If you ask someone to draw a nurse, it will almost always be female. Not everybody knows it, says our fearless leader about common knowledge, but I can go on. If you ask somebody to draw a husband and wife you'll get a man and a woman, but always in that order. Think about it (not everybody knows this). So I certainly don't mean to undermine the poison of what this study reveals. At its extremes it causes rape and all sorts of torturous and dysfunctional activity. But it is certainly a difficult minefield of social relationships. It will take a lot of work and education to even start solving it. Not everybody knows it. But that's the problem.
5
These studies seem to ignore physical size, when it is an obvious factor. From an evolutionary standpoint, it even makes sense. Good luck winning the Presidency as a short man.
A deep voice is also associated with 'authority'. Intellectually, we've evolved to value other factors, but the decision of 'whom should I follow' is made much deeper in the brain.
8
I want to state publicly and for the record: when I think of a leader, I think of a woman.
Actually, I think of lots and lots of women. Women make great leaders. We need more of them.
Just say no to misogyny and open your hearts and minds to the wonderful leadership of women.
9
A leader is best
When people barely know that she exists,
Not so good when people obey and acclaim her,
Worst when they despise her.
'Fail to honor people,
They fail to honor you;'
But of a good leader, who talks little,
When her work is done and aim fulfilled,
They will all say, 'We did this ourselves.'
The Tao Te Ching, adapted.
10
More identity politics? So over it. Leaders that we visualize will come from our experience. Most experience a leader as a man. This is true around the globe and across genders. Who are the leaders I respect? Lincoln, Churchill... all dead well before I was alive.
Yes, the world is changing. Yes, there are more women in leadership roles than ever. But if one imagines a male, does that mean there is bias, racism, xenophobia, sexism? Or gender bias (I don't see Jenner as a leader, am I biased against transgenders?)?
Enough!
9
The study about women NOT gaining status from speaking up makes me sad. In order to become recognized one has to speak up and out or end up at the bottom of the pile. I wonder if he researchers would have different results if it was done here in the USA?
By the way, I was a teacher and had great and nasty principles. Black and White. I don't believe gender or color have much to do with it. You're either a decent person that treats others with respect or not. The 'not's' shouldn't be bosses.
3
If people were asked to draw a nurse or a construction worker, would we be surprised at the results were overwhelmingly female or male, respectively? What about if people were asked to draw an author, or a dancer, will the results also be gender skewed? Probably, depending on which gender is more often portrayed in such roles in various media.
I'm personally having trouble understanding how anyone can picture a leader in the first place. Other than historical examples, military insignia, or picturing someone standing in front of a rapt crowd, I can't think of any physical trait that identifies a leader, If somebody asked me to do this drawing I'd be stumped.
Maybe what should be studied is not the implicit gender bias on display, but the fallacy that there is an identifiable look of a leader.
10
It may be the case that, though excellent ideas can come from either gender, a deeper perception may be more influential when it comes to visualizing the more effective leader. If an innovative or take-charge leader was subsequently expected to encounter resistance to their ideas or leadership initiatives (and, taken to the extreme, perhaps violent resistance), perhaps people still see males as the most appropriate choice to lead that team into “battle.” Decisions always have consequences, and if that means conflict, societies have long perceived a physically dominant male as the best defensive weapon against opponents.
5
People don't seem to realize that leaders have not always been men. In indigenous societies there was a more egalitarian role for women who sat in equal numbers on councils and were recognized and valued for their ability to provide a balanced perspective, especially in matters of war. This changed during the European invasion of the Americas due to the refusal of western male leaders to allow Native women to participate in treaty negotiations. The stereotype of male as leader is a result of western colonization. Wilma Mankiller, who rose as the leader and Chief of the largest tribe in the US, the great Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, was recognized as a natural leader and has become a role model for many indigenous women today.
7
Everything matters and most of it is implicit. The the fact that this article is tagged as part of the Health section is significant. What editorial choice was made here?
11
Most people draw men because most leaders have been and continue to be men. If you ask them to draw a picture of a girl, are they going to draw a boy or a transgender child? Of course not.
6
I worked as a DBA for a health insurance claims administrator. The worst, most corrupt, greedy, dishonest, boss I ever had was a woman. She belongs in prison. The best lawyer I have ever encountered, someone who will put this snake in prison is also a woman. Gender does not make someone good or evil, competent and honest or despicable and greedy.
8
Once upon a time, in ancient history, women popped out between their legs, a brand new human being. Men have fought even before they knew how this was even possible, women giving forth forth life, and ye into modern times, after they understand their part in creation, oh dear, it seems on the whole so small, a mere sperm, they have thus been, even if unconsciously, out to make us the lesser sex.
Women rise up. Draw a women giving birth.
6
Picture a leader: what is their race?
9
But aren't those things that's usually led by men created by men?
3
While gender issues are no doubt important here I have to say I'm just as concerned that the drawings of leaders consist of two dweebish looking corporate drones, Winston Churchill (a leader to be sure but regrettably long dead) and what appears to be an underfed chimp. It does not bode well if the only viable candidate is from WWII.
2
Wow, the Churchill drawing is excellent.
Stephen Colbert is having a really good day
1
Psychology asks the most ambitious questions (what is leadership), while using the most naive of tools to answer them (ask people to draw a pic of a leader). In our time, psychologist then take disturbing results (pic of white man) and claim huge significance. But, let's play psychologists. Suppose we had asked people to draw a picture of a dominance. Bet, they would also draw a white man. Suppose we had asked people to draw a pic of evil. Also, white man. Continuing this exercise...what does it prove. People in the west associate white men with certain words. Significance? I see none. Suppose had asked people to draw a pic of creativity. Bet, the pic will be of white women. Suppose asked people for a pic of charity. Again, white women. What does all this prove? Again, I see nothing. I am sure someone could come up with great stories using literature, art and history. But, that is not going to reveal much in terms of social science.
6
Here’s a re-posting of my earlier post in which I correct a typo and insert some new words. The only picture that resonates with me is the one of Churchill. I find it both odd and sad that none of the pictures depict a man or woman astride a magnificent warhorse, brandishing a sword, and shouting "Follow me!" to an army of soldiers who will cheerfully follow him/her into the jaws of Hell. Do you want examples of leaders? Here you go: Achilles, Leonidas of Sparta, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Richard the Lionheart, Genghis Khan, Henry V with his Crispin's Day speech, JOAN of ARC, Elizabeth I, Napoleon, Robert E. Lee, Ulysses S. Grant, George S. Patton, Douglas MacArthur, H. Norman Schwarzkopf. A “leader” is defined as someone who, at enormous personal risk to himself/herself, either leads soldiers into battle, or, who leads masses of civilians in a social justice movement (Gandhi, MLK), or, who serves as chief of state during a time of national crisis (Lincoln, Churchill). A CEO is emphatically *not* a leader as he/she sits in his/her posh office. Such a person is merely a manager, way below a leader in the hierarchy of merit. It is a measure of how degenerate our society has become when most people envision a "leader" as some civilian corporate managerial type who has never seen a battlefield in his life, who knows nothing of Valor and Honor, who is stuffed into a Brooks Brothers suit, when, what they should envision is a war hero in a shining suit of armor.
5
I grew up surrounded by strong females; black women and Jewish female teachers.
I had no problem identifying strong leaders.
1
if we did the same study but asked people to draw used car salesmen, drug dealers, or serial killers, then I'm sure the results would mainly be male too. if we asked people to draw an evil person, i imagine most pictures would also be male.
6
people are good at making statistical generalizations about groups of people. Ask someone to draw a criminal and they'll draw a man too.
8
“How can this problem be overcome?”
I’m sorry. What problem would that be?
