Gender Identity and Leader Self-awareness...awareness by integrating the second component of...
Transcript of Gender Identity and Leader Self-awareness...awareness by integrating the second component of...
The School of English and International Studies
Beijing Foreign Studies University, China
Gender Identity and Leader Self-awareness: A Research on Chinese University Female Student Leaders
WANG Yifan
Paper ID : WCWS 2018 A 367
✤ Introduction
Status Quo & Problems
Theoretical Framework
Research Question & Hypotheses
✤ Methodology
Sampling & Participants
Apparatus
Procedure
✤ Results
Survey: Questionnaire
Interview
✤ Discussion
✤ Conclusion
Structure
Introduction
Introduction —Status Quo &Problems
The ratio of male and
female students in Beijing
Foreign Studies University
(BFSU)— 1:3
23%
77%
Male Female
from Data Center of Beijing Foreign Studies University
Introduction —Status Quo &Problems
The ratio of male and
female student leaders in
student organizations of
BFSU— 9:16
36%
64%
Male Female
from Youth League Committee of BFSU
Introduction —Status Quo &Problems
The ratio of male and
female student leaders
(senior-level management)
in student organizations of
BFSU— 4:5
48% 52%
Male Female
from Youth League Committee of BFSU
Introduction —Status Quo &Problems
✤ Women are largely stuck in the middle-level management rank.
Ratio of male and female leaders in senior-level management is 87:17.
When transiting from middle to senior level, the dropping-out percentage of
women in China is 52.88%.
— few women become leaders
— women are holding themselves back in their career
Introduction —Theoretical Framework
✤ Leader Self-awareness Theory: the self-perception towards one’s leadership has great influence on leader behaviors.
Women tend to have less self-awareness why women?
✤ Gender Role Performance Theory: people construct their gender identity
through playing the role given by society.
Leader is not women’s role not internalize leader identity
Introduction —Theoretical Framework
✤ Gender identity: Androgynous Theory
—Bem Sex-Role Inventory
Masculine (High masculine identification)
Feminine (High feminine identification)
Androgynous (High identification with both)
Undifferentiated (Low identification with both)
Example from Masculine Scale
Example from Feminine Scale
from up to down: self-supporting, sticking to ones beliefs, independent, arbitrary
from up to down: enthusiastic, elegant, philoprogenitive, gentle
Introduction —Research Questions & Hypotheses
✤ RQ1: What is the general gender identity type of female student leaders ?
✤ RQ2: What are the relation between leader self-awareness and gender identity ?
✤ RQ3: What are the causes to the relation between leader self-awareness and gender identity?
✤ H1: Female student leaders show higher identification with masculine than feminine.
✤ H2: Female student leaders’ self-awareness are positively correlated to their identification
degree with masculine.
✤ H3: Female student leaders’ self-awareness are negatively correlated to their identification
degree with feminine.
Methodology
Methodology —Procedure
✤ Phase I: Survey
Questionnaire
— Bem Sex-Role Inventory and Multifactor Leadership
Questionnaire
Population
— female student leaders of student organizations affiliated to the
Youth League Committee of BFSU
Snowball Sampling
✤ Phase II: Interview
4 participants were chosen based on gender
identity categories.
Table 1. The Descriptive Statistics of Participants’ Organizations
sex composition
of student leaders
Results
Results —Gender Identity
✤ H 1
✤ Result: Female students
show lower
identification with
masculine than
feminine.
t(49)=-4.245, p < .01
Rejected
Results —Gender Identity
✤ RQ1: What is the type?
✤ Result:
Androgynous
Undifferentiated
Non-sex-typed Categories
Results —Gender Identity & Leader Self-awareness
✤ H2
✤ Result:
r(50) = .424, p< .01
moderate
positive
correlation
✤ H3
✤ Result:
r(50) = .43, p< .01
moderate
positive
correlation
Rejected
Result —Interview
(transcript was translated from Chinese)
✤ Image of
typical leader:
descriptions
agree with
masculine
traits
Participant Description gender
Masculine
(leaders should ) have the ability to give orders, and others will follow them, when
others understand or do things wrong, they will correct them in time.They may
force others to do that, or may not. That’s not limited by gender. (determination,
independence)
both
Feminine I once experienced a monitor, a kind of domineering person. authoritarian female
Androgynous
…they keep decribing a kind of women to me: first you should be elegent, not extremely beautiful… not ugly to be sure. The feeling of contemplation and
steady is important… Like an iceberg, no matter what a good female leader do or
speak, she only shows an aspect of her, and what beneath that is unknown.
female
Undifferentiat
ed
Others don’t really take me as a leader… I think hierarchy is important. The
leader I can think of now is Ma (The androgynous participant), an outgoing and
energetic person. both
Blue for Masculine, Red for Feminine
Result —Interview
(transcript was translated from Chinese)
✤ Image of Ideal
leader:
Androgynous
traits
Participant Description
Masculine Not that arbitrary,having their own ways to achieve their goal. Also be in a
good relationship with superior and subordinate. Again gender is not
important, if you can get things done.
