Gender and the ritual of the door

Abstract

A field experiment was conducted on a large university campus to determine whether the gender roles traditionally associated with door-opening are still in force, despite students' consciousness of their patriarchal implications. A total of 396 observations, made by 22 student—observers, indicated that the traditional roles are still viable. Men were twice as likely as women to hold the door open for a stranger, but both male and female subjects were more likely to ignore than to hold the door open for a man. Women were four times as likely as men to have the door held open for them, and six times as likely if they were wearing “feminine” clothing. Men and women handicapped by a load of books or papers were about twice as likely as others to have the door held open, provided the subject was of the opposite sex, but subjects' behavior was affected much more by the gender of both parties than by whatever humanitarian values may have been evoked in an encounter with someone too encumbered to open the door for herself or himself.