Despite the formal endorsement of egalitarian values in Western societies, progress towards genuine gender equality is slow. To a large extent, this is because subtle, often unconscious behavioral mechanisms operate to maintain the traditional gender roles. Building on key feminist and social psychological theories (such as theorizing on ambivalent sexism and objectification theory), my research seeks to unravel the operation of these mechanisms.

To illustrate, in one research project we found that the endorsement of the prescriptive norm that women should devote considerable resources to maintaining an attractive appearance (thus complying with their traditional role as “the fairer sex”) increases when women try to occupy powerful, traditionally masculine professional positions. In other words, the “beauty tax” imposed on women reflects a backlash response.

In another research project, we found that benevolent sexism (a chivalrous ideology that idealizes women yet restricts them to traditional roles) leads men and women to engage in dependency-oriented helping relations within cross-gender interactions. That is, to seek and provide the type of help that perpetuates women’s role as dependent in traditionally masculine domains (e.g., math) and men's role as dependent in traditionally feminine domains (e.g., housekeeping and child rearing). On the optimistic side, a third research project has identified strategies to reduce women’s experience of stereotype threat and thus improve their performance in STEM fields (science, technology, engineering and math).

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You can read about these and additional projects below.