Perception of Female Students Undergoing Professional Courses Towards Gender Stereotypes at the Workplace

Nirupama Chakraborty
Assistant Professor, Organizational Behaviour & Human Resource Management, Department of Human Resource Management and Soft Skills, ICFAI Business School (IBS), Hyderabad (Under IFHE - A Deemed to be University u/s 3 of the UGC Act, 1956), Hyderabad, Telangana, India; and is the corresponding author. E-mail: asha.raj.abc@gmail.com; asha@ibsindia.org

Namrata Chatterjee
Assistant Professor, Department of HR, IBS Hyderabad (Under IFHE - Deemed to be university u/s 3 of the UGC Act 1956), Hyderabad 501203, India; and is the corresponding author. E-mail: namrata.chatterjee111@gmail.com

Gender stereotyping is a psycho-social process that illustrates structured sets of beliefs about the personal attributes of men and women. An awareness of the contents of gender role stereotypes subconsciously begins in the preschool years and is rather well-developed by the time children enter first grade. Women continue to be plagued by gender stereotyping that we perceive as a thing of the past. The existence of actual differences between male and female managers has been challenged for some time in the research literature. While men are expected to "take charge," women are mostly expected to "take care," playing a more supportive and nurturing role both on their personal and professional fronts. But in order to overcome these disparities, organizations must first acknowledge that gender stereotypes still exist. Studies have reported that organizations that have a significant number of women in the management positions have a higher return on investment, and work teams that consist of an even number of men and women who are more productive than those made up of primarily just one gender. Hence, this study is an attempt to look at some of the key stereotypical perceptions associated with professional women. As more and more young women are entering the various industries today, it is of importance to understand their perceptions regarding the various stereotypes that working women might be subjected to since these might act as perceived barriers for female students undertaking professional courses.

Introduction

Gender stereotyping is categorical beliefs about traits and behaviors that are attributed to people based on their gender. They serve as expectations about the characteristics and behavior of individual group members (Cleveland et al., 2000) and are considered one of the direct antecedents of discrimination at workplaces (Dovidio and Hebl, 2005). According to Eagly (1987), females are more community-based and men are more behavior-oriented. Community characteristics are primarily related to the well-being of others and show characteristics, such as compassion, sentiment, kindness, and generosity. Agent characteristics represent a more aggressive, dominant, and confident tendency, including attributes such as offensive, ambitious, independent, and self-confident. Agent traits have traditionally been directed to leadership roles (Eagly, 1987; and Eagly and Carli, 2003).

Considering the Social role theory (Eagly, 1987), the characteristics of agents and communities are attributed differently to men and women, as the unequal distribution between occupations and families promotes such expectations (Diekman and Eagly, 2000). As the division of male and female into social roles changes, so does the perception of male and female characteristics (i.e., stereotypes). However, you cannot expect changes to happen that easily (Lueptow et al., 2001). Diekman and Eagly (2000) found evidence of altered conception in females and reported a shift in female stereotypes to masculine or agent-like traits. A meta-analysis conducted by Twenge (1997b) reported that women's self-reported masculinity scores increased over time, suggesting that this increase was due to changes in women's social climate. Contrary to Twenge's reporting (1997), Lueptow et al.'s (2001) claimed that gender stereotypes have remained steady throughout time, with females' perceived femininity possibly increasing. Despite the fact that neither of these research streams focuses on gender and management, they both show that whether stereotypes are changing or not is an open question.

