9 ms·

Women Using Less Feminine Terms in Cover Letters Are Less Likely to Get Hired

42 points by rustoo 6y ago

Cactus2018 6y ago
The journal paper - COVERING IN COVER LETTERS: GENDER AND SELF-PRESENTATION IN JOB APPLICATIONS https://journals.aom.org/doi/pdf/10.5465/AMBPP.2019.275 https://journals.aom.org/doi/pdf/10.5465/AMBPP.2019.275 How gendered language was measured: > We used a computerized text analysis tool, Linguistic Inquiry Word Count (LIWC; Pennebaker, Booth, & Francis, 2007) to compute a measure of gendered language for each job application material (Gaucher et al., 2011). How women self-reported downplaying their gender: > Job seekers downplayed gender incongruence by: removing gender-incongruent hobbies or extracurriculars; describing themselves with less gender-incongruent language; altering their name; or removing gender-incongruent job experiences.
RIMR 6y ago
This is one of those reasons I think that progressive social theory is so important. People are so quick to write people off as "SJWs" when they point out the small sexist or racist nuances that exist in the world, but those little things add up, and create vastly different life experiences for people based on their immutable characteristics. This kind of bias is predictable, so there's no excuse for allowing it to have any affect over your hiring process. The people making hiring decisions either need to be trained in such a way that minimizes unfair or unlawful biases influencing their decisions, or they need to be given the bare minimum information as to avoid even having extra information that would influence their decision.
- thinkingemote 6y ago
  Minimal information can also be discriminatory.
Raphmedia 6y ago
I'd argue that those words are not feminine but merely less assertive. Women score higher on the agreeableness score[1] which is not a quality that is looked for in many industries - but they are not the sole owners of agreeableness. Plenty of men will score high and that doesn't make them feminine. The paragraph in the article where they describe how minorities get more calls when they "whiten" their resume has me wonder if this theory couldn't be simplified. What I mean by this is that when you try to join a company where the culture is geared towards white men in their twenties, you have to fit that culture. I'd also argue that they would find the same results for age if they looked for it. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3149680/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3149680/
- yokaze 6y ago
  > What I mean by this is that when you try to join a company where the culture is geared towards white men in their twenties, you have to fit that culture. On the contrary, the study says the opposite (for women). If there is a cover letter by a fictive person, which appears to be a woman, which is trying "to fit in to that culture" by using more assertive terms, it will result in less callbacks. For fictive men, it is the reverse. As the person is fictive, the actual supposed qualities of that person are irrelevant.
  - Raphmedia 6y ago
    I think we are sharing a very similar viewpoint. What I meant by this is that you have to "fit" that culture and that by not "being" part of it you won't get hired even if you're trying your best.
    - simonh 6y ago
      I'm afraid that comes across in an unfortunate way. So women can't fit that culture by trying their best to be part of it by sounding like white men, but only by being part of it - by being white men? I'm not going to go off the rails here, I understand you're trying to offer constructive advice and this conclusion wasn't what you intended. Nevertheless I think it's clear the onus needs to be on employers to try to identify and remediate biases in their hiring practices.
      - Raphmedia 6y ago
        I agree that's it's far from perfect. Those companies with very narrow cultures should be more open to diversity and I strongly believe they would benefit from it. That being said, as a woman, that's a company I'd skip instead of lying my way in and then hating my daily life. I've worked in a company with such a culture before and hated my years there. I thought my presence would change things - it didn't.
- fogihujy 6y ago
  I'd never even consider to assign feminine or masculine traits to any of those words. Is this an "English as a first language"-thing? Like you, I can see how some of those words could be more or less assertive, but I'd go as far as to argue that anyone connecting gender with assertiveness is outright sexist. :)
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
mam2 6y ago
May depend on the job. What about an actress or a model ? Of even an interpreter. Most regular jobs are just about building, "moving fast and breaking things" in a competitive environment. This is usually deemed "masculine" so no wonder using "feminine" terms is less rewarded. Maybe the problem is that too many people think that women (including women themselves) cant be as "competitive" or "masculine" or whatever the term than men. There are plenty of examples in real life that show the contrary.
