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65 Amazing Gender Dissertation Topics – A List of Well Researched Topics

Published by Owen Ingram at January 2nd, 2023 , Revised On August 15, 2023

The concept of gender describes the differences in characteristics, behaviours, and responsibilities between males and females. Gender studies explore the complicated concerns that arise from the interaction of men and women.

It is essential that you thoroughly understand the subject before you begin writing your dissertation . It is imperative that you choose an interesting topic for your thesis in order to get a decent grade. As you progress through your dissertation, an excellent topic will provide you with direction and help you jump-start the process.

Below is a list of excellent gender studies dissertation topics you can learn and research. We provide a wide range of topics for you to use as is or modify as you wish. Getting a great grade on your dissertation has never been simpler.

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Gender Dissertation Topics Ideas & Examples

  • Are multicultural companies fostering racial unity and, as a result, gender disparities?
  • Will women’s empowerment result in oppositional gender discrimination?
  • A balanced examination of women’s freedom and participation in large corporations and competitive sports
  • How correct were our forefathers in changing the power imbalance toward patriarchy?
  • Examine the disadvantaged status of rural women and the tainted treatment of infertile women
  • Is racism or superstition more prevalent in Africa: the effect of gender discrimination?
  • The impact of children in homes with a purely patriarchal society
  • Explore the disparities in women’s perspectives in industrialized and developing nations
  • Examine the dynamics of female objectification in films throughout the world
  • The criminal syndicate’s inhumane treatment of women
  • Gender diversity’s role in creativity and scientific discovery
  • How can cities be made safer for women and girls?
  • The role of schools in teaching children gender-appropriate behaviours
  • Feminism in social interactions brings women and men together as groupings
  • Why are females more vulnerable to sexual abuse and exploitation?
  • Examine the glass ceiling in management and the role of ideology in shaping sex relations
  • Obstacles to females’ access to decent education in UK nations
  • The effects of gender differences on the human brain
  • How can we teach boys and girls that they have the same rights as females?
  • Discuss gender-neutral management methods
  • Promotion of equal sporting opportunities for men and women
  • The real-life materialization of the YouTube beauty community
  • Stress and eating pathology in transgender adolescents: a feminist scientific investigation
  • Gender discrimination’s implications and effects on the human brain
  • Identifying and examining patriarchal attitudes and stereotypes in family relationships
  • What factors make it difficult for girls in African and Asian nations to obtain a quality education?
  • Toy segregation and sex education: should boys and girls be treated differently?
  • What is feminism’s role in strengthening social relationships between men and women?
  • Plaintiffs’ role in restoring legal arguments for same-sex marriage
  • Understanding gender subjectivity in the lesbian culture somewhere over the rainbow nation
  • The lesbian and gay movement’s agitation and the countermovement’s response in the United Kingdom
  • Addressing the global decline in women’s political participation, both formally and informally
  • Stereotypical images of women’s effects on implied cognition
  • The social construction of multiple births in the 20th century
  • How the working woman deals with social binaries
  • Why should parents support the education of girls?
  • What aspects of sex discrimination exist?
  • What factors lead to workplace inequality?
  • What motivates discrimination against women in developing nations?
  • How do misconceptions about gender impact behaviour?
  • What functions do films play in challenging gender stereotypes?
  • Is there a way to end gender inequality through education?
  • Women’s childhood trauma as a result of nationalist subjectivity
  • Youth, gender, and citizenship in women’s colleges during World War i: “what can a woman do?”
  • What parental actions should be taken to achieve gender parity?
  • Absence of women in leadership positions
  • Telling the truth of refugee and immigrant women: witnessing memory
  • The experiences of males in traditionally feminine jobs
  • Work-life balance of men and women has changed after the feminist movement
  • A feminist viewpoint on women’s divorce counselling
  • A behaviour guide for feminist family therapists
  • The debate over black feminist theory
  • An analysis of the anti-violence campaign by black feminists
  • Sex segregation and emotional labour in women’s and men’s workplaces
  • Women and men are on par: Workplace discrimination, gender roles, and public policy
  • The ramifications for oneself of equating a slender feminine ideal with success in life
  • Influences of the media, as well as social and individual differences, on women’s body esteem
  • In the direction of a theory of women’s body image resilience
  • In college women, body image and appearance management practices
  • Review of body image and eating disorders in older persons
  • Premenstrual syndrome and our female criminal companions: a feminist problem
  • Why do women commit suicide at lower rates than men?
  • Men being harmed by women is a significant societal issue
  • Differences between men’s and women’s hourly wages
  • A comparison of the career growth of male and female managers

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How to Pick a Great Gender Dissertation Topi c:

Thinking about what you want in a topic before looking at the list is crucial. Selecting a topic that interests you or piques your curiosity will make the research process easier. Check out the guidelines below on how to select and narrow a dissertation topic .

As you begin your brainstorming process, note all the options you can think of for your gender essay themes. To learn what will fascinate the audience the most, keep up with the most recent news and trends. 

Even if certain subjects could be debatable, you can nonetheless list them and study them afterwards. Most importantly, pick a subject you are passionate about to make the process enjoyable. Out of the cases on the list, pick the one you believe is the most appropriate.

  •   Focus on a certain subject area so you may proceed the right way. To make your dissertation engaging to the audience, it is important to be detailed and original with your topic. Do extensive study on the subject you plan to write about. To gather the most recent information about your subject, browse the internet, the newspaper, and books.
  • Once you have decided on a topic, frame it as a query. It will be simpler to conduct the necessary research if you define the issue as a question. Additionally, the topic will assist you in realizing the solutions you want.

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How to find gender dissertation topics.

To find gender dissertation topics:

  • Study recent gender debates.
  • Examine gaps in research.
  • Explore cultural, social aspects.
  • Analyze historical context.
  • Consider intersectionality.
  • Opt for a topic resonating with your passion and academic field.

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100 Gender Research Topics For Academic Papers

gender research topics

Gender research topics are very popular across the world. Students in different academic disciplines are often asked to write papers and essays about these topics. Some of the disciplines that require learners to write about gender topics include:

Sociology Psychology Gender studies Business studies

When pursuing higher education in these disciplines, learners can choose what to write about from a wide range of gender issues topics. However, the wide range of issues that learners can research and write about when it comes to gender makes choosing what to write about difficult. Here is a list of the top 100 gender and sexuality topics that students can consider.

Controversial Gender Research Topics

Do you like the idea of writing about something controversial? If yes, this category has some of the best gender topics to write about. They touch on issues like gender stereotypes and issues that are generally associated with members of a specific gender. Here are some of the best controversial gender topics that you can write about.

  • How human behavior is affected by gender misconceptions
  • How are straight marriages influenced by gay marriages
  • Explain the most common sex-role stereotypes
  • What are the effects of workplace stereotypes?
  • What issues affect modern feminism?
  • How sexuality affects sex-role stereotyping
  • How does the media break sex-role stereotypes
  • Explain the dual approach to equality between women and men
  • What are the most outdated sex-role stereotypes
  • Are men better than women?
  • How equal are men and women?
  • How do politics and sexuality relate?
  • How can films defy gender-based stereotypes
  • What are the advantages of being a woman?
  • What are the disadvantages of being a woman?
  • What are the advantages of being a man?
  • Discuss the disadvantages of being a woman
  • Should governments legalize prostitution?
  • Explain how sexual orientation came about?
  • Women communicate better than men
  • Women are the stronger sex
  • Explain how the world can be made better for women
  • Discuss the future gender norms
  • How important are sex roles in society
  • Discuss the transgender and feminism theory
  • How does feminism help in the creation of alternative women’s culture?
  • Gender stereotypes in education and science
  • Discuss racial variations when it comes to gender-related attitudes
  • Women are better leaders
  • Men can’t survive without women

This category also has some of the best gender debate topics. However, learners should be keen to pick topics they are interested in. This will enable them to ensure that they enjoy the research and writing process.