10
What's the point of the article? I'll give the author a golf clap for saying much about nothing. You've taken a couple of research activities/results, attempted to write an article for probably no other purpose than to meet a deadline/get paid.
If you do wish to explore gender bias and leadership, then do it. Provider some structure, point/counterpoint, make people think about the topics and add value to the discourse. What about learned gender bias? Look into how most, if not all, societies instill it in the young from birth. You want to discuss leaders, then help people to understand what leadership is. Very few understand the concept, most wouldn't know what it was even if it bite them on the nose and, contrary to the many stories, it's not about a single individual.
7
a woman is made to be Man's helpmate and that will always be the case no matter how much social engineering it tried. Hillary will ensure this.
3
This is pretty absurd.
The guy looks more like a manager and not a leader. This is definitely not what I envision a leader to be certainly would not like to follow someone like this person from his demeanor.
When I think of a leader I think of Bhutto, Margaret Thatcher, Abraham Lincoln, FDR and the likes. People who have vision, compassion and the charisma to be a leader.
This person is definitely not a leader pointing towards me. A good leader would never do that.
2
Both sexes default to male leadership archetypes yet the article doesn’t address why being perceived a leader is important. It’s interesting that corporate America always seems to be the measure. Are corporate jobs more valuable than say a leader in Nursing - which women dominate and are paid better most Fortune 500 middle managers.
To be sure, there’re disparities at the senior level. And leveling the playing field so talented women who compete for high pay and status positions can do so equally is important. I think there is some true progress here – my firm has done some good things.
However, the gender/workplace debate has a sinister, and I would argue, pernicious undertone. Motherhood is almost minimized, secondary to gender equity - less than because it’s inherently female and restricts female agency.
Motherhood is the final frontier, the patriarchy cannot be destroyed as long as the concept of motherhood exists. It sound crazy. . . .but very real. . .and creeping into mainstream culture. Last week the NYT ran an article discussion hormone treatments for men who might want to breastfeed.
And it’s sad, wrong, and destructive.
3
Upon reading this, I immediately thought of the dolls little black kids picked out as the "pretty" ones in research used in Brown vs. Board of Education, which argued the unfairness of segregation. I can also well imagine people in this story protesting that they meant both sexes. Man is short for woman too?
Recall this (truncated) syllogism from Logic 101?
Man is a rational animal.
Adam is a man.
Adam is rational.
Can I substitute, say, Norma or Mildred or Janice? "Janice is a man"? We can talk about "man" as denoting all of us, but the idea strikes me as subterfuge. The classic syllogism did not use "human being," and though "man" may mean all of us, as an inclusive noun it has obvious problems.
I once taught a philosophy course cross-listed with women's studies. I remember discussing a paper by a philosopher who proposed that we change the language to get rid of gendered pronouns. The philosopher was male, and his radical ideas were well accepted by the class. The next week we discussed a paper much more moderate as to amending the English language, but it was written by a woman. The males in the class did not accept her ideas at all, and the writer was "shrill," they said. She was nothing of the sort. And "shrill" is, in usage, a gendered modifier. Men are never shrill, apparently.
Go figure? No. I am older and have already figured. I do not expect sexual or, for that matter, racial fairness to come about in my lifetime. Too many stereotypes have been internalized.
8
Does anyone else recall this stomper from the 1960’s?
One version of it went something like this:
A child and his father are injured in a car accident and taken to the hospital. A surgeon takes one look at the child and says, “I can’t operate on him, he’s my son.”
Believe it or not, a lot of people had to scratch their head. They were puzzled, knowing that the father was injured and in no condition to treat the child. So who was this mystery doctor?
It took a while for many to realize that the doctor could be a woman, the child’s mother.
5
It would be interesting to do this in diverse populations. Also it would be interesting to do this as an age study. Would there be an age where students change their opinions of potential gender leadership? Or wouldn’t it matter?
1
Absolutely no surprise here. A similar study done decades ago asked schoolchildren to draw pictures of "cave people." When asked to draw a "caveman" 100% of the pictures were male. When asked to draw "cave people" 90% of the images were male. Even when asked to draw a "cavewoman" only about 59% of images were female. Women are still invisible. Women who become tired of being invisible, and who speak up loudly to be heard, are seen - only as irritating. This is changing, albeit too slowly for my taste. Guess that means I'm....irritating? Too bad.
4
And you're complaining, why? Because the negative stereotypes associated with cavemen don't automatically apply to women, in schoolchildren's eyes? Isn't that raking really low? Ask kids to draw thugs, or criminals in general, and you'll likely get 100% male figures. Is that an issue too?
If your only issue in life is being "tired of being invisible", then enjoy your privilege; others have it much worse, including men.
5
Why does everything on the planet have to be about gender? Is it not time to get over this stuff and move on with life rather than wasting it with continuing complaints?
4
Some people have built careers on the gender-related grief industry. Take that away, and not only will you have thousands of gender studies teachers, journalists, bloggers, writers, and other otherwise useless people without a job; but you'll have orders of magnitude more going insane at the realization that they actually have a responsibility in their life choices and their own shortcomings, once "the Patriarchy" is removed as the sole power to blame. I don't know if we're ready for that.
5
I've read that women were significant leaders in the crashed Florida bridge project. I'll take men leaders, thank you.
3
Modern day example.
The very low number of lady orthopaedic surgeons, despite all the opportunities.
Lady surgeons are smarter and better operators(hand skills) BUT they just don't elect to take on this impossible career.
Maybe smart?
1
This is exactly why we have never had a woman president. There is no collective image in our mind of what that would look like. We have been brought up with only male images of U.S. presidents and for some reason people cannot get past that.
2
I remember an earlier time when Feminism taught that the world would have peace if we had female leaders.
Then, Israel elected Golda, Britain elected Maggie, and India elected Indira. Each woman promptly went on to fight and win a war.
Had she won, I have little doubt that Hillary would shown serious aggressiveness beyond that of Bush after 9/11. Just look at the military action she got Obama (Mr. Nobel Peace Prize) to authorize.
It will still take a while, but the world is getting more comfortable with women in leadership positions. Consider female CEO's in bastions of stereotypically male industries including companies such as IBM, General Motors, Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, and Oracle.
3
The article and, I presume, the underlying study assume that "leaders" and "leadership" are unquestionably valuable, praiseworthy and, indeed, enviable, such that the general tendency not to draw women in response to the prompt is a sign of a cultural problem. But what if, instead, the cultural problem were an idealization of "leaders" without reference to where or how they are leading us? In business, leadership is often ruthlessly pursuing profit and extracting greater productivity from employees by any and all means. In the military, the core requirement of leadership is motivating human beings to sacrifice their own lives willingly, on orders they are neither asked nor required to understand. What if, instead, people were promoted: "Draw someone who admirably shoulders great responsibility." Would you draw your mother, your wife, yourself? What this country needs is not a gender-neutral cult of leadership, but a culture of greater responsibility, from top to bottom.
2
I immediately pictured in my mind's eye the leader of our Girl Guides troop circa 1978 (grew up in Canada). Mrs. Hampstead: smart, funny, kind, capable of being tough as nails. Mrs. Hamps could really lead, whether slogging through unfamiliar woods with 20 kids in tow or juggling groups of skeptical, sometimes semi-hostile parents. Bless her!
2
Of course choosing males might be hard wired. After all in social animals the dominant leader of a group is almost always a male-- think wolves lions, large primate. It is however fairly certain that yielding to the dictyates of biology is not the optimal way to progress for humans.
Perhaps more disturbing than gender bias is our cultural idolization of "leadership," a term that business philosophers with nothing better to do have been failing to define for several decades. Why not ask to picture something useful, like a competent engineer, meticulous scientist, or enthusiastic teacher? Then, if there is gender bias, we have an actual problem.
