[Womeninmedicine] Hiring women into senior leadership positions is associated with a reduction in gender stereotypes in organizational language

[Mctigue, Kathleen Mary]

This is great, Ora. Thank you!

From: Womeninmedicine <womeninmedicine-bounces at list.pitt.edu> On Behalf Of Weisz, Ora Anna
Sent: Tuesday, March 1, 2022 2:42 PM
To: womeninmedicine at list.pitt.edu
Subject: [Womeninmedicine] Hiring women into senior leadership positions is associated with a reduction in gender stereotypes in organizational language

This article just came out in PNAS- might be of interest...


https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2026443119<https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdoi.org%2F10.1073%2Fpnas.2026443119&data=04%7C01%7CKMM34%40pitt.edu%7Cb4677c3490f14bc4d05708d9fbbbc3de%7C9ef9f489e0a04eeb87cc3a526112fd0d%7C1%7C0%7C637817606169482840%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000&sdata=1yTEzrZTVBSmqmwRGayMha4HlZeCeqceAnYLhiuYZaw%3D&reserved=0>
Hiring women into senior leadership positions is
associated with a reduction in gender stereotypes in
organizational language
M. Asher Lawsona,1 , Ashley E. Martinb , Imrul Hudac, and Sandra C. Matzd

Women continue to be underrepresented in leadership positions.
This underrepresentation is at least partly driven by gender stereotypes
that associate men, but not women, with achievement oriented,
agentic traits (e.g., assertive and decisive). These stereotypes
are expressed and perpetuated in language, with women being
described in less agentic terms than men. The present research
suggests that appointing women to the top tiers of management
can mitigate these deep-rooted stereotypes that are expressed in
language. We use natural language processing techniques to analyze
over 43,000 documents containing 1.23 billion words, finding
that hiring female chief executive officers and board members is
associated with changes in organizations' use of language, such
that the semantic meaning of being a woman becomes more similar
to the semantic meaning of agency. In other words, hiring
women into leadership positions helps to associate women with
characteristics that are critical for leadership success. Importantly,
our findings suggest that changing organizational language
through increasing female representation might provide a path
for women to break out of the double bind: when female leaders
are appointed into positions of power, women are more strongly
associated with the positive aspects of agency (e.g., independent
and confident) in language but not at the cost of a reduced association
with communality (e.g., kind and caring). Taken together,
our findings suggest that female representation is not merely an
end, but also a means to systemically change insidious gender
stereotypes and overcome the trade-off between women being
perceived as either competent or likeable.


_____________________________________________________________________
Ora A. Weisz, PhD | Professor of Medicine, Cell Biology, and Clinical and Translational Science
Vice Chair of Faculty Development, Department of Medicine
Associate Dean for Faculty Development, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine
Assistant Vice Chancellor for Faculty Excellence, University of Pittsburgh Health Sciences
Renal-Electrolyte Division | 978.1 Scaife Hall | 3550 Terrace St. | Pittsburgh PA 15261
https://www.weiszlab.pitt.edu
Tel: 412-383-8891 | Email: weisz at pitt.edu<mailto:weisz at pitt.edu>

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