- klipt 6y ago
  > so no wonder using "feminine" terms is less rewarded. The article says the opposite?
  - mam2 6y ago
    No but its like saying oh the ground is wet when it rains
- thinkingemote 6y ago
  Worth stating that actresses and models have agents who do the applications for them. I suppose we should really look at recruiters in tech and see if using one gets better results.
eykanal 6y ago
Just want to mention that, as a hiring manager for over ten years now, I haven't looked at a cover letter once in that entire time.
- patja 6y ago
  I always found it helpful to have a writing sample for evaluation, especially if the position requires effective written communication skills.
- thisisnico 6y ago
  Cover letter is completely useless and a waste of both parties time IMO. Look at experience. Look at skills. Do they fit the position. If yes, interview. If no, do not interview. The fluff around everything else is just fluff.
  - ineedasername 6y ago
    It tells you if the person can't communicate beyond bullet points in a resume. It's easy to hype up achievements in previous positions. An interview will help there, but if a cover letter demonstrates difficulty communicating, that is a signal you can use to effectively filter those candidates and not waste time on an interview.
    - slantyyz 6y ago
      > It tells you if the person can't communicate beyond bullet points in a resume. I guess it depends a lot on the industry. Most of the cover letters I've seen when hiring are following a template or pattern gleaned from a website or book telling you how to write a cover letter. Also, you're never 100% sure that a job seeker didn't get someone to help them write the cover letter or if it's copypasta. Admittedly, if I was looking for a job, I'd provide a cover letter just to satisfy arbitrary expectations, but I hate writing them. All I do these days is regurgitate the list of the advertised requirements and for each item, indicate if I meet, have comparables or don't meet it. It beats having to come up with a bunch of made up platitudes about why they should hire me. In the same vein as cover letters though, I don't put much weight on post-interview thank-you letters.
AussieWog93 6y ago
"The authors suggested several strategies for making the hiring process more gender neutral: - Anonymous résumés, in which names are removed from cover letters and applications." The Australian public service tried this a couple of years back. It too backfired. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-06-30/bilnd-recruitment-trial-to-improve-gender-equality-failing-study/8664888 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-06-30/bilnd-recruitment-tri...
- duckmysick 6y ago
  I don't understand the article. First it says "thousands of public servants have been told to pick recruits who have had all mention of their gender and ethnic background stripped from their CVs." But then it says "adding a woman's name to a CV made the candidate 2.9 per cent more likely to get a foot in the door." I feel like I'm missing something. Is there a link to a full study? Did someone manage to reproduce this study elsewhere? Also, there's this fragment: "Last year, the Australia Bureau of Statistics doubled its proportion of female bosses by using blind recruitment. Professor Hiscox said he discussed the trial with the ABS and did not consider it a rigorous or randomised control trial." Isn't it too harsh? Does that mean all of the real-world case studies should go to the bin because the organizations didn't have randomized control trials at every step of their operations?
scythe 6y ago
>The cover letters were then evaluated by 360 managers who make hiring decisions. They perceived that women who used more feminine language are more hirable than women who used less feminine terms. There was no difference for men. As for likeability, the managers perceived that women who used less feminine language were significantly less likeable than woman who used more feminine terms. Men who used more feminine language also were perceived as more likeable than men who did not. It seems we might infer that "likeability" is considered important in "hireability" for women but not men. What I like is that there should be other ways to test this hypothesis that don't involve cover letters.
go13 6y ago
Are people not fed up with the "equality" propaganda produced by those who neither properly studied math at school, nor understand the fundamentals of statistics like the difference between correlation and causation?
- earthtobishop 6y ago
  Yup!
- u10 6y ago
  Do you have any examples of "'equality' propaganda"?
  - dx87 6y ago
