Workplace gender discrimination and the implicit association test

Women are under-represented at senior levels within organisations. They also fareless well than their male counterparts in reward and career opportunities. Attitudestoward women in the workplace are thought to underpin these disparities and moreand more organisations are introducing attitude measures into diversity and inclusioninitiatives to: 1) raise awareness amongst employees of implicit attitudes, 2) educateemployees on how these attitudes can influence behaviour and 3) re-measure theattitude after an intervention to assess whether the attitude has changed. TheImplicit Association Test (IAT: Greenwald, et al., 1998) is the most popular tool usedto assess attitudes. However, questions over the predictive validity of the measurehave been raised and the evidence for the real world impact of the implicit attitudes islimited (Blanton et al., 2009; Landy, 2008; Tetlock & Mitchell, 2009; Wax, 2010).Whilst there is growing research in the area of race, little research has explored theability of the IAT to predict gender discrimination. This thesis addresses thisimportant gap in the literature. Three empirical studies were conducted. The firststudy explored whether gender IATs were predictive of personnel decisions thatfavour men and whether affect- and cognition-based gender IATs were equallypredictive of behaviour. The second two studies explored the predictive validity ofthe IAT in comparison to an explicit measure of one type of gender attitude,benevolent sexism. The results revealed implicit gender attitudes were stronglyheld. However, they did not consistently predict behaviour across the studies.Overall, the results suggest that the IAT may only predict workplace genderdiscrimination in a very select set of circumstances. The attitude component that anIAT assesses, the personnel decision and participant demographics all impact thepredictive validity of the tool. The interplay between the IAT and behaviour thereforeappears to be more complex than is assumed.

Feminist translation studies:local and transnational perspectives

Feminist Translation Studies: Local and Transnational Perspectives situates feminist translation as political activism. Chapters highlight the multiple agendas and visions of feminist translation and the different political voices and cultural heritages through which it speaks across times and places, addressing the question of how both literary and nonliterary discourses migrate and contribute to local and transnational processes of feminist knowledge building and political activism. This collection does not pursue a narrow, fixed definition of feminism that is based solely on (Eurocentric or West-centric) gender politics—rather, Feminist Translation Studies: Local and Transnational Perspectives seeks to expand our understanding of feminist action not only to include feminist translation as resistance against multiple forms of domination, but also to rethink feminist translation through feminist theories and practices developed in different geohistorical and disciplinary contexts. In so doing, the collection expands the geopolitical, sociocultural and historical scope of the field from different disciplinary perspectives, pointing towards a more transnational, interdisciplinary and overtly political conceptualization of translation studies.

'Between a rock and a hard place':towards a theorisation of the role of gender in junior management

This paper seeks to theorise the role that gender plays in the careers of junior female managers. We do this by drawing upon two separate empirical studies, firstly a largescale study based on interviews with female managers in the West Midlands (UK) is used to explore the growth of female participation in junior managerial roles with reference to the notion of managerial careers as seduction. We explore the routes the women have taken into junior management careers and the barriers that exist to progression toward more senior roles. Secondly, a small-scale ethnographic study of a large service-based organization, also based in the West Midlands, is documented in an attempt to theorise the organizational role of female junior managers. While the dominance of masculine values and practices in organisations is explored, we also argue that growing female participation at junior managerial levels can only partly be explained by female managers adopting, or appearing to adopt, masculine behaviours. We seek to contribute to a fuller explanation by drawing attention to the way in which senior managers in the case study sought to employ female junior managers particularly for their perceived feminine skills. Significantly, however the ethnography reveals the ambiguously gendered construction of female junior managers roles through an exploration of the enactment of both masculine and feminine practices during the ‘doing’ of management.