Who cares about "leaders?" Those who actually drive projects, research, or society forward can emerge from any level of the workforce, and are rarely aligned with those identified and stereotyped as leaders, or who are given power due to their "leadership" qualities.
Let's cut the garbage and start focusing on skills, which I think are becoming more recognized across genders, rather than indefinable, inconsequential intangibles -- or qualities that incompetent people should not have, like assertiveness.
The leader isn't the best person, or a position to strive for. Let's stop teaching girls and boys that. A leader is an emergent phenomenon in any system of sufficient complexity to require coordination of the communication and tasks involved. That's it. How ludicrous if other systems behaved like our social groups, fantasizing about leadership: all parts of the cell strive to be the nucleus, all computer applications wish they were the kernel, all brain cells want to be part of the attention system - all instead of performing some real, valuable function. Nothing would work! It's a necessary role, not a goal.
2
I am one of three pathology informaticians at a major medical center. I am the only female in the group. I am passed over for leadership positions in areas where I have more expertise. No one can say I do not make myself heard. But like the experiment shows I do not pop into the leadership's head when they are looking to solve a problem. I actually tried my own experiment with my physician colleagues across the institution. I would start-imagine computer nerd. Give that person a desk. Now dress the person. Give the person a hairstyle. Now-what is the gender of your nerd. 100% male. Interestingly though I have achieved leadership roles in national forums outside the institution in the setting of a professional organization. I am not sure what that means, but it keeps me going! In the meantime, can we turn this around in time for my daughters who are young adults at the start of their careers. I see a few graduation/milestone presents with the book referred to in the article nicely wrapped.
2
Looking at the four guys in the drawings, all of them have big ears but only one of them has a big mouth. I think this is a key thing and gender neutral. The difference is that men with opposite characteristics can still become leaders but it seems very hard for women of such a type.
Personally I think a lot of these tendencies boil down to biologically determined aspects such as voice and size. I personally, and call me sexist, often find that I consider men better speakers (and leaders) simply because of their voice, the low-pitch of it exhibiting more authority. A respected leader is in my experience typically someone who somehow has the ability to intimidate you, and as awful as that sounds, it is not necesarily a negative quality - rather it is an ability to establish hierarchy and order.
2
"Almost Always" doesn't cut it. If it is research what was the population of the sample ? Was the task given in the same environment? Were men and women evenly distributed by age,or job title etc.
I am tired of poorly done research models being presented as 100% gospel. Any person that has worked with statistics and research knows what it takes to Demonstrate a hypothesis is correct within a strictly defined environment.
It is the responsibility of the NYT to either share the researchers' total project via website or complete an overview yourself.
I cannot believe the conclusions of this study and it does not help women of any demographic when the research should have been published in People Magazine.
3
"Most people" would ignore a silly question about "drawing" a leader. Leadership is not reducible to a single visual image.
If one feels compelled to search high and low for gender imbalance, as it "finding" it in "more and more" places makes some kind of meaningful difference, then it would be more sensible -in this instance- to ask for verbal descriptions and see (for example) how often "he" in the purely masculine sense shows up compared to "she."
1
Does anyone find it a bit ironic that only a few days after Cynthia Nixon announces her intention to explore running for Governor of New York -- the New York Chapter of NOW comes out with an unusually-early endorsement of Andrew Cuomo ...?
Height matters. Short women (under 5'2") are not taken as seriously as average women and tall women tend to receive the most respect (especially if they can see "eye to eye" with their male colleagues.
I also noticed that naturally curly hair or grey/white/salt-and-pepper hair are also negatives for women (but, interestingly, not for men).
All of this could have put me at a tremendous disadvantage (I started to salt-and-pepper at age 21) so I used my initials and last name on all written documents (my first name is gender ambiguous but I took no chances and only gave it out when I had to) and did most of my communication in writing and when needed, by phone calls. People then knew I was female, but they knew my work and opinions long before they met me in person. The most common remark (from both genders) was "I didn't think you looked like you do from your writing and voice." Turns out I sound taller and less "cute" (whatever that means) on the phone.
I pity women under 30 who seem to have a need to sound very young and breathless. It might have worked in high school and college but it doesn't work in the business world (unless you're dealing with others who sound like you). You can't imagine how often I have heard "she doesn't sound like she knows what she's talking about" from men when a woman speaking voice sounds as if she's still in her teens. I have to remind people that it's more important to listen to the content than the delivery but that doesn't always work.
11
Women only have power because men allow them to. Men gave women the vote. They can take it away. You only have to look at Muslim countries to see how men are able to hold on to power despite the cries of women. Men allowed Queens Elizabeth and Victoria to rule. Generally speaking, women police officers are unable to arrest males without the assistance of their male colleagues. Men are stronger and less emotional than women who tend to tend to replace logic with compassion.
It is only natural that men take the leading role and that they are perceived by others to do so.
5
This is the kind of thinking that has gotten where we are today. How's it working for us? Not so much. Women are born leaders. They are more balanced than men, more inclusive, less inclined to use force. This makes them stronger, not weaker. When women decide to take back their power, and we will, it will be better for the planet, humankind, and all life. After all Mother Earth is powerful, is she not? She will be here long after humans have gone. That won't be too much longer if men continue to "take" the leading role.
5
I hate to admit it, but I would probably have drawn a male figure as well, without realizing it. And the majority of my bosses in my professional career have been women, and nearly all of my experiences with their leadership was extremely positive. On paper, I should have gone the other way, but it's evidence of how hard some thought patterns are to break. I think this will be a slow process.
5
I wonder if the results would differ if the same prompt were presented to children, and I would theorize that most younger children (primary school aged) would identify a leader as gender ambiguous or as their own gender (the ego at work). If this held true, at what age would the shift to male as imagined leader take place? When does our patriarchal society get its grip on our children? I’m a primary teacher- a perfect character trait, small scale social study in the works.
4
I hope you try this in your class next week. I fear the gender bias will still be present, for this socialization starts very early. I hope I am wrong!
2
How do you explain the "Patriarchy" getting its grip on our children? Given that grade school teachers are disproportionately female and Liberal (not to say feminist), and that single motherhood is the familial context in 25% to 75% (depending on ethnicity, and growing) of children's home situations? It's ironic that the typical upbringing context, devoid of any political and gender diversity to speak of, would end up promoting the same Conservative, Patriarchal stereotypes the whole institution seems programmed to fight.
Do these female teachers advance the macho agenda and stereotypes in their classes (doubtful), are they incredibly incompetent (more plausible), or are kids just keen observers, and not as stupid as they would need to be to gobble up without question the largely Feminist-influenced "education" pushed on them (my guess)?
Whatever imaginary "truths" you push on kids, they have actual, real-life observations competing with them in their day-to-day lives. Not only with regards to traditional gender roles in adult society around them, but also to the dynamics applying to their own activities with kids their age, of both genders. You can tell them that women are the same as men; society tells them otherwise. That girls are stronger than boys: the games they play tell a different story.
I feel sorry for the poor kids serving as guinea pigs for deluded Feminists forcing their agenda on their classrooms, one child at a time.
3
I think that any female who over the last many decades has born, nursed, and nurtured a number of children, should consider herself a leader, as nurturing well, makes all of your children, females, and males leaders in whatever they do. Any woman who wants to have children, will spend lots of time doing it, and she knows she is a leader. If you lead well, those who follow, your children, will grow up to be leaders in any capacity they choose.