Interesting Gender Inequality Topics

Gender-based inequality is witnessed almost every day. As such, most learners are conversant with gender inequality research paper topics. However, it’s crucial to pick topics that are devoid of discrimination of members of a specific gender. Here are examples of gender inequality essay topics.

  • Sex discrimination aspects in schools
  • How to identify inequality between sexes
  • Sex discrimination causes
  • The inferior role played by women in relationships
  • Discuss sex differences in the education system
  • How can gender discrimination be identified in sports?
  • Can inequality issues between men and women be solved through education?
  • Why are professional opportunities for women in sports limited?
  • Why are there fewer women in leadership positions?
  • Discuss gender inequality when it comes to work-family balance
  • How does gender-based discrimination affect early childhood development?
  • Can sex discrimination be reduced by technology?
  • How can sex discrimination be identified in a marriage?
  • Explain where sex discrimination originates from
  • Discuss segregation and motherhood in labor markets
  • Explain classroom sex discrimination
  • How can inequality in American history be justified?
  • Discuss different types of sex discrimination in modern society
  • Discuss various factors that cause gender-based inequality
  • Discuss inequality in human resource practices and processes
  • Why is inequality between women and men so rampant in developing countries?
  • How can governments bridge gender gaps between women and men?
  • Work-home conflict is a sign of inequality between women and men
  • Explain why women are less wealthy than men
  • How can workplace gender-based inequality be addressed?

After choosing the gender inequality essay topics they like, students should research, brainstorm ideas, and come up with an outline before they start writing. This will ensure that their essays have engaging introductions and convincing bodies, as well as, strong conclusions.

Amazing Gender Roles Topics for Academic Papers and Essays

This category has ideas that slightly differ from gender equality topics. That’s because equality or lack of it can be measured by considering the representation of both genders in different roles. As such, some gender roles essay topics might not require tiresome and extensive research to write about. Nevertheless, learners should take time to gather the necessary information required to write about these topics. Here are some of the best gender topics for discussion when it comes to the roles played by men and women in society.

  • Describe gender identity
  • Describe how a women-dominated society would be
  • Compare gender development theories
  • How equally important are maternity and paternity levees for babies?
  • How can gender-parity be achieved when it comes to parenting?
  • Discuss the issues faced by modern feminism
  • How do men differ from women emotionally?
  • Discuss gender identity and sexual orientation
  • Is investing in the education of girls beneficial?
  • Explain the adoption of gender-role stereotyped behaviors
  • Discuss games and toys for boys and girls
  • Describe patriarchal attitudes in families
  • Explain patriarchal stereotypes in family relationships
  • What roles do women and men play in politics?
  • Discuss sex equity and academic careers
  • Compare military career opportunities for both genders
  • Discuss the perception of women in the military
  • Describe feminine traits
  • Discus gender-related issues faced by women in gaming
  • Men should play major roles in the welfare of their children
  • Explain how the aging population affects the economic welfare of women?
  • What has historically determined modern differences in gender roles?
  • Does society need stereotyped gender roles?
  • Does nature have a role to play in stereotyped gender roles?
  • The development and adoption of gender roles

The list of gender essay topics that are based on the roles of each sex can be quite extensive. Nevertheless, students should be keen to pick interesting gender topics in this category.

Important Gender Issues Topics for Research Paper

If you want to write a paper or essay on an important gender issue, this category has the best ideas for you. Students can write about different issues that affect individuals of different genders. For instance, this category can include gender wage gap essay topics. Wage variation is a common issue that affects women in different countries. Some of the best gender research paper topics in this category include:

  • Discuss gender mainstreaming purpose
  • Discuss the issue of gender-based violence
  • Why is the wage gap so common in most countries?
  • How can society promote equality in opportunities for women and men in sports?
  • Explain what it means to be transgender
  • Discuss the best practices of gender-neutral management
  • What is women’s empowerment?
  • Discuss how human trafficking affects women
  • How problematic is gender-blindness for women?
  • What does the glass ceiling mean in management?
  • Why are women at a higher risk of sexual exploitation and violence?
  • Why is STEM uptake low among women?
  • How does ideology affect the determination of relations between genders
  • How are sporting women fighting for equality?
  • Discuss sports, women, and media institutions
  • How can cities be made safer for girls and women?
  • Discuss international trends in the empowerment of women
  • How do women contribute to the world economy?
  • Explain how feminism on different social relations unites men and women as groups
  • Explain how gender diversity influence scientific discovery and innovation

This category has some of the most interesting women’s and gender studies paper topics. However, most of them require extensive research to come up with hard facts and figures that will make academic papers or essays more interesting.

Students in high schools and colleges can pick what to write about from a wide range of gender studies research topics. However, some gender studies topics might not be ideal for some learners based on the given essay prompt. Therefore, make sure that you have understood what the educator wants you to write about before you pick a topic. Our experts can help you choose a good thesis topic . Choosing the right gender studies topics enables learners to answer the asked questions properly. This impresses educators to award them top grades.

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Digital Commons @ USF > College of Arts and Sciences > Women's and Gender Studies > Theses and Dissertations

Women's and Gender Studies Theses and Dissertations

Theses/dissertations from 2023 2023.

Social Media and Women Empowerment in Nigeria: A Study of the #BreakTheBias Campaign on Facebook , Deborah Osaro Omontese

Theses/Dissertations from 2022 2022

Going Flat: Challenging Gender, Stigma, and Cure through Lesbian Breast Cancer Experience , Beth Gaines

Incorrect Athlete, Incorrect Woman: IOC Gender Regulations and the Boundaries of Womanhood in Professional Sports , Sabeehah Ravat

Transnational Perspectives on the #MeToo and Anti-Base Movements in Japan , Alisha Romano

Theses/Dissertations from 2021 2021

Criminalizing LGBTQ+ Jamaicans: Social, Legal, and Colonial Influences on Homophobic Policy , Zoe C. Knowles

Dismantling Hegemony through Inclusive Sexual Health Education , Lauren Wright

Theses/Dissertations from 2020 2020

Transfat Representation , Jessica "Fyn" Asay

Theses/Dissertations from 2019 2019

Ain't I a Woman, Too? Depictions of Toxic Femininity, Transmisogynoir, and Violence on STAR , Sunahtah D. Jones

“The Most Muscular Woman I Have Ever Seen”: Bev FrancisPerformance of Gender in Pumping Iron II: The Women , Cera R. Shain

"Roll" Models: Fat Sexuality and Its Representations in Pornographic Imagery , Leah Marie Turner

Theses/Dissertations from 2018 2018

Reproducing Intersex Trouble: An Analysis of the M.C. Case in the Media , Jamie M. Lane

Race and Gender in (Re)integration of Victim-Survivors of CSEC in a Community Advocacy Context , Joshlyn Lawhorn

Penalizing Pregnancy: A Feminist Legal Studies Analysis of Purvi Patel's Criminalization , Abby Schneller

A Queer and Crip Grotesque: Katherine Dunn's , Megan Wiedeman

Theses/Dissertations from 2017 2017

"Mothers like Us Think Differently": Mothers' Negotiations of Virginity in Contemporary Turkey , Asli Aygunes

Surveilling Hate/Obscuring Racism?: Hate Group Surveillance and the Southern Poverty Law Center's "Hate Map" , Mary McKelvie

“Ya I have a disability, but that’s only one part of me”: Formative Experiences of Young Women with Physical Disabilities , Victoria Peer

