Gender Sterotypes

October 1 2005 - A study by Elizabeth Gorman, assistant professor of sociology at the University of Virginia analyzed hiring decisions of 700 law firms in the USA in the mid-1990s. She found that stereotypes of men as decisive and aggressive and of women as indecisive and gentle are 'alive and well' and influencing personnel decisions at large, private law firms.

Elizabeth Gorman said:

"Women have gained a foothold in the legal profession over the past quarter century. But even among law firms, which should be more than usually attuned to discrimination in employment, the power of stereotypes shapes hiring to a statistically significant degree."

The study entitled 'Gender Stereotypes, Same-Gender Preferences, and Organizational Variation in the Hiring of Women: Evidence from Law Firms,' published in the American Sociological Review, is believed to present the first evidence from the workplace for employer discrimination according to gender stereotypes. In recent years, expert testimony in courts along these lines has been discounted because it relied on controlled laboratory experiments. The study also found that when women are in charge of hiring, organizations hire more women.

Other findings of the study included:

• A majority of the law firms (55 per cent) had a lower proportion of women among their entry level hires than the proportion of women enrolled in law schools, suggesting a hiring disadvantage for women;
• In 1994-95, on average, only 39 per cent of associates and 13 per cent of partners were women;
• The presence of a female hiring partner increased the odds that a woman would be hired by 13 per cent.

Gorman argues that these results underline the importance of ensuring awareness among hiring officials that gender stereotypes can influence their decisions. Training and sensitization to the issues are important to battling discrimination. She also calls for the establishment of institutional safeguards, such as restricting the discretion of decision makers and requiring written records of all hiring decisions. The study suggests that the legal understanding of discrimination should be broadened beyond a deliberate decision not to hire a woman, to encompass the subtle impact of stereotypes on decision making.

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