The Role of Feminist Ideology in Influencing Evaluations of Gender Diversity

Abstract: Businesses and policymakers are paying increased attention to diversity and inclusion within organizations. However, evaluating progress towards these goals is challenging because diversity is a subjective measure, influenced by individuals’ traits, beliefs, and values. Across three studies (total N = 1601), we observed that feminist ideology affects diversity evaluations: (1) ideologues are more likely to include in their definition of gender diversity an element of rebalancing the imbalance between women and men, (2) people with stronger feminist ideology evaluated all-men groups as less diverse than all-women groups, and (3) under a diversity mandate, ideologues reported even greater differences between the diversity of these two groups. Thus, we observe that feminist ideology influences diversity evaluations, and suggest this is because ideologues have different reference points for diversity. Additionally, when employing diversity mandates, organizations may exacerbate differences in diversity perceptions amongst people who hold stronger versus weaker feminist ideology.

Keywords: Diversity, feminist ideology, organizational mandates, experimental methods