Resistance from Within: Domestic violence and rape crisis centers that serve Black/African American populations , Jessica Marie Pinto

(Dis)Enchanted: (Re)constructing Love and Creating Community in the , Shannon A. Suddeth

Theses/Dissertations from 2016 2016

"The Afro that Ate Kentucky": Appalachian Racial Formation, Lived Experience, and Intersectional Feminist Interventions , Sandra Louise Carpenter

“Even Five Years Ago this Would Have Been Impossible:” Health Care Providers’ Perspectives on Trans* Health Care , Richard S. Henry

Tough Guy, Sensitive Vas: Analyzing Masculinity, Male Contraceptives & the Sexual Division of Labor , Kaeleen Kosmo

Theses/Dissertations from 2015 2015

Let’s Move! Biocitizens and the Fat Kids on the Block , Mary Catherine Dickman

Interpretations of Educational Experiences of Women in Chitral, Pakistan , Rakshinda Shah

Theses/Dissertations from 2014 2014

Incredi-bull-ly Inclusive?: Assessing the Climate on a College Campus , Aubrey Lynne Hall

Her-Storicizing Baldness: Situating Women's Experiences with Baldness from Skin and Hair Disorders , Kasie Holmes

In the (Radical) Pursuit of Self-Care: Feminist Participatory Action Research with Victim Advocates , Robyn L. Homer

Theses/Dissertations from 2013 2013

Significance is Bliss: A Global Feminist Analysis of the Liberian Truth and Reconciliation Commission and its Privileging of Americo-Liberian over Indigenous Liberian Women's Voices , Morgan Lea Eubank

Monsters Under the Bed: An Analysis of Torture Scenes in Three Pixar Films , Heidi Tilney Kramer

Theses/Dissertations from 2012 2012

Can You Believe She Did THAT?!:Breaking the Codes of "Good" Mothering in 1970s Horror Films , Jessica Michelle Collard

Don't Blame It on My Ovaries: Exploring the Lived Experience of Women with Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome and the Creation of Discourse , Jennifer Lynn Ellerman

Valanced Voices: Student Experiences with Learning Disabilities & Differences , Zoe DuPree Fine

An Interactive Guide to Self-Discovery for Women , Elaine J. Taylor

Selling the Third Wave: The Commodification and Consumption of the Flat Track Roller Girl , Mary Catherine Whitlock

Theses/Dissertations from 2010 2010

Beyond Survival: An Exploration of Narrative Healing and Forgiveness in Healing from Rape , Heather Curry

Theses/Dissertations from 2009 2009

Gender Trouble In Northern Ireland: An Examination Of Gender And Bodies Within The 1970s And 1980s Provisional Irish Republican Army In Northern Ireland , Jennifer Earles

"You're going to Hollywood"!: Gender and race surveillance and accountability in American Idol contestant's performances , Amanda LeBlanc

From the academy to the streets: Documenting the healing power of black feminist creative expression , Tunisia L. Riley

Developing Feminist Activist Pedagogy: A Case Study Approach in the Women's Studies Department at the University of South Florida , Stacy Tessier

Women in Wargasm: The Politics of Womenís Liberation in the Weather Underground Organization , Cyrana B. Wyker

Theses/Dissertations from 2008 2008

Opportunities for Spiritual Awakening and Growth in Mothering , Melissa J. Albee

A Constant Struggle: Renegotiating Identity in the Aftermath of Rape , Jo Aine Clarke

I am Warrior Woman, Hear Me Roar: The Challenge and Reproduction of Heteronormativity in Speculative Television Programs , Leisa Anne Clark

Theses/Dissertations from 2007 2007

Reforming Dance Pedagogy: A Feminist Perspective on the Art of Performance and Dance Education , Jennifer Clement

Narratives of lesbian transformation: Coming out stories of women who transition from heterosexual marriage to lesbian identity , Clare F. Walsh

The Conundrum of Women’s Studies as Institutional: New Niches, Undergraduate Concerns, and the Move Towards Contemporary Feminist Theory and Action , Rebecca K. Willman

Theses/Dissertations from 2006 2006

A Feminist Perspective on the Precautionary Principle and the Problem of Endocrine Disruptors under Neoliberal Globalization Policies , Erica Hesch Anstey

Asymptotes and metaphors: Teaching feminist theory , Michael Eugene Gipson

Postcolonial Herstory: The Novels of Assia Djebar (Algeria) and Oksana Zabuzhko (Ukraine): A Comparative Analysis , Oksana Lutsyshyna

Theses/Dissertations from 2005 2005

Loving Loving? Problematizing Pedagogies of Care and Chéla Sandoval’s Love as a Hermeneutic , Allison Brimmer

Exploring Women’s Complex Relationship with Political Violence: A Study of the Weathermen, Radical Feminism and the New Left , Lindsey Blake Churchill

The Voices of Sex Workers (prostitutes?) and the Dilemma of Feminist Discourse , Justine L. Kessler

Reconstructing Women's Identities: The Phenomenon Of Cosmetic Surgery In The United States , Cara L. Okopny

Fantastic Visions: On the Necessity of Feminist Utopian Narrative , Tracie Anne Welser

Theses/Dissertations from 2004 2004

The Politics of Being an Egg “Donor” and Shifting Notions of Reproductive Freedom , Elizabeth A. Dedrick

Women, Domestic Abuse, And Dreams: Analyzing Dreams To Uncover Hidden Traumas And Unacknowledged Strengths , Mindy Stokes

Theses/Dissertations from 2001 2001

Safe at Home: Agoraphobia and the Discourse on Women’s Place , Suzie Siegel

Theses/Dissertations from 2000 2000

Women, Environment and Development: Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America , Evaline Tiondi

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131 Gender Research Topics To Attain Top Grades

gender research topics

Are you looking for a gender topic to use for your research project, research proposal, thesis, or dissertation? You are definitely at the right place. We have 131 diverse gender research topics that will lead you to a point of research to get to the bottom of a certain phenomenon.

As students in college, you need to provide high-quality assignment output to increase the possibility of getting top grades.

These topics can help you dive more into research and even provide a bridge for your career. While doing research you might meet different stakeholders that can help you get a better understanding. You can also get thesis help from us online.

What Is Gender?

Gender is portrayed by the socially constructed characteristics found in males and females. Gender defines the behaviors, norms, and gender roles of males and females. However, it differs in certain societies. However, gender can lead to specific social and economic inequalities in society.

The other popularly confusing phenomenon is sex which refers to the unique biological and psychological characteristics of males, females, and intersex persons. Hugely, gender influences people’s experiences and access to different social amenities.

If gender issues interest you, you can consider doing gender development and gender studies courses or units in college. You will get a better understanding of the relationships between one’s gender and society.

The Different Parts Of A Thesis

A thesis has three major parts which include the introduction, body, and last part.

  • Introductory Part The thesis introductory party should entail the cover page, description page, table of contents, list of figures, and list of tables. This may differ based on the kind of thesis that you are doing.
  • Body The body content can vary based on the topic of gender that you are doing. If you are doing a research report topic; it should contain the introduction of the topic, theoretical basis, project implementation, research results, and discussion. If you are doing a development project report the body should contain the introduction, objectives, project background, theoretical basis, project implementation, and discussion.
  • The last part This part should contain a list of references and appendices.

Gender Research Topics

Are you searching for ideal topics on gender? You can consider using any of these for your research paper, project, or assignment. You can’t miss an ideal one to use for your paper:

  • General impacts of globalization on experiences around gender.
  • Dynamics found in gender development.
  • Effects of discrimination based on gender at jobs and careers.
  • Promotion of gender equality in the world in the 21 st
  • The known social construction of gender roles.
  • Discuss whether gender is natural or acquired from the surrounding.
  • Is gender a role, biological sex, or culturally acquired?
  • How does gender impact social media interactions?
  • Evaluate the changing gender roles in families.
  • How are gender roles portrayed in cartoons?
  • Effects of gender biases in the workplace.

