The literature review was obtained after searching, reading, organizing, and analyzing 20 different sources. Each source contributed to different ideas, which were combined to come up with the literature review. The procedure which led to the literature review encompassed six stages, which include the following:
- Identifying the topic.
- Locating relevant sources.
- Reading literature from the located sources.
- Analyzing the literature.
- Assembling and organizing the literature.
- The writing of a literature review
1.2 Literature review
There are many differences between males and females in society, beginning with the personality traits, level of education, the number of each gender in leadership, and each gender’s earnings in a particular job group (Baptist, & Coburn, 2019). On personality traits, men are considered as leaders, assertive, dominant, and easily make decisions. On the other hand, women are considered to be cheerful, affectionate, love children, and sympathetic. These traits are so different from the other and lead to men being considered more powerful than women (Dresden et al., 2018). Considering the men’s behavior towards women, they tend to be more implicit biased compared to women towards men. This is probably because men are considered better than women in gender identity. According to the literature on literacy globally, males are more literate than women, and the gap is more expansive in low-income countries than high-income countries. This shows that males are more considered to pursue education than females. The implicit biasness on gender in this perspective is that men are more valuable when it comes to education than women (Gvozdanović & Maes, 2018). Society considers the male child as special than a female child, specifically in low-income countries.
On considering the workforce, men also dominate the leadership positions compared to females. In the United Kingdom, the percentage of women in the representative committee in 2019 was 18.6%, while 29.5% in the direct reports (Bain, 2020). This percentage is small compared to that of males chosen to attend such committees and direct reporters. In the House of Commons, 220 seats are held by women out of 650 seats and 213 out of 775 seats in the House of Lords. This is a percentage of 33.8% and 27.5%, respectively, showing a massive gap in the leadership positions (Dunham, Baron, & Banaji, 2016). The pay gap for the full-time workers in the United Kingdom remains at 8.9%, with men getting more than women at respective levels.
Implicit gender bias of males towards females can be categorized into three that is as blatant sexism, subtle sexism, and covert sexism (Shinbrot et al. 2019). Blatant is the unequal and unfair treatment of females to males, which is obvious. Covert sexism refers to women’s unfair treatment, which can be recognized, but it is hidden just as blatant. The research on subtle sexism shows that women face many challenges in life due to their gender (Bain, 2017). Men view women as aggressive and bitter naturally, thus not fit for leadership roles, which are depicted by men’s high wages than women (Jackson, 2020). However, women all over the world have risen to fight for equal rights and treatment. Many negative connotations about women are said, thus giving men a priority even in communication. In a meeting, it has been observed that men are interfered with by men as they deliver their opinions compared to men. Women’s views are less considered than those of males in meetings, which is great being fought by feminists of this era (Wu et al. 2017). They argue that females deserve the right to speak their views without interruption in organizational meetings, aiming to improve such businesses’ status.
The expectations of women on marriage and raising children are too many as compared to those of men. The difference in such cases occurs when men have the freedom to live a single life while not the same case for females (Hanson & Richards, 2017). According to the research, most men leave the burden to their wives to take care of children in their daily life. A single lady will receive ill-treatment in society compared to a male and is likely to be insulted sexually. To women, marriage is an excellent achievement than to men who leave a free life without being questioned (Dehnad, & Hosseini Fatemi, 2016). A huge percentage of men give women a burden to be submissive to them and not interrupt them in their speech (Szczuka & Krämer, 2017). More office work for females is housework than their male counterparts, including fetching coffee and planning for holidays (Hanson, & Richards, 2017). It is not funny to find women who have senior jobs even more than some males in an organization being given a role to plan for parties and holidays. Most men consider this as usual, but these duties weaken them from pursuing their dream careers for females.
The housework assignments given to females in organizations are, in most cases, not paid for and considered as their duty. In some organizations, females have to spend most of their time planning for organizational events, unlike their male counterparts (Lewis, 2018). In meetings, females are given note taking work while their male opts to discuss their ideas for the organizations’ sake. Through this, females don’t get time to give their views on the conversation but note down what has been said by their male colleagues (David, & Derthick, 2017). Women lose many opportunities doing duties that do not belong to them and fail to contribute to meetings. Feminists today are championing such discriminations, and their voices are somehow being heard. Many organizations fighting for females’ rights have brought attention to the males on such unfairness in organizations. Perhaps, things have started to change nowadays, and such issues are brought about by these organizations valued by most businesses (Jackson, 2020).
