explores the influence of traditional gender roles on relationship satisfaction, suggesting that adherence to stereotypical masculine and feminine roles can contribute to conflict and dissatisfaction within partnerships. Building upon this, Bem (1993) proposes the concept of androgyny as an alternative to traditional gender roles, suggesting that individuals who possess a blend of both masculine and feminine traits may experience greater relationship satisfaction and flexibility. Thompson and Pleck (1986) further examine the concept of androgyny, emphasizing its potential to enhance intimacy and communication within romantic relationships by transcending rigid gender stereotypes. Moreover, Bem (1974) introduced the Bem Sex-Role Inventory (BSRI), a widely used measure for assessing individuals' gender roles, which has been instrumental in understanding the complexities of gender identity and its impact on relationship dynamics. By integrating insights from these diverse scholarly sources, the research aims to contribute to a deeper understanding of how gender roles intersect with relationship satisfaction, offering valuable implications for couples, therapists, and policymakers. Additionally, the study explores the implications of masculinity, femininity, and androgyny on various aspects of relationship satisfaction, including communication, intimacy, and conflict resolution. Through an analysis of empirical research, the study aims to elucidate the mechanisms through which adherence to traditional gender roles or the adoption of androgynous traits may shape relationship dynamics and contentment. Furthermore, the research considers contextual factors such as cultural norms, socioeconomic status, and relationship duration, which may moderate the association between gender roles and relationship satisfaction. Ultimately, this study seeks to shed light on the evolving nature of romantic relationships in contemporary society, emphasizing the importance of recognizing and accommodating a spectrum of gender expressions for fostering healthier and more fulfilling partnerships. By acknowledging the complexities of gender identity and its impact on relationship dynamics, the research aims to inform interventions and policies aimed at promoting relationship satisfaction and well-being across diverse populations.

Creating Value Through Leveraging Gender Norms

This article examines how blending both traditionally masculine and feminine traits in an organizational culture might create value for a company. The article examines workplace defaults and compares and contrasts masculine and feminine traits. Then, the results of an analysis of the research on how masculine defaults create and destroy value in organizations are examined. Next, the article presents the findings from research examining how masculine and feminine traits and behaviours can create and destroy value. Finally, the article examines the impact of hybrid or androgynous traits and behaviours and presents directions for future research.

Gender Biases in Error Mitigation by Voice Assistants

Commercial voice assistants are largely feminized and associated with stereotypically feminine traits such as warmth and submissiveness. As these assistants continue to be adopted for everyday uses, it is imperative to understand how the portrayed gender shapes the voice assistant's ability to mitigate errors, which are still common in voice interactions. We report a study (N=40) that examined the effects of voice gender (feminine, ambiguous, masculine), error mitigation strategies (apology, compensation) and participant's gender on people's interaction behavior and perceptions of the assistant. Our results show that AI assistants that apologized appeared warmer than those offered compensation. Moreover, male participants preferred apologetic feminine assistants over apologetic masculine ones. Furthermore, male participants interrupted AI assistants regardless of perceived gender more frequently than female participants when errors occurred. Our results suggest that the perceived gender of a voice assistant biases user behavior, especially for male users, and that an ambiguous voice has the potential to reduce biases associated with gender-specific traits.

Are feminine traits a liability in elections?

Are feminine traits a liability in elections?

How Female Intellectuals Stopped Being Philosophers: On Anna Maria van Schurman in the Catalogues of Learned Women

Abstract This article examines the figure of the female intellectual exemplified in Anna Maria van Schurman, as she is portrayed in the catalogues of learned women. The aim is to demonstrate the dramatic and unexpected changes that this persona undergoes during the eighteenth century. The article challenges the common misconception that gender roles progress throughout history towards an ideal of freedom and equality. Instead, I argue that we see a regression in the eighteenth century where the ideal of female intellectuality transforms from focusing on gender-neutral virtues such as academic skill and learnedness to emphasizing traditionally feminine traits like modesty, piety, and domesticity. The first part of the article introduces the genre of catalogues of learned women, focusing on the German context. The main part presents an in-depth analysis of the biographical entries on van Schurman, juxtaposing the early eighteenth-century portrayals with entries from the turn of the nineteenth century. The purpose of this analysis is to illustrate the radical discursive changes concerning women intellectuals by using van Schurman as case study. Finally, the last part of the article will be dedicated to a discussion of historical conceptualizations of womanhood, exploring why the gender narrative changed in the early modern period.