A common perception that exists in organizations is that the cost of employing women in organizations, especially in managerial roles, is greater than the cost of employing men. This is a jarring statement, partly because it is true, but mostly because it is something that people are reluctant to talk about. Studies by multinational corporations show that the rate of turnover in managerial positions is 2.5 times higher among top-performing women than it is among men. A large producer of consumer goods reports that one-half of the women who take maternity leave return to their jobs late or not at all and we also know that women also have a greater tendency to plateau or to interrupt their careers in ways that limit their growth and development. But we have become so sensitive to charges of sexism and so afraid of confrontation, even litigation, that we rarely say what we know to be true. Unfortunately, our bottled-up awareness leaks out in misleading metaphors ("glass ceiling" is one notable example), veiled hostility, lowered expectations, distrust, and reluctant adherence to equal employment opportunity requirements. It is extremely important that employers draw the right conclusions from the studies now being conducted. What they need to learn is to become aware of the stereotypes and be more responsive to the needs of the women that corporations must employ if they are to have the best and the brightest of all those now entering the workforce.

According to Jain and Mukherji (2010), gender stereotyping impacts the human evaluation of roles and responsibilities of both men and women because of which we end up treating women and men differently. Women are conditioned since their childhood that unless they demonstrate masculine characteristics, they are less likely to carry out leadership-like roles in organizations and less likely to be successful in work events. Indian women are mostly conditioned to be accepting, nurturing, caring, and sacrificing in nature given the perception that India is a patriarchal society where women are made to accept subordination and disempowerment. Barhate et al. (2021) also claimed that because of the social conditioning of women, they institutionalize their specific gender-related roles to an extent that they choose their role as mothers and wives over their careers. While such social norms exist, it becomes pertinent to understand how they are perceived among females at the professional front since perceptions sometimes act as barriers as well. Most of the previous studies have focused on understanding gender stereotyping in the context of female employees. This is one of the few studies that attempt to understand the perceptions of female students who are about to set forth their career journey.

Literature Review
Classification of various professions based on stereotyping has stronger implications for women. According to Schwartz (1989), the greater cost of employing women is not a function of inescapable gender differences. The gender differences relevant to business fall into two categories: Those related to maternity and those related to the different traditions and expectations of the genders. Maternity is biological rather than cultural. We cannot alter it, but we can dramatically reduce its impact on the workplace and in many cases eliminate its negative effect on employee development. Today, these differences exaggerate the real costs of maternity and can turn a relatively slight disruption in the work schedule into a serious business problem and a career derailment for individual women. If we are to overcome the cost differential between male and female employees, we need to address the issues that arise when female socialization meets the male corporate culture and masculine rules of career development.

In the past centuries, the biological fact of maternity shaped the traditional roles of the genders. Women performed home-centered functions that related to the bearing and nurturing of children. Men did the work that required great physical strength. Over time, however, family size contracted, the community assumed greater responsibility for the care and education of children, packaged foods and household technology reduced the workload at home, and technology eliminated much of the need for muscle power at the workplace. Today, in the developed world, the only role still uniquely gender-related is childbearing. Yet men and women are still socialized to perform their traditional roles. Indeed, the male and female roles have already begun to expand and merge. In the decades ahead, as the socialization of boys and girls and the expectations of young men and women grow steadily more androgynous, the differences in workplace behavior will continue to fade. At the moment, however, we are still plagued by disparities in perception and behavior that make the integration of men and women in the workplace unnecessarily difficult and expensive. One result of these gender differences has been to convince some executives that women are simply not suited to top management. Other executives feel helpless. If they see even a few of their valued female employees fail to return to work from maternity leave on schedule or see one of their most promising women employees' plateau in her career after the birth of a child, they begin to fear there is nothing they can do to infuse women with new energy and enthusiasm and persuade them to stay. At the same time, they know there is nothing they can do to stem the tide of women into management ranks. Another result is to place every working woman on a continuum of work-family balance. What women discover is that the male corporate culture sees both extremes as unacceptable. Women who want the flexibility to balance their families and their careers are not adequately committed to the organization. Women who perform as aggressively and competitively as men are abrasive and unfeminine. But the fact is, business needs all the talented women it can get.

