The Perpetuation of Gender Inequality Through Costly Gender Congruent Choices

Classic theories of gender inequality focus on women’s experiences to understand processes in play (e.g. backlash, glass ceiling). We considered how men’s reluctance to act in ways that may be perceived as feminine could be an unexplored mechanism through which gender inequality is perpetuated. Studies 1 and 2 demonstrated the existence of an asymmetry in how men and women approach gender incongruence in self-expressive contexts. Results...