Gender references in job advertisements – relations to job status and gender equality

Research has shown that gender references in job advertisements play an important role for gender (in)equality in personnel selection. The use of pair forms (masculine and feminine form) in German-language job advertisements, for example, was found to reduce the lack of fit between women and leadership roles (Horvath & Sczesny, 2013). Therefore the present study addresses the question which forms of gender reference are used in job advertisements, how these forms are distributed in different countries and how language use is related to gender typicality and status of the job. We collected job advertisements published online in four countries with different rankings of gender equality (i.e., Switzerland, Austria, Poland, and Czech Republic; World Economic Forum, 2011). We randomly selected 100 advertisements per country from four branches that are characterized by different proportions of female and male employees: steels/metals, science, restaurants/food services, and health care. The advertisements were analyzed with regard to gender references as well as different indicators of job status. The results show that, in general, men and women are addressed more equally in Swiss and Austrian job advertisements compared to Polish and Czech job advertisements. The results also show that women and men are addressed more equally in branches where the proportion of women is high than where the proportion of women is low. We thus can conclude that the use of gender references is associated with the degree of gender equality achieved in a country and with the gender typicality of a profession.

Gender-Fair Language in Organizations: Attracting Potential Leaders and Promoting the Organizational Image of Gender Equality

In many languages, masculine generics are the traditional way of referring to women and men. However, gender-fair forms (e.g., feminine-masculine word pairs) can enhance gender equality: for instance, they counteract male biases in mental associations (Stahlberg et al., 2007) and evoke more neutral perceptions of gender-stereotypical professions (Merkel et al., 2013). Compared to masculine forms, use of gender-fair language in advertisements for leadership positions also helps to achieve gender equality in hiring decisions (e.g., use of German Geschäftsführerin/Geschäftsführer 'CEO fem/masc' instead of Geschäftsführer 'CEO masc', cf. Horvath & Sczesny, 2012). The present research investigates how potential applicants react to the use of gender-fair vs. masculine forms in German job ads for leadership positions (Study 1) and how the respective organization is perceived in response to these forms (Study 2). In Study 1, 251 participants showed higher intentions to apply for a leadership position when it was advertised with a feminine-masculine word pair instead of a masculine form; this was mediated by job appeal and organizational attraction. In Study 2, 154 participants perceived the organization as more discriminatory when masculine forms were used. This was mediated by the organizational image of gender equality. Thus, gender-fair language affects the social perception of a job and the respective organization and can impact social behavior in an organizational context.

Shakespeare, the Middle Ages and the Luck of the British: Medievalism and National Identity in The Hollow Crown (2012)

Images of the medieval past have long been fertile soil for the identity politics of subsequent periods. Rather than “authentically” reproducing the Middle Ages, medievalism therefore usually tells us more about the concerns and ideological climate of its own time and place of origin. To dramatise the nascent nation, Shakespeare resorts to medievalism in his history plays. Centuries later, the BBC-produced television mini-serial The Hollow Crown – adapting Shakespeare’s second histories tetralogy – revamps this negotiation of national identity for the “Cultural Olympiad” in the run-up to the 2012 London Olympics. In this context of celebratory introspection, The Hollow Crown weaves a genealogical narrative consisting of the increasingly “glorious” medieval history depicted and “national” Shakespearean heritage in order to valorise 21st-century “Britishness”. Encouraging a reading of the histories as medieval history, the films construct an ostensibly inclusive, liberal-minded national identity grounded in this history. Moreover, medieval kingship is represented in distinctly sentimentalising and humanising terms, fostering emotional identification especially with the no longer ambivalent Hal/Henry V and making him an apt model for present-day British grandeur. However, the fact that the films in return marginalise female, Scottish, Irish and Welsh characters gives rise to doubts as to whether this vision of Shakespeare’s Middle Ages really is, as the producers claimed, “for everybody”.

Promoting gender equality in responses to climate change: The case of Kenya

The paper discusses how Kenyan policies and organisations address gender equality in climate change-related responses. The political support for gender issues is reflected in presidential directives on various actions for achieving gender equality such as the establishment of gender desk officers and ensuring 30 per cent female representation in government. Despite the well-advanced gender mainstreaming policy in Kenya, few policies focus on climate change and even fewer on its inter-linkages with gender. At the field level, encrusted traditions, inadequately trained staff, limited financial resources, and limited awareness of the inter-linkages between gender and climate change remain major challenges to promoting gender equality in the work of government organisations. The paper thus proposes measures for addressing these challenges and strengthening gender equality in responses to climate change.

Transversal politics. Equality and difference in antiracist migrant protest

Transversale Politiken. Gleichheit und Differenz in antirassistischen migrantische Selbst-organisationen - Veronika Siegl Meine Arbeit beschäftigt sich mit transversalen Politiken in antirassistischen migrantischen Selbstorganisationen. Transversale Politik bezeichnet dabei eine Praxis der Zusammen-arbeit, die identitäre Kategorien zu überwinden versucht, aber Unterschiede zwischen einzelnen Personen oder Gruppen dennoch nicht negiert. Ausgangspunkt für meine Forschung ist insofern die Frage, wie MigrantInnen und MehrheitsösterreicherInnen gemeinsam über eine antirassistische Politik diskutieren und diese praktizieren können, ohne durch das Betonen von Differenz oder von Gleichheit rassistische Strukturen zu reproduzieren. Welche Strategien werden entwickelt? Wie wird mit Repräsentationsverhältnissen umgegangen? Gibt es ein kollektives „Wir“? Und: Was kann der Begriff MigrantIn für die politische Arbeit bedeuten? In Bezug auf die Fragen, die in der Ankündigung des Workshops aufgeworfen wurden, kann ich nach meinen Recherchen sagen, dass es in diesem Bereich noch relativ wenig Forschungen gibt. Schon allein zur antirassistischen Bewegung in Österreich gibt es sehr wenig Literatur, zu migrantischen Selbstorganisierungen noch weniger und zu Strategien transversaler Politik eigentlich gar nichts. Fragen der Differenz und Gleichheit werden im Allgemeinen oft nur auf einem sehr abstrakten Niveau geführt, empirische Erfahrungs-berichte, die einen Einblick geben, wie die Theorie in die Praxis umgesetzt werden kann, scheint es sehr wenig zu geben.

Gender-fairness in schoolbooks revisited: Did improvements in gender equality make a difference?

The present research focuses on two countries differing in their policies of gender equality and gender-fair language use. Content analyses of schoolbooks investigate the gender-fair language use and the depiction of gender stereotypes in them.

COCHRAN: Stata module to test for equality of proportions in matched samples (Cochran's Q)

-cochran- performs a test for equality of two or more proportions in matched samples. The chi-squared calculated by -cochran- is known as Cochran's Q (Cochran 1950)

Equal Partners in Dialogue? Participation Equality in a Transnational Deliberative Poll (Europolis)

By gathering a representative sample of citizens from all 27 EU Member States, the deliberative poll Europolis created the opportunity for the inclusion of a wide variety of European voices. Taking up claims of difference democrats who argue that informal hurdles to participation can endure even after individuals gain formal access to the floor, this article argues for an extended approach to evaluate equality in deliberative minipublics. Specifically, it assesses whether participants contributed in roughly equal measures to the discussion and whether their discussion partners considered their contributions on equal merits. In doing so, the article adds to the small but growing literature on deliberation that expresses reservations about taking the willingness to engage with others' claims for granted. In order to account for the intrinsically relational aspect of interpersonal communication, measures of social network analysis are introduced as possible tools to evaluate participation equality in deliberative encounters.