7
In my family with 2 older sisters and my mother an actress, teacher and fine pianist I knew as my father and brother did that incredible. talent and leadership come in both genders. The women in my neighborhood on the Upper West Side of Manhattan were often examples of great ability. I also saw with many friends from other backgrounds how women could lead.
Every mother is a leader.
5
This reinforces what I’ve long said was one of the greatest benefits of attending an all-women’s college: When the leaders you see around you every day are all women, it changes your perception of what leadership looks like—and makes all the more obvious the lack of women in leadership positions elsewhere.
8
Leadership is often based on charisma. I've found the more charismatic the least knowledgeable the individual. One manager I had kind of would go blank when ever I had to give him an explanation on how to proceed. In frustration I asked him where he worked before he was obviously out of his element. He happened to be a quarterback in High school. I imagine he's building bridges in Florida now. Nice guy but.
Sorry to say most women I've worked for lacked the ability to show respect for someone they didn't like. Showing respect is one of the great qualities of a leader.
4
Count my vote for "least surprising result ever"! The obvious answer appears at the end of the article. The overwhelming majority of leaders in human history have been male. So, of course, people of both genders are more likely to view leaders as men. Why is this necessarily a bad thing? Each person had to choose one gender as the leader, would society be bette if people picked all women? 25% women? 50% women? Why does it matter?
There is an easy way to become a leader. Lead. If people follow, regardless of gender, you will be a leader.
17
Well said. Provide the leadership and I’ll draw you the picture.
1
We who attended Catholic parochial schools in the last century knew that our leaders wore habits- our teachers, our principal, the head of the local Catholic hospital, the saints
we studied and revered. Louise de Marillac in the 17thC
founded the Daughters ( Sisters ) of Charity, joined over the centuries by many thousands of women, founding schools,
hospitals, homes for the orphaned and destitute, women's colleges, later co-ed universities. Mother Theresa was one of many. Elizabeth Seton, Frances Cabrini, Katherine Drexel,
Are some of the many Americans who led in education, social services and and health care. We students learned that over the centuries Catholic sisterhoods provided a place for women to lead.
Granted, they were required in to defer to the male hierarchy, but they managed to do the job!
6
Most people will draw a man...
Hardly surprising or earth shattering, considering the overwhelming majority of leaders are men and have been since year one and for blindingly obvious reasons.
Changing peoples preconceptions takes time,it takes generations.That said, equality is not a right ( and why should it be?),it must be earned.
13
"Equality must be earned." Really?? And here I was thinking it was an innate human right to be treated equally..
4
@Baffled: the right to be treated equally is one thing; the right to be granted special privileges based on gender instead of merit is another. That people confuse the 2 explains why so many women believe they should be awarded CEO positions without the necessary qualifications, because equality.
Women are mothers first and foremost. Even though men are now taking some responsibility for childcare now, and few are or it wouldn't still be news-worthy, the fact is that fathers didn't interact with their children until they were able to speak in fully formed sentences. That's for centuries, not just 1 or 2 or even 10 generations.
When a preschool child becomes old enough to communicate to some one, the child remembers at least the feeling that some one guided them into the world. That won't be the primary care giver of their first 8-10 years. That primary care give was always insisting they do this or they do that or don't dare do it. Every single bodily function was dictated by that care giver. The sad fact is that the care giver was in the home with them from the beginning of time, or so it seemed. That was not a person of adventure or excitement. Altogether with, that person was more like a medieval dungeon guard than anything else. Unless the child was hurt then the caregiver became the magic healer.
Don't expect culture to change in 2 or 3 or even 5 generations. It will take about two centuries to change the mindset that females are always a poor substitute for a male; especially when we still tend to believe that most successful women are more concerned with caring and nurturing than they are with overall quality of life for everyone in whatever society they live in. That is why females who do that are news-worthy now.
6
I wonder if a parallel study where participants drew pictures of bad leaders would result in a similar disproportionate number of male images. If an equal percentage of male images were produced that were “bad” leaders then we could conclude that only men are perceived as leaders. If a greater percentage of the “bad leaders were drawn as female than when the question was asked about good leaders, then we could definitively say that women are perceived as bad leaders.
18
Now you're talking about making a good study, one that attempts at ideological neutrality not some obvious confirmation bias.
2
I know the first person that came to my mind was Elizabeth Holmes, the fraud of Theranos.
1
Social conditioning -- from childhood, schools, professionals (doctors, lawyers, etc.), and especially the media, the print press, and films. I've paid very close attention to this newspapers business and sports sections -- if there is any article or photo of women, there is about 90% more about men. Just look at the numbers! Time for a real change...no more platitudes!
6
I researched the paucity of women leaders in the Fortune 500 companies over 10 years ago. We haven't made much progress. In 2003 the percentage of women CEO's was 1.3%. Last year it was at 5.4%. One of the things I did to discover if the image of a leader was male or female was to ask people to name who they thought were great leaders. I did this hundreds of times. Only one time did a woman's name appear in the first ten names listed. This is a stubborn stereotype that has permeated our male dominated culture. The fact that there remain so few women in leadership roles indicates that women should not adapt to the male culture of leadership, but need to create their own and need the support of social changes to make it so!
10
It could be the result of standard deviation's "blinding out" females by the numbers? For example in Poker ( a very sexist milieu I might add) females represent about 4 percent of tournament players. Its is wrongly assumed that females are not very good at Poker since very few if any make final tables of major events . If you look at an event with 5k players you will have 200 ladies playing. When there are 1k left you will see 40 left. 4 left with 100 etc but simply due to standard deviations they get "outnumbered" and eliminated. The 4 percent ratio you see all the way down indicating they are playing exactly equal to men. If we applied the same analysis to ceo's and knew what percent of male to female's did what it takes from day 1 onward it would be interesting to see the percent ratios. Of course females numbers might start dropping early simply by not feeling they have a chance as a result of being shut out but it also maybe that females don't value sacrificing all free time at the same rate as males do? So many times females view success as replicating male behavior ( maybe real success would be males replicating female behavior/values) but the same characteristics that drives people to become CEO's ( nearly all males as you point out) may well be the same characteristics that allow males to dominate such things as serial killers, arsonists, assaulter's, burglars, drug dealers and every other nefarious activity that males also completely dominate.
1
Apparently university students need to protest at the gates of the University of CEOs. This inequity simply cannot be tolerated. It is not about equality of opportunity. It is equality of outcome!
Tongue firmly in cheek.
2
The most effective supervisors/leaders I've had were people who were knowledgeable, understood their own limitations, were willing to help, share the credit, listen, and push us to work just a bit harder when necessary. I've worked with effective male supervisors and effective female supervisors.
The problem with trying to be a leader is satisfying all the political things that go on at work or anywhere else. And the other problem is gender. No matter what field a woman is in, the men always seem to take precedence even if a woman is in a leadership position. I can't count how many times I've heard men make derogatory comments about a female supervisor, comments they'd never make about a male in the same position.
I don't care who I work for as long she/he is a good leader. The real problem lies in finding good leaders.
16
The ‘real problem’ is that women are overlooked and men are the default candidates.
2
The real problem is that women are overlooked, especially when competing against more competent and qualified males. Thankfully, we have diversity hiring and promoting to make sure incompetent females get their chance to prove they can usurp a leader's position. Yay!
A lot of bias is based on exposure. I work as a woman in the tech entertainment field. During company wide events, woman number about one in eight to the men. We simply aren't there populating the room enough. I don't feel an overt bias from colleagues to not speak out or act in leadership, but more often than not, you're talking with a row of men when you do. That's why need we need to encourage women to keep working and not keep hidden. We need women populating the room, and we need companies that support women who are raising young children to keep carrying out leadership in public.
