Changing Gender Stereotypes - The Millennium Project

This is the Executive Summary of the study “Changing Gender Stereotypes” conducted by the Millennium Project in 2012. The entire study (pdf) is available upon request by emailing us.

Changing Gender Stereotypes; Executive Summary

With increasing education everywhere and the growth of the Internet, the world is changing its mind about previously accepted stereotypes. In 2012, The Millennium Project conducted an international assessment about how stereotypes about woman are changing.

Stereotypes are shorthand representations of characteristics of a group; they are labels that are applied, right or wrong, to everyone in a group.

Progress on gender equity over the past century has been significant. Only two countries at the beginning of the twentieth century allowed women to vote. Today, there is nearly universal suffrage, and women represent 19.8% of parliamentarians worldwide and 16.7% of ministers, while there are 17 women heads of state or government. Patriarchal structures are increasingly challenged, and the advances toward gender equity appear to be irreversible.

There are international and national regulations that protect women’s rights, quotas in some countries support their participation in decisionmaking, and an increasing number of programs around the world promote women’s rights and encourage female entrepreneurial spirit. Communities with gender discriminatory practices are increasingly stigmatized. Modern communications link geographically separated people with like minds and interests, facilitating the spread of new ideas and attitudes. Understanding which, where, and how gender stereotypes are changing, adapting to a more ethical and intelligent society, is important for understanding social development in general and for improving the status of women.

The Millennium Project conducted a study to assess how gender stereotypes are thought to have changed from 50 years ago and how they will change 50 years in the future – so between 1961 and 2061. Over 250 people from 57 countries signed in to the on-line Real-Time Delphi questionnaire, and 179 people responded to at least one question. The respondents provided about 13,500 answers, or about 75 answers per person.

The study asked participants to assess 39 stereotypes about women. The list of these stereotypes is presented in Box 1. Although some of the statements appear to be more gender equity issues than stereotypes per se, they meet the criteria of beliefs about women.

Box 1. List of Stereotypes Used in the Study

Women are valued more for their physical appearance than their intellect or character.
Physical appearance is more important for women than for men.
Women are more responsive to advertising and marketing than men.
Woman are raped because they ask for it.
Women are less rational and more emotional than men.
A woman’s job is to work at home and serve the needs of her family.
Women must obey and submit to their husband or male companion.
Men should make all important family decisions.
Women should have the right to divorce.
Wives need to be beaten occasionally.
Men should have priority in access to education.
Even with the same education, men are more productive than women.
Women are less reliable than men at work.
Women need more time off from work than men to attend to family matters.
Sexual harassment in the workplace is no big deal.
Equal work deserves equal pay, regardless of gender.
Independent women increase the social status of a family.
Single women manage better than single men.
Single mothers are unusual.
Women have the right to decide whether and when to have children.
Women have the right to decide on issues related to their own health and bodies.
Women have more health issues than men.
Use of women’s bodies in advertising is OK.
Women are better at social/cultural issues, men are better at economic and infrastructure.
Women are not well suited for dangerous jobs.
Women are better in arts and social sciences than hard sciences.
Women are not good at understanding technology.
Women heads of state or corporate leaders lose many of their feminine characteristics.
A glass ceiling limits professional advancement of women.
Women are less charismatic than men.
Men make better leaders than women.
Violence and rape against women is to be expected during war.
Women should be included in conflict resolution processes.
Women are more peaceful than men.
Women are worse drivers than men.
It is normal for women to be excluded from certain circles or positions.
Men should have certain rights that are not available to women.
Women are more gullible than men.
Blondes tend to be silly.

The statements assessed in this gender stereotypes study could be grouped into three categories:

Beliefs about gender social and economic equity
Beliefs about woman’s rights
Beliefs about societal and emotional aspects

The study was conducted using a Real-Time Delphi. The questionnaire asked three central questions about each of the 39 stereotypes:

Assume an opinion poll asked people whether they believed the stereotype was true. What percentage would have said they believed it in 1961, in 2011, and in 2061?
What is the role of the media in perpetuating the respective stereotype in the respondent’s region?
What is the respondent’s personal belief about the validity of the statement?

This structure placed the evolution of stereotypes in two dimensions: change over time and regional differences. The study also explored potential correlations among expectations about the stereotype and influences of the media and personal biases.

It is perhaps no surprise that the results show positive changes for all the stereotypes and beliefs assessed by the study, since the participants were self-selected and identified as interested in the topic. Nevertheless, the anticipated changes vary widely among the stereotypes. For example, in terms of the respondents’ estimates of the percentage of people who might have supported a stereotype in 1961 versus those they expect would support it in 2061, the statement “It is normal for women to be excluded from certain circles or positions” changed by 60% while “Use of women’s bodies in advertising is OK” only changed by 13%.

The study found that the greatest change in stereotypes about women from 50 years ago to now is that “A woman’s job is to work at home and serve the needs of her family.” The respondents judged this stereotype to be acceptable by 81% of the public in 1961, but only 41% in 2011, with an expected further drop to 21% by 2061.

The stereotype judged as having the highest relative percentage change from 50 years ago to 50 years in the future was “Women should be included in conflict resolution processes.” The public’s acceptance of this stereotype was thought to change from 25% in 1961, to 62% in 2011, with an expected further increase to 83% by 2061.

