Women have been a marginalized group throughout history. Though in historical society women were subservient to men, women are much more equal to men in today’s Western society. Nonetheless, there is still some degree of sex discrimination that comes with certain destructive female stereotypes. Below I will discuss some of the more common female stereotypes
1. The woman thinks that she is always right
This stereotype is promoted throughout television and popular culture. Often this stereotype is presented in a humorous light. Some scenes on television show a married couple agreeing to a certain rule, which is that the wife is always right, and the husband is walking into the snake pit if he even tries to disagree. Though these scenes entice the audience to laugh, the implications of this stereotype are serious and very derogatory.
When the husband and wife live by the rule that the wife is always right, note that the husband does not really think that the wife is always right. He is only pretending that she is always right to her face, and still probably believes that she is wrong and misguided. Also note that the wife is being placed into a light that paints her as a second rate human being who is so horrible and foolish that she cannot even respect the opinions of others, and turns into the angry hulk if anybody even tries to disagree with her. Making such harsh assumptions about someone’s character on the basis of a stereotype is outright mean. To conclude, when the husband and wife live by the rule that the wife is always right, the last thing that the wife gets is actual respect.
Sometimes people have a good reason to present their side of the argument with conviction. They have taken the time to confirm the facts and have thought through everything carefully. The person on the opposing side, however, may not have checked the facts, and may only be going by what he/she heard somewhere without considering the source. In such a case, the one who checked the facts and thought through everything carefully is more likely to be right; but what if the one who checked the facts is a woman, and the one who is just going by what he heard happens to be a man? If the woman asserts her argument with conviction, does she deserve to be judged as “just another woman who thinks she is always right”? Or maybe she does have a good reason to believe that she is right and the other person is wrong.
The stereotype, which says that the woman thinks she is always right, places the woman into a position where her opinion can never be taken seriously no matter how much she has carefully checked the facts, and no matter how logically sound her argument is. The audience will question the validity of her conviction in what she is saying in ways that they would not do for a man. No matter how logically sound and factually correct of an argument the woman presents, the audience will continue to believe that the woman only has conviction because she is a woman and women think that they are always right.
So is this stereotype aligned with reality? In other words, are women really more likely to believe that they are always right than are men? The scientific literature indicates that, if anything, the opposite is true. (Lenney, 1977) did a review of the science literature and found that women show lower confidence in their abilities in achievement settings while men tend to show inflated confidence, though these results can vary based on ability area. (Roberts, 1991) found that when it comes to self-assessments, men tend to have a more competitive mindset and are more likely to rate themselves highly while women are more likely to rate themselves based on how others have rated their performance.
Other evidence against this stereotype is that men are more likely to have narcissistic personality disorder, which is defined as a mental condition in which people have an inflated sense of their own importance, a deep need for excessive attention and admiration, troubled relationships, and a lack of empathy for others. (Grijalva et al., 2015) reviewed the science literature on gender differences in narcissism and found that narcissists generally think that they are always right and that they do not make mistakes. The first study they discuss confirms that narcissists are more commonly men. Though there is another kind of narcissism equally prevalent in both men and women, called vulnerable narcissism, this kind of narcissism is marked by low self-esteem, neuroticism and introversion.
Many more recent articles are now saying that the confidence gap between men and women in the workplace is a myth. (Lenney, 1977) and (Roberts, 1991) both conducted their meta-analysis in the 20th century. Times are changing, but even though this gap in confidence between men and women has narrowed, women are still no more confident in themselves than men are, and when they do express self-confidence, they more easily become less likeable. With women, there are more strict behavioral standards to be nice. Women come across as too harsh when they express a certain level of assertiveness unless they also embellish their assertiveness with niceness and empathy.
2. Women fight with each other more than men do
For awhile I was sharing an apartment with three other women. One of my flatmates was talking with this guy. She told him that four of us women were living together, to which he replied that we must fight a lot. I found this remark to be offensive.