According to Duehr and Bono (2006), gender stereotypes are prevalent in the workplace as a potential impediment to success; nevertheless, it is unknown to what extent stereotypes continue in the twenty-first century. Issues of gender imbalance in business and leadership have been in the public eye for 30 years (e.g., Kanter, 1977), despite the fact that women have become increasingly common in boardrooms since then. Changes in management gender balance should be accompanied by changes in hiring processes, mentor availability, and, eventually, gender role norms (Kanter, 1977). Changes in management have also occurred during the last few decades. Management work is described in contemporary books and articles in "qualities traditionally defined as feminine" (Fondas, 1997), such as helping and developing others, and building networks of relationships. In the academic literature, a new genre of leadership (Bass, 1985 and 1998) has dominated recent research (Judge and Piccolo, 2004). There is also ongoing debate about whether women now hold a leadership advantage (Eagly and Carli, 2003; and Vecchio, 2002 and 2003). According to Kray (2007), gender stereotypes, and how women and men behave in competitive contexts, has a major impact on their performance at the bargaining table. Although this differs in some respects from the science and engineering domains that were the focus of Summers's arguments, similar claims have been made about women's relative disadvantage in negotiations due to intrinsic differences. Negotiating ability is arguably the most important skill that future leaders can develop for themselves.

Terborg et al. (1977) indicated that increasing the numbers of women is rejecting traditional views of appropriate gender-role behavior and seeking full-time employment in previously masculine-dominated occupations. However, in positions of authority and responsibility within the organization, the integration of women has achieved limited success. Differential treatment of women has been reported in selection (Fidell, 1970; McCombs and Shaw, 1972; and Dipboye et al., 1975), monetary remuneration (Levitin et al., 1971; and Terborg and llgen, 1975), promotion policies (Day and Stogdill, 1972; and Rosen and Jerdee, 1974a), employee utilization (Kootz, 1970; and Rosen and Jerdee, 1974b), and employee development (Rosen and Jerdee, 1974a). In general, women are perceived as being dependent, passive, and subjective, and lacking such attributes as competitiveness, ambition, and leadership ability. Accordingly, in the business context, women are perceived as being too emotional and otherwise unfit for managerial positions (Bowman et al., 1965; Orth and Jacobs, 1971; and Schein, 1973). Hypothesizing that resistance toward women who desire business careers may stem partially from gender-role stereotypes, psychological research recently has begun to examine the presumed effects of such stereotypes on women in business. However, the existence of gender-role stereotypes and more importantly their role in affecting behavior has been inferred primarily from post hoc explanations (McCombs and Shaw, 1972; and Rosen and Jerdee, 1974a). For example, Rosen and Jerdee (1974a) attributed the experimental finding that males would be promoted more rapidly than equally qualified females to the influence of gender-role stereotypes.

Hoobler et al. (2011) mentioned that women in senior leadership are problematic for several reasons. First, a lack of women in senior positions may indicate lower-level women that aspiring to an upper-level position is untenable. Highly qualified and experienced women may thus not apply for upper-level positions. As a result, organizations lose the opportunity to capitalize on the skills and talent of a portion of their workforce. Further, when employees perceive a lack of women in upper management, they may form ideas about the implicit values and culture of the organization. A second reason is that when there are fewer women in senior leadership positions, women lower in the organizational hierarchy have few, if any, female mentors with experience in upper management. Without seasoned female mentors to guide women through what can be a politically driven succession planning process, women may feel unprepared for upper management positions and thus not apply. In sum, the glass ceiling is problematic because it stymies the opportunity for a substantial proportion of the workforce, that is, women, to contribute to organizations via powerful managerial roles.

Objective
The present study is an attempt to understand the perception of female students pursuing professional courses regarding women stereotypes of those working women and are likely to face at the workplace. It will help to identify the most common stereotypes as perceived by professional female students. Also, this study will provide useful insights for organizations to make decisions regarding the various measures that might be adopted in order to overcome the issues arising out of gender-biased stereotyping at the workplace thus leading to change in perceptions.