Topics About Gender

Do different topics about gender interest you? Then consider any of these for your research project, research paper, proposal, and much more:

  • The best modes to use to teach students about gender equality.
  • Evaluate women’s empowerment in society.
  • Common challenges faced by women in the workplace.
  • Classification of gender dysphoria.
  • Evaluate sex, gender, and inequalities
  • Evaluate gender stereotypes and misunderstandings.
  • Importance of mass media in solving gender issues.
  • How does society portray gender and sexuality?
  • Influence of gender stereotypes in individuals.

Gender Topics

Equality should be achieved in schools, workplaces, and social places. We are social beings and need to find a way to boost equality in society to prevent anyone from feeling left out:

  • Gender disparity in science.
  • Evolution of discrimination in society in the previous centuries.
  • Similarities between racism and gender inequality.
  • Social roles men and women.
  • Gender roles in the current society.
  • Why is discrimination dominant in certain places?
  • How has LGBT evolved?
  • The rights of single mothers in society?
  • Gender role definition.
  • The advantages of feminism in the growth of society.

Gender-Related Topics

Here are any gender-related topics which you can use for your thesis, dissertation, proposal, or project. If you have an interest in the field, what are you waiting for?

  • The relation between culture and body self-image.
  • Forms of gender violence in society.
  • Gender role in medicine and science.
  • Role of women in the progress of the world economy.
  • The possibility of reaching gender equality in modern society.
  • The kind of stereotypical depictions of women in the media.
  • Role of women on Earth.
  • How does religion diminish male roles in society?
  • Division of labor for different genders in the workplace.
  • Does gender influence income inequality?

Gender Studies Research Topics

Gender studies courses and the unit have gained popularity in different universities. The world is growing with each passing day, and it is important to understand how different genders interact in different institutions:

  • The reality of the gender pay gap in the current society.
  • Relation between culture and gender stereotypes.
  • The root of gender stereotypes.
  • Gender stereotypes are found on TV.
  • How does gender inequality affect kids’ upbringing?
  • Gender barriers faced by women in educational establishments.
  • Causes of gender-based violence in the world.
  • Family issues are caused by the gender disparity globally.
  • The attitudes towards gays and lesbians.
  • The Importance of maternal and paternal leaves for the newborn baby.

Gender Inequality Research Paper Topics

The world should provide a safe space for everyone. Therefore, you can use these gender inequality research paper topics to dig deeper into the kind of inequalities people go through:

  • Gender concepts integrated into Artificial Intelligence.
  • Gender diversity roles in scientific discovery.
  • Major causes of gender imbalance.
  • Relation between sports, women, and media institutions.
  • The advantages and disadvantages of being a feminist.
  • Importance of parents’ investment in girls’ education.
  • Factors that cause inequality in the workplace.
  • How gender misconceptions affect behavior.
  • Steps that can be taken by parents to achieve gender parity.

Sociology Research Topics On Gender

Sociology entails the study of social interactions. If that interests you then these sociology research topics on gender will do the trick:

  • The genderized occupations in society.
  • Gender stereotypes in different regions.
  • How are men and women treated differently in law?
  • The known gender roles in the family.
  • Women’s rights history in different countries.
  • Advantages and disadvantages of gender identification in society.
  • Mental perception of gender in society.
  • Legalization of LGBT in families.
  • How does gender studies impact self-esteem?
  • The origin and dangers of feminism.

Gender Topics For Research

Gender equality, and achievement will play a huge role in improving productivity in the workplace, school, and social places. Advocating for gender equality for both men and women is crucial:

  • Why are girls more likely to fall victim to sexual exploitation?
  • Key obstacles that prevent girls from accessing quality education.
  • Methods that can be used to promote equal opportunities for women and men in society.
  • Impact of gender diversity in scientific innovations.
  • Common gender-neutral management practices.
  • The contrast of the wage gap between both genders.
  • Evaluate gender roles in society.
  • Can men fight for their rights as feminists do?
  • Evaluate gender discrimination and promotion over time.
  • Can education help solve inequality issues?

Gender Issues Topics For Research Paper

What resources do you use for research? You can search on the internet, and use scholarly articles, documentaries, books, and PDFs to get the information that you need:

  • Evaluate work-home conflict as a result of gender inequality.
  • Factors influencing inequality in developing countries.
  • Best way to address gender-based issues at the workplace.
  • Relation between gender and leadership in education.
  • Bullying issues in education based on gender.
  • A social perspective on gender issues and sexuality.
  • Best modes of addressing gender equality.
  • Relation between globalization, liberalization, and gender equality.
  • Major gender issues in international relations.
  • How does gender influence the recruitment of individuals in the workplace?

Best Gender Research Paper Topics

Which gender issues have you encountered in society? These are some other topics that can bring you into the limelight. Attaining gender equality in society is important:

  • Scarcity of water and effect on gender inequality.
  • Unequal division of economic growth in society.
  • Factors that lead to gender inequality in the workplace.
  • Gender inequality in retirement and employment.
  • Relation between poverty and gender.
  • Gender inequalities that lead to women’s rights movements.
  • Gender stereotypes issue and contribute to gender inequality.
  • Effects of gender inequality in economic development.
  • Dire consequences of gender inequality.
  • The importance of women fighting for gender equality.

Gender Research Paper Topics

You can use any of these gender research paper topics to make your proposal, project, thesis, or dissertation, which will help to make your paper really good. But if this whole writing process is difficult for you, you can find dissertation writers for hire .

  • Manifestation of gender inequality in society.
  • From your perspective is it possible to fully achieve gender equality?
  • Future outcomes of the present gender inequality.
  • How does gender blindness impact gender inequality?
  • Economic aftermaths of gender inequality.
  • Relation between gender equality and politics.
  • Evaluate gender inequality from a psychological perspective.
  • Best modes to tackle gender inequality at home.
  • How is gender inequality portrayed in sports?
  • Should women and men perform specific roles?

Women And Gender Studies Research Topics

When it comes to gender issues, women are the most affected. Therefore, there is a need to balance the issue so that both men and women can share the same rights:

  • Women’s views on long-existing gender stereotypes.
  • How are gender roles portrayed in movies, news, and TV shows?
  • Gender stereotypes in children
  • Evaluate gender as portrayed in literature
  • Gender mainstreaming in institutions.
  • Gender role effects on childhood development.
  • How are gender stereotypes developed in families?
  • Parents’ gender roles and children’s aspirations.
  • Emotional perception of gender inequality.
  • The disparity between gender stereotypes in the Eastern and Western culture

Research Topics On Gender Inequality

If you are planning to do a research paper on gender. These are the perfect topics to start with. You can find data for different topics easily on the internet:

  • Gender stereotypes in athletic management.
  • Effect of globalization on gender norms and experiences.
  • Feminization and gender issues in education
  • Relation between gender equality and women’s rights.
  • The global perception of female leadership and gender equity.
  • The effects of gender discrimination in social media and how it affects individuals.
  • Transgender and gender non-conforming in children.
  • Race and Gender public relations.
  • Gender socialization and ageism.
  • Gender differences in financial knowledge acquisition.