In this video from That 70s Show, Erik Forman and Steven Hyde are play-fighting while Jackie and Donna are making fun of them. Erik and Steven make the claim that girls can’t play-fight because when they do, it turns into a real fight. So Jackie and Donna decide to show them that they, too, can play-fight without their play-fight turning into a real fight. They start playfully hitting each other on the shoulder when suddenly Donna complains that Jackie scratched her, and then the two of them get into a real fight after all.
This scene from That 70s Show is made out to be funny, of course, but the scene is still promoting a derogatory female stereotype, which states that somehow women have a diminished ability to get along with each other compared to men. The thing is that when people fight, it is generally because somebody did something wrong or there was a misunderstanding or someone does not feel that he/she is being treated well. Therefore, by saying that females are more prone to fighting with each other, we are implying that females have a diminished ability to know how to treat each other and/or behave like decent human beings towards each other. We also are implying that they have a diminished ability to be forgiving of each other’s mistakes. Essentially the stereotype implies that women, compared to men, are second-rate human beings, or what Steven Hyde calls “bitches”.
One time I decided to let a woman live with me who had no place to live of her own. While she was living with me, she took advantage of me. She took some food out of the food pantry without asking me, wore some of my clothes without asking me, used up some of my bathroom products and was emotionally abusive towards me whenever I didn’t do what she wanted. We had a fight where I ended up eventually kicking her out of the apartment. The thing is that I remembered the stereotype that females fight with each other more. I imagined some guy believing that the two of us were fighting simply because we are both women, and women just happen to fight more. It was obvious to me that we were fighting, not because we were both women, but because she was a horrible and exploitative person. In fact, she lived with a number of men before she lived with me, and the men fought with her too. So if someone were to assume that this other women and I were fighting just because we are both women, you can see how ignorant and offensive that judgmental assumption would be.
According to this stereotype, women are the more aggressive sex (keeping in mind that aggression can be verbal and not just physical). Of course in the field of psychology, there are often no gender differences in aggression. When there are gender differences found, males tend to be the more aggressive sex. A review by (Hyde, 1984) looked at 143 studies on gender differences in aggression, and found that gender differences were modest, only accounting for about 5% of aggression. Gender differences in aggression were highest in the 6 and younger age group (with males being more aggressive than females) and they decreased with older age. A more recent literature review by (Clauss et al., 2017) found that men are more likely to be physically aggressive while women are more likely to exhibit relational aggression characterized by isolation and ostracism through gossip rumors and lies. No evidence of gender differences in anger were found. Still another literature review by (Bjorkqvist, 2018) found that boys and girls had equal tendencies to be verbally abusive.
3. With women and girls there is more drama
I once overheard a man saying that he is glad he has sons instead of daughters because he would not have liked all the drama that comes with having daughters. Mothers sometimes comment that while boys are more likely to participate in risky activities that can cause physical injury, girls are more likely to cause drama. Indeed, we have all heard the phrase “drama queen”.
When people refer to drama, they tend to mean made-up conflict where the person invents something to fight about and fights for the sake of fighting. Sometimes drama refers to a behavior where one or both people in a relationship create an uncomfortable feeling through manipulation and/or control. It is hard to find anything in the science literature on this topic, but based on my personal experience, males and females are equally prone to creating drama.
One group that I believe is more prone to creating drama is small children. We have all seen small children throw a fuss, like it is the end of the world, over something that an adult would not think twice about. We have seen small children fight over things where mature adults would have been able to reach a compromise.
What is particularly destructive about this female stereotype is that when a woman does get upset over something, the others present may just assume she is upset because she is a woman and women are more prone to drama. They will not consider that maybe she has a legitimate reason to be upset. In other words, stereotypes such as this cause a woman’s negative emotions to not be taken as seriously. Whenever she expresses a negative emotion, even if it is justified, she is always at risk of being called a “drama queen”.
