Gender Stereotypes & Valence

Gender Stereotypes & Valence

While there is evidence that women are penalized for agency, there is evidence that men are actually rewarded for communality. We propose that we can resolve this apparent inconsistency in reactions to gender-inconsistent behavior by directly incorporating valence into existing theories of gender stereotypes. To support our claim, we investigate behavioral stereotypes and prescriptive norms for typical (Study 1) and working (Study 2) men and women and evaluate the perceived associations between positive and negative femininity and masculinity (Study 3). Our results indicate that the valence of gender-stereotypical behaviors is largely consistent for men and women. They further indicate that positive and negative gender stereotypes are confounded in our conception of agency, but not communality, explaining the favorable reactions to men who behave communally and the unfavorable reactions to women who behave agentically. We conclude that positive agency (eg, being assertive or ambitious) is actually seen as highly desirable in women, and that women will only be penalized for agentic behaviors when they also imply negative masculinity (eg, being aggressive or arrogant).