Gender Representation in eLearning

One of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s most famousquotes is a response to the question, “When will there be enough women on theSupreme Court?” Her answer is, “When there are nine.” It sounds facetious, but the Notorious RBG is actually perfectly serious. Sheexplains that people are often shocked at that response, “But there’d been ninemen, and nobody’s ever raised a question about that.”

The issue of how to represent gender in a way that isauthentic and helpful—in eLearning and all other situations—is not an easy one.Nor is it, in fact, just one issue. How many women are portrayed as opposed tomen, what the roles and characteristics of those genders are, whethertransgender, agender, or gender-fluid individuals are portrayed at all (andhow)—all of these can have a profound impact on the authenticity of thelearning experience and what kind of message the final product sends about theorganization’s values and culture. And unfortunately, the answers are not assimple as “Always portray X percent of the characters as women” or “Always showwomen on the correct side of the issue.” However, hopefully the followingconsiderations provide good fodder for conversation, within our industry andwithin your department.

Portrayals of women by percentage

If you had an immediate, negative gut reaction to picturing anall-female United States Supreme Court you are far from alone. Many studieshave shown that not only does pretty much everyone overestimate how much spacewomen and girls take up, we tend to resent it, responding as if females aretaking up more than their fair share, or as if the space in question isbecoming over-feminized.

For example, studies of boys and girls in classrooms show overwhelminglythat boys get more talk time than girls, and for whatever reason, male andfemale teachers alike tend to judge inaccurately when girls have talked inequal amounts to boys. One study of this phenomenon identified a teacher whohad created an atmosphere in which male and female students were actuallysharing equally in talk time by gender, but even this teacher estimated thatthe girls were speaking an astonishing 90 percent of the time, rather than theactual 50 percent; his male students also complained that the girls weretalking more than their fair share.

Another study, commissioned by the Geena Davis Institute forGender in Media, has found that crowd scenes in movies tend to be comprised ofonly 17 percent women. As Davis explains, “What we’re in effect doing istraining children to see that women and girls are less important than men andboys. We’re training them to perceive that women take up only 17 percent of thespace in the world.” And it follows that in a society in which everyone hasbeen trained to expect only 17 percent of the space to be taken up by women,women in the actual world, who comprise about 50 percent of the population,will be expected to somehow shrink into that much smaller percentage.

One ill effect of this is that it becomes increasinglydifficult to even notice situations like the one that inspired this series, whereinonly one of a dozen recorded conference sessions was presented by a female … and,therefore, only one female in a dozen people achieved the prominence that isgained by having her presentation documented and shared far beyond theconference. Another ill effect is that even when situations like these arenoticed, they are more difficult to argue against. Both of these effects canlead to very real loss of opportunity for women.

Translate that situation to your organization, and considerthat almost all organizations are trying to improve their cultures with respectto diversity, and it becomes clear that eLearning must reflect a more realisticand even aspirational vision of women’s prominence. Having a token female inyour eLearning scenarios is not enough, and there isn’t even a compellingreason to limit women’s representation to 50 percent. After all, if anall-female United States Supreme Court is considered a serious proposition byone of the greatest minds in the country, why could your next eLearningscenario not portray an all-female IT department?

The characteristics of how women are portrayed

Portraying a greater percentage of women in your eLearning,though, is not the whole story of authentic gender representation. It’s alsoworth asking some tough questions about howwomen are portrayed. Hopefully it is obvious in 2015 why it’s inappropriateand unhelpful to portray women in only subservient or supporting roles, or asalways needing help, while men are in positions of authority and/or providingexpertise. What may be less obvious, however, is that the reverse is also true.

For decades, TV advertising and sitcoms have portrayed white,straight men as hapless and/or helpless, while the women around them take upthe slack in work or at home—or at least, the women know more about thebenefits of new products than men do, for the span of a 30-second commercial.What’s problematic about these portrayals is that they set up the expectationthat women will actually take on these “Wonder Woman” roles at work—and, infact, must do so in order to succeed. In contrast, portraying women as complexhuman beings who are able to mess up sometimes, and learn, and still have a job—justlike men do—is an essential part of gender equality.

So what to do in your eLearning? If you feel like your writingwill reveal biases one way or another (and it probably will), remove genderfrom the design of your characters altogether. Write complex, falliblecharacters in authentic situations, name them only with an initial, and thenonce the storyboards are complete, use a random name generator to decide whichones are male and which ones are female. And if any of the characters seem notbelievable as a male or as a female, consider whether you are allowing bothmales and females to express a realistic spectrum of characteristics—or whetheryou are just following (and therefore reinforcing) traditional genderstereotypes.

Finally, in addition to the roles and positions that yourfemale characters occupy, consider how they interact with other characters.Learn about the Bechdel-Wallace test and apply it as a verybasic measure of whether the female characters in scenarios are acting withagency independent of a man’s authority, and then feel free to build upon itand create even higher standards for your organization.

Portrayals of other genders

A complete examination of gender representation cannot belimited to only men and women, though. As with any minority, transgender, agender,or gender-fluid individuals benefit from visibility—and your organization willbenefit from gaining cultural understanding. However, visibility can be atricky issue, as making a point of acharacter in eLearning being other than cisgender would most likely send theexact opposite message you would want.

Here are some ways to introduce characters who are beyond thegender binary in authentic and appropriate ways:

• Include characters who use gender-neutralpronouns (they/them/their, zhe/zhim/sher)
• When the training covers domains that mayinvolve particular issues faced by these populations, include them. Forexample, training on HR software may include how to change an employee’s nameand gender.
• When it comes to visuals, recognize that you can’tnecessarily tell whether someone is transgender, agender, or gender-fluid basedon appearance, and stock images have had many of the problems pointed out byTrina Rimmer in this same publication a few weeks ago.

For further guidance, refer to GLAAD’s Media Reference Guide—Transgender Issuesand Tips for Allies of Transgender People.

Conclusion

A young Ruth Bader Ginsberg saw a United States Supreme Courtthat was purely white and male, but the court sitting today is morerepresentative of—and more encouraging to—the people over which it presides.And luckily, changing our habits in representing gender in eLearning is notnearly as difficult as changing the makeup of the Supreme Court. Tackling thisor any diversity issue may feel like you’re entering a field of landmines, butit is well established that humans connect with representations that are likethem, and therefore, good gender representation is essential to authentic eLearning.