university of sussex phd gender studies

We value your privacy

We use cookies to allow this site to work for you, improve your user experience, and to serve you advertising tailored to your interests. Let us know if you agree to all cookies. You can manage your preferences at any time

Your Privacy

We use cookies, which are small text files placed on your computer, to allow the site to work for you, improve your user experience, to provide us with information about how our site is used, and to deliver personalised ads which help fund our work and deliver our service to you for free.

The information does not usually directly identify you, but it can give you a more personalised web experience.

You can accept all, or else manage cookies individually. However, blocking some types of cookies may affect your experience of the site and the services we are able to offer.

You can change your cookies preference at any time by visiting our Cookies Notice page. Please remember to clear your browsing data and cookies when you change your cookies preferences. This will remove all cookies previously placed on your browser.

For more detailed information about the cookies we use, or how to clear your browser cookies data see our Cookies Notice

Manage consent preferences

These cookies are necessary for the website to function and cannot be switched off in our systems.

They are essential for you to browse the website and use its features.

You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not then work. We can’t identify you from these cookies.

These help us personalise our sites for you by remembering your preferences and settings. They may be set by us or by third party providers, whose services we have added to our pages. If you do not allow these cookies, then these services may not function properly.

These cookies allow us to count visits and see where our traffic comes from, so we can measure and improve the performance of our site. They help us to know which pages are popular and see how visitors move around the site. The cookies cannot directly identify any individual users.

If you do not allow these cookies we will not know when you have visited our site and will not be able to improve its performance for you.

These cookies may be set through our site by social media services or our advertising partners. Social media cookies enable you to share our content with your friends and networks. They can track your browser across other sites and build up a profile of your interests. If you do not allow these cookies you may not be able to see or use the content sharing tools.

Advertising cookies may be used to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but work by uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will still see ads, but they won’t be tailored to your interests.

Personalise what you see on this page.

• United States

LOOKING FOR

• Undergraduate courses
• Postgraduate courses
• CHOOSE ONE OR MORE

Popular universities

• University of Kent
• University of East Anglia UEA
• University of Chester
• Coventry University
• University of Aberdeen
• University of Portmouth
• Nottingham Trent University
• University of Sunderland
• London Metropolitan University
• London South Bank University
• University of East London
• BROWSE ALL UNIVERSITIES

Course search

Popular undergraduate courses.

• Computer Science
• LLB Bachelor of Laws
• Biomedical Sciences
• Physiotherapy
• Sports Science

Open days search

Upcoming open days.

• BIMM University
• University of Bedfordshire
• Edge Hill University
• Ravensbourne University London

Article search

Popular topics.

• League tables
• Choosing what to study
• Financing your studies
• Choosing where to study
• Career prospects

Popular articles

• How to use the league tables
• Helping you decide where and what to study
• Why use our university league tables?
• Types of degrees in the UK
• How to revise for exams: Top tips
• BROWSE ALL ADVICE

Gender Studies (Humanities) PhD University of Sussex

Course options

Qualification.

PhD/DPhil - Doctor of Philosophy

University of Sussex

SEP-24, JAN-25, APR-25

• TUITION FEES
• ENTRY REQUIREMENT
• UNIVERSITY INFO

Course summary

Sussex has a long-established reputation for research excellence in the broad field of gender studies. From trans-activism to pro-anorexia websites and from LGBTQ family-making to homonationalism - our postgraduate students are engaged in cutting-edge research.

Areas of Study

On the humanities route in Gender Studies, you can explore cultural, social and political approaches to the field. Our expert faculty offer guidance and supervision for a wide range of research projects, including:

• identities and subcultures
• the cultural politics of representation
• cultural geographies
• digital media
• LGBT and queer studies
• gender and cultural forms.

For a PhD, your research work makes a substantial original contribution to knowledge or understanding in your chosen field.

Tuition fees

• Afghanistan
• Antigua & Barbuda
• Bosnia and Herzegovina
• Burkina Faso
• Central African Republic
• Congo (Democratic Republic)
• Czech Republic
• Dominican Republic
• El Salvador
• Equatorial Guinea
• Guinea-Bissau
• Ivory Coast
• Korea DPR (North Korea)
• Liechtenstein
• Marshall Islands
• Netherlands
• New Zealand
• Northern Ireland
• Palestinian Authority
• Papua New Guinea
• Philippines
• Puerto Rico
• Republic of Ireland
• Sao Tome and Principe
• Saudi Arabia
• Sierra Leone
• Solomon Islands
• South Africa
• South Korea
• South Sudan
• St. Kitts & Nevis
• Switzerland
• Trinidad & Tobago
• Turkmenistan
• United Kingdom
• Vatican City
• Western Samoa

£ 21,500 per year

Tuition fees shown are for indicative purposes and may vary. Please check with the institution for most up to date details.

University information

University League Table

Campus address.

University of Sussex, Sussex House, Brighton, Brighton & Hove, BN1 9RH, England

Subject rankings

Subject ranking.

37th out of 101

Entry standards

Graduate prospects

Student satisfaction

Is this page useful?

Sorry about that..., how can we improve it, thanks for your feedback.

Gender Studies

• Key Resources
• Further Support

Black Women Radicals Database

The Black Women Radicals Database (BWRD) historizes and visualizes Black women’s radical political activism in Africa and in the African Diaspora in efforts to build academic, political, and community engagement, dialogue, knowledge production, research, and education about Black women’s significant legacies as socio-political agents of radical change. By housing a database of historical and transnational Black women activists and leaders, the BWRD seeks to overcome the erasure of Black women’s political leadership, organizing, theorizing, and socio-political movement building in Africa and in the African Diaspora that has often been ignored in favor of Black and white cis-heteronormative male charismatic leadership, especially in the field of Black Politics. BWRD serves as a vehicle to center Black women’s historical political memory, scholarship, epistemologies, and leadership in socio-political movements that may not be taught in academia and in community and public spaces. The Database is free for educational use.*

*The BWRD is a continuing project and the current profiles of the activists and leaders in the Database are not completed and are constantly being updated. Moreover, the BWRD will continue to add profiles of historical Black women activists and leaders in Africa and in the African Diaspora. The Black Women Radicals team will be calling for writers who are interested in contributing to the BWRD soon. For questions about the Database and/or if you are interested in contributing to the BWRD, please contact [email protected].

