speech on gender stereotypes

Smashing gender stereotypes and bias in and through education

“On this International Women’s Day and every day, UNESCO is committed to ensure all persons’ right to education free from bias and stereotypes”, said Stefania Giannini, Assistant Director-General for Education at UNESCO.

Gender stereotypes and biases are built in people’s minds as early as childhood. They influence the toys children play with, the subjects they pursue, their entire experience of education, and their future lives and careers.

To mark International Women’s Day, UNESCO, the UN Girls’ Education Initiative (UNGEI) and Transform Education, with support from the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), held a webinar calling on students, parents, teachers, governments and development partners to smash gender stereotypes and bias in and through education.

Moving from exclusion to inclusion

“When it comes to education, the system trains and teaches young children and young people, for example, how to dress, how to speak, influencing young people’s expressions,” shared Michael who along with Nicole, represented Transform Education, a feminist youth-led coalition hosted by UNGEI. “Obviously as we grow up, we see biases that have been created and partially embedded in the social, economic and political systems around us.”

Nicole shared her own experience of facing “negative norms since I was young saying how feminine and submissive a girl should be and classifying femininity as a negative characteristic when it comes to leadership at both school and the workplace.”

“A large number of boys tell us that if they don’t live up to these norms, they are bullied or otherwise experience violence at school”, said Gary Barker, CEO of Promundo, recognizing that gender norms also impact boys, and more broadly gender equality. “This matters for boys’ educational attainment… It matters also tremendously for girls and women. We know from our research that boys and young men who buy into these inequitable norms and learn them at home are more likely to use violence against a female partner and they are less likely to support gender equality overall.”

Choosing subjects and careers freely

“We know that gender stereotypes and biases become engrained in early childhood, and that they affect students’ decisions about the types of futures they should plan for,” said Erin Ganju, Managing Director of Echidna Giving and the moderator of the event.

“Girls and boys follow certain stereotypes. Girls’ aspirations are to become doctors, teachers, nurses, psychologists and veterinarians. For boys, they want to become engineers, work in ICT and in mechanics”, said Marta Encinas-Martin, Gender Ambassador at the OECD, sharing results from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA).

Gender stereotypes affect girls’ study paths and career choices. This has resulting implications, with fewer women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields, and fewer men in the teaching, health and social workforce.

Transforming bias through education and communities

The Global Education Monitoring Report and UNESCO launched a new factsheet challenging gender bias and stereotypes in and through education. Recognizing the transformative role of education, Anna Cristina D’Addio stated that gender bias and stereotypes can “be reinforced but they could also be challenged by the school programmes, the curricula and the teaching materials and the teaching that learners are exposed to.”

Amelia Fernandez, Advisor for the Government of Navarre, and laureate of the 2019 UNESCO Prize for Girls’ and Women’s Education for the project SKOLAE, shared that “teachers have a duty to have a gender-transformative approach so that we explain to learners all of their capabilities and enable them to fulfil their potential as people and not as silos of boys and girls separately.”

Stephen Jalenga, from the Ministry of Education in Kenya, emphasized the role of mentors and role models to deconstruct gender stereotypes in STEM fields: “A girl from the rural area may have never seen a female engineer, or a female pilot. When you enable them to interact with such mentors, it gives them the impetus to move ahead.”

“We need to have these conversations in ways that are compassionate and caring and that call boys and men into the benefit that we all get when we embrace healthier versions of manhood”, said Barker.

Sujata Bordoloi, of UNGEI, said “We all have to unlearn and question false and limiting beliefs about others and ourselves. We think it would be really great if education around the world prepared students to think outside the ‘gender box’.”

Maria Nguyen, representing the SDG4Youth Network, closed the event with the following powerful words, “There is one key action that is needed to smash stereotypes and to challenge gender bias in and through education: to challenge the silence. Challenge it when no one else seems to be standing up against gender stereotypes in education. Challenge it when the needs of students and young people who are at the heart of education are unheard. Challenge what is spoken and what is left unspoken.”

• Watch the recording of the event
• Read the new factsheet: #BreakTheBias: Challenging gender bias and stereotypes in and through education
• Learn more about the UNESCO Prize for Girls’ and Women’s Education
• Learn more about UNESCO’s work on education and gender equality

Related items

• Gender equality
• International Women’s Day
• UNESCO Prize for girls' and women's education
• Girls education
• See more add

More on this subject

Other recent articles

Gender-sensitive communication

Stereotypes.

Stereotypes are generalised images about people within a society. A gender stereotype is a preconceived idea where women and men are assigned characteristics and roles determined and limited by their gender.

Stereotypes about gender often take one of two forms. One assumes all members of a category (such as a profession) share a gender, for example the assumption that all company directors are men and all secretaries are women. The other is assuming that all members of a gender share a characteristic, for example believing that all women love to shop or that ‘boys don’t cry’.

These stereotypes hurt people of all genders by placing expectations on what people should be. 

In many cases unconscious cultural stereotypes will be expressed though the language we use, meaning people use these expressions even when they do not hold these assumptions.  Repeating these stereotypes reinforces the assumptions at their core, therefore you should actively avoid stereotypes in the language you use. 

I need to speak to the secretary - is she in the office?

Tip:  Professions and occupations are often gender stereotyped. Take special care to avoid stereotypes when talking about people’s occupations! 

The following pages highlight some instances where you may come across gender stereotypes in language.

• By using gendered pronouns.
• Adding irrelevant information about gender in a description of an individual.
• Assigning gender to inanimate objects.
• Using gender stereotypes to describe objects or events.
• Describing people of different genders using different adjectives (descriptive words).
• Perpetuating stereotypes in non-verbal communication such as images and symbol.

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Gender Equality Speech - 10 Lines, Short and Long Speech

• Speech on Gender Equality -

Every individual human in this world is equal no matter what color they are, where they come from, or what gender they are. In almost every nation around the world, people suffer because of gender inequality. All sorts of people irrespective of age, background, and financial status, suffer from gender inequality. For a long period selected gender is considered superior and others inferior. Gender equality is a basic human right and helps for a peaceful and sustainable world.

10 Lines On Gender Equality

Short speech on gender equality, long speech on gender equality, my experience.

Gender equality starts from home. In many households, boy children and girl children are treated differently. This practice makes people think that treating people differently is normal.

A boy child is given greater care than a girl child. Education is denied for girls in many houses just because they are girls.

Many girl children are married at a younger age, as they are considered a burden to the family. This practice still exists in many parts of India.

Crimes towards girl children are high in rate when compared to boy children.

When such insecurities start in childhood, people believe these things are normal.

Not only girls, but even transgender people also go through a lot of injustice because of their gender.

These inequalities affect the social health and development of any nation.

It is high time to move towards an equal society. Every individual irrespective of their gender is equal.

There are many steps taken by the government and society to rectify this blunder of inequality.

Gender equality can be easily attained by giving equal rights to every individual to decide, participate, develop, and aspire.

Gender equality (or) equality of sexes is nothing but the access to opportunities and resources equally to every individual irrespective of their gender. To achieve a bigger goal of gender equality it is important to practice gender neutrality. For a very long period masculinity is considered superior and powerful. Meanwhile, the feminine is considered inferior and weak. Society is very much comfortable with such patriarchal practices. But, it is not the right thing for a specific gender to enjoy all the freedom and accessibility while the other gender suffers the pain of suppression.

These days the concept of gender equality is very much popular. People, especially women, are ready to fight for their position. For a prolonged period, countless women suffered societal injustice in a patriarchal society. In some cases, these inequalities became life-threatening. In many violence, girls are affected by victim blaming. Women are the primary victim of domestic violence. Yet, they are expected to endure and accept because that is what society taught them.

We, as a member of society, have the responsibility to take simple steps to improve equality among genders. Changes are a must for development. It is time to change the mindset of giving superiority to one particular gender and suppressing others. It doesn’t mean reversing the superiority cycle by giving power to women and transgender and suppressing males. It simply means giving equal rights to everyone no matter what gender they are. Give equal education, equal opportunities, equal career, equal financial stability, equal choices, equal rights, and most importantly equal respect. That is how the future society of a powerful country works.

Gender inequality begins at home. Even in these modern days, in many households, girl children are treated as unwanted guests. Education is not given equally to both of them. A boy gets better education, education of his interest and a girl gets an education only if the family is interested or in marriage.

Girl children are considered a burden to their families and are married off early to avoid responsibilities. Education for a man is focused on his future and education for a woman is focused on her marriage. This is an extremely wrong practice that should come to a complete end. Girl children undergo a lot of violence just because of their gender. This violence is of various kinds. Some of them are intolerable. In some parts of society, a woman still has to go through brutal torture, both physically and mentally. Domestic violence is still an issue for most women in various parts of society. Due to the lack of awareness of rights among women, they don’t even consider it wrong.

Another major problem is faced by every working woman. The payout for workers differs majorly depending upon their gender. In many fields of work, this culture is still being followed, especially in labour work. Women labourers are getting way less pay than male labourers. All these are injustices towards a particular gender. There are even poor medical care and legal protections due to this inequality. It is high time to take a step forward and stop these meaningless practices.

Even worse, some people undergo sufferings that cannot be described in words. There is another gender that is still fighting for social recognition. Trans-genders are people who are fighting to have at least a place in society. Violence and injustice against this gender remain unnoticed by many. There are ways through which gender equality can be achieved for the brighter future generation.

Gender equality should begin in our homes. When both male and female children are treated equally, no one thinks he/she is inferior/superior. Giving open opportunities, recognizing talent, encouraging women's education, and giving them financial independence are major key points to be achieved. As a society, we must keep our minds open to welcome a major change for the future generation. As a very great step, the New Zealand cricket board decided to ratify an equal pay agreement in July 2022. Many such initiatives must be encouraged. The power and privilege enjoyed by a particular gender because they belong to ‘that’ gender should never be given to them anymore. All of us, as a society, shall now walk towards gender equal society.

When I was in school, I knew a girl who sold vegetables every morning in our area. My mother used to buy from her. She was always pleasant and happy. One day, I saw her talking to a boy in a school uniform. When I asked her who he was she said it was her brother. I asked immediately "don't you go to school" . Her answer shocked me. “What am I going to do by attending school? I am just a girl. My brother is a boy who will support our family in the future”. What shocked me more was not that she is deprived of education but, she is not at all aware of the injustice imposed upon her. Many such kids have no idea they are a victim of social injustice. It is important to create awareness and spread gender equality across the world.