(As an aside, I went to an all-women's college. In the library, the room was filled with paintings of the college president's - all women. It was a stunning site, because in all my life, I'd never seen it a wall of female leaders enshrined before - as a woman. It's no wonder both girls and boys draw men as leaders.)
30
But in this day and age, would not an all women's college be "wrong." Should not the college seek diversity?
1
From the beginning of recorded history, with extremely few exceptions and those almost entirely hereditary , the world has been lead by men. A few decades of complaint is not going to change that in any readers or their grandchildren's grandchildren time.
23
Because I worked in the educational field, I was exposed to many leaders who were women. But the perceptions were still there--the "real" leaders were the men. The National Association of Secondary School Principals Assessment Center considered decisiveness, judgment, and "leadership", among others, to be essential qualities for principals. The description of those skills mirrored what one would expect from a male principal, and females had to aspire to "act like that." I hope that a new standard of what makes a leader emerges, and I hope it is a new, feminine model.
8
It is impossible to "draw" a leader. No leadership talents can be described through appearance, except perhaps many won't follow someone who is nontraditional in appearance.
4
Leaders don't exist anymore, just sheep.
3
Sheep and cows like to walk on the paths those before them trod, we don't need great leaders, we just need good paths. Even an animal with its head down can follow that and end up at the right place.
1
The terms "leader" and "leadership" make my skin crawl. I associate them with empty-suit bullies and bullet-head military types. I would draw a man, but it's not a compliment. There's no doubt something to the culturally embedded stereotype, but that's no sure predictor of how things play out in real relationships.
10
Your experience is highly biased, leaders come in various types mostly depending on the environment that they are attempting to lead in.
3
My point was not that my experience and associations are archetypal, representative of the majority, but that people's experiences and associations do vary, can vary considerably, though they may hold cultural stereotypes in common. It's an overly simplistic model of human behavior that leaps to univalent consequence from any limited set of conceptions. Throughout this piece and, I presume, the study it reports, there is an unexamined assumption that leaders and leadership are unambiguously good, praiseworthy, and, indeed, enviable things. Trump is a "leader." Enough said.
1
Your account is highly theoretical. I highly doubt you have any experience with diverse leadership. Working with men all my professional life, I can tell you, in practice, there are very few differences in who gets picked to lead. Leadership seems to not be a requirement. Comfort seems much more a factor, regardless of results.
1
It's worth considering which adjectives come to mind when we claim men make good leaders and women make bad leaders.
I for one, as a reasonably intelligent thinking adult, care not what is in a leader's pants but what is in their head and heart. This constant drumbeat to make the sex of a person an issue in their election is really getting tiresome. Let's elect the people who have good character, who are intelligent and willing to put the work and thought into making the best decisions for our country.
11
I agree but leaders outside of politics are way more important than those inside it.
1
Finally! Someone who gets it!
1
Yes, and that was Hillary Clinton.
2
There is no problem to overcome....
it's called nature
14
Which, I suppose, also explains racism? Ethnic prejudice? Biases against the poor? Recoil toward everyone different from us? Or are the old, if of the same racial/ethnic/economic group as us, somehow shielded by "nature"?
2
@Janice: yes, it's called tribalism, and we're all subject to it, on every continent. The same dynamics behind tribalism are why chickens don't roam with foxes, sheep don't hang out with wolves; antelopes stay away from lions.
I think that this bias (that people discount the abilities of women to lead) is fairly well-understood.
What's more interesting (as another commenter noted) is that these pictures of men are almost invariably TALL men. Just as assertive women are denigrated for being "bossy," assertive short men are derided as "Napoleons" or "little men." Gladwell noted that being a short man is, a priori, as large an obstacle to a CEO position as being black or female.
The point is that there is significant heterogeneity here. Simply looking at this exercise as revealing that people see "all men" as better leaders than "all women" is misleading.
8
I replaced the gender words with race, ethnicity and economic words...
Same result.
5
This reminds me of taking my young daughters to Mayor de Blasio's open house at Gracie Mansion when he was first elected. After waiting on a long line to meet him, I asked them what they thought. With their main exposure to political leaders being pictures of President Obama, they responded that they expected that his skin would be darker.
9
I hope they saw his wife and perhaps his children...
The first drawing is in orange which doesn’t bode well.
7
So true. A leader's character is a factor, too. My leadership style is influenced by my gender. I collaborate and distribute power. I play win win and grow leaders.
My business partners' character flaws were tragic. Both were irrational and insecure; one emotional, the other callous and competitive.
You published: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/24/opinion/sunday/men-testosterone-hormo...
which describes how a triggered man is over confident and fallible. It's common in our culture and also addressable.
Imagine having so much experience and success, a man gives you 25% of his company. Then his first response to your contribution is to accuse you of not valuing him. He hijacked the conversation from being about the company, to being about him. Such irrational barriers are the worst.
My other partner was more like Trump, smooth, two faced and sadistic, so loved by the very people he used, including me, until of course, I knew too much, then I had to go.
This kind of man, instead of being thrilled by ability, is threatened, so undermines - behind the back of his imagined threat. Simultaneously praising one's effort while trashing or taking credit for the work done by this declared enemy.
It's bizarre how men's insecurity and personal agendas distract from business needs. It's the norm. I know. I am a powerful woman in the world and encounter these flaws regularly and powerful Dad is full of such tales and woes.
What to do? Develop your character and critical thinking.
2
I lead with many of the same criteria, they come from education not gender.
2
Cool. Given that you too are a collaborator and choose to distribute power, you have the ability to see I too point towards education as the great equalizer.
The seven core world class leadership qualities are integrity, commitment, acknowledgement, partnership, diversity, accountability and vulnerability.
Our higher ordered thinking is humble, kind, charitable, diligent, chaste, patient and is contained in temperance.
Meanwhile, our lower nature thinking contains wrath, sloth, pride, greed, gluttony, lust and envy.
A collaborative leader relates, aligns, inquires, supports and engages to unite and empower. An emotional leader divides and and oppresses and acts superior and looks for differences.
Be the change. Know that you must rise up. challenge your thinking. Test your thoughts against the qualities you aspire to and switch them up. It is not automatic, it is effortful, and also, quite enjoyable.
Stop seeing differences, and see similarities.
You know who else works on seeing differences instead of similarities? Recovering alcoholics. Lower nature thinking is addictive and unsettling and insatiable.
Is the person in the drawing a man or a woman? Do we really know? In this gender-talk saturated atmosphere, I'm surprised to see such a simplistic equivalence. Of course, it could just be the influence of the young adults in my sphere who talk a lot about gender...
2
Susan from Chicago, The drawing struck me as somewhat feminine as well. Think, Rachel Maddow :)
2
The drawings aren't just of men. They're of white men. Perhaps the writers, focusing on gender, didn't notice.
22
how could you tell?
4
No surprise that the subjects reproduced an image of the "leaders" they've mostly seen. On the other hand, it's not as if the term "Leader" (think Fuhrer, IL Duce) is something that any true leader would particularly aspire to. Interesting study of language triggers and stereotypes, though.
this is especially unfair because women make better leaders on average (in part because the way men go crazy -- narcissism or sociopathy -- often makes them look as if they know what they are talking about.. but they are just crazy)
6
They do? Of course that is your opinion, I think leaders are mostly trained.
5
That drawing can be applicable for women too. I remember Annie Lennox of the Eurythmics looking a lot like that in the 'Sweet Dreams" video!
3
I think that you are asking the wrong question.
There is a bias in that the structures that we work within are built by men. That isn't a good thing or a bad thing, but it is reality (I think.)
I would offer that we need to reconsider the structure of the institutions.
I have worked for strong women that did a great job.
However, I never once used the word "leader". I don't follow. Never will. I don't consider Obama my leader and Trump is my enemy.
Leader as a word is so deeply entrenched with "man" that it is stupid to fight it.
Start by using gender more frequently.
One bias is that we use the word CEO and then we use the term Female CEO. Use the term Male CEO when you are talking about a man and use Female CEO when you are talking about women. Then you will be setting a pattern of always implying that it can be either or.
They have figured this out in collegiate and youth sports. The Men's basketball team and the women's basketball team.
In this exercise you would say draw an effective male leader and draw an effective female leader.
We already know that there is a language bias, so break that by breaking with it yourself.
Just a suggestion from a 6-5 white guy that usually gets chosen for leadership positions. A job that I am glad to yield.
3
I keep picturing someone that doesn't need superdelegates to win a primary.
16
Why are we doing this to ourselves. Don’t you think that maybe this is because in a lot of countries women still don’t have equal rights or pay and aren’t even on a level playing field as men...
3
It's a strange feeling being part of a targeted gender, where every media image and article is geared towards the empowerment of women while men are being routinely condemned and eviscerated from public life. There's a necessary balancing of the scales, to be sure, and having a horrific example of manhood in the White House certainly doesn't help our case, but this is starting to feel like gyno-fascism. Many whose only crime was being born male feel alienated, and our own version of the Handmaid's Tale seems not long in the offing.
35
Kahneman and Tversky introduced the now well-known "availability heuristic". People answer a question such as "describe a leader" by using the most readily recalled examples. Not an unreasonable strategy.
Feminists have long decried the scarcity of female leaders, so the results here should be no surprise. When there is a more adequate representation of women in leadership positions, then we can start to look for faulty perceptions.
4
OK, in my mind's eye I'm picturing a leader, and it's a man leading other men in combat. On average men are bigger, stronger, and faster than women and more suited to war and leadership roles. Now I'm shifting my view and picturing a mother. She's a woman and can breast feed and care for her child. She's more suited to a nurturing roll than a man is.
8
Combat is not the only or most important role for leaders, nor is foolish politics either.
2
Holy cow - too much wrong with this to even start; great for dissing women without children and single parent (father) families though
3
When women outnumber men in the military and uniformed services, this will change. Until then, it won't. Leadership is most consequential under fire, and under fire, most leaders are men.
7
The perception of what makes a good or strong leader isn't formed in a vacuum. Maybe the reason most people think of men when they think of a "leader-type" is because, historically, it's men that have been effective (and ineffective) leader-types? On average, men of the human species are stronger and faster than their female counterparts, and so it is in Nature that when one sex of a species can dominate another - they do! It's part of Nature and it's part of our nature, and no amount of Liberal proselytizing is going to change Natural Law anytime soon. That's not to say that women can't be strong leaders in the modern world - they can! But the perceived link between leadership and physical dominance remains, and that perception isn't formed in a vacuum, folks.
17
Nature also gives us cancer, tsunamis, and flesh-eating parasites. Somehow, life is still better when we as humans can transcend limitations of nature in order to lead healthier, more fulfilled lives.
30
However in the same " no-vacuum" you mention some would say females in human species through millennial honed diplomacy, nurturing, listening skills....and some leadership positions require exactly those sets of skills... But it seamed we still get mostly men...
8
As an experiment, I once looked through the photos that Microsoft offered as clip art for the term "worker." About 1 in 50 had gray hair. So there's age discrimination, too.
48
Microsoft clip art? Clip art?!? Followed by a comment on "age discrimination"? Am I the only one seeing this? And yes, I'm plenty old enough to have painful memories of the acid trip that was clip art...
1
To me, a leader is Aslan. Or, TreeBeard. Or, Galadriel.
I say, a plague on the anthropocentric prejudices, vanities and follies of mankind promulgated by the organised Abrahamic religions.
7
This study merely demonstrates what we all know to be true: men generally are more likely to be effective leaders than men.
4
LOL. Not really.
What the study shows is that due to cultural conditioning men are more likely to be seen as leaders or potential leaders.
It says nothing about the actual effectiveness of men versus women, and certainly does not say anything about the relative skills of any individual man or woman.
24
"...men generally are more likely to be effective leaders than men."
There's something ironic going on here.
15
Thank you Anne. It took a woman to recognize this.
1
Growing up one of five boys and a large football-playing Pop, if any of us could draw there was clearly only one boss..thanks Mom
10
My principal - the leader of the school I teach in - is a black woman. In our inner city district, many leaders are in fact women. I don't have to implant an idea in my students that leaders can be women, because their leader is a woman.
One of the reasons that most people draw a man is that, unlike my students, that's what most people see. We learn in part by modeling. I don't think it's only sexism (in part it is); I think it's far more complex. For instance, more women prefer a sane balanced life, where we can spend time with family, & be the leaders of their individual families. I'd never want to be principal. My principal for her part never stops working, & indeed last year had to take a year off for health reasons; I prefer to have a life outside work, & I also prefer to make more on-the-ground connections, focused on people.
I actually think that it's the obsession with 'leadership' that is hierarchical & male-vision-based. I can't abide the worship of 'leaders.' It's biased to the arrogant, top-down, way of seeing the world, a vision that implicitly belittles the work women & men do person to person, one at a time. For instance, I think Levine would have been fired much earlier if the Met had realized how important the orchestra members were as opposed to fixating on the cult of the leader.
One of the things preventing more women from 'leadership' is precisely the entire model of 'god-leadership' itself. There are other ways to organize.
30
I met an African American woman, Minnijean Brown, one of the Little Rock 9. She was amazing. Shortly after I met Dr. Jocelyn Elders, first African American female surgeon general. Again, her talk was so inspiring. I found my two heroes (I am de-sexing that word to make a point) were African American women! And now they led Doug Jones to victory in Alabama. We will be saved by African American women! Also think-Kamal Harris. I am excited about the future when I think of Minnijean Brown, Jocelyn Elders, every voting African American woman in Alabama and Kamala Harris. We had humans need to move on from our old stereotypes-think also the picture that went viral of the little African American girl in awe of Michelle Obama's portrait. We need to move on as a culture and accept all for their incredible contributions.
2
A million years of evolution in which the man was the primary hunter, warrior and chieftain cannot be overturned in 100 years.
The assimilation of women into the workforce was only accomplished due to World War 2 labor shortages. Prior to that womens traditional roles were in n.ursing and education.
Is it reasonable to expect to overturn a million years of evolution overnight ? (figuratively)
15
And before the 20th century? Do you think women didn't work then? Perhaps we need to not extrapolate too much on just one century, and especially one or 2 decades (1940s and 1950s).
4
If you're retired, you might want to spend some time reading history. Starting, for example, with a biography of Elizabeth I.
3
Actually ... there is a TON of evidence that this is simply our assumption & not based in fact
5
I think that men come under extraordinary scrutiny these days (not entirely without reason). I'm all for taking responsibiltiy, & there's much for us to take. At the same time, the vast majority of homes, roadways, waterworks, electrical infrastructure, vehicles, etc. were made by men, and are kept up and repaired by men. Much of this isn't about lack of opportunity for women. A lot, rather, is about what men are more inclined to do (dirty, physically onerous, risky things on ladders and such). Good luck keeping civilization up without men! So, men should get more credit than they do nowadays. When people bang on about men as if we are the poison of the earth, they are inevitably doing so in the context of comforts made by men. It's good to want equity and fairness, but that can't come by overlooking all the good that is really there.
86
Agree with much of your comment...but it's not so much about what men are "more inclined" to do...than what men have been "allowed...and even encouraged" to to do in the past....and still today.
Women have definitely had far more limited opportunities.
