Contextual Thinking About Gender Differences Helps Set Our Feminist Agenda Janice D. Yoder University of Akron.

Contextual Thinking About

Gender Differences Helps Set

Our Feminist Agenda

Janice D. YoderUniversity of Akron

Yoder, Fischer, Kahn, and Groden (in press)

StrengthenedContextual Thinking

AboutGender Differences

StrengthenedFeminist

Identification

Beliefs in thePlausibility ofSocial Change

InstructorsFeminist Agenda

A Class Exercise A Class Exercise to Encourage Contextual Thinkingto Encourage Contextual Thinking

Created in interaction with others

Essentialist ViewWhat I AM

Social Constructionist ViewWhat I DO

• Biology• Personality

i n t e

r n a l

i m m u t a

b l ee x t e r n a l

situationally dependent

• Socialization (past)• Social Context (present)

Social Context: The social environment in which behavior occurs that can work to produce or constrain behavior

Phases:

Model contextual thinking(e.g., empathetic accuracy)

Small group application

Lecture about empirical evidence

1

2

3

A Class Exercise A Class Exercise to Encourage Contextual Thinkingto Encourage Contextual Thinking

Empathetic Accuracy

joy fear disgust surprise anger sadness contempt

As a class, identify emotions expressed

1

1 Are women more accurate than men?

1. Folk wisdom: “women’s intuition”2. d = 1.91 for self-reported empathy3. Thomas & Fletcher (2003)

• dating heterosexual couples in lab

1. Watched video and recorded own thoughts/feelings2. Viewers watch and “mind read”

Empathetic Accuracy = correlation between actor’s and viewer’s ratings

• videotaped trying to resolve relationship problem

1 Are women more accurate than men?

Thomas & Fletcher (2003)

30

40

50

60

Min

d-R

eadi

ng A

ccur

acy

(%)

men

women

1. Women score higher than men

2. Scores correlatedacross targets(i.e., individualdifferences)

3. Men can do it,depending on the social context

4. Klein & Hodges (2001): paid women and men for their accuracy Men = Women

Strangers Dating Partner

VIEWERS

• Spatial abilities• Aggression • Helping Behavior • Sociability

Keys to understanding social context:• Gender-typing of tasks and occupations• Stereotyping & Expectancies• Social status and power

2 Small Group Assignment:Think of Contextual Explanations for Gender Differences in:

favor men

favors women

assign one/group

Spatial Abilities: Sharps, Price, & Williams (1994)

0

2

4

6

8

spat

ial t

est s

core

Task InstructionsSpatial Non-spatial

differencedifference NONOdifferencedifference

3 Intersperse class-wide sharing of small group ideas with research

1

3

5

7

9

Self-ratings ofown aggressiveness

differencedifference

Aggression: Lightdale & Prentice (1994)

0

0.5

1

1.5

2

num

ber

of b

ombs

dro

pped

Individuated

Hello, I’m

J a nJ a n

De-individuated

differencedifferenceNONO

differencedifference

3

Helping: Eagly & Crowley (1986)

rescuing

caregiving

Gendered definitionsof the construct

3

Sociability -- Visual Dominance: Dovidio et al. (1988)

woman - man talkingmeasured eye contactVisual dominance:

• look while speaking• look away when listening

41.1% 39.8%

57.6%

47.2%52.9%

29.5%

% of time looking while speaking

Base-line

Man Em-powered*

Women Em-powered*

*Evaluates partner and awards extra credit points

3

depends on status