Further relevant guides

• Audio, Film and Image Guide
• Decolonisation and Anti-Racism
• Search Skills
• Sociology Subject Guide

Subject-specific Resources

• Archives of Sexuality & Gender: LGBTQ History and Culture since 1940 This link opens in a new window Presents important aspects of LGBTQ life in the second half of the twentieth century and beyond. Covers experiences not just of the LGBTQ community as a whole, but of individuals of different races, ethnicities, ages, religions, political orientations, and geographical locations that constitute this community.
• Black Women Radicals Database (BWRD) This link opens in a new window Historizes and visualizes Black women’s radical political activism in Africa and in the African Diaspora in efforts to build academic, political, and community engagement, dialogue, knowledge production, research, and education about Black women’s significant legacies as socio-political agents of radical change. By housing a database of historical and transnational Black women activists and leaders, the BWRD seeks to overcome the erasure of Black women’s political leadership, organizing, theorizing, and socio-political movement building in Africa and in the African Diaspora that has often been ignored and may not be taught in academia or public spaces. The Database is free for educational use.
• Gender, Feminism and the British Left, 1944-1991 This link opens in a new window Records of the Communist Party of Great Britain's Womens' Department, the archive shows how certain segments of the CPGB came to embrace some of the concerns of the women's liberation movement, highlighting communist involvement in campaigns related to abortion law, employment rights, and the whole gamut of feminist politics
• History of Feminism This link opens in a new window Access to a collection of primary and secondary source material on the history of feminism in the 19th century, from 1776 to 1928.
• Independent Voices This link opens in a new window A digital collection of alternative press newspapers, magazines and journals from the special collections of academic institutions. Materials produced by feminists, dissident GIs, campus radicals, Native Americans, anti-war activists, Black Power advocates, Hispanics, LGBT activists, the extreme right-wing press and alternative literary magazines during the latter half of the 20th century.
• LGBT Magazine Archive This link opens in a new window Archival runs of many of the most influential, longest-running serial publications covering LGBT interests. Includes the pre-eminent US and UK titles – The Advocate and Gay Times, respectively. Chronicles more than six decades of the history and culture of the LGBT community
• LGBT Thought and Culture This link opens in a new window Contains an online resource hosting books, periodicals, and archival materials documenting LGBT political, social and cultural movements throughout the twentieth century and into the present day.
• Mass Observation Project This link opens in a new window The Mass Observation Project was launched in 1981 by the University of Sussex as a rebirth of the original 1937 Mass Observation. Its founders' aim was to document the social history of Britain by recruiting volunteers to write about their lives and opinions. Still growing, it is one of the most important sources available for qualitative social data in the UK.
• Race Relations in America This link opens in a new window Documenting three pivotal decades in the fight for civil rights, this resource showcases the speeches, reports, surveys and analyses produced by the Race Relations Department’s staff and Institute participants, including Charles S. Johnson, Dr Martin Luther King, Jr., and Thurgood Marshall.
• South Asia Archive This link opens in a new window The South Asia Archive provides an extensive resource for students and scholars across the humanities and social sciences. Focusing on South Asia, the Archive contains both serial and non-serial materials, including reports, rare books, and journal runs from noteworthy, rare publications.
• Women's Magazine Archive This link opens in a new window Contains archives of the foremost titles of consumer magazines aimed at a female readership, including Good Housekeeping and Ladies’ Home Journal, which serve as canonical records of evolving assumptions about gender roles and cultural mores. In combination, the publications cover topics such as family life, home economics, health, careers, fashion, and culture.
• Women's Studies Archive: Women's Issues and Identities This link opens in a new window Access to perspectives on women's experiences from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Historical records from Europe, North and South America, Africa, India, East Asia, and the Pacific Rim with content in English, French, German, and Dutch.
• Women and Social Movements, International This link opens in a new window Women and Social Movements, International is a landmark collection of primary materials. Through the writings of women activists, their personal letters and diaries, and the proceedings of conferences at which pivotal decisions were made, this collection lets you see how women’s social movements shaped much of the events and attitudes that have defined modern life.
• Women and Social Movements, Modern Empires Since 1820 This link opens in a new window Women and Social Movements in Modern Empires since 1820 explores prominent themes in world history since 1820: conquest, colonization, settlement, resistance, and post-coloniality, as told through women’s voices.
• Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600-2000 This link opens in a new window Documents women's activism in public life by bringing together books, images, pamphlets, advice literature, training guides, documents (including primary documents), scholarly essays, commentaries, bibliographies, links to other websites, and other ephemera.

Multidisciplinary Academic Databases

The following databases contain a variety of material, including journal articles, for your specific subject area. The brief descriptions beneath the titles will explain what each hold. To access, click on the title.

• Alexander Street Press Video Collection This link opens in a new window Access to a large number of videos across a wide range of subject areas. The University does not subscribe to all the content within the collection.
• ASSIA Applied Social Sciences Index and Abstracts This link opens in a new window An indexing and abstracting tool covering health, social services, psychology, sociology, economics, politics, race relations and education. Updated monthly, a comprehensive source of social science and health information for the practical and academic professional.
• British Humanities Index (BHI) This link opens in a new window Now known as Humanities Index. An international abstracting and indexing tool for research in the humanities, BHI indexes over 400 internationally respected humanities journals and weekly magazines published in the UK and other English speaking countries, as well as quality newspapers published in the UK.
• Duke University Press Journals Online This link opens in a new window Over thirty periodicals that span a range of disciplines within the humanities and sciences—from East Asian cultural studies to French history, from lesbian and gay studies to mathematics and the history of economic thought, from feminism, culture and media studies to medieval and early modern studies.
• International Bibliography of the Social Sciences (IBSS) This link opens in a new window An online resource for social science and interdisciplinary research. Over 2.5 million bibliographic references to journal articles, books, reviews and selected chapters from 1951.
• JSTOR This link opens in a new window Provides access to more than 12 million journal articles, books, images, and primary sources in 75 disciplines primarily in the humanities and social sciences. Also includes: 34,000 research reports from more than 140 policy institutes on climate change, cybersecurity, energy policy, international relations, terrorism, and various public health issues. Primary sources from important and rare collections from libraries, museums, archives, and historical societies around the world including Global Plants, 19th Century British Pamphlets and Struggles for Freedom: Southern Africa. Thematic collections focusing on emerging areas of research includes Lives of Literature, Security Studies, and Sustainability.
• Kanopy (now via Library Search) This link opens in a new window You can now look for Kanopy films using Library Search. The benefit of this is that it will also search across our other film collections, to make sure that you don't miss out. Simply enter your search terms and select 'Video' from the drop down list at the end of the Library Search bar.
• Project Muse This link opens in a new window High quality humanities, arts, and social sciences journals from scholarly publishers.

Scopus is a multidisciplinary abstract and citation database, which provides access to academic journals, books, conference proceedings, and patents from 1788–present.

Advanced Features: citation analysis, author profiles, journal metrics; data export and analysis, search alerts.

Subjects: Chemistry, Physics, Mathematics and Engineering ; Life and Health Sciences ; Social Sciences, Psychology and Economics ; Biological, Agricultural; Environmental Sciences.

• Web of Science This link opens in a new window Access to the Science Citation Index, Social Sciences Citation Index and Arts & Humanities Citation Index.
• Next: Further Support >>
• Last Updated: May 1, 2024 8:57 AM
• URL: https://guides.lib.sussex.ac.uk/gender_studies

• Log in
• Site search

Gender Studies

Entry requirements.

You should normally have an upper second-class (2.1) undergraduate honours degree or above.

specific requirements

Your qualification should be in a social sciences or humanities subject but other backgrounds will be considered. You may also be considered for the course if you have other professional qualifications or experience of equivalent standing.

Months of entry

Course content.

Discuss contemporary social issues, focusing on gender, feminist and queer theory, and methodology.

This course is ideal for you if you:

• seek to develop an existing research interest
• are in a career in which issues of gender play an important role
• wish to explore a broad range of issues concerning gender.

