Is there gender bias in your Technical Author job advert?

Simon Morisawa-Bostock pointed me towards an article on gender bias in job advertisements (You Don’t Know It, But Women See Gender Bias in Your Job Postings):

A scientific study of 4,000 job descriptions revealed that a lack of gender-inclusive wording caused significant implications for recruiting professionals tasked to recruit women to hard-to-fill positions underrepresented by women.

Researchers studied gender wording in job advertisements and job descriptions and the effect of gender wording on job seekers. The researchers first established that women’s style of communication is more communal, using more emotional and social words than men’s style of speech.

The researchers linguistically coded job descriptions found in a U.S. Department of Labor database that were predominately populated for masculine-themed words such as active, ambitious, analytical, competitive, dominate, challenging, confident, decisive, determined, independent, leader, objective, etc., as well as feminine-themed words such as committed, connected, cooperative, dependable, interpersonal, loyal, responsible, supportive, trust, etc. The results confirmed that job descriptions for male-dominated jobs contained more masculine-themed words associated with male stereotypes than job descriptions from female-dominated jobs and vice versa.

Alarm bells ring in my mind when people talk about “a women’s style of communication”. As a number of commentators at the end of the article pointed out, many of the words and phrases the researchers identified as “gender-themed” could also be attributed to differing personality and behavioural styles.

Technical Authoring is a profession that has a roughly 50:50 gender split, requiring some so-called masculine traits (e.g. independent, analytical, active) and some so-called feminine traits (e.g. committed, connected, cooperative, dependable, responsible, supportive). However, there are some “masculine” traits you wouldn’t normally associate with the role and expect to see in a job advert – such as competitive, dominate, challenging, confident, decisive and determined.

We do receive, on occasions, job descriptions that don’t really reflect the attributes associated with successful technical communicators. Part of the value a specialist technical author recruitment agency provides is to reword job descriptions so that will attract the right type of candidates. I took a brief look at some of the recent job descriptions we’ve received from clients, and I couldn’t find any evidence of a dominance of “masculine” or “feminine” words in the job descriptions. From that perspective, there was no particular bias that needed to be mitigated.

I  looked at whether some of the “masculine” words appeared in job adverts for Technical Authors posted elsewhere on the Web. Again, there seemed to be no particular bias. Having said that, there were a few notable examples:

“As Technical/Training Author you must boast a great knowledge and experience in technical authoring, a demonstrable record of producing high-quality technical documentation and materials within a software product environment, and experience of training external clients and internal teams. … This role demands a confident, client facing Technical Author who is at with working in a software house.”

“As an exceptional Technical Author you will be adept at delivering reader-friendly, technically accurate and complete product documentation on time to demanding schedules…Our client is looking for only the most exceptional and talented candidates – true rockstars of their profession.”

I suspect these organisations will struggle to find suitable candidates.

What do you think? Have you seen inappropriately worded job descriptions for Technical Authors? Share your thoughts below.

3 Comments

Julian Barker

One can get into all sorts of trouble writing about these matters, but it seems to me that the sexism is on the part of those who say that active, ambitious, analytical, competitive, etc are “masculine” and committed, connected, cooperative, dependable, etc., are “feminine”. If I have a vacancy that requires an active, ambitious, analytical person, or a committed, connected, cooperative one, I should advertise it as such. If there’s a preponderance of male or female applicants, so be it. What I should not do is say “this needs someone active, ambitious, and analytical; I’d better recruit a man” or “this needs someone committed, connected, and cooperative; I’d better recruit a woman”. Neither should I think “this job needs someone active, ambitious, and analytical, but only men are like that, so I’d better not mention those words for fear of appearing sexist”.

Alison Peck

As a female technical communicator myself, I’ve read those two job adverts several times in an attempt to identify the male-stereotypical words. And I’m still struggling. Is “confident” supposed to be the masculine trait? Or “adept”? Or that I am capable of working to a “demanding schedule”? I would hope they describe me, or I’ll have a problem finding my next project.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.