Whose Issue Is It Anyway? The Effects of Leader Gender and Equality Message Framing on Men's and Women's Mobilization Toward Workplace Gender Equality

MANdatory - why men need (and are needed for) gender equality progress

While much progress has been made towards gender equality, diversity and inclusion in the workplace, education and society, recent years have also revealed continuing challenges that slow or halt this progress. To date, the majority of gender equality action has tended to approach gender equality from one side: being focused on the need to remove barriers for girls and women. We argue that this is only half the battle, and that a focus on men is MANdatory, highlighting three key areas: First, we review men's privileged status as being potentially threatened by progress in gender equality, and the effects of these threats for how men engage in gender-equality progress. Second, we highlight how men themselves are victims of restrictive gender roles, and the consequences of this for men's physical and mental health, and for their engagement at work and at home. Third, we review the role of men as allies in the fight for gender equality, and on the factors that impede and may aid in increasing men's involvement. We end with recommendations for work organizations, educational institutions and society at large to reach and involve men as positive agents of social change.

Commitment to inclusion: The importance of collaboration in gender equity work

Despite decades of faculty professional development programs created to prepare women for leadership, gender inequities persist in salary, promotion, and leadership roles. Indeed, men still earn more than women, are more likely than women to hold the rank of professor, and hold the vast majority of positions of power in academic medicine. Institutions demonstrate commitment to their faculty's growth by investing resources, including creating faculty development programs. These programs are essential to help prepare women to lead and navigate the highly matrixed, complex systems of academic medicine. However, data still show that women persistently lag behind men in their career advancement and salary. Clearly, training women to adapt to existing structures and norms alone is not sufficient. To effectively generate organizational change, leaders with power and resources must commit to gender equity. This article describes several efforts by the Office of Faculty in the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine to broaden inclusivity in collaborative work for gender equity. The authors are women and men leaders in the Office of Faculty, which is within the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine dean's office and includes Women in Science and Medicine. Here, we discuss potential methods to advance gender equity using inclusivity based on our institutional experience and on the findings of other studies. Ongoing data collection to evaluate programmatic outcomes in the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine will be reported in the future.

Psychologising meritocracy: A historical account of its many guises

Measured by psychologists, conceived in critical terms, popularised as satire, and exploited by politicians, meritocracy is a dilemmatic concept that has changed its meanings throughout history. Social psychologists have conceptualised and operationalised meritocracy both as an ideology that justifies inequality and as a justice principle based on equity. These two conceptualisations express opposing ideas about the merit of meritocracy and are both freighted ideologically. We document how this dilemma of meritocracy’s merit developed from meritocracy’s inception as a critical concept among UK sociologists in the 1950s to its operationalisation by U.S. and Canadian social psychologists at the end of the 20th century. We highlight the ways in which meritocracy was originally utilised, in part, to critique the measurement of merit via IQ tests, but ironically became a construct that, through its psychologisation, also required measurement. Through the operationalisation of meritocracy, social psychologists obscured the possibility of critiquing meritocracy and missed the opportunity to offer alternatives to a system that has been legitimised by their own work. A social psychology of meritocracy should take into consideration the ideological debate around its meaning and value and the implications of its measurement and study.

Altered patient perceptions and preferences regarding male and female gynecologists: a comparison between 1997 and 2018

PURPOSE

The purpose of this investigation was to explore changes in patient preference regarding gynecologist's gender.

METHODS

Using a standardized questionnaire, distributed in 1997 and 2018, a total of 1000 women were interviewed about preferences in terms of their choice of gynecologist and perceptions regarding gender-dependency of gynecologist's qualifications, strengths and weaknesses. Data was correlated with sociodemographics and possible influencing factors.

RESULTS

Based on their own experience, an increasing majority did not express a preference for their gynecologist's gender (58-71%). However, the minority that still favors one gender demonstrated a significant decrease in preference of male gynecologists (14-5%), while about a quarter still generally prefer treatment by female physicians. Sub-analyses of emotional and technical treatment aspects generally confirm these trends in that more of today's patients are indifferent to their gynecologist's sex and that the remaining minority shifts towards favoring female doctors. If asked to definitely choose between female and male physicians based solely on the aspect of trust a significant change can be noted (69-30%) in favor of female doctors in 2018 as opposed to 1997 when patients were split in this regard (52%/48%). Overall bad personal experience regarding gynecological treatment has significantly decreased (36% reduction).

CONCLUSION

Over the last decades, patient preference and perception of the importance of their gynecologist's gender has changed. While an increasing majority attributes equal competence in emotional, professional and interpersonal aspects to both genders, the remaining proportion of patients demonstrates a significant shift towards favoring female doctors.