    The "wage gap" is the one I see most often. It's presented in a way that makes it seem like women get paid significantly less than men, but in reality there's almost no gap when you account for the same position and experience level.
    - caleb-allen 6y ago
      Why is there a gap in position and experience level?
      - ARandomerDude 6y ago
        Maternity is probably the greatest factor. I know several women who wanted to stay home after having a kid. Suppose they return to work in 5-10 years, they're less experienced than others of the same age, and have stale professional contacts.
        Spivak 6y ago
        The problem is that you would expect that over billions of people maternity and paternity would average out but it doesn't because of societal pressure. Men who stay at home are "low status" and women who don't are bad mothers. The problem is the social dynamic that creates these "preferences."
clarkmoody 6y ago
Of course this begs the question: What about job performance? Instead of trying to fix the "problem" they've identified, why not take the study further to see if there exists any correlation between use of feminine language in the cover letters (for men and women) and career outcomes (educational outcomes for the MBA students)?
mariodiana 6y ago
I'm thinking I've heard it said that the benefit of hiring women is that they bring a special something that men lack — a unique perspective, and all that — but now I'm hearing I'm supposed to be concerned that women who, on the face of it, seem to lack that special something are passed over? Which is it?
SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
I worry that the implications here lean on the authors' use of frankly sexist stereotypes. If you don't filter the study through their perception that agentic language is masculine and communal language feminine, it becomes a lot less clear that these findings are relevant to the proportion of women in senior management.
- krapp 6y ago
  >If you don't filter the study through their perception that agentic language is masculine and communal language feminine, it becomes a lot less clear that these findings are relevant to the proportion of women in senior management. "If you ignore the premise, the conclusion makes no sense. Therefore the premise is flawed."
  - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
    What I'm saying is that such stereotypical premises are inherently flawed. If someone produced a study categorizing a high speech volume as "Hispanic language" and saying that Latinos like me get hired less when we use "Hispanic language" in interviews, I'd be pretty mad.
    - krapp 6y ago
      > If someone produced a study categorizing a high speech volume as "Hispanic language" and saying that Latinos like me get hired less when we use "Hispanic language" in interviews, I'd be pretty mad. Except there's a great deal of cultural, historical and linguistic evidence that assertive language is considered more masculine, and communal language is considered more feminine. There would be no such evidence supporting a cultural bias considering high speech volume as "Hispanic language" that I'm aware of. It shouldn't be controversial to claim that, traditionally, "masculine" as an ideal is defined in terms of assertiveness, dominance and hierarchy (particularly in business) whereas "feminine" as an ideal is typically defined in terms of empathy, submissiveness and collaboration. While English is not an explicitly gendered language like Spanish or German, the ways that masculinity and femininity are expected to be expressed within Anglophone cultures inform the way language is used as expression within those norms[0,3]. You are correct that this is stereotypical, as most gender conventions are, but incorrect in asserting that this stereotype does not exist beyond the authors' personal bias, and therefore, is useless in studying gender dynamics. Indeed, the entire point of the linked article is to study the effects of that bias and those stereotypes on the hiring process. Seeking to ignore that aspect on the basis that referring to stereotypes is itself engaging in stereotyping would miss the point in the same way as ignoring race in a study of early American slavery on the basis that focusing on race would be racist. Women are Warmer but No Less Assertive than Men: Gender and Language on Facebook[0] [0]https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4881750/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4881750/ Gender Differences in Communication Behaviors, Spatial Proximity Patterns, and Mobility Habits[1] [1]https://www.researchgate.net/publication/305616148_Gender_Differences_in_Communication_Behaviors_Spatial_Proximity_Patterns_and_Mobility_Habits#read https://www.researchgate.net/publication/305616148_Gender_Di... What Is Feminine Style Rhetoric and Why Is It Important?[2] [2]https://jenniferspoelma.com/blog-feed/feminine-style-rhetoric-why-important https://jenniferspoelma.com/blog-feed/feminine-style-rhetori... Masculine-Feminine Difference: How We Talk[3] [3]https://www.huffpost.com/entry/masculinefeminine-differe_b_5559127 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/masculinefeminine-differe_b_5...