4. Women are more emotional than men
In culture, women can appear to be more emotional. They express their emotions more, they talk about their emotions with each other more, they take more of an interest in emotion and they may also have higher emotional intelligence. Men, on the contrary, are taught when they are boys that emotion is a weakness and they are discouraged from showing emotion. Therefore, it is not surprising that women appear to be the more emotional sex.
So are women more emotional than men are? According to the science literature, the “emotional” label placed on women is only a cultural stereotype, and is not rooted in reality. According to this study, women do not experience any more emotional fluctuations than men do…not even the women that menstruate. Though women were found in another study to experience more negative emotions than men, some studies show that if anything, men are more emotional than women. There is even an article entitled “Why Are Men More Emotional Than Women?“
In one study, men showed more of a physiological emotional response to emotion-provoking stimuli. The content of the videos was categorized into four areas: blissful, exciting, heartwarming and funny. The article explains: the results showed that men had stronger emotional reactions to each of these areas. When it came to the heartwarming content, men responded twice as much as did women. When asked to rate their emotional response to the content, women stated that they were much more emotional than the test results showed, while men said they were much less emotional than they actually were. In a separate survey conducted by the same company, 67 percent of these men later went on to admit they actually felt more emotional than they let on.
Men are taught when they are young boys that emotion is a weakness, and so they are told to hide their emotions. However, as it explained in this article, hiding and/or suppressing one’s emotions only causes the emotions to go unresolved. When emotions remain unresolved, they dominate us more, causing us to lash out in certain contexts without knowing why. When men do show emotion, it is often viewed as “passion”. When men get so emotional that they throw things in a fit of rage, they are viewed as “having a bad day” or “having a temper”, anything but emotional. This label seems to be reserved for women. In other words, people in culture overlook evidence that contradicts their beliefs about gender differences.
While women are not any more emotional than men are, men are not any more logical than women are. Brain studies such as this one generally show that men have better motor skills and spatial thinking skills while women have better analytical skills and think more intuitively. This study assessed men’s and women’s logical thinking skills via written exams. The results showed that women scored at least as high as men did, and sometimes higher.
When women are falsely labeled as being more emotional and less logical, disrespectful behaviors towards women sometimes come about. One behavior that I find to be particularly destructive is accusing a woman of getting angry because she is on her menstrual period. In this video from The Big Bang Theory TV series, Sheldon Cooper did just that with the human resources lady. In the video, we see that the human resources lady has reason to believe that Sheldon and his friends are behaving in a manner that is disparaging towards women. Rather than seeing her exasperation as being justified, Sheldon assumes she must be on her menstrual period.
The question is: how can the human resources lady prove to Sheldon that her agitation is not because of her menstrual period? Should she furnish proof that she is not menstruating at the time? Should they all wait a week and see if her reaction to their terrible behavior changes? Will everyone have to wait a week every time she becomes outraged by something just to make sure she is not just grumpy because she is on her period? Then what if she reaches menopause? Do we just brush off her anger as hormonally driven until she is finished with menopause?
I had read about a real-life incident where a man saw that a woman was angry with him and said “well, someone is on her period…” The woman replied “If I were on my period every time I got angry with you, I would be anemic!” Now, in my opinion, telling a witty joke in response to a disparaging comment may make the situation worse. A witty joke may only give the perpetrator free comedy entertainment and lighten the mood. This remark is to be dealt with seriously. It is a form of sexual harassment.
When people get angry, they deserve respect and they deserve to be listened to. Their complaints should be taken into consideration. Their anger should not be invalidated based on some assumption that their hormones are driving their negative emotions rather than stimuli that warrant those negative emotions.
5. Gossip is a woman thing
The science literature shows mixed results regarding whether women gossip more than men do. Nonetheless, men do gossip. One place of gossip is the mens locker room as discussed in this article. Sometimes men talk trash about other men in the locker room at sports team practices. This trash talk does meet the definition of gossip.
