Reducing women’s lack of fit with leadership positions? Effects of the wording of job advertisements

Abstract

Linguistic forms which refer to individuals impact mental representations of these individuals: When masculine generics are used, women tend to be cognitively underrepresented, whereas feminine–masculine word pairs are associated with a higher cognitive inclusion of women. The present research investigates whether linguistic forms affect women’s perceived lack of fit with leadership positions, which is particularly pronounced for high-status leadership positions. In a hiring-simulation experiment (N = 363), we tested the effects of different linguistic forms used in German-language job advertisements: (1) masculine forms (e.g., Geschäftsführer, ‘CEO, masc.’); (2) masculine forms with (m/f) (e.g., Geschäftsführer (m/w), ‘CEO, masc. (m/f)’); and (3) word pairs (e.g., Geschäftsführerin/Geschäftsführer, ‘CEO, fem./CEO, masc.’). The job ads announced either a high- or low-status leadership position. Results showed that female applicants were perceived to fit less well with the high-status position than male applicants when either the masculine or the masculine form with (m/f) was used––even though they were perceived to be equally competent. However, female and male applicants were perceived as fitting the high-status leadership position similarly well when word pairs were used.

Keywords:

• leadership
• lack of fit
• hiring
• gender-fair language

Acknowledgements

We thank Anne Maass, Elisa Merkel, and Friederike Braun for their helpful comments on earlier versions of the manuscript.

Notes

1. Analyses with all 363 participants––including those participants who failed the manipulation check for applicant gender—overall yielded the same results.

Additional information

Funding

This work was conducted within the Marie Curie Initial Training Network: Language, Cognition, & Gender, ITN LCG, funded by the European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme [FP7/2007-2013] (www.itn-lcg.eu). This work was supported by the European Commission [237907].