jtxx 6y ago
what makes these terms feminine? isn’t this perpetuating these stereotypes?
- salamanderman 6y ago
  Let me Google that for you. https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=feminine+language&btnG= https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=femi... https://scholar.google.com/scholar?start=10&q=feminine+terms&hl=en&as_sdt=0,5 https://scholar.google.com/scholar?start=10&q=feminine+terms...
  - jtxx 6y ago
    the trick here is Google Scholar it seems! so, feminine in this case refers to Bakhtin & 'feminine dialogic'?
nashashmi 6y ago
I read this as “when women/men rely less on their natural talents or put less forward their true natures, they sound weak and indecisive. Like they are still figuring themselves out. I don’t understand this whole gender stereotype. It seems misplaced when one gender tries to portray themselves as different than who they are.
heyflyguy 6y ago
I am the worst case of insensitive behavior, and I will admit that when I read a female resume with those words I think "oh man, she is going to come in a pantsuit and try to make me feel like I am not doing to dominate her". Which, I wouldn't, but the prospect of a conflict is enough for me to archive the email.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
cvbcvbcvbcvbc 6y ago
“While we found that women are negatively impacted by this strategy, we found that men are less likely to cover because they are less likely to anticipate discrimination." I can believe they somehow measured that "men are less likely to cover" (by some measure), but how do they know the reason is that they are "less likely to anticipate discrimination"? I think it is a huge problem with such papers that they mix data with their personal beliefs and interpretation. It seems to be typical for feminist papers. They collect some data, then, in the summary, they claim "the reason we see this data is because of ongoing discrimination". Many people seem unable to distinguish the different parts of such papers or "studies". There is one part to assert authority, "see we are doing the science thing", and then they use that to push their agendas. I think since the media has destroyed its authority completely, this is the next frontier of politics to watch out for. We had to learn not to trust journalists, now we have to learn not to trust scientists. (Everybody can claim to be a scientist).
xchip 6y ago
I'd be quite concerned with anyone that uses those so called "masculine terms". I don't want an aggressive, confident, challenging, outspoken and strong coworker. I want a team player.
mint2 6y ago
> Masculine terms include: entrepreneurial confident aggressive challenging outspoken strong Feminine language is communal, reflecting a commitment to working with others. Feminine terms include: considerate committed supportive understanding What makes these words m/f? Is it studies of how people perceive them? If that’s the case the authors seem to be missing the picture. In an equal world these words are gender neutral. And personally I don’t view them as having that division, but I guess others do and that seems to be the real issue.
- drdec 6y ago
  While you are correct (IMHO) to question the use of masculine and feminine to characterize these sets of words, in the end that is not actually relevant to the result. That is, if the authors had called the sets "cooperative words" and "aggressive words" instead, the result would still be interesting. I suspect the authors chose masc/fem to describe the words because that makes for a more click-baity headline for the paper. Not so that it would peg the irony meter of people who notice that they are using gender stereotypes to characterize words in a paper ostensibly written to help reduce sexism.
WarOnPrivacy 6y ago
Website that wastes a third of the reading area to logo+menu is less likely to be read
belorn 6y ago
If the study had shown that women using less feminine terms were more likely to get hired we would have an article discussing how sexist the hiring process is. Now the data is showing that using less feminine terms makes women less likely to be hired and we have an article discussing how sexist the hiring process is. The big takeaway from the study is that the language used impact success rate for women but does not have any effect for men, which makes the conclusion a bit odd. If women are punished for violating normative gender expectations, why are not men who use feminine terms punished? Gender norms are generally enforced for both women and men (as is often reported by transgender people). The article does not seem to put much thought on that question.