23
I agree as to the past, But today women are able to do many of those things. But they mainly don’t want to. There are just some things that most women aren’t attracted to. Just like there are some things that most men aren’t attracted to.
That is sometimes the case, but much is inclination. There are major biological differences between the sexes.
History is even a bigger problem, save Queen Elizabeth and Joan of Arc, to name a couple. Nothing is free and without its costs and personal risks when it comes to climbing to the top or fighting for what one believes is right. Nature or nurture, neither Elizabeth nor Joan saw herself as a victim of cultural oppression--a postmodern bourgeois concept promoted by self-serving victimization politics and cultural Marxist dogma replete in public schools and universities. Free will is still the greatest force on planet earth, if not the cosmos.
22
Patriarchy is the most ancient and insidious tyranny on the planet. Its extinction is the next stage of human evolution.
117
If you think kissing up to the new order might save your existence and livelihood, Murray, you might want to think again.
13
Women don't really lead anything. Women in these posts of "leadership" have men following them. These men follow due to the duties and obligations of their jobs, which are below in the assigned Hierarchies, out of Convenience or Condescending. This is specially true in Government Posts that are generally based and due to PC and Sociopolitical Agendas. The posts of so call "leadership" of these women, are due mainly and mostly to the Interventions of the Government in their favor via Laws about "Equality and Fairness" and the Force of these Laws. These Laws, are enforced thru Coercion, Fines and Penalties. That's NOT True Leadership, that's Government sponsorship.
17
I have to laugh. I think your mother would laugh, too. I am a female. I am certainly a leader at work, in the private sector. And, I'd bet my second home that I make more money than you. In other words, I'm exactly what you are afraid of - a woman with more power and money than you - because it is nothing but your FEAR of women that made you write that snarky comment. Fear and insecurity breed hate, and we all know where that leads. Life is not a zero-sum game. Men haven't lost anything worth holding on to in women's rise to power. Just like whites didn't lose anything worth keeping through abolition or the end of segregation. See, folks: misogyny is on its last legs, snarking anonymously on the internet, griping about female bosses.
73
I suppose that Madeline Albright didn't get her post as Secretary of State because she deserved it. And Margaret Thatcher wasn't really the Prime Minister of England either. And I'll bet that Beverly Sills wasn't really a great soprano. And let's not forget Marie Curie won the Nobel Prize and discovered Radium and Polonium.
What have you done for the world lately Salero21 other than make uncomplimentary and untrue statements about women?
16
Classless behavior, such as bragging about how much money one earns, is certainly not on “its last legs.”
What is that in his hand.
5
This article rings true for me, not as a woman, but as a man of below-average height. Standing at just under 5'3", I have often felt that my opinions and ideas are less welcome than those of taller individuals; that people seem to recoil at the thought of allocating authority to me, even when I deserve it based on experience or verifiable skill. Imaginary leaders are not only male, not only white, but also tall. We've already had an African-American president, and I expect we will see our first female president, before we see a president who stands below 5'5". The authors of the study in this article would do well to focus on height as a key variable in their future work. In an evolved society, leadership potential should be based objectively on relevant qualifications, not arbitrary genetic characteristics like gender, race, sexual orientation, or body type.
65
While I agree that men are unfairly judged by their height and that leaders are expected to be tall, it's unlikely we'll have a male president who stands below 5'5 because only <4% of adult men are below 5'5.
Black people make up 13% of the U.S. population and women are about half.
13
While I agree with your general premise that tall men have an advantage in being perceived as leaders, we've already had a president shorter than 5'5". James Madison stood barely 5'4", with a slight build and an infamously quiet, mousey voice, but his stature as a father of the constitution outweighed those physical shortcomings. And before anyone claims people were shorter back then, remember that Madison was preceded by 6'2" Washington and 6'3" Jefferson, and was succeeded by 6' James Monroe. John Adams, on the other hand, was a portly 5'7", hardly physically charismatic.
3
Whining about something you can't control doesn't usually equate to leadership. Just saying.
2
I’m just impressed at their drawing abilities generally. I would have a hard time drawing a person of any gender! Not likely a big component, but maybe men are also easier to draw than women?
4
It depends.
A geopolitical leader, I think MAN. (Even though I think women are often more competent and benevolent leaders of this type).
A family leader (even in two parent families), I think WOMAN without even pausing to imagine a man as a family leader. Maybe that's because of my upbringing.
13
Our expectations are shaped the way they are largely due to the ‘way we were brought up.’ I put single quotes because it is an entire culture that shares, especially in the pre-teen years, the shaping with the family.
Let’s talk about the emotional tenor of the spring months of one’s senior year of high school. For most of us it’s rose colored glasses all the way. Life started to disappoint only after its burdens were shifted onto our own shoulders. Ideals are born in the young and they don’t change over time. They buffet the realism that must be constantly negotiated with and accommodated.
3
Maybe this is more of something to do with language? As a female, I use "he" to refer to either a male or something that is gender neutral. Think of when a person uses the term, "mankind," or "guys" to refer to a large group.
This can also be seen in other languages. In Spanish, a group of females is addressed as female. But, if you have a male in the group,the word becomes male.
In some cases in German, plural words take "die" which is female.
This may not address the drawings, but perhaps the masculine descriptions or words used.
2
In the United States, there are no female words relating to "leader" because the culture does not recognize or desire female leaders. The qualities required of a leader are not considered feminine, and therefore are not positive for a woman. Hence the great hate and disregard for female leaders. The culture wants women to look and act like Barbie dolls. It's disgusting, and we're losing to prejudicial bias a whole viewpoint that could transform our world.
15
Wow, glad I don't have to work with you! Very glad to say I've had no problem with finding and being mentored by, outstanding professional women. Also glad to pass it on. Also, I'm raising 2 sons who have always known mommy was ' the boss', at home and at work so they'll have no issues with women in the workplace.
3
What? Yeah. Tone back the Baby Boomer a little. Yikes. I wouldn't want to live in the world that you and Trump live in. Sounds like a sad, sad place.
This study is consistent with findings about how people visualize a “scientist”. Whatever it looks like, it’s not a woman - and it definitely doesn’t look like me...
Female Biology Professor
87
Or woman hardware engineer. Ditto.
2
A leader in what? I would have no idea what to draw. Silicon Valley and other corporate industries have made “leader” a meaningless buzzword
5
Heck, from what I've read, you ask most people to draw a person and they'll draw a man!
35
Same thing with non-human animals. Point to an animal of unknown gender and ask someone to describe it. Invariably, the word "he" arises. It's an animal, you can call it "it" ... or, as we do referring to a person of unknown gender, "they," ... but for some reason the animal will be unthinkingly assigned the male gender.
As essayist Katha Pollitt once wrote about children's television and movies: male is the norm, female is a variation on the norm.
5
Except for cows and chickens...and that's because the female of these species is more valuable than the male.
Or you could as Rudyard Kipling what he thought...
Let’s see how women have lead in the US:
Janet Reno who oversaw Ruby Ridge and Waco
Condi Rice who was he National Security Advisor during the worst failure of national security in the nation’s history
Nancy Pelosi - shortest term ever as Speaker of the House before being ousted along with Dems at the state, local level and now judiciary level in an overwhelming take over of power by the opposition
Boxer and Feinstein who preside over the same carnage even when their party has a popular POTUS
Hilary who was so wooden she still can’t understand why she lost
People are better served letting qualifications over identify choose leaders - equal opportunity doesn’t mean equal outcomes and if people are treated unequally (i.e. certain groups favored over others) there will never be equal opportunity.
12
Picture an apple. Is it a fruit or a computer?
The leadership examples given lack either intensity or duration to really evaluate. As we have more women leaders, he or she will become less relevent. This is becoming truer in many workplaces already.