Intolerance of ambiguity, gender stereotypes, and attitudes to sexuality

The premise of this thesis is that Western thought is characterised by the need to enforce binary classification in order to structure the world. Classifications of sexuality and gender both embody this tendency, which has been largely influenced by Judeo-Christian tradition. Thus, it is argued that attitudes to sexuality, particularly homosexuality are, in part, a function of the way in which we seek to impose structure on the world. From this view, it is (partly) the ambiguity, inherent in gender and sexual variation, which evokes negative responses. The thesis presents a series of inter-linked studies examining attitudes to various aspects of human sexuality, including the human body, non-procreative sex acts (anal an oral sex) and patterns of sexuality that depart from the hetero-homo dichotomy. The findings support the view that attitudes to sexuality are significantly informed by gender-role stereotypes, with negative attitudes linked to intolerance of ambiguity. Male participants show large differences in their evaluations of male and female bodies, and of male and female sexual actors, than do female participants. Male participants also show a greater negativity to gay male sexual activity than do female participants, but males perceive lesbian sexuality similarly to heterosexuality. Male bodies are rated as being less 'permeable' than female bodies and male actors are more frequently identified as being the instigators of sexual acts. Crucial to the concept of heterosexism is the assumption that 'femininity' is considered inherently inferior to 'masculinity'. Hence, the findings provide an empirical basis for making connections between heterosexism and sexism, and therefore between the psychology of women, and gay and lesbian psychology.

An exploration of female leadership language:case studies of senior women in Bahrain

This is a multiple case study of the leadership language of three senior women working in a large corporation in Bahrain. The study’s main aim is to explore the linguistic practices the women leaders use with their colleagues and subordinates in corporate meetings. Adopting a Foucauldian (1972) notion of ‘discourses’ as social practices and a view of gender as socially constructed and discursively performed (Butler 1990), this research aims to unveil the competing discourses which may shape the leadership language of senior women in their communities of practice. The research is situated within the broader field of Sociolinguistics and the specific field of Language and Gender. To address the research aim, a case study approach incorporating multiple methods of qualitative data collection (observation, interviews, and shadowing) was utilised to gather information about the three women leaders and produce a rich description of their use of language in and out of meeting contexts. For analysis, principles of Qualitative Data Analysis (QDA) were used to organise and sort the large amount of data. Also, Feminist Post- Structuralist Discourse Analysis (FPDA) was adopted to produce a multi-faceted analysis of the subjects, their language leadership, power relations, and competing discourses in the context. It was found that the three senior women enact leadership differently making variable use of a repertoire of conventionally masculine and feminine linguistic practices. However, they all appear to have limited language resources and even more limiting subject positions; and they all have to exercise considerable linguistic expertise to police and modify their language in order to avoid the ‘double bind’. Yet, the extent of this limitation and constraints depends on the community of practice with its prevailing discourses, which appear to have their roots in Islamic and cultural practices as well as some Western influences acquired throughout the company’s history. It is concluded that it may be particularly challenging for Middle Eastern women to achieve any degree of equality with men in the workplace because discourses of Gender difference lie at the core of Islamic teaching and ideology.

The career of councillors:gender, party and politics. By Catherine Bochel and Hugh M. Bochel, 2000. Pp.143. £37.50 hb.

Book review

Talking at cross-purposes? The missing link between feminist linguistics and translation studies

Following decades of feminist linguistic activism, and as a result of a greater awareness of the vital role that non-sexist language plays in achieving social equality, different campaigns were launched in many countries leading to a more frequent use of so-called inclusive language. Bringing this together with current theoretical approaches to translation studies which have been defining translation as an ideological act of intercultural mediation since the 1990s, this article seeks to examine to what extent feminist linguistics have had any influence on translation studies. My purpose is to assess whether particular feminist linguistic interventions in vogue when writing ‘original’ texts within the realm of the source language are also adopted when (re)writing ‘translated’ texts in the target language, bearing in mind the double (con)textual responsibility that translators have towards the source and the target (con)texts. I will examine the arguments for and against the use of inclusive language in (literary) translation through an analysis of the ‘ideological struggle’ that emerged from two ideologically disparate rewritings of gender markers into Galician of the British bestseller The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, by Mark Haddon (2003), focusing on the ideological, poetic and economic pressures that (still) define the professional practice of translation. It is my contention that the close scrutiny of these conflicting arguments will shed light not only on the existing gap between the theory and practice of translation, but may be also indicative of a possible ‘missing link’ between feminist approaches to linguistics and to translation studies.

