{"id":34920,"date":"2026-10-14T10:34:04","date_gmt":"2026-10-14T14:34:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/?p=34920"},"modified":"2026-10-14T09:02:16","modified_gmt":"2026-10-14T13:02:16","slug":"new-study-finds-gendered-messaging-can-backfire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/2026\/10\/new-study-finds-gendered-messaging-can-backfire\/","title":{"rendered":"New study finds gendered messaging can backfire"},"content":{"rendered":"

Campaigns and initiatives aimed at advancing equity<\/strong> for girls and women often reference gender\u2014\u201cThe future is female\u201d or \u201cFight like a girl,\u201d for instance. However, is such messaging effective in championing their abilities and in inspiring others?<\/p>\n

A new study by a team of psychology researchers suggests it\u2019s no<\/strong>t. It shows that messages referencing gender in trumpeting female accomplishments in an activity can actually diminish perceptions of girls\u2019 and women\u2019s abilities\u2014among children and adults of both genders. Moreover, these messages appear to reduce interest in participating in the activity itself.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile often well-meaning, gendered messaging does not always promote more positive perceptions of women or girls\u2014in fact, it can backfire, as our research shows,\u201d says April Bailey, a faculty member at the University of Edinburgh and the lead author of the paper<\/a>, which appears in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis doesn\u2019t mean we shouldn\u2019t celebrate women\u2019s achievements\u2014visibility still matters,\u201d adds Andrei Cimpian, a psychology professor at New York University and the paper\u2019s senior author. \u201cWhat\u2019s counterproductive is highlighting women\u2019s gender as the reason for celebration.\u201d<\/p>\n

The thinking behind gendered messaging\u2014such as \u201cSpace4Women,\u201d \u201cWomen\u2019s Chess Champion,\u201d or \u201cCoding for Girls\u201d\u2014is that mentioning gender sends a positive message because it shows that girls and women are active and successful in a field. However, it\u2019s possible that it can have the opposite effect: By specifically pointing out someone\u2019s gender, a message may suggest that girls or women are unusual or unexpected in that role\u2014if females were seen as a normal part of the field, why mention their gender at all?<\/p>\n

Bailey, Cimpian, and Maya Kreitman, a doctoral student in clinical psychology at the Chicago School, conducted a series of experiments to test these ideas.<\/p>\n

How the study was conducted<\/strong><\/p>\n

The researchers asked more than 1,100 children and adults in the United States to read about made-up activities. Some participants saw descriptions that highlighted gender, such as, \u201cA girl is the Gazzer champion,\u201d while others saw the same information without mentioning gender, using a name instead, such as, \u201cJoan is the Gazzer champion.\u201d The researchers used fictional terms, such as \u201cGazzer,\u201d in order to ensure that participants had no prior beliefs about who typically does the activity or how well. Any differences between the two groups, then, could only come from the way the activity was described.<\/p>\n

In some experiments, the researchers substituted fictional groups (i.e., \u201cDaxes\u201d) for gender. This allowed them to determine if messaging about groups in general is problematic or, rather, if it\u2019s messaging about familiar groups (like gender) that can backfire.<\/p>\n

What the researchers found<\/strong><\/p>\n

Overall, the results showed that explicitly mentioning gender often backfired<\/strong>. Compared with using a person\u2019s name, gender-focused descriptions led female and male participants to believe that fewer women took part in the activity. Both female and male adults were also more likely to say that women were less capable in that activity. In addition, those who read the gender-focused descriptions expressed less interest in the activities themselves.<\/p>\n

The researchers found that these effects were stronger in adults than in children, suggesting that adults are more likely<\/strong> to read between the lines\u2014inferring that highlighting gender means someone is unusual in that setting. Notably, the effect disappeared when the messages referred to fictional groups instead of real-world genders, indicating that people\u2019s existing beliefs about women and men play an important role.<\/p>\n

What the findings mean<\/strong><\/p>\n

The findings indicate that efforts to promote gender equality can sometimes have unintended consequences, the authors conclude.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur study shows that subtle communicative inferences can cause well-intentioned gendered messaging to undermine its own goals, and it suggests that, contrary to intuition, gender labels don\u2019t simply add positive information about women\u2019s participation and abilities,\u201d says Cimpian.<\/p>\n

\u201cRather than emphasizing that an achievement is by or for women, it may be more effective to simply show women succeeding in these fields without making gender the focus,\u201d advises Bailey.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Campaigns and initiatives aimed at advancing equity for girls and women often reference gender\u2014\u201cThe future is female\u201d or \u201cFight like a girl,\u201d for instance. However, is such messaging effective in championing their abilities and in inspiring others? A new study by a team of psychology researchers suggests it\u2019s not. It shows that messages referencing gender… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":34921,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"no","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"off","neve_meta_content_width":70,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[526,367,1219,339,1179,340],"tags":[13,46,25,19,49,62],"class_list":["post-34920","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-behaviour","category-bias","category-gender","category-lifestyle","category-mental-health","category-personality-2","tag-communication","tag-gender","tag-language","tag-learning","tag-mental-health","tag-stress"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34920","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34920"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34920\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34922,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34920\/revisions\/34922"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}