“I know this is stupid question, but…” How many times have you heard girls raise their hands in class and open with this act of self-deprecation? Growing up, I heard this a lot, and almost exclusively from girls. It is a testament to the bigger problem of negative gender stereotyping and how it affects women’s self-esteem.

In her book, “Investigating Culture,” former Stanford professor Carol Delaney writes, “Girls are socialized to talk differently than boys. As a result, women’s talk is more tentative and does not command the same attention as men’s speech.” These self-deprecating comments illustrate that women are less secure and confident in their opinions.

Some examples that Delaney gives are the rising intonation at the end of sentences that are not questions, tag questions such as, “that looks okay, right?” and hedges such as, “I kind of wanted to go.” The phrase “I know this is a stupid question, but…” is yet another example of this, which demonstrates that language is very telling of women’s social positions and self-image.

This language mirrors the larger problem of negative gender stereotypes. These gender stereotypes affect women so profoundly that they perform less well and even learn information less well. This is known as negative stereotype threat, or a disruptive concern, when facing a negative stereotype, that one will be evaluated on the basis of this stereotype.

Researchers at Indiana University showed last year that women performed substantially worse on math tests when they were subject to negative stereotype threat. They also showed that women were less capable of learning new math concepts and retrieving those that they had learned from memory when under stereotype threat. Professors Rydell and Boucher write that stereotype threat “leads to increased arousal, reduced working memory capacity, and increased emotional suppression, all of which harm performance in the negatively stereotyped domain.”

For many women, math has a negative connotation, and we have seen time and time again that they are told that their place lies in the humanities. This stereotyping obviously affects women’s ambitions, performance and confidence in their own abilities. It can even cause them to exhibit doubt in the way that they speak.

But does this problem exist here at Stanford? Women make up half of Stanford’s student body, and they are undoubtedly an intelligent and ambitious group. So does this gender stereotyping affect Stanford’s progressive and successful campus?

The extent to which women at Stanford are stereotyped in different situations is debatable. Although some may argue that sexism in the classroom is no longer a problem on progressive modern American campuses, there is no doubt that women in college continue to feel less comfortable sharing their opinions in class than college-aged men, even if the extent varies.

Professor Delaney notes in her book that, “at college, it has been noticed that men tend to dominate classroom discussions or perhaps professors tend to pay more attention to them.”

It is true that since it first began at the beginning of the 20th century, the feminist movement has made huge strides in the United States. Women today are at an exponentially better starting point for their careers than their grandmothers were. I am also aware that there is a good deal of criticism attached to modern feminism. Feminists are often termed “man haters,” called ugly and accused of using sexism as an excuse for every imperfection in their lives. Still, I argue that sexist stereotyping, however subtle a form it takes today, is a problem for the self-esteem of women and subsequent success of women internationally, including at Stanford.

I am by no means arguing that all inequalities in a classroom discussion boil down to gender, or that every classroom and every female student fails at her goals only because of these stereotypes. Instead, I accept that Stanford is generally an open and positive community, while urging students to keep the subtleties of gender role stereotyping in mind as they navigate through Stanford classrooms.

The war against stereotypes begins with those individuals threatened by them: in this case, women. The answer lies in creating a strong self-image and finding self-confidence despite these stereotypes. The answer is to create an identity independent of that which society forces upon us. I used to be apprehensive about raising my hand in class and started my questions with “I know this is a stupid question, but…” Today I choose to combat the ever-present gender stereotyping, and raise my hand with confidence.

Maya Kornberg ‘14

Daily Fellow