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Peer-reviewed

Research Article

Twenty years of gender equality research: A scoping review based on a new semantic indicator

Contributed equally to this work with: Paola Belingheri, Filippo Chiarello, Andrea Fronzetti Colladon, Paola Rovelli

Roles Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Dipartimento di Ingegneria dell’Energia, dei Sistemi, del Territorio e delle Costruzioni, Università degli Studi di Pisa, Largo L. Lazzarino, Pisa, Italy

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Methodology, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Methodology, Software, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

* E-mail: [email protected]

Affiliations Department of Engineering, University of Perugia, Perugia, Italy, Department of Management, Kozminski University, Warsaw, Poland

ORCID logo

Roles Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Faculty of Economics and Management, Centre for Family Business Management, Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Bozen-Bolzano, Italy

  • Paola Belingheri, 
  • Filippo Chiarello, 
  • Andrea Fronzetti Colladon, 
  • Paola Rovelli

PLOS

  • Published: September 21, 2021
  • https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0256474
  • Reader Comments

9 Nov 2021: The PLOS ONE Staff (2021) Correction: Twenty years of gender equality research: A scoping review based on a new semantic indicator. PLOS ONE 16(11): e0259930. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0259930 View correction

Table 1

Gender equality is a major problem that places women at a disadvantage thereby stymieing economic growth and societal advancement. In the last two decades, extensive research has been conducted on gender related issues, studying both their antecedents and consequences. However, existing literature reviews fail to provide a comprehensive and clear picture of what has been studied so far, which could guide scholars in their future research. Our paper offers a scoping review of a large portion of the research that has been published over the last 22 years, on gender equality and related issues, with a specific focus on business and economics studies. Combining innovative methods drawn from both network analysis and text mining, we provide a synthesis of 15,465 scientific articles. We identify 27 main research topics, we measure their relevance from a semantic point of view and the relationships among them, highlighting the importance of each topic in the overall gender discourse. We find that prominent research topics mostly relate to women in the workforce–e.g., concerning compensation, role, education, decision-making and career progression. However, some of them are losing momentum, and some other research trends–for example related to female entrepreneurship, leadership and participation in the board of directors–are on the rise. Besides introducing a novel methodology to review broad literature streams, our paper offers a map of the main gender-research trends and presents the most popular and the emerging themes, as well as their intersections, outlining important avenues for future research.

Citation: Belingheri P, Chiarello F, Fronzetti Colladon A, Rovelli P (2021) Twenty years of gender equality research: A scoping review based on a new semantic indicator. PLoS ONE 16(9): e0256474. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0256474

Editor: Elisa Ughetto, Politecnico di Torino, ITALY

Received: June 25, 2021; Accepted: August 6, 2021; Published: September 21, 2021

Copyright: © 2021 Belingheri et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Data Availability: All relevant data are within the manuscript and its supporting information files. The only exception is the text of the abstracts (over 15,000) that we have downloaded from Scopus. These abstracts can be retrieved from Scopus, but we do not have permission to redistribute them.

Funding: P.B and F.C.: Grant of the Department of Energy, Systems, Territory and Construction of the University of Pisa (DESTEC) for the project “Measuring Gender Bias with Semantic Analysis: The Development of an Assessment Tool and its Application in the European Space Industry. P.B., F.C., A.F.C., P.R.: Grant of the Italian Association of Management Engineering (AiIG), “Misure di sostegno ai soci giovani AiIG” 2020, for the project “Gender Equality Through Data Intelligence (GEDI)”. F.C.: EU project ASSETs+ Project (Alliance for Strategic Skills addressing Emerging Technologies in Defence) EAC/A03/2018 - Erasmus+ programme, Sector Skills Alliances, Lot 3: Sector Skills Alliance for implementing a new strategic approach (Blueprint) to sectoral cooperation on skills G.A. NUMBER: 612678-EPP-1-2019-1-IT-EPPKA2-SSA-B.

Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Introduction

The persistent gender inequalities that currently exist across the developed and developing world are receiving increasing attention from economists, policymakers, and the general public [e.g., 1 – 3 ]. Economic studies have indicated that women’s education and entry into the workforce contributes to social and economic well-being [e.g., 4 , 5 ], while their exclusion from the labor market and from managerial positions has an impact on overall labor productivity and income per capita [ 6 , 7 ]. The United Nations selected gender equality, with an emphasis on female education, as part of the Millennium Development Goals [ 8 ], and gender equality at-large as one of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to be achieved by 2030 [ 9 ]. These latter objectives involve not only developing nations, but rather all countries, to achieve economic, social and environmental well-being.

As is the case with many SDGs, gender equality is still far from being achieved and persists across education, access to opportunities, or presence in decision-making positions [ 7 , 10 , 11 ]. As we enter the last decade for the SDGs’ implementation, and while we are battling a global health pandemic, effective and efficient action becomes paramount to reach this ambitious goal.

Scholars have dedicated a massive effort towards understanding gender equality, its determinants, its consequences for women and society, and the appropriate actions and policies to advance women’s equality. Many topics have been covered, ranging from women’s education and human capital [ 12 , 13 ] and their role in society [e.g., 14 , 15 ], to their appointment in firms’ top ranked positions [e.g., 16 , 17 ] and performance implications [e.g., 18 , 19 ]. Despite some attempts, extant literature reviews provide a narrow view on these issues, restricted to specific topics–e.g., female students’ presence in STEM fields [ 20 ], educational gender inequality [ 5 ], the gender pay gap [ 21 ], the glass ceiling effect [ 22 ], leadership [ 23 ], entrepreneurship [ 24 ], women’s presence on the board of directors [ 25 , 26 ], diversity management [ 27 ], gender stereotypes in advertisement [ 28 ], or specific professions [ 29 ]. A comprehensive view on gender-related research, taking stock of key findings and under-studied topics is thus lacking.

Extant literature has also highlighted that gender issues, and their economic and social ramifications, are complex topics that involve a large number of possible antecedents and outcomes [ 7 ]. Indeed, gender equality actions are most effective when implemented in unison with other SDGs (e.g., with SDG 8, see [ 30 ]) in a synergetic perspective [ 10 ]. Many bodies of literature (e.g., business, economics, development studies, sociology and psychology) approach the problem of achieving gender equality from different perspectives–often addressing specific and narrow aspects. This sometimes leads to a lack of clarity about how different issues, circumstances, and solutions may be related in precipitating or mitigating gender inequality or its effects. As the number of papers grows at an increasing pace, this issue is exacerbated and there is a need to step back and survey the body of gender equality literature as a whole. There is also a need to examine synergies between different topics and approaches, as well as gaps in our understanding of how different problems and solutions work together. Considering the important topic of women’s economic and social empowerment, this paper aims to fill this gap by answering the following research question: what are the most relevant findings in the literature on gender equality and how do they relate to each other ?

To do so, we conduct a scoping review [ 31 ], providing a synthesis of 15,465 articles dealing with gender equity related issues published in the last twenty-two years, covering both the periods of the MDGs and the SDGs (i.e., 2000 to mid 2021) in all the journals indexed in the Academic Journal Guide’s 2018 ranking of business and economics journals. Given the huge amount of research conducted on the topic, we adopt an innovative methodology, which relies on social network analysis and text mining. These techniques are increasingly adopted when surveying large bodies of text. Recently, they were applied to perform analysis of online gender communication differences [ 32 ] and gender behaviors in online technology communities [ 33 ], to identify and classify sexual harassment instances in academia [ 34 ], and to evaluate the gender inclusivity of disaster management policies [ 35 ].

Applied to the title, abstracts and keywords of the articles in our sample, this methodology allows us to identify a set of 27 recurrent topics within which we automatically classify the papers. Introducing additional novelty, by means of the Semantic Brand Score (SBS) indicator [ 36 ] and the SBS BI app [ 37 ], we assess the importance of each topic in the overall gender equality discourse and its relationships with the other topics, as well as trends over time, with a more accurate description than that offered by traditional literature reviews relying solely on the number of papers presented in each topic.

