Our latest research article entitled Reducing a Male Bias in Language? Establishing the Efficiency of Three Different Gender-Fair Language Strategies was just published in the journal Sex Roles. Download the article as pdf here.

Abstract. Different strategies of gender-fair language have been applied to reduce a male bias, which means the implicit belief that a word describing an undefined person describes a man. This male bias might be caused by the words themselves in terms of generic masculine or masculine forms or by androcentrism (the conflation of men with humanity). In two experiments, we tested how different gender-fair strategies used as labels of an unknown social target (an applicant in a recruitment situation) could eliminate the male bias. The three types of gender-fair strategies tested were: (a) paired forms (he/she), (b) traditional neutral words (e.g., singular they, “the applicant”), or (c) gender-neutral third-person pronouns actively created to challenge the binary gender system (ze, Swedish hen). The two experiments were performed in Swedish with 417 undergraduates in Sweden and in English with 411 U.S. participants recruited online. In Swedish, the third-person gender-neutral pronoun singular (hen) was used. In English, several forms of such gender-neutral pronouns have been suggested (e.g., ze). In both experiments, results indicated that paired forms and actively created gender-neutral pronouns eliminated the male bias, whereas traditional neutral words contained a male bias. Thus, gender-fair language strategies should avoid using traditional words. Consequences of using paired forms and creating new gender-neutral words are discussed. We argue that an actively created gender-neutral pronoun is of highest value because it is more inclusive.

We are very happy to announce that Amanda just started as PhD student at the department of psychology, Lund University. Amanda’s planned dissertation studies how gender-fair language can be used to decrease work-related discrimination.

It is a pleasure for us to be able to continue our work with Amanda, in order to reach a deeper understanding about gender-fair language and its effects.

Read more about Amanda here.

The 27-28th June was Amanda at the Future Sex conference in Surrey where she presented the results from her master thesis.

The Science of Gender Differences: Gender Essentialism as System Justification

Gender lay theory is a lay person theory which is used as a framework for interpreting information related to gender categorization. The present study investigated how individuals’ gender lay theory is affected by exposure to scientifically framed explanations for gender differences between women and men. It also investigated if gender essentialism functions as a system justifying mechanism by decreasing discrimination attribution, a situational rather than dispositional attribution, in response to a discriminatory situation. The 413 Swedish speaking participants were recruited from web forums and exposed to either a biologically focused (N = 133), or a social-constructivist focused (N = 125) scientifically framed text explaining gender differences, or not exposed to any text (N = 155). Compared to the control group, only exposure to social-constructivist gender discourse impacted gender lay theory by increasing endorsement of a gender as a socially constructed category. The group exposed to the biological text did not differ from the control group, indicating that an essentialist view of gender is the population norm. Discrimination attribution was indirectly affected by exposure to social-constructivist explanations for gender differences through gender lay theory, by increasing endorsement of a social gender lay theory which predicted a higher degree of discrimination attribution. These results point to a connection between exposure to scientific gender discourse, gender essentialism, and a situational attribution in response to a discriminatory situation. This study expands previous research in this field by showing that this connection also applies to an individual rather than general situation of gender discrimination.

Anna, Emma and Marie have been at the Gender Diversity in Survey Research conference in Gothenburg, to present our thoughts on how one could/should include the gender variable in social sciences. You can download our conference paper Measuring gender in surveys as a pdf here.

Amanda, Hellen and Marie have been to the conference Context, Identity and Choice: Understanding the Constraints on Women’s Career Decisions in London to present our research about hen. 
Hellen presented the study Gender-neutral pronouns as promoters of gender equality in the work place.

Abstract: The gender-neutral pronoun ‘hen’, has been introduced in Swedish as an addition to the gendered pronouns ‘hon’ [she] and ‘han’ [he]. It can be used in a generic way to refer to someone when not knowing a person’s gender, when gender is irrelevant, or to refer to someone who does not identify with the binary categories. 

Proponents of ‘hen’ have argued that the pronoun can reduce stereotyping in language. In previous research, ‘hen’ has been found to have no male bias when people try to determine whose job application they are reading. Reading a job application from ‘hen’, participants judged the person to be equally likely to be female or male in comparison with “the applicant” or “the candidate”, which were much more frequently imagined to be male (Bäck et al., 2015). 

In this presentation, I present the first eye tracking data on how ‘hen’ affects the way we imagine others when reading about them, and discuss the implications this has for understanding how gender-neutral language may work as a gender-fair language strategy. 

Amanda presented the study The (not so) Changing Man: Dynamic Gender Stereotypes in Sweden. Download the poster as pdf here.

In the beginning of March, Hellen and Marie visited the Society for Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP) Annual Convention in Atlanta and presented the study Gender-neutral pronouns increase reading time during anaphor resolution: Evidence from Swedish. Download the poster as pdf here.

Anna and Emma visited the tenth Nordic conference about language and gender, which this time was held in Akureyri during October 20^th-21^st. We presented one of our studies where we have shown that henseems to be able to reduce the male bias in our language.

Hen might reduce the male bias in the Swedish language

Abstract. In Swedish, the gender-neutral third-person singular pronoun ‘hen’ has been introduced, existing parallel with the two pronouns representing ‘she’ and ‘he’. One argument against the use of hen, is that there already exist gender neutral words in the Swedish language – hence no new words are needed, it is argued. However, earlier research on assumed gender-neutral words have identified a strong male bias, meaning that so-called neutral words are not perceived as neutral, but associated with masculinity. We examine if ‘hen’ more effectively can reduce the male bias, compared to other grammatically gender-neutral, and historically older, Swedish words. In one social psychological experiment, framed as a recruitment study, the 276 participants read about a job candidate applying for a gender-neutral position (in terms of gender distribution) as real-estate agent. The candidate was referred to as one of four gender-neutral words: ‘the applicant’ (den sökande), ‘the person’ (personen), the new gender-neutral third-person pronoun singular ‘hen’, or the impersonal pronoun singular ‘it’ (den; sometimes used as a gender-neutral personal pronoun). When having read the description, the participants were asked to choose what photo they believed showed the candidate, from four choices (two women and two men). Results show that ‘hen’ was the only condition not affected by a male bias: Most participants associated ‘the applicant’ (68 %), ‘the person’ (71 %) and ‘den’ (63 %) with a masculine gender, compared to the participants reading about ‘hen’ (52%). In sum, ‘hen’ seems to be genuinely gender neutral, compared to other “neutral” paraphrases, and could thereby be used to reduce gender bias in language.

Amanda Klysing started working as an assistant in the project on the August 1^st. Amanda wrote her master’s thesis in psychology at Lund University during the spring semester and is awesome at quantitative analysis.

Luckily for us, Amanda’s research interests overlap with ours, so now Amanda is also on-board the hen boat.

The Swedish Research Council for Health, Working Life and Welfare (Forte) announced that we (with Anna as project manager) were given just over 3,2 million SEK in research funds for our research about how gender-neutral and gender fair language can lead to increased equality in society on the 27^thof September.

The title of the project is The Importance of Language for Equality in the Work Place,and aims to investigate just that. How can actively constructed attempts towards gender neutrality and inclusiveness, e.g. hen, affect actual equality and decrease discrimination within working life?

All project members were at the EASP Small Meeting in Berlin during 24^th-26^thof June, which had the theme Gender Roles in the Future? Theoretical Foundations and Future Research Directions. We presented our project about hen.  

Download our poster as pdf: Neutral pronouns as promoters of gender equality