Abstract
The gender system operates to place members of US society into categories, and then allocate labor and resources to those members on the basis of their category membership. In order to better understand the gender system, this study examines the methods by which members of US society use the gender system to place other members into a gender category, and how other social systems such as age and race affect gender categorization. Full and partial facial images were shown to participants, who were asked to identify the sex and/or gender of the individual in the image, indicate how confident they were in this identification, and then write a brief explanation for why they identified the individual in the image as they did. The results of this study point towards an “assumed male” bias in gender categorization. Results suggest that while age has little effect on gender categorization, race and gender do, with respondents being the most confident and “accurate” when viewing self-categorized white males.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Birdwhistell, R. L. (1970). Masculinity and femininity as display. In B. Jones (Ed.), Kinesics and context: Essays on body motion communication (pp. 39–46). Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Brown, E., & Perrett, D. I. (1993). What gives a face its gender? Perception, 22, 829–840.
Bruce, V., Burton, A. M., Hanna, E., Healey, P., Mason, O., Coombes, A., et al. (1993). Sex discrimination: How do we tell the difference between male and female faces? Perception, 22, 131–152.
Burton, M. A., Bruce, V., & Dench, N. (1993). What’s the difference between men and women? Evidence from facial measurement. Perception, 22, 153–176.
Chronicle, E. P., Chan, M., Hawkings, C., Mason, K., Smethurst, K., Stellybrass, K., et al. (1994). You can tell by the nose—judging sex from an isolated facial feature. Perception, 24, 969–973.
Cotera, M. (1997). Among the feminists: Racist classist issues—1976. In A. Garcia (Ed.), Chicana feminist thought: The basic historical writings (pp. 213–220). London, England: Routledge.
Crawley, S. L., Foley, L. J., & Shehan, C. L. (2008). Gendering bodies. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.
DeLamater, J. D., & Myers, D. J. (2007). Social psychology (6th ed.). Belmont, CA: Thomson Higher Education.
Dupuis-Roy, N., Fortin, I., Fiset, D., & Gosselin, F. (2009). Uncovering gender discrimination cues in a realistic setting. Journal of Vision, 9, 1–8.
Fausto-Sterling, A. (2000). Sexing the body: Gender politics and the construction of sexuality. New York: Basic Books.
Garfinkel, H. (1967). Studies in ethnomethodology. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Hawkesworth, M. (1997). Confounding gender. Signs, 22(3), 649–685.
Jackson, L. A. (1992). Physical appearance and gender: Sociobiological and sociocultural perspectives. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
Johnson, K. L., Freeman, J. B., & Pauker, K. (2012). Race is gendered: how covarying phenotypes and stereotypes bias sex categorization. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 102(1), 116–131.
Kessler, S. J., & McKenna, W. (1978). Gender: An ethnomethodological approach. New York: John Wiley and Sons.
Lindsey, L. L. (2005). Gender roles: A sociological perspective (4th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.
Lorde, A. (1980). Age, race, class, and sex: Women redefining difference. In A. Kesselman, L. D. McNair, & N. Schniedewind (Eds.), Women: Images, realities, a multicultural anthology (4th ed., pp. 454–458). New York: McGraw-Hill.
Massey, D. S. (2007). Categorically unequal: The American stratification system. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
Mealey, L. (2000). Sex differences: Development and evolutionary strategies. San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
Newman, D. M. (2007). Identities and inequalities: Exploring the intersections of race, class, gender, and sexuality. New York: McGraw-Hill.
O’Toole, A. J., & Peterson, J. (1996). An ‘other-race effect’ for categorizing faces by sex. Perception, 25, 669–676.
Oyewumi, O. (1998). De-confounding gender: Feminist theorizing and western culture, a comment on Hawkesworth’s ‘confounding gender’. Signs, 23(4), 1049–1062.
Ridgeway, C. L. (2009). Framed before we know it: How gender shapes social relations. Gender and Society, 23(2), 145–160.
Ridgeway, C. L., & Correll, S. J. (2004). Unpacking the gender system: A theoretical perspective on gender beliefs and social relations. Gender and Society, 18(4), 510–531.
Risman, B. J. (2004). Gender as a social structure: Theory wrestling with activism. Gender and Society, 18(4), 429–450.
Roberts, T., & Bruce, V. (1988). Feature saliency in judging the sex and familiarity of faces. Perception, 17, 475–481.
Russell, R. (2009). A sex difference in facial contrast and its exaggeration by cosmetics. Perception, 38, 1211–1219.
Schyns, P. G., Bonnar, L., & Gosselin, F. (2002). Show me the features! Understanding recognition from the use of visual information. Psychological Science, 13(5), 402–409.
Stangor, C., Lynch, L., Duan, C., & Glass, B. (1992). Categorization of individuals on the basis of multiple social features. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 62(2), 207–218.
Stephan, I. D., & McKeegan, A. M. (2010). Lip colour affects perceived sex typicality and attractiveness of human faces. Perception, 39, 1104–1110.
West, C., & Fenstermaker, S. (1995). Doing difference. Gender and Society, 9(1), 8–37.
West, C., & Zimmerman, D. H. (1987). Doing gender. Gender and Society, 1(2), 125–151.
Yamaguchi, M. K., Hirukawa, T., & Kanazawa, S. (1995). Judgement of gender through facial parts. Perception, 24, 563–575.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Simpkins, J. Seeing White Men: Bias in Gender Categorization. Gend. Issues 31, 21–33 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12147-014-9116-z
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12147-014-9116-z