Methodology
Qualitative research methodology has been used to carry out this study. Qualitative research is much more subjective and uses very different methods of collecting information, mainly individual, in-depth interviews, and focus group discussions. In order to understand the perception of female students studying professional courses, the data collection was done by means of an open-ended questionnaire from 65 MBA female students from management institutes from Jharkhand, Delhi and West Bengal.

Data was collected through an open-ended questionnaire wherein the respective students were required to fill up the stereotypes that they perceived professional women are likely to face while working in the industry. There wasno limit on the number of words to be used hence students were free to enter relevant data as per their perceived notion. Questions asked were like "Does working women have to face a lot of stereotypes at the workplace? Which stereotypes do you think women are most likely to face at the workplace?" Apart from that, demographic data was also captured from the respondents. The students were of diverse backgrounds coming from across various parts of the country. 64% of the respondents had no prior corporate experience. While 29% of the remaining had less than 2 years of work experience. The average age of the sample was 21 years.

On the basis of the qualitative answers collected through the open-ended questionnaire, the following themes emerged:

Interpretation
From the responses obtained and depending upon the percentage of commonalities given for each of the above stereotypes, the following are the commonly faced stereotypes as perceived by female students pursuing professional degrees (Table 1). The major issues obtained are discussed below.

Women Are Physically and Mentally Weak: Traditionally, females have been expected to wear traditional dresses, cook and clean, raise children and remain passive, moral, and pure (Griffin, 1998; Sherrow, 1996; Woolum, 1998; and Zimmerman and Reavill, 1998). Deemed to be the "weaker sex"-physically, mentally, and emotionally, women have been stereotyped as being feminine. Femininity, according to Sherrow (1996) and Wilde (2007), is the issue of what is feminine in appearance and behavior (i.e., being attractive, carefully groomed, submissive, nurturing women). When the principle of femininity is applied, females are expected to live up to these specific gender roles that are held by both men and women in the mainstream society. This expectation of femininity often results in women being dissuaded from lifting weights, sweating, grunting, being aggressive, participating, and competing in jobs that are physically challenging and even those which are mentally stimulating. The main reason for this is because society expects women to be "ladylike",

not demonstrate characteristics that are defined as being masculine. However, when women do "cross the line" and exhibit these so-called "manly traits", their gender identity, sexual orientation, values, and social roles are often questioned (Griffin, 1998).

Women Are Emotionally Unstable: In a 2001 Gallup poll, individuals in the US were asked if a set of attributes applied more to men or women. 90% of those polled said that the trait "emotional" was more applicable to women. The study did not inquire about specific feelings or whether the word "emotion" had positive or negative connotations. However, the findings suggest that most Americans believe women are capable of or more prone to experiencing a larger, more intense spectrum of emotions than men.

The perception that women cry more than men is pretty widespread. In the professional arena, an exception to this standard seems to be the business world. In some businesses, crying is discouraged-a woman who cries in the office may be viewed as weak or ineffectual.

Some of the common perceptions associated with emotionally unstable women are as follows:

• Flakiness: Inability to assert herself and follow through on her actions.
• Extremely high and low mood swings which are in close proximity to each other. For example, she is happy and then really depressed in the space of a couple of minutes.
• Inability to do emotional processing. She has limited coping skills.
• No emotional boundaries. When she is angry at her best friend and then takes it out on you it is because she cannot discern the space between the relationship with her best friend and the relationship she has with you.

As a result, working women are perceived incapable of handling their own emotions which in turn, is perceived to affect their productivity at the workplace.