This methodology, applied to gender equality research spanning the past twenty-two years, enables two key contributions. First, we extract the main message that each document is conveying and how this is connected to other themes in literature, providing a rich picture of the topics that are at the center of the discourse, as well as of the emerging topics. Second, by examining the semantic relationship between topics and how tightly their discourses are linked, we can identify the key relationships and connections between different topics. This semi-automatic methodology is also highly reproducible with minimum effort.

This literature review is organized as follows. In the next section, we present how we selected relevant papers and how we analyzed them through text mining and social network analysis. We then illustrate the importance of 27 selected research topics, measured by means of the SBS indicator. In the results section, we present an overview of the literature based on the SBS results–followed by an in-depth narrative analysis of the top 10 topics (i.e., those with the highest SBS) and their connections. Subsequently, we highlight a series of under-studied connections between the topics where there is potential for future research. Through this analysis, we build a map of the main gender-research trends in the last twenty-two years–presenting the most popular themes. We conclude by highlighting key areas on which research should focused in the future.

Our aim is to map a broad topic, gender equality research, that has been approached through a host of different angles and through different disciplines. Scoping reviews are the most appropriate as they provide the freedom to map different themes and identify literature gaps, thereby guiding the recommendation of new research agendas [ 38 ].

Several practical approaches have been proposed to identify and assess the underlying topics of a specific field using big data [ 39 – 41 ], but many of them fail without proper paper retrieval and text preprocessing. This is specifically true for a research field such as the gender-related one, which comprises the work of scholars from different backgrounds. In this section, we illustrate a novel approach for the analysis of scientific (gender-related) papers that relies on methods and tools of social network analysis and text mining. Our procedure has four main steps: (1) data collection, (2) text preprocessing, (3) keywords extraction and classification, and (4) evaluation of semantic importance and image.

Data collection

In this study, we analyze 22 years of literature on gender-related research. Following established practice for scoping reviews [ 42 ], our data collection consisted of two main steps, which we summarize here below.

Firstly, we retrieved from the Scopus database all the articles written in English that contained the term “gender” in their title, abstract or keywords and were published in a journal listed in the Academic Journal Guide 2018 ranking of the Chartered Association of Business Schools (CABS) ( https://charteredabs.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/AJG2018-Methodology.pdf ), considering the time period from Jan 2000 to May 2021. We used this information considering that abstracts, titles and keywords represent the most informative part of a paper, while using the full-text would increase the signal-to-noise ratio for information extraction. Indeed, these textual elements already demonstrated to be reliable sources of information for the task of domain lexicon extraction [ 43 , 44 ]. We chose Scopus as source of literature because of its popularity, its update rate, and because it offers an API to ease the querying process. Indeed, while it does not allow to retrieve the full text of scientific articles, the Scopus API offers access to titles, abstracts, citation information and metadata for all its indexed scholarly journals. Moreover, we decided to focus on the journals listed in the AJG 2018 ranking because we were interested in reviewing business and economics related gender studies only. The AJG is indeed widely used by universities and business schools as a reference point for journal and research rigor and quality. This first step, executed in June 2021, returned more than 55,000 papers.

In the second step–because a look at the papers showed very sparse results, many of which were not in line with the topic of this literature review (e.g., papers dealing with health care or medical issues, where the word gender indicates the gender of the patients)–we applied further inclusion criteria to make the sample more focused on the topic of this literature review (i.e., women’s gender equality issues). Specifically, we only retained those papers mentioning, in their title and/or abstract, both gender-related keywords (e.g., daughter, female, mother) and keywords referring to bias and equality issues (e.g., equality, bias, diversity, inclusion). After text pre-processing (see next section), keywords were first identified from a frequency-weighted list of words found in the titles, abstracts and keywords in the initial list of papers, extracted through text mining (following the same approach as [ 43 ]). They were selected by two of the co-authors independently, following respectively a bottom up and a top-down approach. The bottom-up approach consisted of examining the words found in the frequency-weighted list and classifying those related to gender and equality. The top-down approach consisted in searching in the word list for notable gender and equality-related words. Table 1 reports the sets of keywords we considered, together with some examples of words that were used to search for their presence in the dataset (a full list is provided in the S1 Text ). At end of this second step, we obtained a final sample of 15,465 relevant papers.

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https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0256474.t001

Text processing and keyword extraction

Text preprocessing aims at structuring text into a form that can be analyzed by statistical models. In the present section, we describe the preprocessing steps we applied to paper titles and abstracts, which, as explained below, partially follow a standard text preprocessing pipeline [ 45 ]. These activities have been performed using the R package udpipe [ 46 ].

The first step is n-gram extraction (i.e., a sequence of words from a given text sample) to identify which n-grams are important in the analysis, since domain-specific lexicons are often composed by bi-grams and tri-grams [ 47 ]. Multi-word extraction is usually implemented with statistics and linguistic rules, thus using the statistical properties of n-grams or machine learning approaches [ 48 ]. However, for the present paper, we used Scopus metadata in order to have a more effective and efficient n-grams collection approach [ 49 ]. We used the keywords of each paper in order to tag n-grams with their associated keywords automatically. Using this greedy approach, it was possible to collect all the keywords listed by the authors of the papers. From this list, we extracted only keywords composed by two, three and four words, we removed all the acronyms and rare keywords (i.e., appearing in less than 1% of papers), and we clustered keywords showing a high orthographic similarity–measured using a Levenshtein distance [ 50 ] lower than 2, considering these groups of keywords as representing same concepts, but expressed with different spelling. After tagging the n-grams in the abstracts, we followed a common data preparation pipeline that consists of the following steps: (i) tokenization, that splits the text into tokens (i.e., single words and previously tagged multi-words); (ii) removal of stop-words (i.e. those words that add little meaning to the text, usually being very common and short functional words–such as “and”, “or”, or “of”); (iii) parts-of-speech tagging, that is providing information concerning the morphological role of a word and its morphosyntactic context (e.g., if the token is a determiner, the next token is a noun or an adjective with very high confidence, [ 51 ]); and (iv) lemmatization, which consists in substituting each word with its dictionary form (or lemma). The output of the latter step allows grouping together the inflected forms of a word. For example, the verbs “am”, “are”, and “is” have the shared lemma “be”, or the nouns “cat” and “cats” both share the lemma “cat”. We preferred lemmatization over stemming [ 52 ] in order to obtain more interpretable results.

In addition, we identified a further set of keywords (with respect to those listed in the “keywords” field) by applying a series of automatic words unification and removal steps, as suggested in past research [ 53 , 54 ]. We removed: sparse terms (i.e., occurring in less than 0.1% of all documents), common terms (i.e., occurring in more than 10% of all documents) and retained only nouns and adjectives. It is relevant to notice that no document was lost due to these steps. We then used the TF-IDF function [ 55 ] to produce a new list of keywords. We additionally tested other approaches for the identification and clustering of keywords–such as TextRank [ 56 ] or Latent Dirichlet Allocation [ 57 ]–without obtaining more informative results.

Classification of research topics

To guide the literature analysis, two experts met regularly to examine the sample of collected papers and to identify the main topics and trends in gender research. Initially, they conducted brainstorming sessions on the topics they expected to find, due to their knowledge of the literature. This led to an initial list of topics. Subsequently, the experts worked independently, also supported by the keywords in paper titles and abstracts extracted with the procedure described above.

Considering all this information, each expert identified and clustered relevant keywords into topics. At the end of the process, the two assignments were compared and exhibited a 92% agreement. Another meeting was held to discuss discordant cases and reach a consensus. This resulted in a list of 27 topics, briefly introduced in Table 2 and subsequently detailed in the following sections.