Feminine
First, you should make everyone cooperate with each other without conflicts.
Seound, She or he should have authority. You can just let everyone ignore you and
your orders. Third, you cannot be too rigid and stick to your leader position. You
should have some interactions with your members. Another thing is you should listen
to others opinions. Don’t be stubborn.
Androgynous In my opinion, there are two kinds of leaders. One is a woman who is very
powerful, like Merkel. ,Another kind is the kind of women who work hard and
also clever and outgoing. They have good attitudes and being flexible.
Undifferentiated
An ideal leader is a combine of both genders for me, but it is somehow vague.
You should have what we traditionally require, like authority and power. The
Caring aspect is also important. You should know how to allocate and how to
improve efficiency.
Blue for Masculine, Red for Feminine
Result —Interview
(transcript was translated from Chinese)
✤ Leader
self-awareness
personal ability
encouragement
from parents
personal
interests
Participant Description Factors
Masculine Not quite important, in my department, minster or vice-minister is
not important. As long as you can get things done,I can also
follow your order. It is not that you must follow my instruction. personal ability
Feminine I don’t have the feeling of being a leader, not really… he leader
identity, not quite essential for me…Parents don’t want me to be outstanding as a leader, I means, they never encourage.
no encouragement
from parents
Androgynous
Being a leader is such a enjoyment for me! My mother said that if
you were not good at academy, then being a leader. Being a leader
is significant for me.
My parents had set some models for me since I was young, for
example, Fu Ying*. My parents admire her a lot. My mon keeps
telling me that I looks like her, but I cannot tell where. Just like that,
they keep describing a kind of woman to me.
encouragement from
parents
Undifferentia
ted
Not very important… I feel it is somehow useless, except I met lots of friend in department and got some credits. Personally, I am not
quit interest in being leader.But my family do encourage me to be
leaders ,That’s only a personal interest issue.
personal interests
*Fu Ying: the vice chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of China National People’s Congress
Participant Description factor
Masculine
All my monitors and teachers who in charge of my class were
women.
If a woman can reach such a position, she must be much more
competitive and qualified than the man in the same position. I don’t believe the saying that gender has effects on leadership. But
because most of people always judged female leader unfairly,
women can only be successful by showing both strong and weak.
That’s a way to satisfy the expectations of others.
interaction in
school
social norms
Feminine
If the leader is a boy, others may be more obedient to his instruction,Male leaders always seem more authoritative.
Girls, girls can be more reliable, at lease I felt female leaders are more
reliable.
interaction in
school
social norms
Androgynous
But stronger I showed, less ballots I got. Then my mom told me that it
still took time for people to get used to female leaders. Being too
aggressive or ambitious is not suitable for girls,so she wanted me to
hide my ambition a little bit. So, it is very important for female leaders
to couple hardness with softness.
interaction in
family
social norms
Undifferentiated
It might because the most people I get in touch with are girls. I do feel
gender does not have great influence on people’s leadership at birth, but nurture does count. Like the old-fashioned ideals that women
should return to their family, it might block women’s way.
interaction in
school
social norms
✤ Influence factors
:
school
family
society
— The requirement
of good leadership
styles
— The pressure
from the society
Discussion
Discussion —Gender Role Performance
✤ Gender Role Performance Theory:
play the role given by the society
— p lay the role as leader (male role)
construct gender identity accordingly
— identification with masculine
reinforce the role
— better leader self-awareness
masculine
leader self-awareness
— positive correlated (H2)
feminine (rejected)
leader self-awareness
— negative correlated (H3)
Discussion —Gender Role Performance
✤ Ideal Image of Leader
Having both masculine and
feminine traits
Androgynous role
✤ Gender Role Performance Theory:
play the role given by the society
— play the role as leader (male role)
construct gender identity accordingly
— identification with masculine
reinforce the role
— better leader self-awareness
— identification with both
masculine and feminine
— better leader self-awareness
Discussion —Gender Role Performance
✤ Leader self-awareness
personal lead ing ability
personal interests
family encouragement
✤ Personal Experience
Conclusion
Conclusion —Major Findings
✤ Leader: Androgynous Role
✤ Leader self-awareness is in
positive correlation to the
identification degree of both
masculine and feminine
✤ Leader self-awareness is
influenced by personal
experience
✤ Avoid ing the
stereotype: male role
✤ Encouraging female
students to be leaders
Conclusion —Limitation and Delimitation
✤ Limitation
Within-group feature effect in
BFSU cannot be fully
controlled .
Snowball sampling may cause
community bias.
✤ Delimitation
Sex-typed gender identity
theory is not applied
— avoid vagueness
— correlation stud ies
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