The same approach to diversity has divergent effects on race and gender equality. Gender-awareness is related to more support for gender inequality. Race-awareness is related to less support for inequality. This divergence is due to the attributions made for gender and race differences. Identity awareness affects unique outcomes for women and racial minorities. The present research compares the influence of diversity ideologies on race and gender relations. In contrast to research suggesting that an identity-aware ideology (i.e., multiculturalism or race-awareness) predicts more support for racial equality than does an identity-blind one (i.e., colorblindness or race-blindness), this paper suggests that the opposite is true for gender. Six studies demonstrate that an identity-aware ideology (compared to an identity-blind one) highlights unique types of race and gender differences, leading to divergent outcomes for race and gender inequality. While race-awareness highlights external, opportunity-based differences, promoting support for policies that combat systemic inequality (e.g., affirmative action), gender-awareness highlights internal, biology-based differences, reifying gender-essentialism, broadly, and gender stereotypes, in particular. Together, this work suggests that the beneficial effects of identity-aware ideologies previously found for race may not be effective for gender. Ultimately, it warns against one-size-fits-all approaches to diversity and offers practical implications for diversity science.
Publication:
Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes