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We Appeared in

• UN Women HQ

"Break the social norms and gender stereotypes that constrain the roles of men and boys" – Executive Director

Date: Tuesday, 11 November 2014

I am delighted to be here with you today to open this Symposium.

On behalf of UN Women, I would like to recognize and thank our partner, MenEngage, for their superb organization of this Symposium. My special thanks to Abhijit Das, Gary Barker, Dean Peacock.

Also let me acknowledge our sister organization, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), for all their work, conceptually and practically, on men and boys.

This symposium is beautifully timed to convene key partners in the achievement of gender equality at the convergence point of major global policy processes in 2015 and to feed into those processes:

• the 20th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action
• the adoption of a new sustainable development framework
• the 15th anniversary review of the 1325 Security Council resolution on women, peace and security
• the Climate Change Conference at which we hope for a binding and universal agreement

This is the start of a trail-blazing gathering.

Who better to host it than India?

• the largest democracy in the world
• one of the fastest-growing economies
• a member of the G20, of BRICS,
• a leader in the South,
• a prominent voice in the shaping of the original Beijing Declaration …

Our host today is well positioned to take a strong leadership role in promoting gender equality, as well as in supporting others to do the same.

As a global community, we have set an expiry date for gender inequality – of 2030. I see this region as one of the main theatres – the make-or-break – for us to reach our goal by this expiry date.

However, as numerous studies have shown us, on the current trajectory we will not achieve this for another 50 years or more. 

We have to re-define our concept of progress. Together, we have to change the narrative.

We need to find new ways of acting that are truly transformative, and to seek out new partners in these efforts.

We have to extend our reach right out, beyond our traditional constituencies and beyond our comfort zones. I hope that our discussion paper “Men, Masculinities and Changing Power Structures: from Beijing 1995 to 2015” will help to frame this and other aspects of our discussions.

Ladies and gentlemen,

The gender equality agenda has been led by the women’s movement for decades.

Women and girls have benefited immensely from this relentless advocacy and activism. We must and will continue our efforts.

But this is not a one-sided task. We see the engagement of men and boys –the other half of humanity– as a game-changer in shifting power relations to end discrimination against women and achieve gender equality.

This is why I have launched the HeForShe campaign. One and a half months later, nearly 200,000 men have signed up. But we need more men to sign up.

Here in India an estimated 100 million have access to the Internet. They should all be HeForShe’s!

But we also need men to go beyond a “click” online pledge. We need action.

We need men to speak out against all forms of discrimination, to speak out against sexism.

We need men to take action to stop violence against women, to refuse to be by-standers, to denounce it and to reject impunity.

We need men to say no to marrying young girls and speak out against those who do.

We need men to challenge gender stereotypes, to share equitably in family and household responsibilities, to be positive role models in their communities and their families.

Over the next few days, this Symposium and its amazing cast of participants have the opportunity to come up with firm plans for ways to break the social norms and gender stereotypes that constrain the roles of men and boys and that limit opportunities for women and girls.

It will then be up to all of us to take up the challenge.

I look forward very much to hearing your ideas and to working together for a fully inclusive future.

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• Speech Writing /

Speech on Gender Equality: 1-, 3-and 5-minute Speech

• Updated on  
• Oct 5, 2024

Speech on gender equality: Do you understand the exact meaning behind gender equality ? Do you believe in this concept? So many times, we all have the opportunity to voice our opinions and thoughts on this concept, yet in spite of our knowledge, we still lag behind in fully expressing our views. This blog will help you in such situations. Gender equality means that all men and women should have equal rights and opportunities in all fields, regardless of differences. In this section, we will look at samples for speech on gender equality to help you on this topic and get an advantage while giving speeches. 

Table of Contents

• 1 1-minute Speech on Gender Equality
• 2 3-minute Speech on Gender Equality
• 3 5-minute Speech on Gender Equality

1-minute Speech on Gender Equality

Also Read: ssay on Gender Equality: Break Stereotypes

3-minute Speech on Gender Equality

Also Read: Communism and Gender Equality Speech in English

5-minute Speech on Gender Equality

Ans. “Good morning everyone. Today, I want to talk about gender equality. It means giving boys and girls the same chances to succeed. Everyone, no matter their gender, should have equal opportunities to learn, grow, and follow their dreams.”

Ans. Gender equality ensures that men and women have equal rights, responsibilities and opportunities. It’s about fairness and equality for everyone. 

Ans. Gender equality limits both men and women, where women are expected to carry the burden of household work and males are frequently pressured to live up to rigid masculine stereotypes. These gender stereotypes limit women’s career opportunities and financial independence, while men often face greater stress, mental health issues and the role of caring tasks as a result of the rigid role of masculinity.

Ans.  To achieve gender equality, we must first educate and raise awareness that no one’s worth is determined only by gender. We need policies that encourage equal opportunity in the workplace, equal pay for equal work and equal participation in leadership positions.

Popular Speech Topics

For more information on such interesting topics, visit our essay writing page and follow Leverage Edu.  

Bhumika Sharma

A writer with a fresh perspective on thoughts, I have an year of experience in writing the blogs on various topics. Here, you will find my blogs for the students and education purpose.

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What Are Gender Stereotypes?

• How They Develop
• How to Combat

Gender stereotypes are preconceived, usually generalized views about how members of a certain gender do or should behave, or which traits they do or should have. They are meant to reinforce gender norms, typically in a binary way ( masculine vs. feminine ).

Gender stereotypes have far-reaching effects on all genders.

Read on to learn about how gender stereotypes develop, the effects of gender stereotypes, and how harmful gender stereotypes can be changed.

Davin G Photography / Getty Images

Meaning of Gender Stereotypes

Gender stereotypes are ideas about how members of a certain gender do or should be or behave. They reflect ingrained biases based on the social norms of that society. Typically, they are considered as binary (male/female and feminine/masculine).

By nature, gender stereotypes are oversimplified and generalized. They are not accurate and often persist even when there is demonstrable evidence that contradict them. They also tend to ignore the fluidity of gender and nonbinary gender identities.

Classification of Gender Stereotypes

Gender stereotypes have two components, which are:

• Descriptive : Beliefs about how people of a certain gender do act, and their attributes
• Prescriptive : Beliefs about how people of a specific gender should act and attributes they should have

Gender stereotypes can be positive or negative. This doesn’t mean good or bad—even stereotypes that seem “flattering” can have harmful consequences.

• Positive gender stereotypes : Describe behaviors or attributes that align with accepted stereotypical ideas for that gender, and that people of that gender are encouraged to display (for example, girls should play with dolls and boys should play with trucks)
• Negative gender stereotypes : Describe behaviors or attributes that are stereotypically undesirable for that gender and that people from that gender are discouraged from displaying (such as women shouldn’t be assertive, or men shouldn’t cry)

The attribute is undesirable for all genders but more accepted in a particular gender than others. For example, arrogance and aggression are unpleasant in all genders but are tolerated more in men and boys than in women, girls, or nonbinary people .

Gender stereotypes tend to be divided into these two generalized themes:

• Communion : This stereotype orients people to others. It includes traits such as compassionate, nurturing, warm, and expressive, which are stereotypically associated with girls/women/femininity.
• Agency : This stereotype orients people to the self and is motivated by goal attainment. It includes traits such as competitiveness, ambition, and assertiveness, which are stereotypically associated with boys/men/masculinity.

Basic types of gender stereotypes include:

• Personality traits : Such as expecting women to be nurturing and men to be ambitious
• Domestic behaviors : Such as expecting women to be responsible for cooking, cleaning, and childcare, while expecting men to do home repairs, pay bills, and fix the car
• Occupations : Associates some occupations such as childcare providers and nurses with women and pilots and engineers with men
• Physical appearance : Associates separate characteristics for women and men, such as women should shave their legs or men shouldn’t wear dresses

Gender stereotypes don’t exist in a vacuum. They can intersect with stereotypes and prejudices surrounding a person’s other identities and be disproportionately harmful to different people. For example, a Black woman experiences sexism and racism , and also experiences unique prejudice from the intersectionality of sexism and racism that a White woman or Black man would not.

Words to Know

• Gender : Gender is a complex system involving roles, identities, expressions, and qualities that have been given meaning by a society. Gender is a social construct separate from sex assigned at birth.
• Gender norms : Gender norms are what a society expects from certain genders.
• Gender roles : These are behaviors, actions, social roles, and responsibilities a society views as appropriate or inappropriate for certain genders.
• Gender stereotyping : This ascribes the stereotypes of a gender group to an individual from that group.
• Self-stereotyping vs. group stereotyping : This is how a person views themselves compared to how they view the gender group they belong to (for example, a woman may hold the belief that women are better caregivers than men, but not see herself as adept in a caregiving role).

How Gender Stereotypes Develop

We all have unconscious biases (assumptions our subconscious makes about people based on groups that person belongs to and our ingrained associations with those groups). Often, we aren’t even aware we have them or how they influence our behavior.

Gender stereotyping comes from unconscious biases we have about gender groups.

We aren’t preprogrammed at birth with these biases and stereotypes. Instead, they are learned through repeated and ongoing messages we receive.

Gender roles, norms, and expectations are learned by watching others in our society, including our families, our teachers and classmates, and the media. These roles and the stereotypes attached to them are reinforced through interactions starting from birth. Consciously or not, adults and often other children will reward behavior or attributes that are in line with expectations for a child’s gender, and discourage behavior and attributes that are not.

Some ways gender stereotypes are learned and reinforced in childhood include:

• How adults dress children
• Toys and play activities offered to children
• Children observing genders in different roles (for example, a child may see that all of the teachers at their daycare are female)
• Praise and criticism children receive for behaviors
• Encouragement to gravitate toward certain subjects in school (such as math for boys and language arts for girls)
• Anything that models and rewards accepted gender norms

Children begin to internalize these stereotypes quite early. Research has shown that as early as elementary school, children reflect similar prescriptive gender stereotypes as adults, especially about physical appearance and behavior.

While all genders face expectations to align with the stereotypes of their gender groups, boys and men tend to face harsher criticism for behavior and attributes that are counterstereotypical than do girls and women. For example, a boy who plays with a doll and wears a princess dress is more likely to be met with a negative reaction than a girl who wears overalls and plays with trucks.

The Hegemonic Myth

The hegemonic myth is the false perception that men are the dominant gender (strong and independent) while women are weaker and need to be protected.

