HAS THE PROBLEM OF GENDER DIFFERENCES BEEN SOLVED IN BUSINESS AND TECHNICAL
COMMUNICATION?
Has the Problem of Gender Differences Been Solved in Business and Technical Communication? A
Literature Review on the Decline in Gender Studies Research in the field
Kara M. Payton
East Carolina University
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HAS THE PROBLEM OF GENDER DIFFERENCES BEEN SOLVED IN BUSINESS AND TECHNICAL
COMMUNICATION?
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Kara Payton
English 6702
Dr. Getto
Literature Review
September 27,2015
Introduction
In the past, researchers have focused on women in technical communication. Thompson and Smith
(2006) and Thompson (1999) conducted studies on technical communication journals to review the latest
feminist research in technical communication. According to Thompson and Smith (2006), much of the
current gender research is outside of the technical communication realm. White et Al., female scholars
and English professors at Purdue University (2015) call for more feminist research in their maledominated classrooms that “average only 1 female student per class of 22. It is all too easy in such
classrooms for us to perpetuate the myth that there are no longer issues of gender because the supposed
gender-neutral environment of technology and business writing classrooms is still male, the students are
all male, the textbooks are male, and the writing models are male”. According to Thompson (2006), over
the last fifteen years, research has declined in feminist technical communication. While there are studies
being done today, are they really affecting the “gender-neutral” classrooms and workplaces in technical
communication? The original gender difference research began with Mary Lay’s award-wining feminist
study in 1989.
Award Winning Study on Collaborative Writing and Gender
In 1989, Mary Lay did a groundbreaking study on collaborative writing and how men and women
differ in their approach to interpersonal conflict in the classroom. In groups, women resort to selfdisclosure for trust and men enjoy individual competition. Lay (1989) calls for technical communication
professors to monitor small-group behavior using journaling and grade incentives. She advocated
HAS THE PROBLEM OF GENDER DIFFERENCES BEEN SOLVED IN BUSINESS AND TECHNICAL
COMMUNICATION?
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androgynous communication skills, blending men’s and women’s styles of communication. According to
Thompson (1999), only two later studies supported her claims of gender differences in communication
styles. Since the 1989 study, the current research on gender differences contradicts her conclusions about
communication differences between men and women. The research in this area has been largely dropped,
with the main research problem apparently solved.
Women and Feminism in Technical Communication 1989-1997
Isabelle Thompson (1999) conducted a study surveying forty articles on women and feminism
published in five technical communication journals over a period of nine years. The study used qualitative
content analysis, which is “a technique used to identify and describe patterns in a collection of texts”. To
narrow the 1072 texts, she searched for certain key words in the titles of the journal articles, such as
“female, feminist, gender, gendered, cross-gender, gender-neutral, sexual, sexes, sexism, sexist and
women”. The narrowed group of forty articles all shared a common theme of “women’s’ inclusion,
moderate or radical change in technical communication research and practice”. According to Thompson
(1999), Lay’s call for androgyny has been heard: “Men and women were both using tentative language,
they interrupted each other equally, and they used full range of collaborative approaches”. This study
found gender differences was a hot topic of research, but did not produce the answers researchers
anticipated.
Also during this time, studies on the history of women in technical communication became popular,
with researchers like David Carrell’s 1991 analysis of textbooks published post World War II concluded
that the textbooks perpetuated traditional women’s stereotypes. Thompson (1999) concluded “while
research on gender differences has stalled, historical studies have made significant contributions to
redefining what Lay called for in 1991…Historical studies have led to a broadened view of what
constitutes a technical document and who can write one”. Thompson (1999) calls for further research
regarding women, maybe “a collection of stories by women about their development of workplace
literacy”.
HAS THE PROBLEM OF GENDER DIFFERENCES BEEN SOLVED IN BUSINESS AND TECHNICAL
COMMUNICATION?
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Later Research Themes in Journal Articles on Gender and Technical
Communication 1998-mid-2004
After the original research study overview by Thompson (1999), Thompson and Smith (2006) did a
later study continuing the feminism overview in later years. They concluded that the journal topics
covered masculine bias in written texts, gender differences, recovery of women’s contributions, and
critiques of representations of women and representations that exclude women.
Interestingly, the studies conducted on gender difference concluded that “most of these articles have
been reviewed in our 2002 article, which concludes that, regardless of how hard researchers try, few
differences in the communicative collaborative styles of men and women have been found”. According to
Thompson (2006), once women and men work together, the differences in communication disappear once
they are into the workplace culture.
Technical communication researchers pieced together lost women’s history from the Renaissance to
the early nineteenth century, giving credence to early women science writers, scientists and technical
writers. The topic of masculine bias in written texts found women as domestic and identified with the
home. In taking into account historical women technical communicators, Thompson and Smith (2006)
call for definitions of technology to be redefined include contributions of these women.