42 points by rustoo 6y ago

Cactus2018 6y ago

The journal paper - COVERING IN COVER LETTERS: GENDER AND SELF-PRESENTATION IN JOB APPLICATIONS https://journals.aom.org/doi/pdf/10.5465/AMBPP.2019.275 https://journals.aom.org/doi/pdf/10.5465/AMBPP.2019.275 How gendered language was measured: > We used a computerized text analysis tool, Linguistic Inquiry Word Count (LIWC; Pennebaker, Booth, & Francis, 2007) to compute a measure of gendered language for each job application material (Gaucher et al., 2011). How women self-reported downplaying their gender: > Job seekers downplayed gender incongruence by: removing gender-incongruent hobbies or extracurriculars; describing themselves with less gender-incongruent language; altering their name; or removing gender-incongruent job experiences.

RIMR 6y ago

This is one of those reasons I think that progressive social theory is so important. People are so quick to write people off as "SJWs" when they point out the small sexist or racist nuances that exist in the world, but those little things add up, and create vastly different life experiences for people based on their immutable characteristics. This kind of bias is predictable, so there's no excuse for allowing it to have any affect over your hiring process. The people making hiring decisions either need to be trained in such a way that minimizes unfair or unlawful biases influencing their decisions, or they need to be given the bare minimum information as to avoid even having extra information that would influence their decision.

thinkingemote 6y ago
Minimal information can also be discriminatory.

Raphmedia 6y ago

I'd argue that those words are not feminine but merely less assertive. Women score higher on the agreeableness score[1] which is not a quality that is looked for in many industries - but they are not the sole owners of agreeableness. Plenty of men will score high and that doesn't make them feminine. The paragraph in the article where they describe how minorities get more calls when they "whiten" their resume has me wonder if this theory couldn't be simplified. What I mean by this is that when you try to join a company where the culture is geared towards white men in their twenties, you have to fit that culture. I'd also argue that they would find the same results for age if they looked for it. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3149680/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3149680/

yokaze 6y ago
> What I mean by this is that when you try to join a company where the culture is geared towards white men in their twenties, you have to fit that culture. On the contrary, the study says the opposite (for women). If there is a cover letter by a fictive person, which appears to be a woman, which is trying "to fit in to that culture" by using more assertive terms, it will result in less callbacks. For fictive men, it is the reverse. As the person is fictive, the actual supposed qualities of that person are irrelevant.
- Raphmedia 6y ago
  I think we are sharing a very similar viewpoint. What I meant by this is that you have to "fit" that culture and that by not "being" part of it you won't get hired even if you're trying your best.
  - simonh 6y ago
    I'm afraid that comes across in an unfortunate way. So women can't fit that culture by trying their best to be part of it by sounding like white men, but only by being part of it - by being white men? I'm not going to go off the rails here, I understand you're trying to offer constructive advice and this conclusion wasn't what you intended. Nevertheless I think it's clear the onus needs to be on employers to try to identify and remediate biases in their hiring practices.
    - Raphmedia 6y ago
      I agree that's it's far from perfect. Those companies with very narrow cultures should be more open to diversity and I strongly believe they would benefit from it. That being said, as a woman, that's a company I'd skip instead of lying my way in and then hating my daily life. I've worked in a company with such a culture before and hated my years there. I thought my presence would change things - it didn't.
fogihujy 6y ago
I'd never even consider to assign feminine or masculine traits to any of those words. Is this an "English as a first language"-thing? Like you, I can see how some of those words could be more or less assertive, but I'd go as far as to argue that anyone connecting gender with assertiveness is outright sexist. :)

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

mam2 6y ago

May depend on the job. What about an actress or a model ? Of even an interpreter. Most regular jobs are just about building, "moving fast and breaking things" in a competitive environment. This is usually deemed "masculine" so no wonder using "feminine" terms is less rewarded. Maybe the problem is that too many people think that women (including women themselves) cant be as "competitive" or "masculine" or whatever the term than men. There are plenty of examples in real life that show the contrary.