Constructing Masculine and Feminine Traits: A Social Constructive Reading of Robert Frost’s “Home Burial”

Constructing Masculine and Feminine Traits: A Social Constructive Reading of Robert Frost’s “Home Burial”

Backlash Against Women and Support for Men? On the Perception of Men and Women Researchers in Gender Stereotype-Inconsistent Domains

Even in academic fields dominated by women students (e.g., educational research), academic careers are characterized by vertical gender segregation in favor of men. This clashes with the public understanding of educational research as a women's domain that is more strongly associated with warmth (a stereotypically feminine trait) than competence (a stereotypically masculine trait), as revealed in our first study. We thus conducted an experimental vignette study of 189 adults from the general public to explore how women versus men researchers working in educational research versus physics (as a contrasting domain clearly dominated by men) were perceived on several dimensions of competence and warmth. Whereas the female researcher in physics was rated as more competent than the female researcher in educational research, the woman in physics was penalized for her gender stereotype-incongruent domain choice by being perceived as less warm. However, the male researcher in educational research was perceived as both warmer and more competent than his man counterpart in physics, and as smarter than the female researcher in educational research. These findings suggest rewards instead of penalties for men pursuing academic careers in initially women-dominated domains, likely contributing to the increasing gender gap in academic careers in these domains.

Психологічні особливості альтруїзму в залежності від гендерної ідентифікаці

The article presents a study of altruism depending on gender identification. The problem of altruism is considered through the prism of three scientific fields: ethology, philosophy, and psychology. The deep interaction of male and female manifestations of altruism means the constant renewal of human existence in its spiritual-personal aspects. A description of an empirical study utilizing standardized psychodiagnostic methods is provided, as a result of which it was established that the obtained results indicate that both gender role and biological sex can affect the level of altruism, but these effects are not very significant. This may indicate the complex nature of altruism, which could be dependent on various factors, including but not limited to gender and biological identity. Additional research could help better understand these relationships and their mechanisms. An interesting feature is that gender role and gender identity do not have a statistically significant influence on manifestations of altruism among participants. It is important to note that the majority of respondents in the study are characterized by an androgynous gender role, which differs by a combination of masculine and feminine traits.

Have courage and be kind: gender depictions, female empowerment, and modern audience ratings in film adaptations of Cinderella from 1914 to 2022

Abstract Fairytales may represent a unique genre of media well-suited to depict feminine traits as valuable to characters of all genders by positioning traditionally feminine-coded traits as sources of strength and power to characters in fairytale plots. To examine this theoretical supposition, this study examines the association between indices of female empowerment (United States), modern audience ratings of films, and gendered depictions within 31 film adaptations of Cinderella produced over the span of 100 years. Results indicate Cinderella was consistently depicted as more feminine and the Prince more masculine, but both Cinderella and the Prince consistently displayed both masculine and feminine traits—providing mixed evidence of the renegotiation of gender in fairytales. Cinderella’s femininity was negatively related to indices of female empowerment, but positively related to modern audience ratings, suggesting possible tension between the production and consumption of gendered media in this context.

Male psychologists and female mathematicians: Gender beliefs and undergraduate degree choices

AbstractGlobally, men and women are numerically dominant in undergraduate degrees in math and psychology, respectively. A variety of theoretical perspectives predict that individuals who adhere more to gender stereotypes will be more represented in gender‐dominant fields. Using a pre‐registered methodology, we recruited men and women enrolled in psychology and math degree programmes in the United Kingdom and assessed a variety of gender beliefs and identities. Overall, femininity was (marginally) higher in psychology, and higher amongst women generally. Moderated regression analyses revealed that women who were low in masculinity and high in femininity (the stereotypical pattern) were most likely to be in psychology degrees, whilst women who were low in both were most likely to be enrolled onto math programmes. For men, no component of gender identity or beliefs predicted degree programmes. Overall, these results demonstrate how dimensions of gender identity may account for gender differences in undergraduate representation. Specifically, women in STEM fields tend to not describe themselves in stereotypical masculine or feminine traits. We discuss implications for efforts to increase uptake of gender stereotype incongruent career paths (e.g., women in STEM) with a particular focus on how femininity may be rejected in counter‐stereotypical domains.

Closing the Gender Gap in Internal Political Efficacy? Gender Roles and the Masculine Ethos of Politics in Spain

AbstractGiven women’s gains in employment, education, and economic status, the persistent gender gap in internal political efficacy remains a puzzle for social scientists. We go beyond standard socioeconomic explanations and consider gender roles, which, unlike socioeconomic situation, are a slow-moving force constrained by gendered socialization. Stereotypically feminine traits jar with stereotypical notions of politics in general, as competitive, and leaders as power-seeking and assertive. Drawing on observational data from an original survey fielded in Spain, we show that this incongruence accounts for women’s perception of having a low capacity to participate in politics. Results from a survey experiment suggest that this relationship is not set in stone, however. When politicians’ motivation is framed in line with feminine traits—as a public service rather than a struggle for power—women consider themselves just as capable as men of participating in politics. The results have implications for women’s political participation and representation in politics.