On this course, you’ll gain a deep understanding of a range of topics, from identity and the social construction of gender to political aspects of gender and feminist research.

In the Centre for Gender Studies, we look at many areas of gender research, nationally and internationally. We are intersectional, trans-inclusive and advocate for sex workers’ rights. You’ll also become part of our active student community through the PhD seminar series ‘NGender’ and strong links with local women’s and LGBT groups.

Qualification, course duration and attendance options

• Campus-based learning is available for this qualification

Course contact details

Clearing Universities & Courses

Clearing advice.

Recommended Clearing Universities

Popular Course Categories

Course Search & Discover

Start the search for your uni. Filter from hundreds of universities based on your preferences.

Search by Type

Search by region.

Recommended Universities

Ravensbourne University London

London (Greater) · 88% Recommended

Swansea University

Wales · 100% Recommended

University of Surrey

South East England · 98% Recommended

Search Open Days

What's new at Uni Compare

University of Roehampton

Study a teaching degree at one of the UK's leading teacher training providers

University of Sussex

Prepare for a digitally advanced workplace with cutting edge Finance Degrees

Ranking Categories

Regional rankings.

More Rankings

Top 100 Universities

Taken from 65,000+ data points from students attending university to help future generations

About our Rankings

Discover university rankings devised from data collected from current students.

Guide Categories

Advice categories, recommended articles, popular statement examples, not sure what to search for, take our quick degree quiz.

Find the ideal uni course for you with our Course Degree Quiz. Get answers in minutes!

Take our full degree quiz

Get more tailored course suggestions with our full Course Degree Quiz and apply with confidence.

Gender Studies (Social Sciences) PhD

Discover more 👀

Learn more about this course.

Course Overview - Gender Studies (Social Sciences) PhD

Explore the social structures and discourses of gender – our expert faculty offer guidance and supervision through a wide range of research projects. You could work on topics such as: - social aspects of gender including work and/or family life - the politics of the body - the construction of gendered discourses, experiences and identities - women’s, feminist and LGBTQ social movements. We understand that deciding where and what to study is a very important decision. We’ll make all reasonable efforts to ... Read more

Explore the social structures and discourses of gender – our expert faculty offer guidance and supervision through a wide range of research projects.<br/><br/>You could work on topics such as:<br/><br/><br/>- social aspects of gender including work and/or family life<br/><br/><br/>- the politics of the body<br/><br/><br/>- the construction of gendered discourses, experiences and identities<br/><br/><br/>- women’s, feminist and LGBTQ social movements.<br/><br/><br/> We understand that deciding where and what to study is a very important decision. We’ll make all reasonable efforts to provide you with the courses, services and facilities described in this prospectus. However, if we need to make material changes, for example due to government or regulatory requirements, or unanticipated staff changes, we’ll let you know as soon as possible.<br/>

Course Information

6 option s available.

Some courses vary and have tailored teaching options, select a course option below.

Course Details

Information

Course Address

Sussex House, Undergraduate Admissions, Falmer, Brighton, BN1 9RH

Application Details

Application deadline

Provider Details

Course Code

Institution Code

Points of Entry

Search undergraduate Courses at University of Sussex

Find more courses from University of Sussex with our undergraduate course search.

undergraduate Universities

Undergraduate uni's.

Ravensbourne

103 courses

Swansea Uni

1319 courses

Uni of Surrey

750 courses

Uni of Portsmouth

761 courses

114 courses

Northeastern Uni

Uni of East London

575 courses

Leeds Beckett Uni

454 courses

Uni of Sunderland

340 courses

Cardiff Met Uni

501 courses

Uni of Brighton

407 courses

Uni for Creative Arts

672 courses

Uni of Chester

645 courses

467 courses

886 courses

Uni of Leicester

432 courses

Heriot-Watt Uni

334 courses

Uni of Westminster

503 courses

Uni of Winchester

259 courses

548 courses

Goldsmiths, UOL

344 courses

Uni of Roehampton

468 courses

Middlesex Uni

634 courses

Staffordshire Uni

472 courses

Uni of Bradford

390 courses

Uni of Hertfordshire

584 courses

West London IoT

Escape Studios

ARU Writtle

104 courses

Kingston Uni

617 courses

Wrexham Uni

289 courses

Uni of Suffolk

186 courses

Uni of Kent

580 courses

Bath Spa Uni

520 courses

Queen's Uni

635 courses

Coventry Uni

480 courses

Uni of Bedfordshire

656 courses

UWE, Bristol

497 courses

Leeds Arts University

Uni of C.Lancashire

798 courses

Uni of Essex

1400 courses

Uni of Huddersfield

668 courses

Uni of Reading

685 courses

709 courses

Anglia Ruskin Uni

808 courses

Edge Hill Uni

383 courses

Uni of Hull

498 courses

Nottingham Trent

912 courses

Cookies on our website

We use some essential cookies to make this website work.

We'd like to set additional cookies to understand how you use our site. And we'd like to serve you some cookies set by other services to show you relevant content.

Centre for Gender Studies

• News and events

Current news

• Community engagement
• People and contacts
• Current events
• Events Archive

Daisy Stewart-Darling, Sussex Digital Humanities Lab & The Living Coast Artist in Residence 2024

By: Elena Dennison

Last updated: Friday, 10 May 2024

Daisy Stewart-Darling, Artist in Residence 2024

Earlier this year the Sussex Digital Humanities Lab teaming up with T he Living Coast , ONCA and Fabrica , invited proposals from early career artists to research, develop and exhibit new work under the theme of Multispecies Flourishing.

Daisy Stewart-Darling was selected amongst a large number of very high-quality proposals from artists across the South East of England. 

We had a chat with Daisy and asked her about her work and plans for this residency.

What being selected for the residency meant to you?

Having this opportunity has been a tangible encouragement for me. I graduated mid 2021 when we were all just emerging from the pandemic. Specifically, as someone who’d been studying a creative subject, finding/ figuring out how to move forward in such a time of uncertainty for the industry was really daunting. 

Between then and now, I picked up labouring and hospitality work to support myself, and continued to self-study and develop my artistic practice as much as I could, while researching into exhibiting sound installations and applying for funds. It has been a really steep learning curve, especially coming from a music tech background where my knowledge of how the art world worked was pretty limited. This also felt quite risky, as the area I’ve been driven to pursue has been centred around sound ecology, a lesser-known area outside academic circles.

“Overall, I'm excited to develop this next stage of exploring the intersection between sound ecology, arts platforms, and plant materiality as a means to build better relationships and understandings between us within our ecosystems.”

I’ve been challenged to trust my instincts and stick to it which has felt like swimming again the tide most the time. Despite all this, each exhibition has led to the next and to the continued development of my artistic identity which seems to be fulfilling the role of connecting people in a meaningful way to the environment, through listening via artistic platforms. So, I’ve kind of been riding that wave. 

It’s meant a lot for me being awarded the SHL Digital & Living Coast Residency . It has come at a time where I feel really equipped from developing my practice, understanding how to connect with people in an arts context, and sharing all the research I’ve been doing into sound and ecology to do a good job and take my work up to the next level. It is such a privilege. 

What do you plan to do?

