Gender-neutral Practices Research Articles

"Burnt by the spotlight": How leadership endorsements impact the longevity of female leaders.

Women entering leadership positions such as the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) role face barriers in the form of pervasive stereotypic expectations by which stakeholders implicitly evaluate their effectiveness. In this study, we examine the effects that a widely used organizational practice-leadership endorsements in the CEO succession announcement-has on female CEOs' longevity in the CEO role. In particular, we theorize that the leadership endorsements of incoming female CEOs that highlight their past achievements and competence violate stakeholders' prescriptive stereotypes, thereby increasing the likelihood of stakeholders viewing the female leaders through a stereotypical lens. Therefore, though well intentioned, leadership endorsements in female CEOs' succession announcements foment a stereotype threat situation that is likely to have long-term negative consequences for female leaders. We investigate and find support for this relationship using archival data for a sample of 91 female CEO successions among S&P 1500 and Fortune 500 firms between 1995 and 2012. Several post hoc analyses, including in-depth interviews with 31 female executives, further strengthen our findings and show that this effect does not occur among male CEO succession events. We also find that two key facets of the succession context work to ameliorate this negative relationship: the insider status of the female CEO and the number of female executives at the focal firm. Our findings suggest that ostensibly gender-neutral practices can have unintended negative consequences for female leaders. We conclude with a discussion of the theoretical and practical implications of our findings. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Gendered inequalities in competitive grant funding: an overlooked dimension of gendered power relations in academia

ABSTRACTResearch grant funding influences the organisation of academic work and academic careers. We problematise general approaches to gender bias in research grant funding and argue that it fails to include the wider structures of inequality and the unequal gendered power relations in academia. Approaching the subject with gender budgeting we challenge assumed gender-neutral practices. The objective is to illuminate how the gendered funding system and (the previous and subsequent) gendered structures of academia are maintained. The whole grants scheme is assessed, drawing on statistical data collected on the whole population of a medium-size, comprehensive research and educational institution in Iceland, and two types of competitive grants. The data is measured against the pool of applicants and comparisons within and between fields and ranks are made. By including the structures of inequality and the gendered power relations, the results show how the funding system is biased not only in favour of men, but towards the male-dominated and culturally masculine positions and fields. This approach illustrates the need to address the whole academic system in order to challenge the norms that maintain and reproduce gender inequalities.

Comprehensive Internal Medicine Residency Curriculum on Primary Care of Patients Who Identify as LGBT.

Graduate medical education curricula that provide training on LGBT healthcare are limited. The purpose of this study was to create and evaluate an LGBT curriculum for internal medicine (IM) residents. The implicit association test (IAT) measuring implicit bias toward gay individuals was administered as part of a needs assessment. The curriculum was developed by a multidisciplinary team, with objectives derived from the Association of American Medical Colleges' curricular recommendations and the Fenway Guide to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Health. Surveys assessed residents' perceptions of the importance of primary care for LGBT patients, and their knowledge of and confidence in providing primary care to LGBT patients. Faculty also rated the usability of the curricular materials. The IAT showed a slight preference for straight people compared with gay people, with an average "D score" of 0.27 ± 0.42. The importance of receiving education about the primary care of LGB patients was rated as high across the pre- to postsurveys. Knowledge improved with participation in the curriculum (average overall score: 42% pre- vs. 66% postsurvey, p < 0.0001). Participants' confidence in their ability to provide information to LGBT patients about resources for community engagement and to implement gender-neutral practices in their clinics increased significantly (p < 0.05). This curriculum pilot demonstrated an improvement in IM residents' knowledge of and confidence in providing care to LGBT patients. Our results suggest that curricular materials can be developed by experts in LGBT health and utilized effectively by nonexpert faculty to increase residents' knowledge and confidence regarding LGBT healthcare.

Scouting for talent: Appointment practices of women professors in academic medicine

This paper contributes to current literature on the under-representation of women in academic medicine by critically examining appointment practices for medical professors in the Netherlands. By opening the black box of these highly secretive appointments, it is shown how allegedly gender-neutral practices contribute to the perpetuation of gender inequalities in academic medicine. The methods employed include quantitative analysis of 286 appointment reports and qualitative interviews with 21 scouts. The analysis revealed a dominant pattern of recruitment by invitation by male scouts, leading to three gender mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion through formal/informal networking. When candidates are recruited through homogeneous male networks, the pool of potential candidates is drastically restricted. Women are not seen as obvious choices for professorships since their commitment to the job is questioned. Furthermore, women do not correspond to the image of the ideal manager since they do not appear to conform to the gendered preconceptions of leadership held by the predominantly male scouts.

Gender roles and relationships: Implications for water management

This study mainstreams gender at household level by showing how the gendered roles and relations between women and men influence access, allocation and use of resources in a rural community, Makhosini, in Swaziland. Implications of the identified gender roles and relationships for water management in Swaziland are highlighted. The working hypotheses of this study are (i) that gender-neutral development initiatives will benefit equally women and men at household level; and (ii) in Swaziland the trend toward irrigated agriculture for food security will have unequal impacts on men and women as access, allocation and use of key resources is highly gendered, privileging men as the value of the resource increases. In this study, a questionnaire was administered to sampled male and female heads of household as well as women under male heads. The heads were asked to indicate the roles they play and key decisions they make in resource use as heads of households. The women under male heads were also asked to indicate their roles and key decision responsibilities. The key resources considered were land and crops produced. Comparative analysis on roles and decisions made as well as access and use of resources and production was done by gender and between the women groups. The results show marked gender differences within households and across resources. Men were overwhelmingly involved in productive roles, giving low priority to reproductive roles. In contrast, priority of women’s roles were reproductive in nature. The key findings are that there were no significant differences in the roles of men and women as heads of households. Women as heads of households assume the same roles as those of men heads suggesting relative gender-neutrality. Also all women played “double-day” roles. However, the data reveals that men dominate decisions on crops to be grown, inputs to be used, disposal of the products and use of income obtained. Only a small percentage of women claimed influence over decisions on high-income generating crops such as sugarcane. A majority of women did demonstrate influence in the areas of key rainfed crops such as sweet potatoes and maize. The only area where women had full control was on grass used for making handicrafts. The implications for water resources management are that gender-blind decisions regarding the importance of irrigated crop production for household security may in fact remove decision-making capacity out of the hands of women so increasing the gendered-nature of food insecurity. At the same time, however, women household heads do show some influence in irrigated crop production and in high-value rainfed crop production. This suggests possibilities for in-building gender-neutral practices where high value crops are concerned.