Psychological Study on Gender and Learning Technology
Outside of the technical communication research realm, Hwang et al (2009) did a psychological study
about middle school children and the girls’ lack of motivation to learn technology. The study pointed to
family relations and societies’ expectations of the girls and their motivation to learn. The study concluded
that it was an attitude difference that led to girls choosing to shirk technology and those scientific careers.
The study called for more research on females and technology, since much previous research has been
done on girls and math.
HAS THE PROBLEM OF GENDER DIFFERENCES BEEN SOLVED IN BUSINESS AND TECHNICAL
COMMUNICATION?
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Media Perpetuating Gender Stereotypes in Scientific Neurobiology Study on
Biological Brain Structure Differences Between Men and Women
An interesting study that tracked media influence and gender stereotypes in scientific reporting by
O’Connor and Joffe (2014) touted men and women’s brain structure differences. The study conducted
involved the brains of 949 individuals aged between 8-22 years. Males showed greater withinhemisphere-connectivity and females showed greater between-hemisphere connectivity in all regions
except the cerebellum. The study showed that men and women had different areas of specialization. But
the study was a ruse. Just as the researchers imagined, the study’s results sparked a media frenzy that
skewed its results and perpetuated the male-female stereotypes.
Conclusion
Since Mary Lay’s 1989 foundational study, the lag in gender difference research is really good news.
If there are differences, either women have adapted or their environments have evolved. The past studies
did not have the effect of changing classroom or workplace environments to include gender education. Is
it because they have answered the questions about gender differences in their previous research? On the
other hand, gender difference is only one area of feminist studies in technical communication.
While fewer feminist studies occur today, newer questions have to be asked to develop a call for more
research. According to White et al. (2015), “we are disturbed to find that very little seems to have
changed in the past 25 years. We were surprised and dismayed not at what we found in textbooks and
professional journals, but what we didn’t find... Unfortunately, based on our analysis of professional
academic journals and current textbooks in business and technical communication, the discourse seems to
paint a false picture of the workplace as neutral and non-gendered. The reality within our classrooms is
equally uneven and highly gendered as well.” What about usability studies and women? Although there
was a study by Vanzo et al (2015) on targeting product assembly instructions to women, how about more
research to help technical communicators target to women, the largest buyer of household goods? How
HAS THE PROBLEM OF GENDER DIFFERENCES BEEN SOLVED IN BUSINESS AND TECHNICAL
COMMUNICATION?
about pay differences and barriers to entrance in the field of technical communication? What about
technology use and women’s motivation to learn? While a few studies in these areas have been
completed, much more research can be done on feminist studies and women in the technical
communication field.
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HAS THE PROBLEM OF GENDER DIFFERENCES BEEN SOLVED IN BUSINESS AND TECHNICAL
COMMUNICATION?
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References
Carrell, David. (1991, October). Gender Scripts in Professional Writing Textbooks. Journal of Business
and Technical Communication. Vol 5 No. 4 463-468.
Hwang, Young Suk, Fisher, William, Vrongistinos, Konstantinos. (2009). Calibrating a Measure of
Gender Differences in Motivation for Learning Technology. Journal of Instructional Psychology,
36(3).
Lay, Mary M. (1989, September). Interpersonal Conflict in Collaborative Writing: What We Can Learn
From Gender Studies. Journal of Business and Technical Communication, Vol 3, No. 2, 5-28.
O’Connor, Cliodhna, Joffe, Helene. (2014). Gender on the Brain: A Case Study of Science
Communication in the New Media Environment, retrieved online from ProQuest.
Thompson, Isabelle, Overman, Elizabeth. (2006). Women and Feminism in Technical Communication—
An Update. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication, Vol 36(2), 183-199.
Thompson, Isabelle. (1999). Women and Feminism in Technical Communication: A Qualitative Content
Analysis of Journal Articles Published in 1989 through 1997. Journal of Business and Technical
Communication, 13(2), 154-178. Retrieved from ProQuest Online.
Vanzo, Roher Valentina, Stern, Tobias, Pocnocny-Selinger, Elizabeth, Schwarzbauer, Peter (2015).
Technical Communication in Assembly Instructions: An Empirical Study to Bridge the Gap
Between Theoretical Gender Differences and Their Practical Influence. Journal of Business and
Technical Communication, 1-30.
White, Kate, Rumsey-Kesler Suzanne, Stevens, Amidon. (2015). Are We “There” Yet? The Treatment of
Gender and Feminism in Technical, Business, and Workplace Writing Studies. Journal of
Technical Writing and Communication, Retrieved from jtw.sagepub.com September 18, 2015.