Gender stereotypes propagate this myth.

Effects of Gender Stereotypes

Gender stereotypes negatively impact all genders in a number of ways.

Nonbinary Genders

For people who are transgender / gender nonconforming (TGNC), gender stereotypes can lead to:

• Feelings of confusion and discomfort
• A low view of self-worth and self-respect
• Transphobia (negative feelings, actions, and attitudes toward transgender people or the idea of being transgender, which can be internalized)
• Negative impacts on mental health
• Struggles at school

Unconscious bias plays a part in reinforcing gender stereotypes in the classroom. For example:

• Educators may be more likely to praise girls for being well-behaved, while praising boys for their ideas and comprehension.
• Boys are more likely to be viewed as being highly intelligent, which influences choices. One study found girls as young as 6 avoiding activities that were labeled as being for children who are “really, really smart.”
• Intentional or unintentional steering of children toward certain subjects influences education and future employment.

In the Workforce

While women are in the workforce in large numbers, gender stereotypes are still at play, such as:

• Certain occupations are stereotypically gendered (such as nursing and teaching for women and construction and engineering for men).
• Occupations with more female workers are often lower paid and have fewer opportunities for promotion than ones oriented towards men.
• More women are entering male-dominated occupations, but gender segregation often persists within these spaces with the creation of female-dominated subsets (for example, pediatrics and gynecology in medicine, or human resources and public relations in management).
• Because men face harsher criticism for displaying stereotypically feminine characteristics than women do for displaying stereotypically male characteristics, they may be discouraged from entering female-dominated professions such as early childhood education.

Despite both men and women being in the workforce, women continue to be expected to (and do) perform a disproportionate amount of housework and taking care of children than do men.

Gender-Based Violence

Gender stereotypes can contribute to gender-based violence.

• Men who hold more traditional gender role beliefs are more likely to commit violent acts.
• Men who feel stressed about their ability to meet male gender norms are more likely to commit inter-partner violence .
• Trans people are more likely than their cisgender counterparts to experience discrimination and harassment, and they are twice as likely to engage in suicidal thoughts and actions than cisgender members of the Queer community.

Stereotypes and different ways of socializing genders can affect health in the following ways:

• Adolescent boys are more likely than adolescent girls to engage in violent or risky behavior.
• Mental health issues are more common in girls than boys.
• The perceived “ideal” of feminine slenderness and masculine muscularity can lead to health issues surrounding body image .
• Gender stereotypes can discourage people from seeking medical help or lead to missed diagnosis (such as eating disorders in males ).

Globally, over 575 million girls live in countries where inequitable gender norms contribute to a violation of their rights in areas such as:

• Employment opportunities
• Independence
• Safety from gender-based violence

How to Combat Gender Stereotypes

Some ways to combat gender stereotypes include:

• Examine and confront your own gender biases and how they influence your behavior, including the decisions you make for your children.
• Foster more involvement from men in childcare, both professionally and personally.
• Promote and support counterstereotypical hirings (such as science and technology job fairs aimed at women and campaigns to gain interest in becoming elementary educators for men).
• Confront and address bias in the classroom, including education for teachers on how to minimize gender stereotypes.
• Learn about each child individually, including their preferences.
• Allow children to use their chosen name and pronouns .
• Avoid using gender as a way to group children.
• Be mindful of language (for example, when addressing a group, use “children” instead of “boys and girls” and “families” instead of “moms and dads,”).
• Include books, toys, and other media in the classroom and at home that represent diversity in gender and gender roles.
• View toys as gender neutral, and avoid ones that promote stereotypes (for example, a toy that has a pink version aimed at girls).
• Ensure all children play with toys and games that develop a full set of social and cognitive skills.
• Promote gender neutrality in sports.
• Be mindful of advertising and the messaging marketing sends to children.
• Talk to children about gender, including countering binary thinking and gender stereotypes you come across.
• Take a look at the media your child engages with. Provide media that show all genders in a diversity of roles, different family structures, etc. Discuss any gender stereotyping you see.
• Tell children that it is OK to be themselves, whether that aligns with traditional gender norms or not (for example, it’s OK if a woman wants to be a stay-at-home parent, but it’s not OK to expect her to).
• Give children equal household chores regardless of gender.
• Teach all children how to productively handle their frustration and anger.
• Encourage children to step out of their comfort zone to meet new people and try activities they aren’t automatically drawn to.
• Put gender-neutral bathrooms in schools, workplaces, and businesses.
• Avoid assumptions about a person’s gender, including children.
• Take children to meet people who occupy counterstereotypical roles, such as a female firefighter.
• Speak up and challenge someone who is making sexist jokes or comments.

Movies That Challenge Gender Stereotypes

Not sure where to start? Common Sense Media has compiled a list of movies that defy gender stereotypes .

Gender stereotypes are generalized, preconceived, and usually binary ideas about behaviors and traits specific genders should or should not display. They are based on gender norms and gender roles, and stem from unconscious bias.

Gender stereotypes begin to develop very early in life through socialization. They are formed and strengthened through observations, experiences, and interactions with others.

Gender stereotypes can be harmful to all genders and should be challenged. The best way to start combating gender stereotypes is to examine and confront your own biases and how they affect your behavior.

A Word From Verywell

We all have gender biases, whether we realize it or not. That doesn’t mean we should let gender stereotypes go unchecked. If you see harmful gender stereotyping, point it out.

Ellemers N.  Gender stereotypes .  Annu Rev Psychol . 2018;69(1):275-298. doi:10.1146/annurev-psych-122216-011719

Stanford University: Gendered Innovations. Stereotypes .

YWCA Metro Vancouver.  Dating safe: how gender stereotypes can impact our relationships .

Koenig AM. Comparing prescriptive and descriptive gender stereotypes about children, adults, and the elderly . Front Psychol . 2018;9:1086. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01086

United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. Gender stereotyping .

Hentschel T, Heilman ME, Peus CV. The multiple dimensions of gender stereotypes: a current look at men’s and women’s characterizations of others and themselves . Front Psychol . 2019;10:11. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00011

Planned Parenthood. What are gender roles and stereotypes?

Institute of Physics. Gender stereotypes and their effect on young people .

France Stratégie. Report – Gender stereotypes and how to fight them: new ideas from France .

LGBTQ+ Primary Hub. Gender stereotyping .

Bian L, Leslie SJ, Cimpian A. Gender stereotypes about intellectual ability emerge early and influence children’s interests . Science . 2017;355(6323):389-391. doi:10.1126/science.aah6524

Eagly AH, Nater C, Miller DI, Kaufmann M, Sczesny S. Gender stereotypes have changed: a cross-temporal meta-analysis of U.S. public opinion polls from 1946 to 2018 . Am Psychol . 2020;75(3):301-315. doi:10.1037/amp0000494

Save the Children. Gender roles can create lifelong cycle of inequality .

Girl Scouts. 6 everyday ways to bust gender stereotypes .

UNICEF. How to remove gender stereotypes from playtime .

Save the Children. Tips for talking with children about gender stereoptypes .

By Heather Jones Jones is a freelance writer with a strong focus on health, parenting, disability, and feminism.

Deputy Secretary General

Back “Rising to the Challenge of Sexist Stereotypes”

As delivered

Minister, distinguished guests,

I congratulate the Finnish authorities for hosting this Conference.

From the outset of their Presidency of the Committee of Ministers, they have been clear about the priority they place on equality and women’s rights.

That is quite right.

Because the quest for equality between all women and men goes to the heart of the Council of Europe’s mandate.

Over the years our Organisation has done so much in this respect.

Of the standards that we have set, three landmark treaties stand out.

The 1950 European Convention on Human Rights outlawed discrimination regarding the rights it set out in law – and its Protocol 12 later made the prohibition of discrimination on the basis of sex an explicit, stand-alone right.

The 1961 version of the European Social Charter already proclaimed women’s right to equal pay.

And the 2011 Istanbul Convention represents a crucial breakthrough in preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence.

To date, 34 countries have ratified this treaty.

It seeks to prevent gender-related violence, to protect those who become its victims, and to prosecute those who perpetrate these crimes.

The Istanbul Convention recognises that gender-based violence is the ultimate form of sexism, standing in the way of true equality.

We are proud of it, and rightly so.

But these three important treaties are only the tip of the iceberg.

Over the years the Council of Europe has adopted a range of measures aimed at empowering women, tackling discrimination, combating harassment and sexual exploitation, and so on and so forth.

In this way, we have played a leading role in the clear progress that has been made.

Across our member states, women have never had as much autonomy, economic power or political influence as they have today:

This is progress – but not equality.

In each of these areas there remains a stubborn gender gap – and this we must address.

We can only do that if we get to the heart of the matter: if we confront the fundamental causes of the disparity and discrimination that remain with us.

Gender stereotypes and sexism engrain the attitudes that inhibit, intimidate and dissuade people – most often women – from making their voices heard, standing up for their rights, and making the career choices to which they are entitled and from which our societies would benefit.

This age-old problem is a shape-shifting phenomenon.

As our modern world evolves, it takes different forms, undermining our potential in new and unwelcome ways.

The online environment serves all too often as a forum for sexist hate speech, cyber-stalking and faceless misogyny.

New industries, including the tech sector, are dominated by one gender to the exclusion of another, as so many fields have in the past.

And in some of our member states the rise of populist politics has been accompanied by a gender backlash.

So here at this Conference, can we come up with the new ideas, create the new synergies, and forge the national and international links that will help eradicate the harmful effects of gender stereotyping and sexist attitudes of all kinds?

The Council of Europe stands with you and is ready to act.

Indeed, we have already begun.

Our second and current Gender Equality Strategy places the prevention and combating of gender stereotypes and sexism as its first stated aim.

It also adopts a holistic, integrated and multi-sectoral approach, helping member states to meet our commonly agreed standards through policies and practices that make a real difference.

But the big news from this week is that our Committee of Ministers yesterday adopted a new Recommendation on preventing and combating sexism.

This includes the first ever international definition of sexism.

It calls on our member states to take their activities to a new level with measures that counter sexist hate speech, promote gender inclusive and gender sensitive language, and ensure the equal presence of women and men in visual representations and other contexts too.

It also asks those member states to tackle sexist hate speech on the internet and social media, to promote equality in the workplace, and to eradicate sexism across the public sector: in justice, in education, and culture and sport and beyond.

Political will, legislative measures, and non-legislative tools will all be needed.

And a system of member states’ self-monitoring, backed by regular reporting to the Council of Europe‘s Gender Equality Commission, is designed to provide a virtuous cycle of peer pressure that supports national authorities in making progress.

This is our approach, but we have no monopoly on wisdom.

So while our Recommendation addresses each of the three session topics that you will discuss today and tomorrow, I am equally keen to hear from you whether we are on the right track.

Can our methods by improved?

Let me give you some examples.

This afternoon you will debate the challenge of countering stereotypical forces at work and in the public space.

I think that this is something that most – if not every – woman will recognise.

Our Recommendation is clear.

Labour laws must ban sexism in the workplace.

Women must have recourse to remedy where discrimination is shown to have taken place.

And the glass ceiling that prevents women from taking their place among the decision-makers in public life and private enterprise alike must be broken, once and for all – including through the use of temporary special measures such as targets and quotas.

In this, the public sector should lead by example.

The same is true of course when it comes to the principle of equal pay for equal work.

On this there has been too little progress for far too long.

In EU member states, national pay gaps can still be up to 20% - and there is no correlation with a country’s economic power.

So should progress on closing the pay gap perhaps be used as one measure of success in tackling gender stereotyping and sexism? I wonder.

Tomorrow morning you will discuss violence, sexual harassment and sexist hate speech as the manifestations of the harmful effects of gender stereotypes.

Building on the work of the Istanbul Convention, our Recommendation recognises that hostile, degrading and humiliating environments constitute a particular kind of violence:

One that demeans women, lowers their self-esteem and restricts their activities or choices.

The sexist behaviour that facilitates this is often the precursor to sexual abuse and violence, rape or other physical harm.

Education against stereotyping, bullying and sexist insults; the introduction of effective complaints mechanisms; and the criminalisation of sexist hate speech as a form of defamation:

These are the among the measures we propose to change our culture, and to prevent and protect against violence and harassment in their many, insidious guises.

But are they the right ones – and do they go far enough?

Finally, tomorrow afternoon you will consider the challenge of tackling gender stereotypes and sexist images online and in the media.

On this, our Recommendation calls for: campaigns on the dangers and opportunities, and the rights and responsibilities, related to the use of new media; a ban on sexism in media and advertising; and measures to encourage those industries to self-regulate, taking defined steps to promote the non-stereotypical portrayal of women and men.

We also point out that Artificial Intelligence poses a particular challenge – because the use of algorithms can transmit and reinforce stereotypes, from the articles recommended for reading to the job opportunities that are brought to our attention.

Member states are therefore urged to integrate a gender equality perspective in all policies, programmes and research related to AI.

After all, artificial Intelligence must not replicate the mistakes of our past.

Instead, it should help ensure a future in which gender gaps are closed and sexism is eliminated.

Friends, it is easy to dwell on the fact that change comes more slowly than we would like it.

After all, gender discrimination is an abuse of human rights and the time to end it is always now.

But we must not lose sight of the degree of change that we have witnessed in a historically short time, nor the opportunity that we have here and now.

The MeToo movement has changed the environment in which these issues are discussed.

You can hear its echo in initiatives such as our Parliamentary Assembly’s NotInMyParliament campaign to counter sexism, harassment and violence against women in parliaments.

But, more importantly, you can detect that change of mood in the media, in the workplace, and on the streets of our towns and villages.

Yes, there is opposition, but so too is there momentum.

Gender stereotypes and sexism are wrong.

So together, let’s take the next steps forward: the prize is ours to win.

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Speech: Looking forward to a future of gender equality

Closing remarks by under-secretary-general of the united nations and executive director of un women, sima bahous, at the annual session of the un women executive board, 22 june 2022..

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[As delivered.]

Distinguished delegates, I would like to thank the President of the Executive Board, H.E. Ambassador Fatima Rabab—my good friend, your good friend—for leading us through the annual session so effectively. And we look forward, like we said earlier in the opening, to continuing to work with her in her new capacity as our best ally for gender equality within the system. So, thank you.

I would also like to thank the Vice-Presidents, and all those who have contributed to the robust discussion of this session’s significant agenda. I appreciate very much the collaborative and constructive spirit in which we are able to approach all topics. Congratulations on the adoption of the robust decisions that will guide our work.

Your engagement, distinguished delegates, in setting these joint directions signals the deep value of the multilateral process and our ability to chart a unified path for the future of UN Women. I leave the meeting today with renewed energy for the months and the years ahead.

In that regard, I also thank the delegations for their wide-ranging and perceptive remarks over the past two days.

Among the long-standing supporters of UN Women within this Board, and within your ranks of delegates, allow me to recognize, in particular, Mr. Markus Reisle, who returns to Bern as Chief of Staff at the Swiss Agency for Development Cooperation. We have deeply appreciated your skilful support during negotiations and wish you well in your new role.

Excellencies, at this session we have presented the results of the 2018–2021 period and looked ahead to the areas of focus under the new Strategic Plan . I greatly valued your guidance and feedback on this.

I would like to reiterate my remarks on our institutional strengthening efforts to enhance the transparency, accountability, and fiduciary strength of the organization. I would also like to be clear that we have heard the valuable feedback from our Independent Audit and Evaluation Service and our Audit Advisory Committee. Allow me to assure you of my personal commitment that we will take action as promised.

In my opening statement , I undertook to establish a dedicated ethics function within UN Women.   Thank you for your positive response. This confirms to me that this is the right decision. I will take action to strengthen our capacity in this area. I will ensure the highest standards of conduct in our organization, including protection of whistle-blowers, and report regularly on this to the Board from 2023. The Board’s formal decision on this subject is also welcome.

I share the Board’s views on your crucial oversight role. We will reflect carefully with you on how to make this role more effective, in addition to other aspects of internal controls of our organizational effectiveness and efficiency, such as robust anti-fraud mechanisms and strengthened audit and evaluation functions.

You have placed your trust in us, and we are committed to continuing to deserve it. I am grateful for your positive comments in regard to our success in mobilizing non-core resources, growing our regular resources, and maintaining a 30 per cent core to non-core ratio. We will continue to diversify and broaden our donor base, strengthening our strategic partnerships with international financial institutions and the work around innovative financing such as gender bonds. We will also pursue the success of multi-stakeholder partnerships in support of gender equality and women’s empowerment, such as Generation Equality , noting at the same time our shared regard for national ownership to ensure sensitivity to local contexts.

Excellencies, it is that strong relationship between country objectives and programme implementation that we saw reflected in the results of the Strategic Plan 2018–2021 . Your acknowledgement of the work that has been done to put in place gender-responsive laws, policies, and strategies at country level is especially important in the context of recovery, amidst the current political and economic turmoil.

However, as we have noted, we are still too far from achieving our shared Sustainable Development Goals .

I am pleased that the COVID-19 Policy Tracker has been useful to highlight the gaps and identify priorities. Among those gaps, social protection and care work are important for the revival of women’s participation in the labour force, including in the digital sector.

We are grateful for your recognition of the significant role played by UN Women, including through the UN Trust Fund on Violence Against Women and Girls , in responding to the intensification of violence against women and girls. I noted the emphasis, in particular, on virtual spaces and in crisis settings such as in Afghanistan and Ukraine. We share the deep concern expressed by you about reaching the most vulnerable populations in these contexts, including those at the “crossroads” of multiple forms of discrimination.

Distinguished delegates, as we look ahead to the implementation of the new Strategic Plan in the increasingly challenging global context, we will continue to focus on core areas of our work. These include ensuring that women participate meaningfully in peace and security as well as in humanitarian and climate action . As some of you noted, our UN system coordination role is vital in this regard, to amplify the work to support women and girls and make progress towards the achievement of SDG 5 and Agenda 2030 more broadly. I took good note of the several requests for stronger engagement in areas such as climate change, education, and the use of digital technology—both in terms of emerging opportunities and threats.

We appreciated the recognition of UN Women as a “catalyst of systematic change within the UN system”. We take very seriously our role in driving UN reforms, ensuring gender mainstreaming and accountability for gender equality and women’s empowerment across the UN system and assure you all of our continued commitment to do so.

I thank the Board for their continued support to the work and the mandate of UN Women.

I also thank the Secretary of the Executive Board, Jean-Luc Bories, and the entire team of the Executive Board Secretariat . Once again, they have ensured that the proceedings of the Board are seamless and well-coordinated, leading to the positive outcome of this session, including the four decisions.

Also, I would like to extend my thanks and appreciation to my Deputies, Åsa and Anita, and all my team who worked hard towards the positive decisions we have seen today.

Distinguished delegates, to conclude, this has been my first annual session. I have found it informative but, more importantly, inspiring, and also very satisfying in terms of the clarity with which we have addressed key issues with a shared focus on action. And we will act.

I will continue to depend on you all to support us. I ask those who can, to maintain or even increase funding support. I ask all of you to be champions for gender equality, alongside us, within the UN, in all multilateral spaces, and in your own countries. And I very much look forward to our ongoing work together.

I thank you.

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An Exploratory Study on Linguistic Gender Stereotypes and their Effects on Perception

This study explores how stereotypical preconceptions about gender and conversational behaviour may affect observers’ perceptions of a speaker’s performance. Using updated matched-guise techniques, we digitally manipulated the same recording of a conversation to alter the voice quality of “Speaker A” to sound “male” or “female.” Respondents’ perceptions of the conversational behaviour of Speaker A in the two guises were then measured with particular focus on floor apportionment, interruptions and signalling interest. We also measured respondents’ explicit stereotypical gender preconceptions of these aspects. Results showed that respondents perceived the male guise as having more floor apportionment and interrupting more than the female guise. Results also indicated that the respondents had explicit stereotypes that matched these patterns, i.e. that interrupting and taking space were deemed to be stereotypically male behaviour, while signalling interest was deemed to be a female feature. The study suggests that stereotypical preconceptions about gender and conversational behaviour may skew perceptions of similar linguistic behaviour.