klipt 6y ago
> so no wonder using "feminine" terms is less rewarded. The article says the opposite?
- mam2 6y ago
  No but its like saying oh the ground is wet when it rains
thinkingemote 6y ago
Worth stating that actresses and models have agents who do the applications for them. I suppose we should really look at recruiters in tech and see if using one gets better results.

eykanal 6y ago

Just want to mention that, as a hiring manager for over ten years now, I haven't looked at a cover letter once in that entire time.

patja 6y ago
I always found it helpful to have a writing sample for evaluation, especially if the position requires effective written communication skills.
thisisnico 6y ago
Cover letter is completely useless and a waste of both parties time IMO. Look at experience. Look at skills. Do they fit the position. If yes, interview. If no, do not interview. The fluff around everything else is just fluff.
- ineedasername 6y ago
  It tells you if the person can't communicate beyond bullet points in a resume. It's easy to hype up achievements in previous positions. An interview will help there, but if a cover letter demonstrates difficulty communicating, that is a signal you can use to effectively filter those candidates and not waste time on an interview.
  - slantyyz 6y ago
    > It tells you if the person can't communicate beyond bullet points in a resume. I guess it depends a lot on the industry. Most of the cover letters I've seen when hiring are following a template or pattern gleaned from a website or book telling you how to write a cover letter. Also, you're never 100% sure that a job seeker didn't get someone to help them write the cover letter or if it's copypasta. Admittedly, if I was looking for a job, I'd provide a cover letter just to satisfy arbitrary expectations, but I hate writing them. All I do these days is regurgitate the list of the advertised requirements and for each item, indicate if I meet, have comparables or don't meet it. It beats having to come up with a bunch of made up platitudes about why they should hire me. In the same vein as cover letters though, I don't put much weight on post-interview thank-you letters.

AussieWog93 6y ago

"The authors suggested several strategies for making the hiring process more gender neutral: - Anonymous résumés, in which names are removed from cover letters and applications." The Australian public service tried this a couple of years back. It too backfired. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-06-30/bilnd-recruitment-trial-to-improve-gender-equality-failing-study/8664888 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-06-30/bilnd-recruitment-tri...

duckmysick 6y ago
I don't understand the article. First it says "thousands of public servants have been told to pick recruits who have had all mention of their gender and ethnic background stripped from their CVs." But then it says "adding a woman's name to a CV made the candidate 2.9 per cent more likely to get a foot in the door." I feel like I'm missing something. Is there a link to a full study? Did someone manage to reproduce this study elsewhere? Also, there's this fragment: "Last year, the Australia Bureau of Statistics doubled its proportion of female bosses by using blind recruitment. Professor Hiscox said he discussed the trial with the ABS and did not consider it a rigorous or randomised control trial." Isn't it too harsh? Does that mean all of the real-world case studies should go to the bin because the organizations didn't have randomized control trials at every step of their operations?

scythe 6y ago

>The cover letters were then evaluated by 360 managers who make hiring decisions. They perceived that women who used more feminine language are more hirable than women who used less feminine terms. There was no difference for men. As for likeability, the managers perceived that women who used less feminine language were significantly less likeable than woman who used more feminine terms. Men who used more feminine language also were perceived as more likeable than men who did not. It seems we might infer that "likeability" is considered important in "hireability" for women but not men. What I like is that there should be other ways to test this hypothesis that don't involve cover letters.

go13 6y ago

Are people not fed up with the "equality" propaganda produced by those who neither properly studied math at school, nor understand the fundamentals of statistics like the difference between correlation and causation?