Women Are Unable to Balance Work and Family Life: Another main gender issue this study revealed was issues surrounding work/life balance for women especially as that balance pertains to women with children. Although women now make up about half the labor force, concerns about balancing career and family keep many young women from entering male-dominated fields, according to a 2006 study by researchers at RTI International, the University of Minnesota, the University of Michigan, and Murdoch University in the United States. "Despite the women's movement and more efforts in society to open occupational doors for women, concerns about balancing career and family continue to steer young women away from occupations in traditionally male-dominated fields, where their abilities and ambitions may lie," said Pam Frome an RTI researcher. The study, published in the August 2006 issue of the Educational Research and Evaluation journal, looked at 137 female high school seniors in 1990 who aspired to male-dominated jobs. Seven years later, 83% of those women changed their occupational aspirations to female-dominated fields or neutral jobs. The study found the most significant predictor for a young woman to change her career plans was a desire for a job that allowed her the flexibility to have a family.

Women are less assertive than men: Research shows that women are not afforded as much of a repertoire of behaviors when it comes to assertiveness. That is, technical women are either viewed as not assertive enough. Women benefit from self-monitoring in order to match the style of participants in the situation, thus modulating their level of assertiveness based on the context. The problem, for women who strive to project those prototypical leadership behaviors, is that they are rarely judged in the same way as men.

Women Are Incapable of Holding Key Managerial Positions: Women's representation in popular culture facilitates the stereotype of the simple-minded, emotional, and domesticated female.

Since this workplace social problem has been recognized as such, researchers and practitioners have weighed in on the reasons for women's lack of ascendancy to the top jobs. Common explanations center around four main areas. First, ''glass ceiling'' explanations focus on discrimination due to many, varied causes, such as gender role stereotyping (where individuals tend to associate male characteristics and consequently men with leadership positions). According to another research study conducted by Catalyst, women and men stereotype leaders in a similar way except in one key leadership behavior: problem-solving. Women respondents felt that more women were better at problem-solving than men, while men respondents felt men were superior. With men outnumbering women in top management positions, the male-held stereotype dominates current corporate thinking.

Conclusion
Based on the study conducted, it is evident that young female students pursuing professional courses perceive the existence of gender stereotypes that possibly affect female employees at the workplace. This may potentially damage the morale of the students and dissuade them from taking up careers of their choice. Hence, this is a critical issue that must be addressed at the organizational level. According to Francis and Skelton (2005), gender stereotyping induces a negative impact on students to make their career decisions, and females find it more complex to initiate their career choices compared to males. According to Martin et al. (2007), such type of stereotyping may result in negatively creating cognitive and emotional burden in an individual that can lead to poor performance and low morale. Therefore, this study also indicates that gender stereotypes can be strongly perceived by female students that may act as barriers in the future to making their career choices.

Implications and Limitations: Considering the 20 identified gender-related stereotypes identified in the study, organizations as well as higher educational institutions, may develop strategies to counter the ill-effects of it and at the same time promote practices that are less likely to be perceived as gender stereotyping. One way of changing a stereotype is to promote intergroup contact (Pettigrew, 1997). It has been observed that when people have stereotypes of an outgroup, one way to eliminate these beliefs is to expose them to various members of the outgroup in positive social contexts for an extended period of time. This may provide the person with new information about the outgroup that does not typify the stereotype, and may even contradict the stereotype completely. However, some researchers have argued that contact alone may not be sufficient in eliminating harmful stereotypes (Hewstone and Brown, 1986) and that other strategies must be synchronized alongside intergroup contact. Also, higher education institutions can arrange for interactive sessions and workshops from women professionals in various industries to discuss challenges that women face related to gender stereotypes and how such incidences are tackled by individuals and organizations. Such initiatives help the female students to voice out their concerns leading to shaping their perceptions in the right direction.

The current study has certain limitations. The sample considered for the study was only the MBA students and also limited to three states, which restrict the generalizability of the study. In future studies, female students pursuing other postgraduate or even undergraduate programs may be considered to understand their perception towards gender stereotypes. Additionally, the sample size is also less for the current study. However, given that the method of data collection was qualitative in nature, data saturation was achieved and therefore further sample was not increased. In the future, if a quantitative method is administered for the study, the appropriate sample size can be taken.

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