An investigation on gender stereotypes targeting female role on family, career and characteristics for international students through interview and IAT

Abstract

Although in recent years, with the feminist movement, the impact of gender stereotypes on females is no longer apparent. However, it is undeniable that there are still many negative effects of gender bias in the daily lives of the public, and that cultural variation will determine the extent of these effects. This paper focuses on a sample of Chinese international students to investigate the impact of gender stereotypes about Chinese females in regarding career, family, and characters, as well as their personal perceptions of femininity. Semi-structured interviews and Gender-career Implicit Association Test were applied to receive the results of the study. The result of this study highlights the perception from participants of female states and gender stereotypes about China in the three aspects is different from the perceived individual expectations of females. By analyzing the results of the study, this study found that the formation of individual gender ideology and gender stereotypes is correlated with the level of education received and the gender ideology of the country and culture they are exposed to. Meanwhile, the division of household labor is connected to the gender ideology of the country, the SES and region of family and the employment status of females. This paper have also mentioned gender discrimination against females in the professional environment. However, it is effective to mitigate the negative effects of gender stereotypes promoting female participation in the workplace and utilizing gender-neutral language in education and balancing gender-specific academic expectations of students.