The Paradox of Masculinity

“Masculinity is my new frontier,” says Ashley Martin, an associate professor of organizational behavior at Stanford Graduate School of Business. Martin, whose work examines why gender plays such a central role in how we perceive and make sense of others, has been looking at how traits associated with masculinity are simultaneously organizationally rewarded even as they’re personally harmful to men.

“We spend a lot of time talking about gender inequality through the lens of women’s disadvantage,” she says. “I think that many of the problems that we’re seeing today… are actually bound up in masculinity.”

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Related Content:

• Ashley Martin faculty profile
• Is that Self-Driving Car a Boy or a Girl?
• Why Taking Gender Out of the Equation Is So Difficult

Chapters:

00:00 How movies shape our ideas about masculinity

04:02 Introduction

05:15 How Ashley Martin got into studying gender

05:58 When gender is removed from hiring

07:10 The “pet rock” study

10:35 The universal use of gender

13:02 Gendering objects

15:12 How masculinity affects men

18:13 The current implications of Martin’s research

20:41 What healthier models of masculinity might look like

23:47 Ashley’s next frontier: masculinity, material culture, and social problems

25:07 Conclusion

If/Then, from Stanford GSB, features conversations with faculty that explore how their research deepens our understanding of business and leadership.

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