Gender Stereotypes: Masculinity and Femininity

in the culture can make us choke during tests of ability. . . . The power of stereotypes, scientists had long figured, lay in their ability to change the behavior of the person holding the stereotype. . . . But five years ago, Stanford University psychologist Claude Steele showed something else: It is the targets of a stereotype whose behavior is most powerfully affected by it. A stereotype that pervades the culture the way “ditzy blondes” and “forgetful seniors” do makes people painfully aware of how society views them—so painfully aware, in fact, that knowledge of the stereotype can affect how well they do on intellectual and other tasks.” (Begley, 2000, pp. 66–67)