1 Introduction

Stereotyping has been envisaged as a selective filter that directs and distorts cognition and has, according to Levon ( 2014 ), a profound impact on the perceptions, and in extension on the judgements, of the people we encounter. In short, stereotyping means that we are likely to take in information that fits our model expectations of a particular social group and ignore details that do not (Talbot, 2003 ; Collins and Clément, 2012 ; Levon, 2014 ). The present study aims to investigate this phenomenon in relation to gender and interactional styles, with specific focus on pragmatic functions related to conversational management. The main goal is to see whether gender stereotypical preconceptions of conversational behaviour, such as taking space, interrupting or signalling interest, affect observers’ perceptions of how an interlocutor acts in a conversation. Put simply, we want to see whether the same behaviour is interpreted differently depending on the perceived gender of the speaker. For this purpose, we have used a method inspired by matched-guise methodology (Lambert et al., 1960 ; Ko et al., 2009 ) to produce two variants of the same recording of a conversation between two interlocutors, where the only difference between the two versions is the perceived gender identity of one of the speakers as signalled by digitally manipulated voice quality.

The current study explores new grounds in a number of ways. Unlike previous matched-guise studies, which have been based on short monologic utterances or readings, this study focuses on matched-guise interpretations of interaction as represented by the behaviour of a person in a constructed dialogic case. Furthermore, because the gendered variants of our cases are digitally manipulated versions of the same recording, we are able to eliminate unwanted background variables such as variation in pacing, pausing, voice level, etc. – details that have been highlighted as important in influencing interpretations, but problematic to control for when different recordings, or indeed different “actors,” are used to produce the input stimulus (Tsalikis et al., 1991 ). The current study was conducted under the project Raising Awareness through Virtual Experiencing (RAVE), a primarily pedagogic project financed by the Swedish Research Council (VR), with the aim to develop methods for raising students’ awareness of how stereotypical preconceptions can affect our interpretations and judgements of others.

1.1 Gender stereotypes and research surrounding interactional styles

A primary feature in person perception (Ellemers, 2019 ) and traditionally viewed as a binary category, gender is a social category that seems to invite stereotypical categorization. Following Biernat and Sesko ( 2018 ) among others, the content of a gender stereotype is here viewed as a schematic framework representing the attributes people associate with members of that gender category, including behaviours, features and traits (compare also Beukeboom and Burgers, 2019 ). Such attributes are also informed by ideology and can be viewed as normative, prescribing behaviour that individuals have to respond to (Talbot, 2003 : 472).

The process, stereotyping, means applying such a framework of expectations, the stereotype, onto individual cases. This “ubiquitous feature of everyday life” (Macrae et al., 1994 : 45) has been described as a largely automatic and reductive categorization of people which emphasizes rapidity and efficiency but leaves little room for individuality and variation (see, for example, Fiske and Neuberg 1990 ; Macrae et al. 1994 ; Knippenberg and Dijksterhuis 2000 ).

Within a research framework for convenience frequently labelled as “the difference approach” (Cameron, 1996 ), a number of same-sex conversational studies conducted in the 1980s and 1990s demonstrated tendencies for women to be more collaborative, facilitative, conciliatory, indirect, affective and person-oriented than men who tended to be competitive, confrontational, direct and task-oriented in conversations (see, for example, Nolasco and Arthur, 1987 ; Holmes, 1995 ; Coates, 1996 ; Cheshire and Trudgill, 1998 ). Situated in a later research tradition, researchers such as Talbot ( 2003 ) and Holmes ( 2006 : 6) argue that these studies have strengthened stereotypes of male and female discursive styles and thereby strongly contributed the “normative and unmarked gender identity” expectations of white middle-class men and women. As such, men being seen as competitive and women as collaborative in speech are direct manifestations of proposed models of hegemonic masculinity (Connell, 1987 , 2005 ) and hegemonic femininity (Pyke and Johnson, 2003 ; Connell and Messerschmidt, 2005 ; Schippers, 2007 ). In such models, key characteristics of hegemonic masculinity are toughness, risk-taking, stoicism, competitiveness, violence, achievement, etc. (Donaldson, 1993 ), while hegemonic femininity creates a hierarchical and complementary relationship to hegemonic masculinity characterized by traits such as cooperativeness, meekness, submissiveness, attentiveness, etc. (Schippers, 2007 ). Arguably then, the idea of male and female discursive styles is an integral part of established, more general, gender stereotypes.

The real world is of course much more complex. Talbot ( 2003 ) and Holmes ( 2006 ) among others point to the need to take the full complexity of sources of diversity and variation, such as context and power distributions, into consideration. If not, explanatory variables for a particular discursive behaviour would risk being blurred by gender factors simply because they happen to correlate. Moreover, researchers taking a social constructionist point of view, thus embracing gender as performance, have questioned the unproblematized model of gendered speech as a simple dichotomy of cooperative vs competitive as elements of both styles can be found in same-sex conversations of both genders (for example, Cameron, 1997 ; Eckert and McConnell-Ginet, 2013 ).

Indeed, many researchers are increasingly questioning the focus on gender difference in research. Kaiser et al. ( 2009 ) argue that this approach inevitably leads to the detection of differences rather than similarities; and in proposing her “gender-similarities hypothesis,” Hyde ( 2005 ) was able to show that the effect size of detected gender differences in many studies is non-existent to small, a finding confirmed by other studies such as Leaper and Ayres ( 2007 ).

Indeed, the complexity of context in relation to gender and communication is addressed in a subject review by Wingate and Palorames ( 2017 ). While acknowledging substantial similarities between men’s and women’s communication, and the fact that effect sizes for differences tend to be small, they stress that subtle differences could still have important outcomes in a certain context. Furthermore, they argue that the perceived gender salience of a situation could be particularly significant. Increased contextual gender salience can lead speakers to adopt gender-prototypical behaviour because of the greater focus on gendered identity in such a context.

A growing body of language-focused research on gender is now focusing on reception and adaptations to context. For example, Ladegaard ( 2011 ) was able to show that while both male and female leaders tended to prefer “normatively feminine management styles” (indirect and mitigated directives, interrogatives and modal verbs, for instance), the perception of and response to these strategies from the employees differed. Female leaders were questioned and challenged more frequently than male leaders, indicating that similar styles were interpreted differently depending on whether it was a man or a woman who used them. In another study, Hancock and Rubin ( 2015 ) demonstrated that, in a counterbalanced design of eighty 3-min conversations, there were no overall gender differences in the use of “gendered” linguistic variables such as fillers, hedges, interruptions and tag questions among their 40 test subjects. Instead, it was the gender of the trained male or female communication partner that decided whether respondents’ conversational styles were more “male” or “female,” suggesting that speakers, regardless of gender, accommodated their styles to the gender of the conversational partner. Similarly, in a study by Mulac et al. ( 2013 ), the results indicated that the language used by male and female respondents when describing a photograph differed significantly depending on whether they were instructed to describe it to a woman or a man. Further, Hildebrand-Edgar and Ehrlich ( 2017 ) could show that context was highly relevant to the perception of gendered speech in their study of a rape trial. In that trial, a woman was perceived as being too “assertive” to be a victim of rape. Finally, Scheelf ( 2008 ) found that instructors in academia, regardless of gender, tend to use the same speech style and only very seldom draw on wider identity resources.

All of the above studies seem to suggest that (stereotypical?) social expectations of language behaviour are instrumental in shaping language behaviours and perceptions, and that an interplay of these, in turn, shapes output and perception in specific contexts. In effect, as pointed out by Crawford ( 1995 ), social identity expressed through language is consequently something that is renegotiated during every meeting between humans and involves an interplay between the speaker and the receiver as well as implicit expectations defined by context and societal norms. This complex view of sociolinguistic output as the result of negotiations suggests that historical research with focus on language production only gives an incomplete, and potentially misleading, picture of how social identity is reflected through language. For this reason, a shift towards language reception is crucial, motivating the present study with its focus on perceptions of the hearer. As Levon ( 2014 ) points out, sociolinguistic perception and production are different; in production individuals can draw on a variety of variable forms to construct a social identity, but in the perception of that construction, a great deal of that nuance could be lost or misconstrued as a result of cognitive modes of processing. In short, listeners’ attitudes and preconceptions as well as general cognitive constraints can limit what social meanings are detected in a speech event.

1.2 Gender-linked language effect

Of interest in this context is a more systematic model of how stereotyping affects our language expectations, perception and behaviour in various contexts.

Mulac et al. ( 2009 ) and Mulac et al. ( 2013 ) propose the so-called gender-linked language effect (see Figure 1 above) and argue that there are cognitive schemata whereby we sort, judge and produce language based on both contextual information and (un)conscious gender stereotypes. According to Mulac et al. ( 2013 ), a listener first perceives the language context, which includes the speaker’s perceived gender. Then the speaker’s language output is filtered through the listener’s gender-linked language schemata and stereotypes, which in turn directly influence the listener’s judgement of the speaker. A different context (male speaker rather than female, for example) should then trigger different stereotypes in the general process model, which in turn may result in the listener judging the language output differently.

The gender-linked language effect model (from Mulac et al., 2013 : 24).

While the rigidly sequential nature of the model could be questioned, we still find it a useful starting point since it provides a cognitive explanation for linguistic stereotyping. However, we would argue that there is a missing piece in the above model. More specifically, there is little attention paid to how gender-linked schemata may affect the perception of the speech event itself. Studies in phonetics have demonstrated that the perception of speech sounds is affected by the perceived gender of the speaker (see e.g. Johnson et al., 1999 ; Strand, 1999 ). Such “Face Gender Effects” (Strand, 1999 ) clearly indicate that socially constructed schemata affect the perception of speech sounds. However, to the best of our knowledge, no studies have addressed how the perception of a dialogic speech event can be affected by perceived gender.

Following conclusions from Strand ( 1999 ), we are hypothesizing that language-linked schemata often do not only directly affect judgements of speakers, or what is occasionally called social perception in the literature, but also affect the perception of a speech event itself. Edwards ( 1999 ), discussing the nature of social perceptions, points out that judgements of speakers arise from stereotypical attitudes that the judges have of a group, which have been associated with a particular linguistic feature (often of a phonetic nature). What we are suggesting here, however, is that the very perception of the speech event in turn is affected by preconceived ideas based on social information available, such as perceived gender. If this hypothesis is correct, it is not just that our perception of a speech event may trigger stereotypical judgements of speakers, the perception of the speech event itself may also have been affected by stereotype-like schemata, the result of which will then, in turn, affect our judgements of the speaker. For example, an interruption performed by a male speaker may actually be perceived as more aggressive than an interruption performed by a female speaker since the listener is influenced by stereotype-like schemata. This may then influence the hearer’s judgement of that speaker – “he is aggressive because he interrupts aggressively.” In order to explore this question, the perception of a speech event alone, measured in linguistic units, is thus the main focus of enquiry in this article.

