Stepping Outside Gender Roles Affects Men and Women Differently

Social stigma is still attached to people who achieve success in jobs normally held by members of the other sex. The specific social penalties differ for men and women, according to a new study by researchers from New York University and Columbia University.

The researchers, Madeline Heilman and Aaron Wallen, found that men who are successful in traditionally female jobs are more likely to be perceived by co-workers as “wimpy” and less deserving of respect. But women who succeed in jobs traditionally held by men suffer not from lack of respect but instead from personal dislike.

In both cases, workers find either men or women who pursue professions not considered traditional less preferable as supervisors.

The study gave participants information about jobs that indicated that a significant majority of people holding the title “financial advisor” were men and that a similarly large proportion of people holding the title “employee relations counselor” were female. They were then asked to review profiles of men and women who held both jobs and to rate the workers on various qualities related to competence and personal appeal.

Whether the subjects in the study were male or female, their responses followed the same patterns. When considering men who were successful in female jobs (but otherwise had similar profiles with women successful in the same jobs), the respondents found the men less effective and less deserving of respect than either women in the same jobs or men in traditionally male jobs.

The subjects also responded negatively to women in a job defined as traditionally male, but the penalty for women was in interpersonal dislike rather than a lack of professional disrespect.

Because the study did not focus on the most highly stereotyped jobs (such as nurse, preschool teacher, construction worker, etc.), but instead focused on a more subtle difference, it appears that the effect of gender norming is still quite strong in workplace attitudes.

Heilman and Wallen published the results of their study in the current issue of the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.