Page 76 [76]
OCR
IZOLDA TAKÁCS: THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY well as benevolent and modern sexism,?" is present among women as well as men, albeit with differing emphases. While a part of the female populace more or less agrees with these stereotypes, another part of the female populace completely rejects every expression of these, and aims to collectively to change them.””° How does all this appear in the Hungarian scientific elite? What is the stance of female academicians to the question of women? Can the aforementioned “self-discrimination” or “stereotype threat”*”' be detected among them? How are gender stereotypes, “sexist beliefs”, present among the surveyed female scholars? What are the different social gender identity types that can be isolated in light of those? Does the essentializing discourse present itself at all among the surveyed scholars,”” and in what forms does it manifest itself? How strong is the phenomenon of identifying with women among those with a DSc degree, what is their relationship towards their own collective? What does it mean for them to be a woman from the perspective of female characteristics, traits, interests and values? APPLIED METHOD AND SAMPLE, FURTHER RESEARCH ISSUES As I have mentioned in the Introduction to this book, I have attempted to find answers to the queries I have raised by using the form of semi-structured interviews with female members of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences [Magyar Tudomanyos Akadémia, referred to henceforth as MTA]. These were recorded between December 2017 and September 2018. A total of 32 women were interviewed: 11 academicians (ordinary or corresponding members) and 21 DScs.”?3 The complete membership of MTA consisted of 344 ordinary and corresponding members in that time period, a mere 24 of whom were women, 219 The concept of sexism itself is an umbrella term for gender attitudes, which are not necessarily only negative. There is what we can call benevolent sexism, which, while carrying positive sentiments, nonetheless reinforces the traditional stereotypes. Glick and Fiske describe sexism as a multi-dimensional construct that covers two sexist attitudes: hostile and benevolent sexism. Hostile sexism is defined as the aspects of sexism which are based on the classic concept of prejudice as described by Allport (Glick, P — Fiske, S. T.: The Ambivalent Sexism Inventory: Differentiating Hostile and Benevolent Sexism, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 70(3), 1996, 491). Becker, J. C. - Wagner, U.: Doing Gender Differently. The Interplay of Strength of Gender Identification and Content of Gender Identity in Predicting Women’s Endorsement of Sexist Beliefs, European Journal of Social Psychology 39(4), 2009, 487. The term stereotype threat was first defined by Steele and Aronson (Steele—Aronson: Stereotype threat). As mentioned while detailing the research sample, interviews were made with female academicians as well as female DScs of the MTA (Magyar Tudományos Akadémia). The analysis was part of a larger research, merely one aspect of which was the examination of female identity. 22 S 222 22: œ + 74 +