1.3 Methodological background

Systematic enquiries into linguistic stereotyping and judgement began more than half a century ago with Lambert et al.’s study ( 1960 ). Using the so-called matched-guise methods, whereby an actor produced the same text in two or more variants, they were able to show how a brief recording in French vs English (in Canada) triggered different responses regarding speaker’s personality, social status and character, depending on the language/accent of the speaker (Lambert et al., 1960 ; Bradac et al., 2001 ). The matched-guise test is still used today to test how judgements of speakers are affected by stereotyping in various disciplines ranging from sociolinguistics, social psychology, business research and medicine (Cargile, 1997 ; Cargile and Giles, 1998 ; Lawson and Sachdev, 2000 ; Dixon et al., 2002 ; Bilaniuk, 2003 ; Carson et al., 2004 ; Buchstaller, 2006 ). However, in the majority of such studies the focus has been on the hearer’s judgement of the speaker, rather than on how the hearer perceives the speech event itself.

A major critique of traditional matched-guise setups has been that it is almost impossible to control for unwanted background variables, even when the same actor/actress is used. Speed, intonation or pitch can all have a significant impact on how something is perceived, and it is very difficult to control for these when making multiple recordings of the same text (Tsalikis et al., 1991 ). Furthermore, when exploring the gender variable in matched-guise setups, one has to use two actors, making it even more difficult to control for unwanted background variables (accent, for example – see Bilaniuk, 2003 ). Challenges such as these have limited gender research using matched-guise setups with voice recordings to date, and most studies are limited to very short utterances, evaluations based on a simple “hello” (Mcaleer et al., 2014 ) or a short reading of a passage (Ko et al., 2006 ), for example. With that said, developments of the method using digital technology have allowed computer simulations and manipulations of a recording to open up new possibilities in perception-based research (see Campbell-Kibler, 2008 ; Connor, 2008 ; Lindvall-Östling et al., 2019 ). In the current study, we use “voice-morphing” techniques to digitally manipulate a dialogic recording in order to create two versions of the same recording where one participant is seemingly male in one version and seemingly female in the other. We are thus able to eliminate many unwanted background variables previously pointed out as problematic in matched-guise designs (Tsalikis et al., 1991 ).

1.3.1 Voice quality as a trigger for stereotypical judgements

Several studies have shown that the quality of voice can trigger stereotype judgements about speakers. For example, this phenomenon has been studied in relation to sexual orientation (Smyth et al., 2003 ; Levon, 2007 ; Fasoli et al., 2017 ) and, more specifically, in relation to gender and masculine-/feminine-sounding voices (Ko et al., 2006 : 41; Ko et al., 2009 ; Mcaleer et al., 2014 ). Ko et al. ( 2006 , 2009 ), for instance, demonstrated that auditory cues (male or female voices) acted as an overall between-category basis for gender stereotyping, whereby female guises were rated higher for warmth , while male guises were rated higher for competence . Similarly, Nass et al. ( 2006 ) were able to show that similar automated computer voice evaluations of student performance in a computer task were deemed as more relevant when delivered by a male voice, as opposed to a female voice. In a previous study by Dennhag et al. ( 2019 ), the perceived personality and social behaviour of speakers in a dialogue were studied using the same method as in the present study. Crucially, there the focus was on the judgement of the speaker’s personality and social behaviour, whereas here the focus is on the speech event itself.

1.3.2 Choice of linguistic variables

Queries into gender differences regarding aspects related to conversational management have been an important focus of linguistic studies over the past decades, and thereby such aspects also hold a central position in standard sociolinguistic course literature on gender and language (Cheshire and Trudgill, 1998 ; Coates, 2004 ; Sunderland, 2006 ). Gender differences in interruptions, for instance, have been the subject of a vast number of studies which have shown men to interrupt more than women (Zimmerman and West, 1975 ; Kennedy and Camden, 1983 ; Smith-Lovin and Brody, 1989 ; Anderson and Leaper, 1998 ; Zhao and Gantz, 2003 ). Furthermore, Blair-Loy et al. ( 2017 ) have shown that the gender composition of a particular work environment seems to have an effect on the tendency to interrupt. Closely related to the above are gender studies on floor apportionment in conversations, where studies from various contexts such as parliamentary debates (Shaw, 2000 ), Disney films (Fought and Eisenhauer, 2015 ) and conversations in various public/semi-public contexts such as seminars, meetings, etc. (Holmes, 2003 ) have helped to develop and strengthen the stereotype that men “hog the floor” and that women tend to “leave the floor to men” (Holmes, 1995 ). [1] Gender differences in signalling interest and encouraging conversational partners to speak by posing follow-up questions, for instance, have also been subjects of intense study in sociolinguistics (see Holmes, 1995 ; Johnson, 1994 ; Sugawara et al., 2017 , for some examples). Again, many studies show this type of activity to be typically female conversational behaviour. In summary then, the linguistic variables chosen as objects of enquiry for this study are all well-researched and described as “gendered,” which leads us to hypothesize that they may be part of the respondents’ gender-linked language schemata and stereotypes.

2 Aims and research questions

What are respondents’ explicit stereotypical preconceptions of discourse behaviour in relation to the investigated variables floor apportionment, signalling interest and interrupting? Here we seek to acquire a measurement of the respondents’ explicit gender preconceptions.

Do respondents’ interpretations of the identical speech event (in relation to the investigated variables floor apportionment, signalling interest and interruptions) differ depending on whether they think they are listening to a male or female conversant? Here we hypothesize that respondents will especially notice aspects of conversational behaviour that match the groups’ stereotypical views regarding male conversational styles when listening to the male guise and vice versa .

Is there a correlation between the respondents’ explicit stereotypes (research question 1) and their perception of the guise (research question 2)? Here we hypothesize that a respondent who perceives interruptions as a typically masculine feature, for example, will rate the male-morphed guise as interrupting more than a respondent who does not share this stereotype.

3.1 Overall framework

The methodological model followed a typical matched-guise setup (see Figure 2 for a visual overview of the method). Respondents were exposed to one of two different guise versions of a recording and were then asked to rate the guise they listened to on different floor management variables in a response questionnaire. More specific details of the method are described in Sections 3.1–3.5. The respondents were asked only to focus on one of the speakers in the dialogue since pilot runs had shown that respondents had difficulties in concentrating on more than one speaker at the time (Lindvall-Östling et al., 2019 ). We also administered a short survey addressing the groups’ explicit stereotypical preconceptions as regards gendered conversational behaviour and floor management (see Section 3.7 ).

Overview of the matched-guise setup.

3.2 Introductions and contextualization

In this particular study, it was important not to reveal the exact nature of the experiment prior to the activity. Respondents, who were also students in a regular class on sociolinguistics, were thus told that they were going to listen to a discussion on gender and language between two researchers and that this would later be the focus of a seminar discussion. At this stage, the group was also split into two equally sized “seminar groups.” Thus, they did not know the real purpose of the experiment initially, although this was revealed in a debriefing session, once the response data had been collected.

3.3 Respondents

In total, 112 students participated in the study; all but 13 being English-language teacher trainees, the remaining being English-language students at the undergraduate level. Only ten of the participating students identified themselves as other than Swedish, namely: South Korean, Brazilian/Italian, Iraq, Syrian, Thai, Finnish, Albanian, “other than Swedish,” “international” and “Scandinavian.” All respondents had near-native level of proficiency in English. Because the experiment was carried out over 2 days (response phase and discussion/post-survey phase), there were missing data because some respondents did not attend the second day. On day 2, a total of 21 respondents were not present, which meant that 91 respondents were present on both days. Participation is summarized in Table 1 .

Participants

3.4 Choice of linguistic variables

We decided to focus our queries in the response questionnaires on linguistic variables of interactional styles that related to conversational floor management. This was partly motivated by findings from similar experiments conducted under the project, which showed that students perceived floor management variables to be particularly salient when it came to gender differences (Lindvall-Östling et al., 2019 : 221). Our choice was further motivated by our ambition to ensure that the variables chosen were easily recognizable by relatively naive respondents. These included features associated with competitive conversational management such as interrupting the other speaker and occupying and holding the floor. Features we focused on associated with collaborative conversational management styles included signalling interest in what the other speaker was saying (back channelling and posing information seeking follow-up questions, for example) and occupying less conversational space.

3.5 Pre-survey

Prior to listening to the recording, respondents were asked to fill in a short survey giving basic information about themselves (gender, age and nationality); and here they also created an anonymous identity, so that they could be traced in the various stages of the experiment (pre-survey, response survey and post-survey) while still remaining anonymous.

3.6 The recording

3.6.1 creating the script.

Here a primary ambition was to create a script that could be motivated as relevant to the ordinary content of the course in sociolinguistics so as not to arouse suspicion. We decided on contextualizing the recording as an academic Skype dialogue between two researchers discussing findings from a study on language and gender roles in Disney Princess movies (see Fought and Eisenhauer, 2015 ). When working with the details of the script, we aimed for a collaborative, constructive dialogue where neither of the two participants were dominant or confrontational, but rather where they co-constructed meaning by building on each other’s input. With this ambition in mind, it was important to ensure that floor apportionment was shared more or less equally between the participants and that the conversational features we were particularly interested in (interruptions, signalling of interest, etc.) were kept reasonably even between the conversational partners (i.e. neither conversant was overly dominant). The dialogue was 4 min and 21 s long and Excerpt 1 from the script illustrates a fairly typical episode:

Speaker B (male) : But from what I gather, it’s improved in recent years uh. The more recent movies seemed to be more balanced, at least some of them.

Speaker A (female/male morphed) : hmm yea, but there are other aspects than floor space to look [at … interruption/overlap ]

Speaker B (male) : [ … interruption/overlap yeah yea], that’s true. But, uhm, you know, they did actually look at other aspects as well, such as the number of male and female characters I think uh …

Speaker A (female/male morphed) : ha ha. Yea, yea, but yea well didn’t they look also at the content in conversations?

Speaker B (male): Yeah, an-and that’s where it was really really interesting actually. Cause they looked at compliments [… interruption/overlap ]

Speaker A (female/male morphed) : [ interruption/overlap … hmm] yea, that’s right that’s right! It was compliments. And […]

Table 2 summarizes an overview of some key features of the dialogue.