Women who express anger in group discussions are ignored, unlike their counterparts who prioritize expressing their ideas in whatever manner and being listened to. In some instances, men who display their anger are considered brave, and their emotions are considered while the female counterparts are considered irrespective. Men even yell in meetings as they want their points to be considered, unlike women who can even be punished for such behavior in some organizations (Gvozdanović & Maes, 2018). To a man expressing one’s frustrations about something in a meeting or public list is considered charming, while for females, it is just viewed as being controlled by hormones. Females trying to express their emotions are easily ignored and advised to calm down, which is not fair (Lewis, 2018). The feminists of this error have a big fight ahead on this issue as it is prevalent in most places in the world.
The main reason why most women don’t pursue science-related careers may be due to micro-aggressions they face in their daily interactions with men. Women face difficulties expressing their ideas and are considered generally weak by men (David & Derthick, 2017). According to the study, it is familiar to find phrases like ‘man up’ in conversations, which shows that men are considered more superior than women. For them to undertake difficult courses, they have to behave like real men. Many females in society find it difficult to make some careers associated with their male counterparts (Carroll, 2019).
In most cases, men do this without any intention to hurt the female gender, and they feel right according to societal expectations. According to the observations, men are considered safer than women (Hanson & Richards, 2017). Most criminal acts are associated with males than females; thus, men are considered insecure, as in many cases, they are most targeted by male criminals. Females are considered weak, making thieves consider them as their easy prey than males (Ghosh et al., 2019).
The safety of females is in danger compared to that of males, which has been considered a natural situation (Serio, 2016). When it gets late in the night, and some women have not yet arrived at their homes, females are terrified and feel more insecure. Sometimes they rely on men to drive them home in such late hours and cannot let such men leave until they open their doors and lock from inside (Sattari, & Sandefur, 2019). Society has considered women as been insecure to a point where females have accepted the situation. Implicit biasness of males in society is too much, and the percentages of males who do not practice it are few; it is not intentional but considered obvious.
1.3 Conclusion
The review shows many men’s occurrences showing implicit bias towards women; thus, it is obvious that the numbers of men who have negative thoughts towards women without realizing are many. The importance of learning such a mistake is likely to create a sense among men, thus changing their negative attitude towards women (Thomas, 2017). Such social constructions in the male gender’s minds need to be changed by creating awareness of the female gender’s true expectations. The feminists in the society today and women organizations have to continue pushing for change, and they are likely to win. According to the research, the feminists’ attempt in society today has created some alarm on the implicit bias of men’s gender; thus, and some positive change has been achieved (Clay-Robison et al., 2020). There is a need for the women to push this agenda through the media and advocate for fair treatment in the wage allocation, education, and perception of housekeepers even in offices. If the efforts seen before will increase, the percentage of implicit men towards women will decrease, and a solution will be sought. Even men who have realized such mistakes towards women should champion fair treatment towards women in society, especially in countries with a lower economy where the impact is worse (Bain, 2017). Encouraging women to campaign for posts in the government will also boost men’s view towards them in society. The governments should allocate positions in the government that should not be contested by men to encourage women to take leadership roles in society. Women need to explore their leadership potential and prove men wrong through their politics and science education performance.
CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY
Most psychological research methods can be obtained from surveying by enquiring information from those involved or referring to the archived data from different sources. In the research proposed, men are the targeted subject to test their implicit bias towards women. The choice of the research methodology chosen for the research was based on considering certain factors from identifying the problem, review of associated literature, hypothesis, aims, and research objectives. Since the research aims to find the percentage of biased adult men towards women, it was crucial to guide the correct method to collect preferred data that can be evaluated to give the desired results. The information provided by the review acted as the guideline toward the method of data analysis required for the best results to be obtained.
1.0 Background
Reflexivity
Over the last two decades, the percentage of implicitly biased men towards women tends to have decreased. However, the percentage is still high, and around 90% of the men worldwide are gender-biased, according to the study in the last five years. Such bias has become the norm in society, which has created differences in most men’s mindsets. In my perspective, the percentage is decreasing with reasons that many organizations fighting for women’s rights and individual feminists have emerged. There is an improvement in the education sector, especially in the USA and the United Kingdom. The education gap is decreasing compared to five years ago, and more women are emerging to lead businesses successfully. However, the number of women in parliament remains lower than those of males.