For this next chapter, I'm building upon previous installations, with the main concept centering around interactive lino pieces of sites of sonic importance from across the biosphere. The concept is inspired by the work of Japan's 100 sites, listed in 1966, which has resulted in these sites being protected until present day through ecotourism/ building a relationship between the public and these environments.

I've found a level of interactivity and invitation to 'play' a really effective form of communicating with people, utilising the arts platform in an accessible way for a diverse audience. My previous work has also been building on integrating lino visuals which people have seemed to respond well to.

Using lino as an interface is also significant. The lino I use is made from plants, notably linseed which is the oldest cultivated plant we have on record. In choosing to work with this material, I hope to further illustrate plants as creative partners, which is relevant when exploring building relationships with the environment in platform non-human voices not only sonically (though the field recordings of these environments used within the sound installations), but also drawing attention to the visible materiality of the work itself. I've also never seen lino used this way, so I'm having fun exploring how to work with it in an innovative new way.   

Daisy’s residency work will be exhibited at ONCA gallery, 14 St George’s Place, Brighton, BN1 4GB, from 19th until Sunday 27th June (1:30pm – 5:30pm).

Back to news list

• Home »
• University of Sussex »
• Sociology »
• Gender Studies

find your perfect postgrad program Search our Database of 30,000 Courses

University of sussex: gender studies, full-time, 1 years starts sep 2024.

Discuss contemporary social issues, focusing on gender, feminist and queer theory, and methodology.

This course is ideal for you if you:

- seek to develop an existing research interest

- are in a career in which issues of gender play an important role

- wish to explore a broad range of issues concerning gender.

On this course, you’ll gain a deep understanding of a range of topics, from identity and the social construction of gender, to political aspects of gender and feminist research.

You’ll benefit from the expertise in the Centre for Gender Studies. We look at many areas of gender research, nationally and internationally. We’re intersectional, trans-inclusive and advocate for sex workers’ rights. You’ll also become part of our active student community, and benefit from our strong links with local women’s and LGBT+ groups.

You’ll study in a lively intellectual environment, giving you the opportunity to network with other students from around the world. The global perspective you’ll gain alongside these networks will be valuable after you graduate.

We understand that deciding where and what to study is a very important decision. We’ll make all reasonable efforts to provide you with the courses, services and facilities described in this prospectus. However, if we need to make material changes, for example due to government or regulatory requirements, or unanticipated staff changes, we’ll let you know as soon as possible.

Part-Time, 2 years starts Sep 2024

Full-time, 1 years started sep 2023, part-time, 2 years started sep 2023.

We are a research-intensive campus university with an excellent international reputation, located within the vibrant seaside city of Brighton & Hove. We welcome spirited students who want to study in a creative and intellectually-challenging environment.

We have been ranked 1 st in the world for Development Studies for seven consecutive years in the QS World University Rankings by Subject 2017-2023 .

Not what you are looking for?

Postgraduate Bursary Opportunity with Postgrad.com

Are you studying as a PG student at the moment or have you recently been accepted on a postgraduate program? Apply now for one of our £2000 PGS bursaries.

Exclusive bursaries Open day alerts Funding advice Application tips Latest PG news

Sign up now!

Take 2 minutes to sign up to PGS student services and reap the benefits…

• The chance to apply for one of our 5 PGS Bursaries worth £2,000 each
• Fantastic scholarship updates
• Latest PG news sent directly to you.

Cookies on our website

We use some essential cookies to make this website work.

We'd like to set additional cookies to understand how you use our site. And we'd like to serve you some cookies set by other services to show you relevant content.

Skip to main content Sussex homepage Staff

• Student Hub
• Current location: News

Feminism Confronts AI: Professor Judy Wajcman SHL Digital Keynote 2024

Posted on behalf of: Sussex Digital Humanities Lab (SHL Digital) Last updated: Thursday, 16 May 2024

Professor Judy Wajcman at Centre de Cultura Contemporania de Barcelona (CCCB)

The Sussex Digital Humanities Lab is delighted to announce Professor Judy Wajcman as this years’ annual keynote taking place on Friday 28 June on campus. 

Register now.

Her talk Feminism Confronts AI: The Gender Relations of Digitalisation will examine the gender relations of digitalisation, with a particular focus on AI as the most contemporary feature of this.  There is increasing recognition that technologies are both a reflection and crystallisation of society, but Professor Wajcman will argue that there is still insufficient focus on the ways in which gendered power relations are embedded in technoscience. This is as much the case with AI as it was with previous waves of technological change.

Professor Judy Wajcman is Emeritus Professor of Sociology at the London School of Economics. Until 2022, she held the Anthony Giddens Chair in Sociology. She is a Fellow at The Alan Turing Institute, where she leads the  Women in Data Science and Artificial Intelligence  research project. She has been a Visiting Professor at the  Oxford Internet Institute  and is a member of the  AI100 Standing Committee . She was President of the Society for Social Studies of Science (2009-2011). In 2013, she was the recipient of the William F. Ogburn Career Achievement Award of the American Sociological Association.

Professor Wajcman has an honorary doctorate from the University of Geneva, and is a Fellow of the British Academy . In 2018, she received the Oxford Internet Institute’s Lifetime Achievement Award ‘in recognition of her contributions to the field of the social study of science and technology'.

This event is open to all and free to attend but registration is necessary. 

Places are limited. Event will start at 4pm, Arts A1. The lecture will be followed by a drinks reception.

Sign up to our mailing list by emailing [email protected] with subject <subscribe> to receive information about our news and events directly in your inbox.

Back to all news

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

• View all journals
• Explore content
• About the journal
• Publish with us
• Sign up for alerts
• 15 May 2024

Neglecting sex and gender in research is a public-health risk

• Sue Haupt 0 ,
• Cheryl Carcel 1 &
• Robyn Norton 2

Sue Haupt is an honorary senior research fellow at Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre in Melbourne, Australia, and a research associate at The George Institute for Global Health, Women’s Health Program, Centre for Sex and Gender Equity in Health and Medicine, University of New South Wales (UNSW) Sydney, Australia.

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Cheryl Carcel is the head of the brain health programme at The George Institute for Global Health UNSW Sydney, Australia.

Robyn Norton is a founding director of The George Institute for Global Health, a professor of public health at UNSW Sydney and chair of global health at Imperial College London, UK.

Illustration: Sophi Gullbrants

You have full access to this article via your institution.

In 2022, clinical trials indicated that a drug called lecanemab could slow cognitive decline in people with Alzheimer’s disease; soon after the results were published, the global Alzheimer’s community heralded lecanemab as a momentous discovery. However, closer inspection of the data by independent investigators revealed that the drug might significantly help men, but not women 1 .

The finding is a reminder that, even though tremendous advances are being made in the clinical application of cutting-edge technologies, such as gene editing and artificial intelligence (AI), there is a remarkable lack of understanding about how many aspects of human health are affected by variables as seemingly basic as sex and gender.

