Stereotypes of Working Women: the Power of Expectations

The article considers the normative dimension of female gender stereotypes, underscoring the prescriptive and self-prescriptive power they contain. Particularly highlighted, from the social psychological point of view, is the recurring reproduction (even by women) of expectations of an intra-gender homogeneity based on a traditional female role. Emphasis is put on how this tendency to refuse to recognize intra-gender differences - often evident in job contexts - may contribute to conserving the power imbalances existing between men and women, and to sustaining women's systematic relegation to second place in the workplace. As an example, the article contains some free quotations relating to the qualitative analysis made of women's discursive productions collected in a wider research project on the relation between gender and science. These aspects of stereotypie self- and other-perception - and the social expectations deriving from them - are also discussed in the light of the sociological approach to gender identity, and in their relations to practices and to ongoing social changes. © 2005 SAGE Publications.