earthtobishop 6y ago
Yup!
u10 6y ago
Do you have any examples of "'equality' propaganda"?
- dx87 6y ago
  The "wage gap" is the one I see most often. It's presented in a way that makes it seem like women get paid significantly less than men, but in reality there's almost no gap when you account for the same position and experience level.
  - caleb-allen 6y ago
    Why is there a gap in position and experience level?
    - ARandomerDude 6y ago
      Maternity is probably the greatest factor. I know several women who wanted to stay home after having a kid. Suppose they return to work in 5-10 years, they're less experienced than others of the same age, and have stale professional contacts.
      - Spivak 6y ago
        The problem is that you would expect that over billions of people maternity and paternity would average out but it doesn't because of societal pressure. Men who stay at home are "low status" and women who don't are bad mothers. The problem is the social dynamic that creates these "preferences."

clarkmoody 6y ago

Of course this begs the question: What about job performance? Instead of trying to fix the "problem" they've identified, why not take the study further to see if there exists any correlation between use of feminine language in the cover letters (for men and women) and career outcomes (educational outcomes for the MBA students)?

mariodiana 6y ago

I'm thinking I've heard it said that the benefit of hiring women is that they bring a special something that men lack — a unique perspective, and all that — but now I'm hearing I'm supposed to be concerned that women who, on the face of it, seem to lack that special something are passed over? Which is it?

SpicyLemonZest 6y ago

I worry that the implications here lean on the authors' use of frankly sexist stereotypes. If you don't filter the study through their perception that agentic language is masculine and communal language feminine, it becomes a lot less clear that these findings are relevant to the proportion of women in senior management.

krapp 6y ago
>If you don't filter the study through their perception that agentic language is masculine and communal language feminine, it becomes a lot less clear that these findings are relevant to the proportion of women in senior management. "If you ignore the premise, the conclusion makes no sense. Therefore the premise is flawed."
- SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
  What I'm saying is that such stereotypical premises are inherently flawed. If someone produced a study categorizing a high speech volume as "Hispanic language" and saying that Latinos like me get hired less when we use "Hispanic language" in interviews, I'd be pretty mad.
  - krapp 6y ago
    > If someone produced a study categorizing a high speech volume as "Hispanic language" and saying that Latinos like me get hired less when we use "Hispanic language" in interviews, I'd be pretty mad. Except there's a great deal of cultural, historical and linguistic evidence that assertive language is considered more masculine, and communal language is considered more feminine. There would be no such evidence supporting a cultural bias considering high speech volume as "Hispanic language" that I'm aware of. It shouldn't be controversial to claim that, traditionally, "masculine" as an ideal is defined in terms of assertiveness, dominance and hierarchy (particularly in business) whereas "feminine" as an ideal is typically defined in terms of empathy, submissiveness and collaboration. While English is not an explicitly gendered language like Spanish or German, the ways that masculinity and femininity are expected to be expressed within Anglophone cultures inform the way language is used as expression within those norms[0,3]. You are correct that this is stereotypical, as most gender conventions are, but incorrect in asserting that this stereotype does not exist beyond the authors' personal bias, and therefore, is useless in studying gender dynamics. Indeed, the entire point of the linked article is to study the effects of that bias and those stereotypes on the hiring process. Seeking to ignore that aspect on the basis that referring to stereotypes is itself engaging in stereotyping would miss the point in the same way as ignoring race in a study of early American slavery on the basis that focusing on race would be racist. Women are Warmer but No Less Assertive than Men: Gender and Language on Facebook[0] [0]https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4881750/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4881750/ Gender Differences in Communication Behaviors, Spatial Proximity Patterns, and Mobility Habits[1] [1]https://www.researchgate.net/publication/305616148_Gender_Differences_in_Communication_Behaviors_Spatial_Proximity_Patterns_and_Mobility_Habits#read https://www.researchgate.net/publication/305616148_Gender_Di... What Is Feminine Style Rhetoric and Why Is It Important?[2] [2]https://jenniferspoelma.com/blog-feed/feminine-style-rhetoric-why-important https://jenniferspoelma.com/blog-feed/feminine-style-rhetori... Masculine-Feminine Difference: How We Talk[3] [3]https://www.huffpost.com/entry/masculinefeminine-differe_b_5559127 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/masculinefeminine-differe_b_5...