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Evaluation of semantic importance

Working on the lemmatized corpus of the 15,465 papers included in our sample, we proceeded with the evaluation of semantic importance trends for each topic and with the analysis of their connections and prevalent textual associations. To this aim, we used the Semantic Brand Score indicator [ 36 ], calculated through the SBS BI webapp [ 37 ] that also produced a brand image report for each topic. For this study we relied on the computing resources of the ENEA/CRESCO infrastructure [ 58 ].

The Semantic Brand Score (SBS) is a measure of semantic importance that combines methods of social network analysis and text mining. It is usually applied for the analysis of (big) textual data to evaluate the importance of one or more brands, names, words, or sets of keywords [ 36 ]. Indeed, the concept of “brand” is intended in a flexible way and goes beyond products or commercial brands. In this study, we evaluate the SBS time-trends of the keywords defining the research topics discussed in the previous section. Semantic importance comprises the three dimensions of topic prevalence, diversity and connectivity. Prevalence measures how frequently a research topic is used in the discourse. The more a topic is mentioned by scientific articles, the more the research community will be aware of it, with possible increase of future studies; this construct is partly related to that of brand awareness [ 59 ]. This effect is even stronger, considering that we are analyzing the title, abstract and keywords of the papers, i.e. the parts that have the highest visibility. A very important characteristic of the SBS is that it considers the relationships among words in a text. Topic importance is not just a matter of how frequently a topic is mentioned, but also of the associations a topic has in the text. Specifically, texts are transformed into networks of co-occurring words, and relationships are studied through social network analysis [ 60 ]. This step is necessary to calculate the other two dimensions of our semantic importance indicator. Accordingly, a social network of words is generated for each time period considered in the analysis–i.e., a graph made of n nodes (words) and E edges weighted by co-occurrence frequency, with W being the set of edge weights. The keywords representing each topic were clustered into single nodes.

The construct of diversity relates to that of brand image [ 59 ], in the sense that it considers the richness and distinctiveness of textual (topic) associations. Considering the above-mentioned networks, we calculated diversity using the distinctiveness centrality metric–as in the formula presented by Fronzetti Colladon and Naldi [ 61 ].

Lastly, connectivity was measured as the weighted betweenness centrality [ 62 , 63 ] of each research topic node. We used the formula presented by Wasserman and Faust [ 60 ]. The dimension of connectivity represents the “brokerage power” of each research topic–i.e., how much it can serve as a bridge to connect other terms (and ultimately topics) in the discourse [ 36 ].

The SBS is the final composite indicator obtained by summing the standardized scores of prevalence, diversity and connectivity. Standardization was carried out considering all the words in the corpus, for each specific timeframe.

This methodology, applied to a large and heterogeneous body of text, enables to automatically identify two important sets of information that add value to the literature review. Firstly, the relevance of each topic in literature is measured through a composite indicator of semantic importance, rather than simply looking at word frequencies. This provides a much richer picture of the topics that are at the center of the discourse, as well as of the topics that are emerging in the literature. Secondly, it enables to examine the extent of the semantic relationship between topics, looking at how tightly their discourses are linked. In a field such as gender equality, where many topics are closely linked to each other and present overlaps in issues and solutions, this methodology offers a novel perspective with respect to traditional literature reviews. In addition, it ensures reproducibility over time and the possibility to semi-automatically update the analysis, as new papers become available.

Overview of main topics

In terms of descriptive textual statistics, our corpus is made of 15,465 text documents, consisting of a total of 2,685,893 lemmatized tokens (words) and 32,279 types. As a result, the type-token ratio is 1.2%. The number of hapaxes is 12,141, with a hapax-token ratio of 37.61%.

Fig 1 shows the list of 27 topics by decreasing SBS. The most researched topic is compensation , exceeding all others in prevalence, diversity, and connectivity. This means it is not only mentioned more often than other topics, but it is also connected to a greater number of other topics and is central to the discourse on gender equality. The next four topics are, in order of SBS, role , education , decision-making , and career progression . These topics, except for education , all concern women in the workforce. Between these first five topics and the following ones there is a clear drop in SBS scores. In particular, the topics that follow have a lower connectivity than the first five. They are hiring , performance , behavior , organization , and human capital . Again, except for behavior and human capital , the other three topics are purely related to women in the workforce. After another drop-off, the following topics deal prevalently with women in society. This trend highlights that research on gender in business journals has so far mainly paid attention to the conditions that women experience in business contexts, while also devoting some attention to women in society.

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https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0256474.g001

Fig 2 shows the SBS time series of the top 10 topics. While there has been a general increase in the number of Scopus-indexed publications in the last decade, we notice that some SBS trends remain steady, or even decrease. In particular, we observe that the main topic of the last twenty-two years, compensation , is losing momentum. Since 2016, it has been surpassed by decision-making , education and role , which may indicate that literature is increasingly attempting to identify root causes of compensation inequalities. Moreover, in the last two years, the topics of hiring , performance , and organization are experiencing the largest importance increase.

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https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0256474.g002

Fig 3 shows the SBS time trends of the remaining 17 topics (i.e., those not in the top 10). As we can see from the graph, there are some that maintain a steady trend–such as reputation , management , networks and governance , which also seem to have little importance. More relevant topics with average stationary trends (except for the last two years) are culture , family , and parenting . The feminine topic is among the most important here, and one of those that exhibit the larger variations over time (similarly to leadership ). On the other hand, the are some topics that, even if not among the most important, show increasing SBS trends; therefore, they could be considered as emerging topics and could become popular in the near future. These are entrepreneurship , leadership , board of directors , and sustainability . These emerging topics are also interesting to anticipate future trends in gender equality research that are conducive to overall equality in society.

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https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0256474.g003

In addition to the SBS score of the different topics, the network of terms they are associated to enables to gauge the extent to which their images (textual associations) overlap or differ ( Fig 4 ).

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There is a central cluster of topics with high similarity, which are all connected with women in the workforce. The cluster includes topics such as organization , decision-making , performance , hiring , human capital , education and compensation . In addition, the topic of well-being is found within this cluster, suggesting that women’s equality in the workforce is associated to well-being considerations. The emerging topics of entrepreneurship and leadership are also closely connected with each other, possibly implying that leadership is a much-researched quality in female entrepreneurship. Topics that are relatively more distant include personality , politics , feminine , empowerment , management , board of directors , reputation , governance , parenting , masculine and network .

The following sections describe the top 10 topics and their main associations in literature (see Table 3 ), while providing a brief overview of the emerging topics.

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https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0256474.t003

Compensation.

The topic of compensation is related to the topics of role , hiring , education and career progression , however, also sees a very high association with the words gap and inequality . Indeed, a well-known debate in degrowth economics centers around whether and how to adequately compensate women for their childbearing, childrearing, caregiver and household work [e.g., 30 ].

Even in paid work, women continue being offered lower compensations than their male counterparts who have the same job or cover the same role [ 64 – 67 ]. This severe inequality has been widely studied by scholars over the last twenty-two years. Dealing with this topic, some specific roles have been addressed. Specifically, research highlighted differences in compensation between female and male CEOs [e.g., 68 ], top executives [e.g., 69 ], and boards’ directors [e.g., 70 ]. Scholars investigated the determinants of these gaps, such as the gender composition of the board [e.g., 71 – 73 ] or women’s individual characteristics [e.g., 71 , 74 ].

Among these individual characteristics, education plays a relevant role [ 75 ]. Education is indeed presented as the solution for women, not only to achieve top executive roles, but also to reduce wage inequality [e.g., 76 , 77 ]. Past research has highlighted education influences on gender wage gaps, specifically referring to gender differences in skills [e.g., 78 ], college majors [e.g., 79 ], and college selectivity [e.g., 80 ].

