Coded by gender

Print by Mariann Hardey. LadyBugs Coming To Get York. Feb 2020.

Job searches are these gender-coded? Yes.

As I write this, I am checking in with a little-known job gender-decoder designed by the brilliant Kat Matfiled @LovedayBrooke and inspired by the work of Danielle Gaucher, Justin Friesen, and Aaron C. Kay - Evidence That Gendered Wording in Job Advertisements Exists and Sustains Gender Inequality.

Gaucher and friends were interested in researching job adverts to analyse the types of words used in job descriptions and role specifications to assess the effect on potential candidates and ask how closely a candidate would feel they align with the role criteria.

Did the candidate 'belong'?  And what types of classification affected the appearance and groupings of words?

If you follow the above link, you can copy and paste job advertisement text to decode by masculine and feminine coded words. You can also have fun and paste in large chunks of 'any text' - I've experimented with advertisements (predominantly masculine), email marketing (feminine), loan reports (masculine), NHS health information (feminine), the Daily Mail (masculine)... Interesting.

The mechanism for analysis here is rather crude. Still, we stereotype with and through language all the time, language is distinctly gender bias, and language endures as one of the most common mechanisms through which sexism and gender discrimination are reproduced.

Gaucher, D., Friesen, J. and Kay, A.C., 2011. Evidence that gendered wording in job advertisements exists and sustains gender inequality. Journal of personality and social psychology, 101(1), p.109.