Examining Differences Between Mandarin Chinese and English Speakers in Gender Stereotype Regarding Daily Life Activities

The terms gender and sex in both western and Chinese culture, and professional area, seems complex and sometimes confusing. Previous studies have examined gender expectation within (Kroska, 2003) and across (Baxter, 1997; Zhou, Dawson, Herr, & Stukas, 2004) cultures, and many have focused on traits of different genders, especially Bem’s (1974) measurement which has been widely discussed. In order to explore the difference between Mandarin Chinese and English speakers on gender stereotype, an online survey with English and simplified Chinese language version was conducted. Twenty-one daily life activities were examined in this survey to measure gender stereotype. Data was mainly collected from American and Chinese social media, and from advertisements at some universities in both countries. The results show that English speakers had a lower variance of scores on gender expectations according to the twenty-one daily life activities than Chinese speakers did, suggesting Chinese speakers hold stronger gender stereotypes. There was no effect for sex at birth and no interaction between language and sex. Future studies could examine other differences in beliefs about gender stereotype that may occur between cultures