Undergraduates regard deviation from occupational gender stereotypes as costly for women

Studies from the 1970s have shown deviation from norms defining the gender-appropriateness of occupations to be costly for both women and men. Two hundred thirty undergraduates wrote open-ended stories and rated a stimulus person, Anne or John, who was described at the top of his/her class in medicine or one of four persistently gender-skewed fields: nursing, day care, electrical engineering, and electrician. Across all five occupations, negative imagery in stories about Anne and John in gender-incongruent occupations disappeared. However, when Anne succeeded in the two currently female-incongruent fields, raters treated her as a personal and social deviate by distancing themselves and by denigrating her role behaviors and personal traits, including her femininity. Parallel costs were not found for John nor were Anne's work-related qualities undermined. Undergraduates expect deviation from occupational gender-types in the 1990s to be personally costly for women, but not for men.The authors wish to thank Peggy Braam for her invaluable help with data collection and entry, and Arnold Kahn, John Zipp, Stephanie Riger, Lynne Berendsen, and Patricia Aniakudo. Parts of this paper were presented at the meetings of the Midwestern Psychological Association in Chicago in May 1993 and at the meetings of the American Psychological Association in Los Angeles in August 1994.