zondag 13 december 2009

Women “take care”, while men “take charge”


The qualities often associated with effective leadership are mostly not ascribed to women. The reason for this disparity is very simple; inappropriate generalizations we call “stereotypes”.

The words “leadership” and “leader” comprise characteristics like ‘dominant’ and ‘ambitious’, qualities we mostly ascribe to men and male leaders. Following The Psychology of Stereotyping (by David Schneider) this list can be replenished by ‘coarse’, ‘self-confident’, ‘rational’ and ‘achievement-oriented’. Women’s common stereotypes, on the other hand, are typified by ‘appreciative’, ‘affectionate’, ‘sentimental’ and ‘whiny’. In other words, women “take care”, while men “take charge”.

Earlier research has already proven that stereotype-based evaluations are mostly off the mark. An awkward conclusion, however, was that people who live up to those stereotypes, erroneously presume they’re right.



(Most of the information from the source I used, is to be found on pages 11 to 15.)


Maxime Otte

Geen opmerkingen:

Een reactie posten