Reduced gray matter volume in ventral prefrontal cortex but not amygdala in bipolar disorder:significant effects of gender and trait anxiety

Neuroimaging studies in bipolar disorder report gray matter volume (GMV) abnormalities in neural regions implicated in emotion regulation. This includes a reduction in ventral/orbital medial prefrontal cortex (OMPFC) GMV and, inconsistently, increases in amygdala GMV. We aimed to examine OMPFC and amygdala GMV in bipolar disorder type 1 patients (BPI) versus healthy control participants (HC), and the potential confounding effects of gender, clinical and illness history variables and psychotropic medication upon any group differences that were demonstrated in OMPFC and amygdala GMV. Images were acquired from 27 BPI (17 euthymic, 10 depressed) and 28 age- and gender-matched HC in a 3T Siemens scanner. Data were analyzed with SPM5 using voxel-based morphometry (VBM) to assess main effects of diagnostic group and gender upon whole brain (WB) GMV. Post-hoc analyses were subsequently performed using SPSS to examine the extent to which clinical and illness history variables and psychotropic medication contributed to GMV abnormalities in BPI in a priori and non-a priori regions has demonstrated by the above VBM analyses. BPI showed reduced GMV in bilateral posteromedial rectal gyrus (PMRG), but no abnormalities in amygdala GMV. BPI also showed reduced GMV in two non-a priori regions: left parahippocampal gyrus and left putamen. For left PMRG GMV, there was a significant group by gender by trait anxiety interaction. GMV was significantly reduced in male low-trait anxiety BPI versus male low-trait anxiety HC, and in high- versus low-trait anxiety male BPI. Our results show that in BPI there were significant effects of gender and trait-anxiety, with male BPI and those high in trait-anxiety showing reduced left PMRG GMV. PMRG is part of medial prefrontal network implicated in visceromotor and emotion regulation.

No gender differences in brain activation during the N-back task:An fMRI study in healthy individuals

Gender differences have been well established in verbal and spatial abilities but few studies have examined if these differences also extend into the domain of working memory in terms of behavioural differences and brain activation. The conclusions that can be drawn from these studies are not clear cut but suggest that even though gender differences might not be apparent from behavioural measures, the underlying neural substrate associated with working memory might be different in men and women. Previous research suggests activation in a network of frontal and parietal regions during working memory tasks. This study aimed to investigate gender differences in patterns of brain activation during a verbal version of the N-back working memory task, which incorporates the effects of increased demands on working memory. A total of 50 healthy subjects, aged 18 to 58 years, that were equally split by gender were recruited matched for age, levels of education and ethnicity. All subjects underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging. We found that men and women performed equally well in terms of accuracy and response times, while using similar brain regions to the same degree. Our observations indicate that verbal working memory is not affected by gender at the behavioural or neural level, and support the findings of a recent meta-analysis by Hyde ([2005]: Sex Roles 53:717-725) that gender differences are generally smaller than intra-gender differences in many cognitive domains. © 2009 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

Gender equality and religion:a multi-faith exploration of young adults’ narratives

This paper presents findings from research on young adults in the UK from diverse religious backgrounds. Utilizing questionnaires, interviews, and video diaries it assesses how religious young adults understood and managed the tensions in popular discourse between gender equality as an enshrined value and aspirational narrative, and religion as purportedly instituting gender inequality. We show that, despite varied understandings, and the ambivalence and tension in managing ideal and practice, participants of different religious traditions and genders were committed to gender equality. Thus, they viewed gender-unequal practices within their religious cultures as an aberration from the essence of religion. In this way, they firmly rejected the dominant discourse that religion is inherently antithetical to gender equality.

Contesting gender stereotypes stimulates generalized fairness in the selection of leaders

Exposure to counter-stereotypic gender role models (e.g., a woman engineer) has been shown to successfully reduce the application of biased gender stereotypes. We tested the hypothesis that such efforts may more generally lessen the application of stereotypic knowledge in other (non-gendered) domains. Specifically, based on the notion that counter-stereotypes can stimulate a lesser reliance on heuristic thinking, we predicted that contesting gender stereotypes would eliminate a more general group prototypicality bias in the selection of leaders. Three studies supported this hypothesis. After exposing participants to a counter-stereotypic gender role model, group prototypicality no longer predicted leadership evaluation and selection. We discuss the implications of these findings for groups and organizations seeking to capitalize on the benefits of an increasingly diverse workforce.

Women’s Entrepreneurship: closing the gender gap in access to financial and other services and in social entrepreneurship

This study explores differences between men and women entrepreneurs and social entrepreneurs. It explores the barriers and discriminatory effects that hinder women’s entrepreneurship, including access to finance in the European Union. The study includes four case studies covering the situation in the Czech Republic, Italy, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.