Script details

3.6.2 Recording and voice manipulation

In choosing actors for the recording, we first had to make sure that their voices would respond well to voice morphing. From prior manipulations that took place under the project, we knew that some voices sounded more believable than others after manipulation. For this reason, we pre-tested a number of different voices to see how they responded to digital morphing before choosing actors. From these pre-tests, four “best” voices were chosen and two short sound files from each potential actor (one original and one that had been voice manipulated) were sent to 13 peers asking them whether (a) the recordings manipulated or not, (b) sounded convincing as male/female voices or not and (c) sounded like the same person in both sound files or not. Based on these responses, we chose the two voices, one male and one female, which were evaluated most positively.

The dialogue was then recorded using separate channels, so that each voice could be edited separately. The initial recordings were made in a studio setting using Audition, and they were then edited in Praat. In Praat, the “change gender” [2] function was used, with a focus on pitch range median, formant shift ratio and some slight modification to pitch range factor. The methodology used to produce a credible male and female morph was mostly a case of individual procedures. Because some voices need their formant shift ratio to be in the 350 s, and others in the 250 s, a clear and generic picture of the end variables is hard to give since it is highly dependent on the original recording and voice. After the major alterations were done in Praat, the sound file was imported back into Audition where the equalizer function was used to eliminate the high and low frequency in the recording, thus making it sound like a low-quality Skype call. Further, some background static noise was added onto the recordings, and, finally, the two versions were badly compressed so the overall quality was lowered further. These quality-lowering actions were taken in order to “camouflage” some of the more salient effects of the voice morphing, which are less noticeable when high and low frequencies are eliminated.

The above procedures left us with two versions of the recording. In one of the versions, the female actor’s voice playing “Speaker A” was altered, or “morphed,” so that she matched what was conceived as a male speaker (based on the pre-tests described above). In the other version, her voice was largely left unmanipulated, but only adjusted so that the sound quality matched that of the “manipulated” recording.

3.7 Exposure and response to the dialogue

Each respondent listened to one version of the dialogue guises once individually. Note that the illusion of the gender of the conversant was further strengthened by using silhouette images of a man or a woman as backdrop to the sound file. Importantly, there were no indications in the ensuing debriefing discussion, nor in the responses of the post-survey, that the respondents were aware of the voices being digitally manipulated or that there was any confusion as to the gender of Speaker A in the two case versions.

Speaker A interrupts the other speaker a lot

Speaker A signals interest in what the other person is saying

Speaker A takes up a lot of the space in the conversation

After all respondents had listened and responded to the dialogue, we had the so-called debriefing session where we revealed what we had done, showed the students their results and gave them the opportunity to discuss the reasons for the different responses that the two guises had generated.

3.8 Post-survey

Following the debriefing session, which took place a day after the exposure, the respondents were given a post-survey, where, apart from questions relating to their impressions and reactions to the experiment, we asked them to rate a number of conversational behaviours as typically male, female or gender neutral. The aim here was to map gender stereotypes among our respondents as regards conversational management and discourse styles, in order to document the listeners’ Gender-Linked Language Schemata (cf. Mulac et al.’s model, 2013 ). The respondents were asked to rate the following linguistic tendencies on a gender scale ranging from “very typically male behaviour (−2), slightly typically male behaviour (−1), gender neutral (0), slightly typically female behaviour (1), to very typically female behaviour (2):”

take up more space in a conversation than others

interrupt other people in conversation

signal interest in what others are saying (through back channelling and asking questions, for example)

Moreover, the results of this rating were used to roughly determine whether the groups were similar in terms of held preconceptions of men and women. In this survey, we also enquired whether respondents had been convinced of the gender of the speakers in the dialogue. Finally, the respondents were also asked to confirm whether they wanted their data to be included in our research database.

3.9 Ethics and consent

Although implemented as a feature in a regular course setup, students’ participation in this study was not obligatory, and their course grade was in no way linked to their participation. All students were informed before their participation that the data generated would be part of a research project and that they could discontinue their participation at any point. Because they were not made aware of the purpose of the study even after they had taken part in it, they were not asked to give their informed consent until the post-survey, when the full picture was clear to them. Results from students who chose not to give their informed consent have been deleted. As described in Section 3.4 , anonymity was guaranteed since the students themselves generated the personal codes that made it possible to trace their results from the pre-survey through the post-survey. No code keys were kept. The project has been approved by the Swedish Ethical Review Authority. [3]

For all statistical analyses, IBM SPSS Statistics was used. A one-sample t test with reference number zero was used to find whether participants perceived any particular language features examined in this article as either typically male or female. In order to compare the perception of the guise, an independent sample t test was conducted, using male or female guise as the grouping variable and perception of floor management (interruptions, floor apportionment, etc.) as the test variables. All statistical models took the gender of the respondent into account; and the first model by doing two different one-sample t tests and the second model by using a two-way analysis of variance (two-way ANOVA). The statistical models used for the interaction effects were ANOVA and linear regression analyses. Effect sizes were expressed in Cohen’s d , a measure that gives an indication of the size of differences between two data sets. Effect sizes of 0.01, 0.2, 0.5 and 0.8 indicate very small, small, mediate and large effect, respectively (Cohen, 1988 ; Sawilowsky, 2009 ).

In Sections 4.1 – 4.3 , we will address three separate research questions. In Section 4.4 , we will summarize the overall results.

4.1 The respondents’ stereotypical preconceptions

Overall, the results matched our expectations. The respondents as a group had stereotypical preconceptions whereby taking a lot of space in a conversation and interrupting others were seen as stereotypically male behaviour, while signalling interest was seen as stereotypically female behaviour. The results are summarized in Table 3 .

Respondents’ habitual associations regarding conversational behaviour. Negative values indicate “male behaviour” and positive values indicate “female behaviour”

† Small effect size ( d = 0.2–0.5). ‡ Mediate effect size ( d = 0.5–0.8). ✦ One respondent identified as other than male/female.

Although all differences deviated significantly from zero (i.e. what was conceived as neutrally gendered behaviour), the effect sizes for all respondents varied from small (floor apportionment ( d = 0.21) to mediate [interruptions ( d = 0.58), and signalling interest ( d = 0.53)]. In other words, while taking up space in a conversation was perceived to be typically gendered behaviour, this was a rather weak tendency. On the other hand, the preconceptions that interrupting is typically masculine behaviour and that signalling interest in a conversation is typically feminine behaviour were stronger.

4.2 The respondents’ interpretations of the dialogue

Of the 112 respondents who participated in this part of the study, 60 listened to the female guise and 52 listened to the male guise. Some distinct patterns emerge from these analyses. The group as a whole seemed to perceive the male guise as interrupting more and having more floor apportionment, and the female guise was seen as signalling more interest. However, of these descriptive statistics, only the perception of interruptions ( p = 0.031, d = 0.42) and floor apportionment ( p = 0.01, d = 0.61) were statistically significant and the effect sizes were small to mediate. The results are summarized in Table 4 .

Respondents’ impressions of speaker A in the conversation depending on guise

† Small effect size ( d = 0.2–0.5). ‡ Mediate effect size ( d = 0.5–0.8).

4.3 Interaction effects between respondents’ stereotypes and perception of guise

Only 91 respondents participated in both the response survey and the post-survey. The interaction analysis showed no statistical interaction between the respondents’ explicit stereotypes and their perception of the guise. That is, we could not statistically show that a person who, for example, thinks that interrupting a lot is a male trait also perceived the male guise as interrupting a lot ( p = 0.382). We could not show any interaction effects for signalling interest ( p = 0.923) or floor apportionment ( p = 0.825) either.

4.4 Results summary

We found that the group as a whole held expected stereotypical views as regards male and female conversational behaviour and judged traditionally competitive conversational styles, such as having a lot of floor apportionment and interrupting a lot, as typically male behaviour, and traditionally collaborative conversational styles, such as signalling interest as typically female behaviour. The effect sizes were small to mediate.

The respondents perceived the two guises significantly differently on two of three analysed variables. They perceived the male guise as having more floor apportionment ( p = 0.01) and interrupting more ( p = 0.031). The effect sizes were small to mediate. There was no direct correlation between the respondents’ explicit stereotypical preconceptions and their perception of the guise.

5 Discussion

This study has explored how two groups of students rate the conversational behaviour of the same conversational participant in two different gender guises (male and female). The query addressed how the ratings of aspects related to conversational management (floor apportionment, interruptions and signalling interest) may be affected by the perceived gender of the person as manifested through voice quality. We were able to show that the respondents, taken as a group, had clear explicit stereotypes that matched our expectations with regard to gender and conversational behaviour. The results indicate that the respondents believe that men take more space and interrupt more than women do, while women are more likely than men to signal interest and take less conversational space. We could also show that the perceptions of the behaviour of Speaker A in the two guises differed depending on whether respondents thought they were listening to a man or a woman. These differences in the perception of behaviour in the speech event matched our expectations, i.e. that many respondents listening to the male guise would notice behaviour that matched generally held stereotypical views of male behaviour to a greater extent than respondents who listened to the female guise and vice versa . Important, however, is that we could not correlate specific explicit stereotypical preconceptions with specific response patterns. This is probably because the effect sizes were small, so a much larger data set would be needed to establish such a trend.

The post-survey and the data related to the first research question illustrate how established truisms concerning male and female interactional styles are reflected in student beliefs. We would thus argue that many university students of language do stereotypically associate collaborative and competitive speech styles with women and men, respectively.

In the second part of the study, we were able to show that, on average, the language behaviour of the male guise was perceived differently from that of the female guise among our respondents. The perceptions were different in spite of the fact that both recordings were identical in all respects except for voice quality. Relating these results to Mulac et al.’s ( 2013 ) gender-linked language effect model, we can confidently claim that our results verify the existence of gender-linked language schemata and stereotypes and that these in turn affect not only judgement (e.g. concerning socio-intellectual status and personality, the so-called social perception (Edwards, 1999 ; Dennhag et al., 2019 )), but also the perception of the speech event itself. Overall, our results supplement those of previous studies (Ko et al., 2006 ; Nass et al., 2006 ; Ko et al., 2009 ; Mcaleer et al., 2014 ), showing that voice quality affects both the hearer’s judgement of the speaker and that of the speech event itself. More importantly, however, here we specifically explore the role of the perception of actual conversational behaviour rather than judgements of speaker qualities. Describing their model, Mulac et al. ( 2013 ) point out that

a hearer or reader (i.e., message recipient) perceives the communication context, which includes the situational circumstances and fixed speaker attributes such as sex , along with the speaker’s language. […] Both the hearer’s perceptions of the context and the speaker’s gender-linked language behavior activate hearer schemata and stereotypes, which affect hearer judgments of the speaker. (p. 24, our emphasis)

They also acknowledge that situational input could affect hearer’s perception of context and the activation of schemata and stereotypes. However, what the present study shows, and what has also been demonstrated in phonetic studies (Johnson et al., 1999 ; Strand, 1999 ), are that gender-linked schemata and stereotypes operate on the very perception of a speech event itself. It would appear that non-linguistic situational and contextual information (e.g. gender of the speaker), presumably available before a speech event, activate schemata and stereotypes in such a way that they affect the processing of the perception of the language event, skewing it in accordance with expectations. For this reason, we suggest that the model also should take stereotype affected perception factors into consideration.