The research is expected to employ different research methods to develop the best results of data, which can be relied on to know the percentage of implicit bias males on women. The case study design method was chosen as the best method for retrieving enough data for this research. Through the experiment, it was observed that the other factors were kept constant; the best results which can produce an accurate result after analysis would be obtained. The chosen design relies on social sciences to examine real-life situations, such as implicit bias, that our research is all about. This design will be easier to know by what percentage men show implicit bias towards women since the problem still exists in contemporary society. The design is very specific to its objective, and the cause of men’s displayed behavior towards women will not be considered in this case.
1.1 Purpose statement
Due to the increased number of men in jobs than women, more male scientists than women, a wide gap in education between men and women, and more men in power than women, men’s implicit bias towards women tends to be higher and needs to be investigated. The assignments given to women that do not belong to their careers are also an aspect indicating unfairness towards women.
1.2 Data collection
The research data was collected through a questionnaire that contained closed-ended questions concerning the men’s perspectives towards women in leadership and the behavior they expect from women. This data collection method was thought as it will not be easier for the men to recognize the target result, and they will be open, to tell the truth, according to their perspectives. The data collection is expected to be carried out by men and not a woman to ensure that men will say what they think is correct about without any influence. In this case, women are considered to influence men towards giving incorrect information about their perspectives, and suspicion will be high. The targeted number of men to be interviewed is fifty, and the targeted places are in organizations and local businesses.
It was considered that for the best results to be obtained, the questions in the questionnaire should be mixed up with an explicit gender-based bias to ensure no suspicion will be encountered. The data collected will be primary and will produce a logical study on men’s implicit bias towards women. This required set of data is chosen because the new knowledge on the percentage of implicit bias males is expected. The use of questionnaires was chosen due to its advantages, especially when offered in a printed format. First, it produces quantitative data at a very low cost, and it is easy to administer, and the results will be obtained quickly. Since we target to examine many men, the use of a questionnaire will be the best.
1.4 Limitations of this method of data collection
- Dishonest answers can be obtained.
- Some of the questions may not be answered.
- Emotional feelings cannot be noted.
- The respondents may have other hidden agendas apart from the intended one.
1.5 Apparatus and materials
The study is purposed to utilize the survey monkey website and accessible to the targeted people through their smartphones, computers, or tablets. The main reason that contributed to the choice is that the number of respondents is high. Through smartphones, which many of the targeted people have, it will be easier for them to complete the survey and the questionnaire online. The participants will be informed about the importance of the survey and be encouraged to participate. The data that will have been obtained will be kept secure by the Monkey website, a secure and confidential website trusted; thus, it could not be manipulated.
1.6 Participants
The participants will be adult men working in different organizations and local businesses to provide information on the research. Their selection is because they are believed to have interacted with many women at work and back at their homes. Their expected behavior on women in leadership and their views on women’s general contact will be questioned; thus, the results are expected to depend. The respondents to the questionnaire, which will be availed to them on their phones by the monkey website, will provide their answers to the web where we will be able to trace it. Are expected to be of different levels of working categories in different organizations and local businesses.
The study targets fifty men who will be chosen randomly to answer survey questions, which will utilize Likert-scale. With answers, out of the fifty men who will be chosen randomly from different businesses, 25 men will be selected to answer a questionnaire that will utilize the Survey monkey website.
1.7 Data analysis
The data analysis will be through the Monkey website, which will be expected to formulate all the calculations assets. After all the questionnaires were answered and collected, the data was analyzed by considering the ‘True’ response in each questionnaire paper. Only the questions which targeted implicit bias were considered, and the others ignored as they were used to control the data collection process. The score obtained was by each male for the implicit bias questions were recorded, and the average score was computed. Each questionnaire’s questions were 20, and only 15 out of the total questions targeted implicit bias in men towards women. Questions 4, 8, 14, 16, and 20 do not respond to implicit bias and will be ignored in the final calculations. Each individual’s score was added together and divided by 50, the total number of those who responded to the questionnaire. This average out of the initial number of questions for implicit bias is 15, and the percentage was obtained by multiplying the results by 100.
1.8 Ethical concerns
The ethical concerns considered to ensure that the data is obtained without any interruption include avoiding confrontation. The questionnaire can be answered genuinely without considering who requires the data and why the data is required. Only their perspective on women was to be fed on paper, which is very simple to them. Setting closed-ended questions also played an ethical role as it has no complications in explaining the answer. The questionnaire set also considered some ethics by ensuring they do not offend anyone answering them. They are transparent and straightforward questions which cannot annoy anyone through any means. Seeking permission from the authorities in different organizations will be a significant consideration to ensure we follow our data’s legal process.
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