Prejudice against one’s own group
Sometimes the people who are the most prejudiced against a group are people who are members of the group. For example, the people who complain the most about women being too much drama are often women. When women stereotype their own group, they often think of themselves as the exception. In The Crown TV series, when Margaret Thatcher became the first female Prime Minister of Britain, she said in one episode that women are too emotional to take on government offices. She made this statement while she, a woman, was assuming the most prominent public office in Britain. She obviously thought that she was an exception to this “rule”.
When women complain about other women starting too much drama, they often give themselves a pat on the back for not being that way. They think they are better than the other women. They really have just fallen into what is called internalized misogyny.
Confirmation bias in prejudice
Confirmation bias is the tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms or supports one’s prior beliefs or values. When it comes to prejudice against a group of people, confirmation bias will cause one’s observations of the group to be biased in favor of negative attributes and against positive attributes.
When a member of a group exhibits an unfavorable behavior, to the prejudiced person, that member of the group is representative of the entire group. For example, say a woman is making a scene at a restaurant because she is not happy with the service she is getting. The prejudiced person will say to him/herself “see, just what I thought, women are just too much drama!” Meanwhile, when a man yells out loud at the airport terminal because he is not getting his way, the same prejudiced person will just think “well, I hope he manages to calm down and that his problem gets fixed.”
Now when a member of the group exhibits a favorable attribute, the prejudiced person will think that this individual is an exception, expecially when the behavior is one that goes against the group stereotype. For example, let us say that a woman has a calm, rational and humble demeanor that goes against some of the negative female stereotypes. The prejudiced person will still think that the negative female stereotypes are aligned with reality, but that this one woman happens to be an exception. He may even say to the woman “you are not like other girls”. In this particular context, the statement “you are not like other girls” is an insult to the female sex. By telling a young woman that she is not like other girls, and framing it as a compliment, one is implying that it is better to not be like other members of the female sex, as if something is wrong with being feminine. Granted the expression “you are not like other girls” does not always have sexist underpinnings. In other contexts, it may just mean that the woman has a unique personality and that few other people are like her.
Summary
When we put all of these female stereotypes together, we can see that they place women into a bad position. Whenever a woman expresses her opinion about something with conviction, nobody will care because she is just another woman who thinks that she is always right. Whenever the woman gets upset about something, others will just think she is another woman full of drama, and will not consider that maybe her getting upset is warranted. If she gets into a dispute with another woman, others may think that the dispute is only happening because they are women, and not for some other reason.
Such bad treatment stemming from these stereotypes can lead to more negative emotions, which can then lead to more judgment and bad treatment. It is time we stop thinking based on stereotypes and see people as individuals.
References
Bjorkqvist K (2018) “Gender differences in aggression” Current Opinion in Psychology 18:39-42.
Clauss N, Rankin A, Byrd-Craven J (2017) Meta-analysis of Sex Differences in Aggression. In: Shackelford T., Weekes-Shackelford V. (eds) Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_846-1
Funk C and Parker K (2018) “Women and Men in STEM Often at Odds Over Workplace Equity” Pew Research Center
Grijalva, E., Newman, D. A., Tay, L., Donnellan, M. B., Harms, P. D., Robins, R. W., & Yan, T. (2015) “Gender differences in narcissism: A meta-analytic review” Psychological Bulletin 141(2):261–310. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0038231
Hyde JS (1984) “How large are gender differences in aggression? A developmental meta-analysis” Developmental Psychology 20(4):722–736. https://doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.20.4.722
Johnson S (1994) “A game of two halves? On men, football and gossip” Journal of Gender Studies 3(2):145-154. doi: 10.1080/09589236.1994.9960562
Lenney E (1977) “Women’s self-confidence in achievement settings” Psychological Bulletin 84(1):1–13. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.84.1.1
Roberts TA (1991) “Gender and the influence of evaluations on self-assessments in achievement settings” Psychological Bulletin 109(2):297–308. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.109.2.297