We would argue that it is differential perception effects that make the mechanisms of gender-linked language stereotyping particularly treacherous. We may think that we are rightfully basing judgements of individuals on their behaviour, without being aware of the fact that this “behaviour” has been filtered through our perceptions, which in turn are tainted by language schemata and gender stereotypes. In other words, evidence from this study suggests that our senses may modify language input to fit our language schemata, and by so doing also confirm the same. Further, since language events include both speakers and hearers, hearer perception, no matter how inaccurate, may in turn shape speaker behaviour since it affects how the hearer reacts, thereby potentially contributing self-fulfilling prophecy mechanisms.

Given the exploratory nature of this study, there are, however, a number of limitations. Firstly, and in direct reference to the above model, we have to acknowledge that our tool to capture the gender-linked language schemata and stereotypes failed to capture more complex aspects of this phenomenon. The statements given in this part of the study were generic in nature and did not take aspects related to context into account. For example, it may have been the case that respondents’ gender expectations may have differed markedly depending on aspects such as whether the conversation was informal or formal, professional or private, public or intimate, etc. Moreover, identity aspects other than the gender of the speaker were not included in the model. Here stereotypes may have differed depending on whether we had asked about young vs older speakers, their professional identity, the relationship and gender of the conversational partner, etc. Further, with reference to the measurement of the respondents’ stereotypes, there is always a risk that respondents’ answers reflect what they believed we expected them to answer, rather than what they actually truly felt to be the case.

Secondly, we could not actually show that there was a link between the groups’ general stereotypic preconceptions and their individual responses to the speech event. This was arguably a consequence of the relatively small number of respondents in combination with potentially small effect sizes. Another confounding factor could be that the preconceived stereotype survey was taken after a debriefing seminar where stereotyping and gender issues were discussed, something which may have affected the respondents’ answers. However, the alternative, i.e. administrating the preconceived stereotype survey prior to the response survey, could have primed respondents for the response part of the experiment, which was the main focus of the study. Administering this survey prior to the response part of the experiment could also have aroused suspicion as to the real nature of the experiment.

Thirdly, at the point of data collection, the speech event was over, and the respondents would already have made a judgement of the speaker. Therefore, although our ambition was that the survey questions address the respondents’ perception of the speech event itself as coloured by the gender of the speaker alone, it might have been the case that their impressions had also been coloured by judgements of other contextual aspects related to the speaker, such as role, education, profession, etc. Since these aspects may be interpreted differently depending on gender, they may have had differential effects on the judgements depending on whether respondents listened to the male or female version of the recording. To illustrate this, compare the associations that “male professor” vs “female professor” may conjur.

Furthermore, we acknowledge that the effects of voice quality itself may have been an important background variable influencing our results. As previously demonstrated (Ko et al., 2006 ; Ko et al., 2009 ), voice quality not only is an important cue leading to between-category stereotyping but also affects within-category judgements. There is thus scope for further studies of similar design, where voice quality variation and its effect on stereotyping are explored within a category.

On a more general note, our study has broader implications. Arguably, sociolinguistic research focusing on identifying gender differences in language production inadvertently contributes to language schemata and gender stereotypes, which in turn may affect perception. In this way, sociolinguistic research aimed at exposing gender injustices may instead serve to confirm and strengthen these. Many sociolinguists (for example, see Eckert and McConnell-Ginet, 1992 , 2013 ; Holmes, 2006 ; Cameron, 2008 ) are increasingly critical to this approach and correctly point out that other potential causal factors for a particular behaviour, such as context and power, can be blurred by the gender variable. In line with such arguments, we would argue that we need a more problematized approach to the “gender question” in quantitative sociolinguistic research, and here focus on perception needs to be included. By doing so, we can begin to explore how gender expectations form part of the complex interplay between speaker, hearer, perception and expectations that make up any language event.

Funding: The project is funded by The Swedish Research Council, 721-2014-1972, avtals ID E0197201.

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Watch: Eleven-year-old girl's powerful speech on gender stereotypes

An 11-year-old Auckland girl has given a powerful speech on gender stereotypes.

With a strong, confident delivery, Florence Akauola says the world will "never fully realise the untapped potential in every little princess" unless such stereotypes are broken.

The Mt Hobson Middle School pupil's speech won her the Villa Education Trust's speech competition.

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It was described as "simply inspirational" and "stunning" by the trust's academic manager, Alwyn Poole.

Akauola opens her speech with a question: "Sugar and spice and everything nice, that's what little girls are made of. Or is it?

"What does it mean to be a girl? Am I defined by the colour pink, a tube of lipgloss and a pair of high heels? Should I pull out a sewing kit, bake some cupcakes and do the washing?"

She tells the judges and the audience gathered at St Luke's Church, Remuera, that was never her. She "loved to play sports, have sword fights and race around the playground", and dress up as Spiderman and Batman.

"I hated wearing dresses, I've never liked Barbie, and my favourite colour was definitely not pink."

Because of this, Akauola says she was teased for not being "a real girl", and that a lot of people saw her as "different".

"I don't fit the gender stereotype," the Papatoetoe schoolgirl said.

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"I'm pretty sure no baby girl enters the world demanding a pink blanket.

"No, we as little girls are told by every aspect of society that we love pink."

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This just gets worse as girls get older, she said, and the labels "blind us, covering our eyes and smothering our hearts".

"We begin to lose sight of who we really are."

She questions the purpose of gender-based assumptions about what toys children should play with.

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"Or what about little boys playing with dolls? At least we know he'll be a loving and kind dad when he's older."

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She added: "Until we break these stereotypes we will never fully realise the untapped potential in every little princess.

"As for me I know my potential, I know my worth. This little princess will slay the dragon, rescue herself from the tower and definitely go down in history."

Poole said Akauola's speech was "absolutely exceptional".

The 11-year-old was an accomplished musician, both on the guitar and vocally, he said, and showed "some brilliant things for a person so young".

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Harrison Butker Stands Firm Amid Criticism: 'Nothing Shameful’ About Parenting

NFL player Harrison Butker is standing firm in the face of ongoing backlash regarding his controversial commencement speech where he spoke on parenting choices and gender roles, asserting that there is “nothing shameful” about raising children.

The Kansas City Chiefs kicker has faced criticism for his beliefs on family life, the LGBTQ community, and politics, but he remains unapologetic.

Months later, Harrison Butker once again addressed the backlash surrounding his controversial commencement speech, expressing that he is “saddened” by the reactions to his comments made in May 2024 regarding women as stay-at-home moms.

Harrison Butker Talks About Gender Roles During Commencement Speech

Earlier this year, Butker's commencement speech at Benedictine College in Kansas ignited a nationwide discussion , sparking a ton of backlash as people called him misogynistic.

"How many of you are sitting here now about to cross this stage and are thinking about all the promotions and titles you are going to get in your career? Some of you may go on to lead successful careers in the world," he said in his speech on May 11. "But I would venture to guess that the majority of you are most excited about your marriage and the children you will bring into this world."

He later spoke about his wife, who "would be the first to say that her life truly started when she began living her vocation as a wife and as a mother."

Harrison Butker Says He Is 'Saddened' By How People Interpreted His Comments

As the backlash persists, Butker once again clarified the comments he made, stating that he is "saddened" by the way they have been perceived.

“I’m definitely saddened [some people] took it in a poor manner,” the Kansas City Chiefs kicker said on Fox News’ "The Ingraham Angle." “I was talking to a specific crowd that I think was able to understand what I was trying to say.”

“But I was trying to speak life for so many women that have dedicated their life to being the homemaker, being the one that raises the children," he continued. "And it’s a beautiful role, but it’s not a role that should be diminished.”

Harrison Butker Says There Is 'Nothing Shameful' Of Wanting To 'Raise Your Children'

Butker and his wife, Isabelle, are parents to three children, including their 5-year-old son James, while the names and ages of their other two kids remain undisclosed.

“It cannot be overstated that all of my success is made possible because a girl I met in band class back in middle school would convert to the [Catholic] faith and become my wife and embrace one of the most important titles of all — homemaker," he said during his May commencement speech, which was one of the most talked about comments he made.

“There’s nothing shameful if you are a woman and you want to spend time with your family and raise your children, so it’s not putting down anyone who maybe wants to go get a great education and have a career,” he told host Laura Ingraham last week. “But it’s more talking about how beautiful it is for women to maybe just step aside and prioritize their family and spend time with their children and raise their family. And that’s what I was just trying to speak love about.”

This Is Not The First Time Harrison Butker Has Stood By His Commencement Speech

As The Blast reported in August, Harrison Butker revisited his viral graduation speech and reaffirmed his position.

"I prayed about it, and I thought about it, and I was very intentional with what I said. And I stand behind what I said," he stated. "I feel like, seven years in the league, having this platform, I've just decided, 'You know what, there's things that I believe wholeheartedly that I think will make this world a better place, and I'm going to preach that."

"And if people don't agree, they don't agree, but I'm going to continue to say what I believe to be true and love everyone along the way," he added.

Harrison Butker Endorses Donald Trump

Harrison Butker's latest comments come as he threw his support behind the Republican presidential candidate , citing his alignment with the Pro-life movement as a key reason.

According to Butker, Americans should back the "most Pro-life" leader, and in his view, Donald Trump fits that description. "I'm supporting the president that's going to be the most pro-life president," he said. "The [Pro-life] topic is the most crucial topic for me. I want us to be fighting for the most vulnerable."

"I think you have to vote for whoever is gonna be the most pro-life, and we have to be prayerful men that put God first. I think that's what's going to be best for our country," he added.