For background, I participated in a research study just recently, and I’m shocked to know this is probably how many of these studies get their results.

They had me read some very basic resumes, each with an obviously male/female name and obvious race, without much detail, and then had me go through a list of descriptors and mark how much I believed the person in the resume fit those descriptions.

Now, keen in mind that these are INCREDIBLY bare bones resumes (where they went to school, gpa, past jobs, short list of career oriented skills) for the same jobs. HOWEVER, these descriptors, were the most out pocket shit ever. Some of these were deadass: “petite, rugged, desirable, nurturing, tall, sensual, strong, blonde etc.” Things that couldn’t even be concluded by even the most sexism individuals because of the sheer irrelevance. All words that would normally be associated with gender stereotypes, too.

In total there were probably 50 descriptors, that all had to be ranked 1 - 5, without it being clear if 3 was “neutral”, with 1 being “the opposite” and 5 being “100% this”. Or if it was 1 that meant “neutral” and 5 that meant “as much like this as possible.

The reality of this study is that even if a COMPUTER filled it out at perfect randomness, this study could still be used to imply gender bias (to idiots). That is, because some descriptors will come back with a natural statistical imbalance male-to-female, and those few descriptors among all of them can be hand selected and used to claim for example “people think of women as more motherly while men are seen as more strong in job applications.”

In the same grain, that method could also be used to assert that women with more qualifications are seen as more “intimidating” or “hostile”. Whatever they wanted really, with luck.

If you remember the whole “bossy” thing feminists were in a while back, this is probably its origin.

Additionally, the study began with a brief description of a “company X” that was hiring, and was specifically trying to get to 50% or higher women in their positions, with the idea that women would provide a unique insight in stereotypical ways.

After each resume we were asked why company’s like “company X” should hire the person. The obvious answer (I imagine for many people) for the women was to say something along the lines of “she’s qualified and will help the company with their goal”, mentioning the quota. My guess is that this was going to be used to suggest people only think of quotas when hiring women that are just as qualified as men, aka they otherwise wouldn’t hire the equally qualified woman if it wasn’t for quotas.

It’s important to recognize that a lot of research these days is being done by quasi-scientific, online community college degree holding , zealotous sociology researchers who have no problem entering a study with a goal of what they want the outcome to be and finding a way to make it happen. A lot of times their teams funding, and their ass, is riding on the ability of the study to work in favor of the organizations who fund them.

ALWAYS, always, triple check the methodology. My guess is a large portion of the current research suggesting discrimination was probably collected in a similar manner.

In general, never trust a sociologist.