Sex and gender in science

Over the past decade or so, funders and publishers have made extensive efforts to encourage researchers to address the effects of sex and, in human studies, gender where appropriate. Thanks in part to these efforts, more insights are beginning to emerge. For Alzheimer’s and many other diseases that are common causes of death, including cardiovascular diseases, cancer, chronic respiratory conditions and diabetes, a person’s sex and gender can influence their risk of developing the disease, how quickly and accurately they are diagnosed, what treatment they receive and how they fare.

But even for the most-studied conditions, many questions remain. Few investigators have begun to probe the interrelationships between sex and gender , for example. And in cases in which researchers are managing to unpick the multifaceted effects of sex, this knowledge is not being sufficiently incorporated into the design of clinical trials or adequately changing the practice of medicine.

The consideration of sex and, where appropriate, gender in biological research must become routine — especially as molecular genetics, biomedical engineering and AI open up possibilities for treatments that are better tailored to the needs of individuals. Likewise, the culture of medicine must be transformed so that approaches to treatment evolve in response to the data. This will require further engagement from funders and publishers, but action from many other players, too. Pharmaceutical companies and intergovernmental organizations, among others, must acknowledge three things: how sex and gender can have huge effects on health outcomes; how these effects are often disregarded in basic research and clinical trials; and that change can come only through increasing awareness among all stakeholders of the importance of shifting the dial.

Health outcomes affected

In most human clinical records so far, sex is reported by physicians or participants in studies ticking one of two boxes: ‘female’ or ‘male’. In those clinical studies in which data are collected on chromosomes, hormone levels, reproductive anatomy or other sex characteristics, these features will frequently reflect a person’s sex assigned at birth. But this is not always the case. Added to this, sex and gender have often been used interchangeably, but they are not the same and they do not always align. Current definitions of gender include the social, psychological, cultural and behavioural aspects of being a man or woman (whether cisgender or transgender), non-binary or identifying with one or more other evolving terms 2 .

In several countries, new recommendations about how researchers should obtain data on people’s sex and gender should mean that, in the future, investigators will be able to more-accurately probe the roles of both in human health. But in general, there has been incomplete capture of information for sex and gender so far, including for individuals whose sex characteristics and/or gender identities don’t fall into a binary categorization scheme.

Women are more likely to die after a severe heart attack than are men. Credit: Simon Dawson/Reuters

In this article, consistent with much of the published population-wide data, we refer to a woman as someone who identifies with that gender and was assigned female sex at birth (a cis woman), and a man as someone who identifies with that gender and was assigned male sex at birth (a cis man). But we recognize that participants in the studies we describe might not have been asked about both their gender and their sex.

For all sorts of non-communicable diseases, there are differences between men and women in the average age at which they are diagnosed, the average age at which they die and even in their rates of death.

We need more-nuanced approaches to exploring sex and gender in research

Such variations, from the earlier onset of cardiovascular diseases in men to the more frequent occurrence of Alzheimer’s disease in women, might stem from differences in biology, which can affect people’s likelihood of developing a disease and how they respond to treatment. Or these discrepancies might stem from variation in people’s exposure to the environmental factors that trigger the disease, how they manage their condition, how they are treated by carers and so on, all of which can be influenced by a person’s gender. Often, a combination of factors will be at work.

Take heart attacks. Studies conducted over the past decade have revealed extensive sex differences in the expression of certain genes in heart tissue, which in turn affect the type and function of the cells that make up the heart.

Such variation could help to explain why men are likely to have a heart attack for the first time around six years earlier than women — in the United States, at 65.6 years old in men compared with 72 years old in women 3 — and why (in Australia, at least) heart attacks are at least twice as common in men relative to women of comparable ages (see go.nature.com/3qbvrxq ). Likewise, although mechanisms are yet to be fully understood, it is plausible that differences in people’s biology help to explain why women are more likely to experience pain between their shoulder blades, nausea or vomiting and shortness of breath during a heart attack; why men are more likely to experience chest pain and increased sweating; and why women are nearly twice as likely as are men to die after a severe heart attack.

Yet, when it comes to the risk of dying, social and environmental factors — shaped by gender — also seem to be important.

Tobacco consumption increases a person’s risk of having a heart attack, and smoking is much more common among men globally. Worldwide, around 37% of men smoke compared with around 8% of women . Also, in part because health-care professionals and others are more familiar with the heart attack symptoms commonly seen in men, when women have a heart attack, they are more likely to delay seeking help, and carers are often slower to intervene 4 . In fact, in a study of more than 500,000 people who experienced a heart attack and were admitted to hospital in the United Kingdom between 2004 and 2013, women were 37% more likely to receive an incorrect initial diagnosis after a severe heart attack than were men 5 . Even when women tell their physicians that they have chest pain, they are two to three times less likely to be referred to a cardiologist than are men 6 .

A similarly complicated picture has been emerging in relation to strokes 7 — another cardiovascular disease — and, in the past few years, in relation to cancer.

Smoking is more common among men than women globally. Credit: Behrouz Mehri/AFP/Getty

Most cancers that occur in non-reproductive organs develop earlier in men than they do in women. In the United States, oesophageal cancer is 4.5 times more likely to occur and cause death in men than in women, for example, and lung cancers, the most common drivers of cancer-associated deaths worldwide, kill around 40% more men than women 8 .

Just as with heart disease and stroke, some of this variation seems to stem from behavioural differences. Tobacco consumption increases a person’s risk of developing several cancers 7 . For thyroid cancers, however, women are more likely to develop the disease than are men — three times more likely in some places — which suggests that other factors might drive the different rates of this particular cancer in women and men 9 . But tumours typically arise because of problems with cells’ genetic-repair systems, together with inadequate damage clearance, and genetic differences between men and women that affect cancers are beginning to emerge.

Male–female comparisons are powerful in biomedical research — don’t abandon them

Much more research is needed to understand how sex affects the rate at which genes mutate, cells’ capacities to repair and clear damaged DNA, and when genetic damage starts causing disease. Yet research led by one of us (S.H.) on lung adenocarcinoma, the most common type of lung cancer, suggests that women can survive for longer than men after they are diagnosed, in part thanks to cancer-defence genes in women driving more-robust immune responses 10 . X chromosomes encode many genes that are linked to immunity, and women with two X chromosomes might express these genes at higher levels than men with XY chromosomes.

Responses to cancer treatments also differ between men and women. Chemotherapies tend to work better in women than in men. This could be because it can take longer for women’s bodies to clear certain drugs, which could partly explain why women are also 34% more likely than men to experience harmful side effects 11 . Moreover, women with lung cancer typically have better outcomes after surgery, which they undergo more often than men 8 . This is probably due, at least in part, to women having less advanced disease when they are diagnosed than men do 12 . But the generally stronger immune responses in women might also help their recovery 8 .

Too often ignored

Despite these compelling indications that sex and gender matter, when it comes to many diseases that are leading causes of death, many researchers and health practitioners still fail to adequately take sex and gender into account. They might also be influenced by conscious or unconscious bias.

In the case of heart disease, the differences in gene expression and cellular make-up and activity found in men and women’s hearts highlight the need for sex-specific cardiac tissue models, sustained by sex-appropriate vasculature 13 . (Women on average have smaller hearts with narrower vessels compared with men.) Currently, researchers tend to construct heart models using either animal or human cells, but without necessarily ensuring that cells are sourced from individuals of only one sex per model. In fact, identifying sex disparities in basic heart biology is crucial to engineering relevant heart models with stem cells, for example, which investigators are now developing to aid the study of heart disease 13 .

For both heart disease and stroke, because of decades of under-representation of women in clinical trials, many of today’s standard treatments are based on studies of what happens in men who weigh around 70 kilograms. In clinical trials conducted for stroke and heart conditions between 2010 and 2017, women worldwide were under-enrolled relative to the prevalence of these diseases in the general population — by around 20% 14 . There is also significant underfunding of research for many conditions that are more prevalent in women compared with those that are more common in men (see ‘Disparities in health and disease’).

Source: A. A. Mirin J. Womens Health 30 , 956–963 (2021).

Basic research on cancer is similarly riddled with problems. Take the sex of the cell lines that are stored in commercial cell banks, which have been studied for decades and are the source of much of today’s textbook knowledge. For lung cancers, male lines outnumber female lines by two to one. For liver cancers, the ratio is seven to one. Until a few years ago, few researchers studying cancer in cultured cells in the lab even considered the sex of the cells they were studying. Also, the standard media in which cells are grown is frequently supplemented with fetal calf serum from a mixture of male and female calves, and so contains both male and female sex hormones. And phenol red, a dye commonly used to monitor the pH of tissue culture media mimics the hormone oestrogen 8 .

To add to the difficulties, research findings that emerge from the use of these cell lines are often tested in mice of only one sex. The results of these studies are then used to guide human trials that include both men and women participants. And in oncological clinical trials, just as with stroke and heart disease, women are still under-enrolled relative to the burden of disease they experience 7 .

Inclusivity in human trials will ensure the best possible outcomes for all participants, including cis and trans women and men, gender-diverse and intersex people (see ‘Inclusivity in practice’). Studies are showing, for example, that circadian rhythms — which can affect heart function and might impact how drugs are metabolized — differ between men and women 15 . So how might they compare in non-binary or transgender people? Likewise, knowledge about the immune responses of people with atypical numbers of sex chromosomes is likely to be crucial when it comes to the use of immune checkpoint inhibitors and other immune therapies for treating cancer. Those with Klinefelter syndrome, for example, who, similar to cis women, are at a higher risk of developing breast cancer than are cis men, have multiple X chromosomes that are rich in genes involved in the immune response.

Inclusivity in practice

How researchers include diverse groups of people in clinical trials with enough participants to be able to uncover between-group differences is a challenge.

Women represent nearly half of the population, but they are still under-represented in many clinical trials for numerous diseases, even in cases in which disease prevalence for women has been measured. For smaller population groups, such as transgender people, there are not enough data to even know what representative inclusion looks like. In fact, even if participation does reflect the prevalence of disease in the broader population in any one trial, teasing out effects might require combining the results of multiple studies in meta-analyses.

Advisory governing boards for pharmaceutical companies, such as the International Council for Harmonisation of Technical Requirements for Pharmaceuticals for Human Use, funders and regulatory agencies could help with this by ensuring that terminology is adequately and consistently defined, and that populations are properly profiled.

Heightened awareness

Routinely taking sex and gender into account in research and using that knowledge to change health care could benefit billions of people. So what’s needed to make this happen?

Policy changes — such as the US National Institutes of Health’s 2016 call for the inclusion of male and female sexes in studies involving cells, tissues and animals — are crucial. But for many researchers, such calls seem burdensome, especially because studying more than one sex can increase costs. ( Sample sizes might need to be increased to achieve sufficient statistical power when comparing groups.)

Alongside initiatives from funders and publishers, awareness must be built — among students, researchers, clinicians, medical ethics committees, research governance bodies and community groups — of the ramifications of failing to consider sex and gender, and how to correct the problem.

Accounting for sex and gender makes for better science

Efforts led by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) are encouraging. Even though the permeation of knowledge from research to health care has been glacial, between 2011 and 2019, the proportion of all research grant applications submitted to the CIHR that took sex into consideration increased from around 22% to 83%. Gender as a variable is now also included in many of the human studies funded by the CIHR .

Several initiatives have contributed to this. As an example, as well as asking grant applicants to include a section in their research proposals on whether they are considering sex and gender and how they will do so, or why this is not considered applicable, the CIHR has provided training for scientists and organized workshops involving researchers and specialists in sex and gender. Applicants are more likely to receive funding if they provide a satisfactory rationale for their choices.

Convincing people in leadership roles — in governments, laboratories, medical ethics boards, education and so on — of the importance of including sex and gender in research is especially crucial. More studies demonstrating the financial costs of not doing so could help. Between 1997 and 2000, for instance, eight prescription drugs were retracted from the US market because inadequate clinical testing in women had failed to identify that the drugs put women at greater risk of developing health problems than men. This error cost pharmaceutical companies and taxpayers an estimated US$1.6 billion per drug 16 .

The scale of transformation needed will also require more engagement from global players.

Even as far back as 2007, the 60th World Health Assembly — the decision-making body of the World Health Organization (WHO) — passed a resolution to urge researchers to split their data according to sex and to include gender analyses where appropriate. Steps to improve care for transgender people or those with diverse genders are also starting to be taken; in December last year, the WHO established a Guideline Development Group, to provide recommendations on how to address the health of transgender and gender-diverse people . But more extensive efforts, comparable to all United Nations member states committing to target 5.b of the 2015 Sustainable Development Goals by 2030, will be crucial. (This target is to “enhance the use of enabling technology, in particular information and communications technology, to promote the empowerment of women”.)

Lastly, under the guidance of regulatory bodies such as the European Medicines Agency and the scientific entrepreneur community, the pharmaceutical industry must do more to ensure that preclinical work is robust, and that products are tested on enough people of different sexes and genders. Many leading pharmaceutical companies acknowledge on their websites the importance of including diverse groups in clinical trials , but evidence of actions to address the issue is only just emerging.

Awareness of the problems around sex and gender is growing fast. And although many are concerned that medical applications of AI will perpetuate already existing biases 17 , promising developments are emerging in the use of machine learning to make diagnoses that are appropriate for people’s sex and gender.

For decades, for instance, physicians worldwide have been determining whether a person has had a heart attack by using the Global Registry of Acute Coronary Events (GRACE) score, which was derived from trials mainly involving men. In 2022, the application of machine learning to data that had been split for men and women refined the predictors for women. And these revised predictors did a better job of matching individuals to appropriate interventions 18 .

Greater awareness, the wealth of data now emerging and the possibilities presented by new tools, from AI to gene editing, could mean a new era for research and medicine.

Nature 629 , 527-530 (2024)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-01372-2

Buckley, R. F., Gong, J. & Woodward, M. JAMA Neurol . 80 , 769–770 (2023).

Article   PubMed   Google Scholar  

Mauvais-Jarvis, F. et al. Lancet 396 , 565–582 (2020).

Benjamin, E. J. et al. Circulation 137 , e67–e492 (2018).

Stehli, J. et al. J. Am. Heart Assoc . 10 , e019938 (2021).

Wu, J. et al. Eur. Heart J. Acute Cardiovasc. Care 7 , 139–148 (2018).