Sibling and peer bullying victimization in adolescence: Masculinity, femininity, and the moderating role of sex and popularity.

We investigated whether gender-typed traits (masculinity and femininity) contemporaneously predicted self-reported peer victimization, peer-reported peer victimization, and sibling victimization. We also tested the moderating role of sex and popularity. A sample of 2782 British pupils aged 11-16 from Central England, UK was screened for bullying involvement and popularity using self-report and peer nominations, and a subsample of 704 (52.7% girls) completed a measure of gender-typed traits (masculinity and femininity). Hierarchical multiple regression analyses revealed that low levels of masculine traits were associated with greater risk of self-reported peer victimization, there were no associations with peer-reported peer victimization, and low levels of feminine traits were associated with greater risk of self-reported sibling victimization. The effects were not moderated by sex, while popularity decreased the risk of self- and peer-reported peer victimization. Bullying prevention interventions could benefit from including the positive facets of feminine and masculine traits.

Gender stereotypes may not influence the choice of female leaders: Experimental evidence from a crisis framed as social or economic during the COVID‐19 pandemic

AbstractThis research examined whether female (vs. male) leaders are preferred during a pandemic when stereotypically feminine leadership is deemed useful. We hypothesized that citizens prefer female (vs. male) politicians when the crisis is framed as a social (vs. economic) crisis because they believe it requires feminine (vs. masculine) leadership. In a pilot study and three online experiments with US residents (Ntotal = 1675), we manipulated crisis type or a leadership candidate's gender for a task force. While participants indicated that a crisis framed as social (vs. economic) required more feminine leadership, they did not appoint a woman more or rated her as more suitable for the social crisis (vs. economic crisis or a no‐crisis situation). Furthermore, the female (vs. male) candidate was not perceived to possess more feminine leadership traits. Overall, participants did not rely on gender stereotypes when explicitly evaluating politicians. We discuss potential explanations for these unexpected results.

The Desirable Dad Hypothesis: Male Same-Sex Attraction as the Product of Selection for Paternal Care via Antagonistic Pleiotropy.

Same-sex attraction, a heritable trait with a reproductive cost, lacks a comprehensive evolutionary explanation. Here we build on a hypothesis invoking antagonistic pleiotropy, which suggests that genes linked to male same-sex attraction remain in the gene pool because they have conferred some fitness advantage to heterosexual men possessing them. We posit the "desirable dad hypothesis," which proposes that alleles linked to male non-heterosexual orientations increase traits conducive to childcare; heterosexual men possessing same-sex attracted alleles are more desirable mating partners as a function of possessing superior paternal qualities. We conducted three studies to test predictions from this hypothesis. Results were consistent with all three predictions. Study 1 (N = 1632) showed that heterosexual men with same-sex attracted relatives were more feminine than men without, as indicated by self-report measures of femininity (η2 = .007), warmth (η2 = .002), and nurturance (η2 = .004 - .006). In Study 2 (N = 152), women rated feminine male profiles as more romantically appealing than masculine ones (d = 0.83)-but less so than profiles possessing a combination of feminine and masculine traits. In Study 3 (N = 153), women perceived feminine male profiles as depicting the best fathers and masculine profiles the worst (d = 1.56): consistent with the idea that femininity is attractive for childcare reasons. Together, these findings are consistent with the idea that sexual selection for male parental care may be involved in the evolution of male same-sex attraction.

The gendered behaviors displayed by Disney protagonists.

Previous research suggests that the portrayal of male and female protagonists in Disney animations may be changing over time. The current study examined the portrayal of gendered behaviors displayed within some of Disney's most successful animated feature length films, including those beyond the Disney princess franchise. Extending the scope of the Disney animated films analyzed was important because both young girls and young boys report little personal interest in male characters within the Disney princess animations. This suggests that it is important to look beyond the Disney princess franchise to understand the gendered behaviors displayed by potentially influential male Disney protagonists. The current study also considered a greater number of masculine and feminine behaviors as well as some gender-neutral traits which had yet to be incorporated. A quantitative content analysis of 39 Disney protagonists from films released between 1937 and 2021 was conducted. The results revealed that male and female protagonists were statistically higher in feminine than masculine traits. Female protagonists from the earliest animations were the most feminine. However, there was no statistical difference in the gendered portrayals of females in the animations released in the 1990s and those released from 2009 to 2021 suggesting some continued stereotyping in females' profiles. Alternatively, male characters were more feminine relatively consistently across time-points. This study concludes that Disney is persistently portraying stereotyped female protagonists, and this could have implications on young females' behavioral profiles. However, the extent to which feminine traits are being celebrated when displayed by male protagonists needs to be examined, as well as the potential relationship between such messages and boys' behaviors and children's conceptualizations of gender more broadly.