Here are some highlights from the survey’s findings. See Section 4 of this Chapter for the complete list of ratings.

The beliefs estimated to decrease in acceptance the most between 1961 and 2061 were:

Women must obey and submit to their husband or male companion.
Wives need to be beaten occasionally.
Men should have certain rights that are not available to women.
Men should have priority in access to education.

The beliefs that were estimated to increase the most were:

Women have the right to decide on issues related to their own health and bodies.
Women should have the right to divorce.
Single women manage better than single men.
Equal work deserves equal pay, regardless of gender.
Women have the right to decide whether and when to have children.
Independent women increase the social status of a family.
Women should be included in conflict resolution processes.

The social and economic equity statements believed to receive over 80% approval in 2061 were:

Women should have the right to divorce.
Women have the right to decide on issues related to their own health and bodies.
Equal work deserves equal pay, regardless of gender.
Women have the right to decide whether and when to have children.
Women should be included in conflict resolution processes.

The stereotypes that were judged to change the least (estimated to diminish less than 35%) between 1961 and 2061 were:

Women are more responsive to advertising and marketing than men.
Use of women’s bodies in advertising is OK.
Women are more peaceful than men.

Where did women and men agree and disagree? A gender-based analysis provides some interesting insights. There was close agreement between the answers given by men and women on some statements and sharp disagreement on others. Men and women largely agreed on the percent of the population likely to believe in the following stereotypes in 2061 (listed in order of agreement):

A glass ceiling limits professional advancement of women.
Women have the right to decide whether and when to have children
Women have the right to decide on issues related to their own health and bodies.
Equal work deserves equal pay, regardless of gender.
Women should have the right to divorce.

But disagreed sharply on: (listed in order of disagreement)

Women are not good at understanding technology.
It is normal for women to be excluded from certain circles or positions.
Even with the same education, men are more productive than women.
Women are worse drivers than men.
Women are better in arts and social sciences than hard sciences.
Use of women’s bodies in advertising is OK.

Respondents’ views about media support or reinforcement of stereotypes today correlated with their views about public agreement. This was also true between media support and their personal beliefs, as shown in Figure 1. In general, the stronger the media support, the higher the anticipated popular support and the higher the personal beliefs, as shown in the following graphs. This is not to say that one causes the other, because both may have increased as a result of other factors.

Figure 1. Correlation between media influence and personal beliefs about gender stereotypes

The relationship between the media orientation and the hypothetical popular support looked much closer, as shown in Figure 2, which uses the 2011 popular support scores.

Figure 2. Correlation between media influence and popular support of gender stereotypes

Similarly, some correlation could be observed between personal beliefs and the popular support in a hypothetical 2011 poll.

Influences of the media also correlated with the change in public support between 1961 and 2061. Figure 3 shows that respondents’ answers suggested they believe that the stronger the media holds to a stereotype, the less it will change over time.

Figure 3. Correlation between media influence and rate of change of popular suport for gender stereotypes

Due to the small sample size and uneven participation from countries around the world, country-to-country comparisons were quite limited, but some sharp differences were apparent nevertheless. Comparing the United States and Mexico, for example, there was relatively high agreement on the following stereotypes:

Women have the right to decide on issues related to their own health and bodies.
Women are less reliable than men at work.
Women have the right to decide whether and when to have children.
Equal work deserves equal pay, regardless of gender.

The highest levels of disagreement (with popular approval more than three times higher in Mexico than in the U.S.) were about the following statements:

Sexual harassment in the workplace is no big deal.
Wives need to be beaten occasionally.
Women must obey and submit to their husband or male companion.
Single mothers are unusual.
Men should have priority in access to education.

While on other statements with lower popular approval in Mexico than in the U.S. were:

Women are not good at understanding technology.
It is normal for women to be excluded from certain circles or positions.
Women have more health issues than men.
Men should have certain rights that are not available to women.
Even with the same education, men are more productive than women.

The respondents were encouraged to give reasons of their ratings. In total, 389 reasons were received. A selection is presented in Section 6 of this chapter, and the full text of all the reasons is available in Appendix B. The reasons given by the respondents varied from elaborate comments, mostly explaining cultural specifics, to joke-like answers, as in the case of the stereotype about blondes. Nevertheless, they generally described a changing mentality for all regions of the respondents.

The questionnaire also invited respondents to suggest other stereotypes. In total, 22 new stereotypes were suggested. The full list of suggested stereotypes is in Appendix B of this Chapter. Some examples are:

Women are usually instrumental in creating hurdles for other women.
It is necessary for a woman to marry and have children to feel fulfilled as a woman.
Stereotypes about women who are sex workers.
The “gold-digger” stereotype – women and girls just want men’s money.
Women who succeeded in their career are most of the time “supported” by a man in exchange for sexual favours.
Women who are smart are a threat to men.
Women ensure social functions of a family.

If the perceptions of the respondents were to be considered as a reflection of the true state of stereotypes’ evolution, then we could conclude that a slow but massive shift in gender stereotypes is to occur over the next few decades. Old views involving gender equity, women’s rights, and restricted societal roles for women are evolving toward much more liberal concepts.