Clerc Liaudat, C. et al. Womens Health https://doi.org/10.1177/1745506518805641 (2018).

Article   Google Scholar  

Carcel, C. et al. Nature Med. 30 , 51–60 (2024).

Haupt, S., Caramia, F., Klein, S. L., Rubin, J. B. & Haupt, Y. Nature Rev. Cancer 21 , 393–407 (2021).

Kim, J., Gosnell, J. E. & Roman, S. A. Nature Rev. Endocrinol. 16 , 17–29 (2020).

Freudenstein, D. et al. Cancers 12 , 1535 (2020).

Unger, J. M. et al. J. Clin. Oncol. 40 , 1474–1486 (2022).

Stabellini, N. et al. JTO Clin. Res. Rep. 3 , 100307 (2022).

PubMed   Google Scholar  

Lock, R. et al. Nature Rev. Mater. 7 , 295–313 (2022).

Jin, X. et al. Circulation 141 , 540–548 (2020).

Lévi, F. A., Okyar, A., Hadadi, E., Innominato, P. F. & Ballesta, A. Annu. Rev. Pharmacol. Toxicol. 64 , 89–114 (2024).

Wouters, O. J., McKee, M. & Luyten, J. JAMA 323 , 844–853 (2020).

Cirillo, D. et al. npj Digit. Med. 3 , 81 (2020).

Wenzl, F. A. et al. Lancet 400 , 744–756 (2022).

Download references

Reprints and permissions

Competing Interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

Related Articles

Podcast: Sex and gender discussions don't need to be toxic

Let’s talk about (biological) sex

• Public health
• Medical research

Interpersonal therapy can be an effective tool against the devastating effects of loneliness

Correspondence 14 MAY 24

Inequality is bad — but that doesn’t mean the rich are

Is the Internet bad for you? Huge study reveals surprise effect on well-being

News 12 MAY 24

Could bird flu in cows lead to a human outbreak? Slow response worries scientists

News 17 MAY 24

Pig-organ transplants: what three human recipients have taught scientists

Gut microbes linked to fatty diet drive tumour growth

News 16 MAY 24

Brain-reading device is best yet at decoding ‘internal speech’

News 13 MAY 24

Faculty Positions& Postdoctoral Research Fellow, School of Optical and Electronic Information, HUST

Job Opportunities: Leading talents, young talents, overseas outstanding young scholars, postdoctoral researchers.

Wuhan, Hubei, China

School of Optical and Electronic Information, Huazhong University of Science and Technology

Postdoc in CRISPR Meta-Analytics and AI for Therapeutic Target Discovery and Priotisation (OT Grant)

APPLICATION CLOSING DATE: 14/06/2024 Human Technopole (HT) is a new interdisciplinary life science research institute created and supported by the...

Human Technopole

Research Associate - Metabolism

Houston, Texas (US)

Baylor College of Medicine (BCM)

Postdoc Fellowships

Train with world-renowned cancer researchers at NIH? Consider joining the Center for Cancer Research (CCR) at the National Cancer Institute

Bethesda, Maryland

NIH National Cancer Institute (NCI)

Faculty Recruitment, Westlake University School of Medicine

Faculty positions are open at four distinct ranks: Assistant Professor, Associate Professor, Full Professor, and Chair Professor.

Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China

Westlake University

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Quick links

• Explore articles by subject
• Guide to authors
• Editorial policies

Our cookies

We use cookies for three reasons: to give you the best experience on PGS, to make sure the PGS ads you see on other sites are relevant , and to measure website usage. Some of these cookies are necessary to help the site work properly and can’t be switched off. Cookies also support us to provide our services for free, and by click on “Accept” below, you are agreeing to our use of cookies .You can manage your preferences now or at any time.

Privacy overview

We use cookies, which are small text files placed on your computer, to allow the site to work for you, improve your user experience, to provide us with information about how our site is used, and to deliver personalised ads which help fund our work and deliver our service to you for free.

The information does not usually directly identify you, but it can give you a more personalised web experience.

You can accept all, or else manage cookies individually. However, blocking some types of cookies may affect your experience of the site and the services we are able to offer.

You can change your cookies preference at any time by visiting our Cookies Notice page. Please remember to clear your browsing data and cookies when you change your cookies preferences. This will remove all cookies previously placed on your browser.

For more detailed information about the cookies we use, or how to clear your browser cookies data see our Cookies Notice

Manage consent preferences

Strictly necessary cookies

These cookies are necessary for the website to function and cannot be switched off in our systems.

They are essential for you to browse the website and use its features.

You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not then work. We can’t identify you from these cookies.

Functional cookies

These help us personalise our sites for you by remembering your preferences and settings. They may be set by us or by third party providers, whose services we have added to our pages. If you do not allow these cookies, then these services may not function properly.

Performance cookies

These cookies allow us to count visits and see where our traffic comes from, so we can measure and improve the performance of our site. They help us to know which pages are popular and see how visitors move around the site. The cookies cannot directly identify any individual users.

If you do not allow these cookies we will not know when you have visited our site and will not be able to improve its performance for you.

Marketing cookies

These cookies may be set through our site by social media services or our advertising partners. Social media cookies enable you to share our content with your friends and networks. They can track your browser across other sites and build up a profile of your interests. If you do not allow these cookies you may not be able to see or use the content sharing tools.

Advertising cookies may be used to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but work by uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will still see ads, but they won’t be tailored to your interests.

Gender Studies (Social Sciences) PhD

University of sussex, different course options.

• Key information

Course Summary

Tuition fees, entry requirements, similar courses at different universities, key information data source : idp connect, qualification type.

PhD/DPhil - Doctor of Philosophy

Subject areas

Social Sciences Gender Studies

Course type

Explore the social structures and discourses of gender - our expert faculty offer guidance and supervision through a wide range of research projects.

You could work on topics such as:

• social aspects of gender including work and/or family life
• the politics of the body
• the construction of gendered discourses, experiences, and identities
• women’s, feminist, and LGBTQ social movements.

UK fees Course fees for UK students

Fees are not yet set for entry in the academic year 2024/25. Fees will become available once set by United Kingdom Research and Innovation.

International fees Course fees for EU and international students

For this course (per year)

Degree requirements: You’re normally expected to have a master’s degree and an upper second-class (2.1) undergraduate honours degree. Subject-specific requirements: Your qualification should be in gender studies or a related subject area, but you may still be considered for the degree if you have a qualification in a different subject area. In certain circumstances, you may also be considered for the degree if you have other relevant professional qualifications or relevant research experience of equivalent standing.

MRes Social Science Research Methods

University of east anglia uea, ma journalism: social justice journalism, university of the arts london, ma performance: politics and social justice, phd social sciences, university of roehampton, pgce secondary: social sciences.

Women May Benefit from "Gender Blindness" in the Workplace

Gender parity in the workplace requires organizational change..

Posted May 17, 2024 | Reviewed by Davia Sills

• Gender blindness, or downplaying gender differences, is one strategy for achieving equality in the workplace.
• It promotes self-confidence and agency in women, leading to more assertiveness, risk-taking, and negotiating.
• Gender equity in the workplace also requires promoting equal opportunities and equal treatment of women.
• Both individual characteristics and situational influences determine how men and women act in the workplace.

