Almost 40 years ago, scholars identified a “chilly climate” for women in college classrooms. To examine whether contemporary college classrooms remain “chilly,” we conducted quantitative and qualitative observations in nine classrooms across multiple disciplines at one elite institution. Based on these 95 hours of observation, we discuss three gendered classroom participation patterns. First, on average, men students occupy classroom sonic space 1.6 times as often as women. Men also speak out without raising hands, interrupt, and engage in prolonged conversations during (...) class more than women students. Second, style and tone also differ. Men’s language is assertive, whereas women’s is hesitant and apologetic. Third, professors’ interventions and different structures of classrooms can alter existing gender status hierarchies. Extending Ridgeway’s gender system framework to college classrooms, we discuss how these gendered classroom participation patterns perpetuate gender status hierarchies. We thus argue that the chilly climate is an underexplored mechanism for the stalled gender revolution. (shrink)

Gender representations reproduce and legitimate gender systems. To examine this aspect of the gendered social order, we analyze the representation of males and females in the titles and central characters of 5,618 children’s books published throughout the twentieth century in the United States. Compared to females, males are represented nearly twice as often in titles and 1.6 times as often as central characters. By no measure in any book series are females represented more frequently than males. We argue that these (...) disparities are evidence of symbolic annihilation and have implications for children’s understandings of gender. Nevertheless, important differences in the extent of the disparity are evident by type of character, book series, and time period. Specifically, representations of child central characters are the most equitable and animals the most inequitable; Little Golden Books contain the most unequal representations; and the 1930s-1960s—the period between waves of feminist activism—exhibits greater disparities than earlier and later periods. Examining multiple types of books across a long time period shows that change toward gender equality is uneven, nonlinear, and tied to patterns of feminist activism and backlash throughout the century. (shrink)

Although scholars and media critics have suspected a disconnect between feminist self-identification and attitudes among the U.S. public, little is known empirically about this relationship. This article examines the relationships between feminist self-identification, sociodemographics, political orientation, and a range of gender-related attitudes using data from the 1996 General Society Survey. Results suggest that feminists are most likely to be highly educated, urban women who self-identify as liberals and Democrats. Feminist self-identification significantly relates to views about the impact of the women’s (...) movement and to core causes of gender inequality. It links less well, particularly for women, to more specific causes and attitudes about what should be. This suggests the importance of analyzing clusters of attitudes regarding ideal gender arrangements and of examining and differentiating between other attitude clusters. These findings point to more multifaceted and heterogeneous meanings of feminist identity among the U.S. public than most research acknowledges. (shrink)