jtxx 6y ago

what makes these terms feminine? isn’t this perpetuating these stereotypes?

salamanderman 6y ago
Let me Google that for you. https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=feminine+language&btnG= https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=femi... https://scholar.google.com/scholar?start=10&q=feminine+terms&hl=en&as_sdt=0,5 https://scholar.google.com/scholar?start=10&q=feminine+terms...
- jtxx 6y ago
  the trick here is Google Scholar it seems! so, feminine in this case refers to Bakhtin & 'feminine dialogic'?

nashashmi 6y ago

I read this as “when women/men rely less on their natural talents or put less forward their true natures, they sound weak and indecisive. Like they are still figuring themselves out. I don’t understand this whole gender stereotype. It seems misplaced when one gender tries to portray themselves as different than who they are.

heyflyguy 6y ago

I am the worst case of insensitive behavior, and I will admit that when I read a female resume with those words I think "oh man, she is going to come in a pantsuit and try to make me feel like I am not doing to dominate her". Which, I wouldn't, but the prospect of a conflict is enough for me to archive the email.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

cvbcvbcvbcvbc 6y ago

“While we found that women are negatively impacted by this strategy, we found that men are less likely to cover because they are less likely to anticipate discrimination." I can believe they somehow measured that "men are less likely to cover" (by some measure), but how do they know the reason is that they are "less likely to anticipate discrimination"? I think it is a huge problem with such papers that they mix data with their personal beliefs and interpretation. It seems to be typical for feminist papers. They collect some data, then, in the summary, they claim "the reason we see this data is because of ongoing discrimination". Many people seem unable to distinguish the different parts of such papers or "studies". There is one part to assert authority, "see we are doing the science thing", and then they use that to push their agendas. I think since the media has destroyed its authority completely, this is the next frontier of politics to watch out for. We had to learn not to trust journalists, now we have to learn not to trust scientists. (Everybody can claim to be a scientist).

xchip 6y ago

I'd be quite concerned with anyone that uses those so called "masculine terms". I don't want an aggressive, confident, challenging, outspoken and strong coworker. I want a team player.

mint2 6y ago

> Masculine terms include: entrepreneurial confident aggressive challenging outspoken strong Feminine language is communal, reflecting a commitment to working with others. Feminine terms include: considerate committed supportive understanding What makes these words m/f? Is it studies of how people perceive them? If that’s the case the authors seem to be missing the picture. In an equal world these words are gender neutral. And personally I don’t view them as having that division, but I guess others do and that seems to be the real issue.

drdec 6y ago
While you are correct (IMHO) to question the use of masculine and feminine to characterize these sets of words, in the end that is not actually relevant to the result. That is, if the authors had called the sets "cooperative words" and "aggressive words" instead, the result would still be interesting. I suspect the authors chose masc/fem to describe the words because that makes for a more click-baity headline for the paper. Not so that it would peg the irony meter of people who notice that they are using gender stereotypes to characterize words in a paper ostensibly written to help reduce sexism.

WarOnPrivacy 6y ago

Website that wastes a third of the reading area to logo+menu is less likely to be read

belorn 6y ago

If the study had shown that women using less feminine terms were more likely to get hired we would have an article discussing how sexist the hiring process is. Now the data is showing that using less feminine terms makes women less likely to be hired and we have an article discussing how sexist the hiring process is. The big takeaway from the study is that the language used impact success rate for women but does not have any effect for men, which makes the conclusion a bit odd. If women are punished for violating normative gender expectations, why are not men who use feminine terms punished? Gender norms are generally enforced for both women and men (as is often reported by transgender people). The article does not seem to put much thought on that question.