5
It all goes back to our hunter-gatherer psychological roots. Survival demanded leaders who were physically strong, had wisdom and charisma, and were fearless and sacrificial if need be.
Females in such societies were often respected for their wisdom, but seldom does that bode well when hunting or protecting the tribe from intrusions. There was also that pesky biological imperative of being anchored in reproductive roles for many years. Not too handy when the spears start flying.
Of course women can be great leaders. But note that usually that comes after child rearing has ended with its limitations. And note that the many ways in which women's historical work has been alleviated were all invented by men. From sewing machines, to all birth control types, to tampons. Yes, all men.
As the father of three STEM daughters in engineering and science, and damned proud of them, just wanting to put some perspective on these matters.
30
I would really caution you against attributing too much of modern day behavior to evolutionary roots. We don't actually know a whole lot about the social relationships between very early humans, they don't leave behind much physical evidence after all. Most of what comes to mind with these ancient hunter-gatherer notions are informed by pop culture and an era of anthropology that was heavily influenced by the racial and gender notions of its time, the (1850's to 1950's and beyond). Even if we did know the social structures of these very early humans science would then have to find a link between that cultural structure and universal trends in gender behavior for a claim like yours to have a basis in fact.
There have been recent studies that suggest that hunter gatherer bands were likely quite egalitarian in nature and based around family units. But once again that is difficult to know for certain. While both were important I would also point out that activities like gathering and fishing tended to produce more calories than hunting. Just a fun fact to add some nuance to the way we think about the past.
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Hi Jus'Me, NYT:
The history lesson you are giving us is simply incorrect. In many hunter-gather communities, historically, women were the most prominent leaders such as in Native American communities and the Vikings; the Viking warriors were Women not men, so their pesky biological imperative was not a deterrent when the spears started flying. Why would great leadership from women have to come after child rearing? Why would it matter if women's work was alleviated by inventions created by men? This is not even an accurate statement. Josephine Cochrane invented the dishwasher and Florence Parpart invented the electric refrigerator. Those are just two examples of many. And actually the tampon was commercially first distributed by a woman Gertrude Tendrich, and prior to that women would sew tampons at home. Women invented many things that men have used for their survival such as the Medical Syringe invented by Letitia Geer and something I am sure your STEM daughters are familiar with-- computer programing invented by Ada Lovelace. The inventions of women have sadly been buried as have those of other minority groups. Please do your research before providing us with inaccurate historical perspectives.
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Citation?
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Maybe because most leaders throughout history have been men. I know it's changing now, but not there yet.
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Maybe its just bias, but there's been many female leaders in history and the bible which much of american culture is based upon. Typically males have occupied the roles, but monarchs and others have been females in the past. Maybe its more of a cultural mindset.
There are 93 women who speak in the Bible, 49 of whom are named. These women speak a total of 14,056 words collectively — roughly 1.1 percent of the total words in the book.
Of all the people with names in the Bible, between 5 and 8% are women.
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Another reason why we need to get rid of the position of First Lady. It makes it incredibly hard for people to envision a woman as president if they envision a potential president not only looking male, but also accompanied by a supportive wife. We should stop assuming that men are entitled to the free labor of their wives in this way. It reinforces the gender stereotypes for the role
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That is a really interesting point, the first lady often does quite a bit of official work on behalf of the administration. I have never thought about the fact that she is not getting paid!
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Dozens of other countries around the world have stumbled through this first husband conundrum: Canada; UK; Israel; Portugal; Norway; Iceland; NZ; Australia; India among them
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Men get the "free labor" of their wives? Clearly written by a Boomer. What does that even mean?
And also silly, unless you work on Wall Street, you can't support a family on one income anymore. But I don't expect a Boomer to understand that - history's biggest leeches.
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This reminds me of a riddle I heard when I was in fourth or fifth grade (in the 1970s): A father and son are in a car accident. The ambulance takes them both to the hospital. A surgeon is called to operate on the child but the surgeon exclaims, 'I can't operate on him, he's my son!'
How can this be?
The answer, of course, is that the surgeon is the mother of the boy. But it took me a lot longer than it should have to figure it out. I would hope that people would easily and quickly know the answer to this riddle now, but I think we still too often conjure up images of men in high status leadership positions. I do hope girls have more and more role models to combat this bias.
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I was just going to write about this exact same riddle. My mom told it (in the late 70s) to me and 3 adults she was with, and I was the only one able to answer it. Being female and still young enough to not have absorbed decades of stereotyping made all the difference.
A really interesting thing about that particular riddle is that, in 2017, more women than men were enrolled in medical school for the first time in history. Change is possible; visualizing change is the first step.
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That's actually the first reasonable and productive comment from a Baby Boomer. And by "first" I mean literally first useful comment a Boomer had ever had on the internet. Ever.
In the 70s!? Well, thanks for playing, but you Boomers have done quite enough. Thanks for nothing, time to step aside. Your time is long past. Goodnight, time to step aside. The grown ups are back.
We are all Bayesian machines - we develop an hypothesis and then update that hypothesis constantly with new information - 30 years ago if asked to draw a medical doctor, we proby would have drawn a male - now that we interact with female MD's all the time - we would be less likely to have a particular sex in mind for a prior proby.
It is not a grand patriarchal plot - it is just pretty standard human behavior and as the author suggests, the way to overcome it is to update the hypothesis with different current information - not to mandate some proper way of thinking.
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Well said. I think the unfortunate fact of the matter is, however, that most people don't think like you. Just as many humans are likely to draw a male when asked to picture a "leader," most people will jump to conclusions and assume that this is "problematic" based on the headline alone.
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When I think about MDs, the first image that comes to mind is incompetence. Usually incompetence and the subcontinent. But what do you expect from a terminal degree that doesn't require a thesis? MDs are as antiquated as the stereotype that this article is about.
I am a pre-school teacher, and I always draw a woman when I'm drawing a person--whether she is a police officer or astronaut or construction worker or doctor. I try to make sure my students think of women when they think of successful adults, and you'd be surprised how many of them--at 3, 4, 5 and 6 years old--are already asking questions like "hey, girls can be construction workers?". It's important to start challenging perceptions early.
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I do not believe that a six-year old in Seattle in 2018 does not understand that a woman can be a construction worker or an astronaut or a doctor.
Thank you for your candor in confessing that you practice gender discrimination in your classroom by never representing a drawing of a person as a man.
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To FWS, did you read the article? The majority of people draw leaders as men. But you somehow find it reasonable to attack the commenter as being discriminatory because as an welcome exception to the norm she draws a leader as a women. Someone does something good and you give a response that is not only bizarre but absolutely ludicrous.
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Sing it, sister !
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"workshop full of executives"
It is widely known that woman are not nearly as represented in upper levels of companies. Probably less so as you get toward the executive level at the type of company that sends people to organizational education. Just a guess-- but this may be higher in more countries where traditional gender roles are stronger.
Could it also be that apart from what the students think or should be, when it comes down to it, the vast majority of their own executive level leaders are men?
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But aren't these companies also created by men?
As I am person who is fluent in two languages, I think this has to do because 'leader' has no female version, but for example in German it has (Leiter/Leiterin).
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In English, many nouns, including most professions, are not gendered. Consider teacher, baker, engineer, doctor, celebrity, painter, artist, biker, dancer, and on and on. Having "neutral" words doesn't explain why we associate certain careers/positions with certain genders, but it does expose our biases. Also, I am curious, when Germans are referring to the idea of a leader or a nameless leader, are they more likely to use leiter or leiterin?
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The word for a female leader is "leader".
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In a lot of cutlures/languages leader is neutral or male