Research by Ashley Martin, Associate Professor of Organizational Behavior at Stanford Graduate School of Business, and Katherine Phillips, formerly Professor at the Columbia University Business School, found that women who downplayed the differences between men and women, i.e., gender blindness , felt greater power and confidence than women who celebrated women’s distinctive qualities, i.e., gender awareness . 1 The confidence that came from adopting a gender blindness strategy in male-dominated work situations led the women in the studies to:

• Think they could overcome challenges at work.
• Feel comfortable disagreeing with others.
• Become more willing to take risks, take initiative, and negotiate.

An alternative strategy to achieve gender parity in the workplace is gender awareness, which says that promoting and embracing gender differences will lead to men and women interacting more cooperatively. This, in turn, would ideally contribute to a more cooperative and efficient workplace. 2

What Is Gender Blindness?

Gender blindness as Martin and Phillips define it is a strategy for achieving equality in the workplace. 3 This strategy removes the “male” connotation from traits and behaviors like assertiveness , competitiveness, and risk-taking , which are necessary to get ahead in the workplace. These researchers note that “degendering” these characteristics helps women recognize such characteristics in themselves, resulting in them feeling more confident.

How the Gender Blindness Strategy Works

Martin and Phillips theorized that a strategy of gender blindness would benefit women in typically male-dominated workplaces by increasing their confidence in themselves. 4 Previous research has shown a gap in confidence in the workplace between men and women, with men showing greater confidence, which is important in overall career success. This confidence gap shows up in salary negotiation, self-promotion, and performance, which are precursors to success in managerial positions.

These researchers also wanted to demonstrate that having more confidence would encourage women to be more active in the workplace. 5 Historically, men and women have been assigned different social roles, with men taking on agentic roles like working or hunting while women took on communal tasks like child-rearing. Thus, men are seen as agentic—assertive and competitive—while women are seen as warm and kind.

Across five studies testing this model, Martin and Phillips found that gender blindness was related to and increased women’s confidence. 6 Gender blindness was also related to and increased women’s sense of agency. These findings were particularly true in the workplace.

Gender blindness across these studies affected taking action in a two-step process. The schematic below shows that gender blindness in the workplace can increase women’s self-confidence and identification with agentic traits, which supports workplace assertiveness, risk-taking, and negotiating.

Gender Parity in the Workplace Also Requires Equal Opportunities and Treatment of Women

There is a long-standing debate in psychology about what factors determine how we act in various situations. 7 Personality psychologists argue that our characteristics, like assertiveness, will determine our behavior in the workplace, for example. Other psychologists, “situationists,” propose that our circumstances, e.g., how we are treated, will determine how we act in the workplace.

After many years of debate, psychologists have agreed that specific behaviors are driven by the interaction between factors in situations and the individual tendencies that a person brings to these situations.

So, even as women gain confidence in the workplace, they must be given equal opportunities and treatment by supervisors. Catherine H. Tinsley, Professor of Business Administration at Northwestern University, and Robin J. Ely, economist and Professor of Business Administration at Harvard University, report multiple studies that show women are treated differently than their male counterparts. 8

• They are less embedded in networks that offer opportunities to gather vital information and lack access to useful contacts, which impairs their ability to negotiate successfully in the workplace.
• They are less aware of opportunities for good assignments and promotions. When women fail to “lean in” on such opportunities, they may be viewed as lacking confidence.
• Women are under greater scrutiny in the workplace than men, resulting in their mistakes and failures being scrutinized more carefully and punished more severely. Such treatment makes it more likely women will not speak up in meetings, thus being perceived as less assertive and action-oriented.
• Women get less frequent and lower-quality feedback than men. The lack of good feedback affects women’s sense of worth, causing them to be less effective negotiators.

Tinsley and Ely tell us that If we want gender parity in the workplace, we cannot just “fix” women. 9 Women need a context that maximizes their chance to succeed. They suggest four steps managers can take to create the conditions necessary for women to succeed. 7

• Question the narrative: Managers must not accept traditional narratives that women are not competitive, i.e., that they lack “fire in the belly.”
• Look for alternative explanations for lack of performance: For example, how much hands-on training are women receiving compared to men?
• Change the work context: One manager who did not think a female employee was assertive enough invited her to join the team and made a conscious effort to treat her exactly as he would treat someone he deemed a superstar. He introduced her to the relevant players in the industry, told others involved she was a leader on the team, and gave her enough feedback and coaching to perform at a high level.
• Promote continual learning: Have regular meetings in which managers challenge assumptions and change work conditions to provide an equal context for the women and men who work for them.

We Need Both Gender Blindness and Equal Opportunities in the Workplace

Over the last decade, efforts have been made to promote gender equality in typically male-dominated public and private workplaces. 10 Gender blindness is one of the major approaches to achieving gender equality. However, this approach runs the risk of trying to “fix women.” Relying too heavily on “fixing women” ignores what psychologists tell us—we must pay attention to how women and men are treated in their workplaces. Fortunately, researchers like Tinsley and Ely have helped us analyze how organizations treat women differently than men, often based on old ideas about women in the workplace. In the 21 st century, we can adopt individual approaches like gender blindness along with challenging how men and women are treated differently on the job.

1. Martin, A.E. and K.W. Phillips. (2017) “What ‘blindness’ to gender differences helps women see and do: Implications for confidence, agency, and action in male-dominated environments.” Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes. 142, 28-44.

2. Martin and Phillips

3. Martin and Phillips

4. Martin and Phillips

5. Torres, N. “Women Benefit When They Downplay Gender.” Harvard Business Review. July-August 2018.

6. Martin and Phillips

7. Votaw, K. “The Person-Situation Debate and Alternatives to the Trait Perspective.” LibreTexts: Social sciences.

8. Tinsley, C.H. and R.J. Ely. “What Most People Get Wrong About Men and Women.” Harvard Business Review. May-June 2018.

9. Tinsley and Ely.

10. Kojok, Z.El. “Gender Blindness: Pros, Cons and Relation to Language. The Phoenix Daily. January 18, 2022.

Catherine Aponte, Psy.D. , was previously a clinical psychologist and an adjunct professor at Spalding University.

• Find a Therapist
• Find a Treatment Center
• Find a Psychiatrist
• Find a Support Group
• Find Online Therapy
• United States
• Brooklyn, NY
• Chicago, IL
• Houston, TX
• Los Angeles, CA
• New York, NY
• Portland, OR
• San Diego, CA
• San Francisco, CA
• Seattle, WA
• Washington, DC
• Asperger's
• Bipolar Disorder
• Chronic Pain
• Eating Disorders
• Passive Aggression
• Personality
• Goal Setting
• Positive Psychology
• Stopping Smoking
• Low Sexual Desire
• Relationships
• Child Development
• Self Tests NEW
• Therapy Center
• Diagnosis Dictionary
• Types of Therapy

At any moment, someone’s aggravating behavior or our own bad luck can set us off on an emotional spiral that threatens to derail our entire day. Here’s how we can face our triggers with less reactivity so that we can get on with our lives.

• Emotional Intelligence
• Gaslighting
• Affective Forecasting
• Neuroscience