Finally, the wage gap issue is strictly interrelated with hiring –e.g., looking at whether being a mother affects hiring and compensation [e.g., 65 , 81 ] or relating compensation to unemployment [e.g., 82 ]–and career progression –for instance looking at meritocracy [ 83 , 84 ] or the characteristics of the boss for whom women work [e.g., 85 ].

The roles covered by women have been deeply investigated. Scholars have focused on the role of women in their families and the society as a whole [e.g., 14 , 15 ], and, more widely, in business contexts [e.g., 18 , 81 ]. Indeed, despite still lagging behind their male counterparts [e.g., 86 , 87 ], in the last decade there has been an increase in top ranked positions achieved by women [e.g., 88 , 89 ]. Following this phenomenon, scholars have posed greater attention towards the presence of women in the board of directors [e.g., 16 , 18 , 90 , 91 ], given the increasing pressure to appoint female directors that firms, especially listed ones, have experienced. Other scholars have focused on the presence of women covering the role of CEO [e.g., 17 , 92 ] or being part of the top management team [e.g., 93 ]. Irrespectively of the level of analysis, all these studies tried to uncover the antecedents of women’s presence among top managers [e.g., 92 , 94 ] and the consequences of having a them involved in the firm’s decision-making –e.g., on performance [e.g., 19 , 95 , 96 ], risk [e.g., 97 , 98 ], and corporate social responsibility [e.g., 99 , 100 ].

Besides studying the difficulties and discriminations faced by women in getting a job [ 81 , 101 ], and, more specifically in the hiring , appointment, or career progression to these apical roles [e.g., 70 , 83 ], the majority of research of women’s roles dealt with compensation issues. Specifically, scholars highlight the pay-gap that still exists between women and men, both in general [e.g., 64 , 65 ], as well as referring to boards’ directors [e.g., 70 , 102 ], CEOs and executives [e.g., 69 , 103 , 104 ].

Finally, other scholars focused on the behavior of women when dealing with business. In this sense, particular attention has been paid to leadership and entrepreneurial behaviors. The former quite overlaps with dealing with the roles mentioned above, but also includes aspects such as leaders being stereotyped as masculine [e.g., 105 ], the need for greater exposure to female leaders to reduce biases [e.g., 106 ], or female leaders acting as queen bees [e.g., 107 ]. Regarding entrepreneurship , scholars mainly investigated women’s entrepreneurial entry [e.g., 108 , 109 ], differences between female and male entrepreneurs in the evaluations and funding received from investors [e.g., 110 , 111 ], and their performance gap [e.g., 112 , 113 ].

Education has long been recognized as key to social advancement and economic stability [ 114 ], for job progression and also a barrier to gender equality, especially in STEM-related fields. Research on education and gender equality is mostly linked with the topics of compensation , human capital , career progression , hiring , parenting and decision-making .

Education contributes to a higher human capital [ 115 ] and constitutes an investment on the part of women towards their future. In this context, literature points to the gender gap in educational attainment, and the consequences for women from a social, economic, personal and professional standpoint. Women are found to have less access to formal education and information, especially in emerging countries, which in turn may cause them to lose social and economic opportunities [e.g., 12 , 116 – 119 ]. Education in local and rural communities is also paramount to communicate the benefits of female empowerment , contributing to overall societal well-being [e.g., 120 ].

Once women access education, the image they have of the world and their place in society (i.e., habitus) affects their education performance [ 13 ] and is passed on to their children. These situations reinforce gender stereotypes, which become self-fulfilling prophecies that may negatively affect female students’ performance by lowering their confidence and heightening their anxiety [ 121 , 122 ]. Besides formal education, also the information that women are exposed to on a daily basis contributes to their human capital . Digital inequalities, for instance, stems from men spending more time online and acquiring higher digital skills than women [ 123 ].

Education is also a factor that should boost employability of candidates and thus hiring , career progression and compensation , however the relationship between these factors is not straightforward [ 115 ]. First, educational choices ( decision-making ) are influenced by variables such as self-efficacy and the presence of barriers, irrespectively of the career opportunities they offer, especially in STEM [ 124 ]. This brings additional difficulties to women’s enrollment and persistence in scientific and technical fields of study due to stereotypes and biases [ 125 , 126 ]. Moreover, access to education does not automatically translate into job opportunities for women and minority groups [ 127 , 128 ] or into female access to managerial positions [ 129 ].

Finally, parenting is reported as an antecedent of education [e.g., 130 ], with much of the literature focusing on the role of parents’ education on the opportunities afforded to children to enroll in education [ 131 – 134 ] and the role of parenting in their offspring’s perception of study fields and attitudes towards learning [ 135 – 138 ]. Parental education is also a predictor of the other related topics, namely human capital and compensation [ 139 ].

Decision-making.

This literature mainly points to the fact that women are thought to make decisions differently than men. Women have indeed different priorities, such as they care more about people’s well-being, working with people or helping others, rather than maximizing their personal (or their firm’s) gain [ 140 ]. In other words, women typically present more communal than agentic behaviors, which are instead more frequent among men [ 141 ]. These different attitude, behavior and preferences in turn affect the decisions they make [e.g., 142 ] and the decision-making of the firm in which they work [e.g., 143 ].

At the individual level, gender affects, for instance, career aspirations [e.g., 144 ] and choices [e.g., 142 , 145 ], or the decision of creating a venture [e.g., 108 , 109 , 146 ]. Moreover, in everyday life, women and men make different decisions regarding partners [e.g., 147 ], childcare [e.g., 148 ], education [e.g., 149 ], attention to the environment [e.g., 150 ] and politics [e.g., 151 ].

At the firm level, scholars highlighted, for example, how the presence of women in the board affects corporate decisions [e.g., 152 , 153 ], that female CEOs are more conservative in accounting decisions [e.g., 154 ], or that female CFOs tend to make more conservative decisions regarding the firm’s financial reporting [e.g., 155 ]. Nevertheless, firm level research also investigated decisions that, influenced by gender bias, affect women, such as those pertaining hiring [e.g., 156 , 157 ], compensation [e.g., 73 , 158 ], or the empowerment of women once appointed [ 159 ].

Career progression.

Once women have entered the workforce, the key aspect to achieve gender equality becomes career progression , including efforts toward overcoming the glass ceiling. Indeed, according to the SBS analysis, career progression is highly related to words such as work, social issues and equality. The topic with which it has the highest semantic overlap is role , followed by decision-making , hiring , education , compensation , leadership , human capital , and family .

Career progression implies an advancement in the hierarchical ladder of the firm, assigning managerial roles to women. Coherently, much of the literature has focused on identifying rationales for a greater female participation in the top management team and board of directors [e.g., 95 ] as well as the best criteria to ensure that the decision-makers promote the most valuable employees irrespectively of their individual characteristics, such as gender [e.g., 84 ]. The link between career progression , role and compensation is often provided in practice by performance appraisal exercises, frequently rooted in a culture of meritocracy that guides bonuses, salary increases and promotions. However, performance appraisals can actually mask gender-biased decisions where women are held to higher standards than their male colleagues [e.g., 83 , 84 , 95 , 160 , 161 ]. Women often have less opportunities to gain leadership experience and are less visible than their male colleagues, which constitute barriers to career advancement [e.g., 162 ]. Therefore, transparency and accountability, together with procedures that discourage discretionary choices, are paramount to achieve a fair career progression [e.g., 84 ], together with the relaxation of strict job boundaries in favor of cross-functional and self-directed tasks [e.g., 163 ].

In addition, a series of stereotypes about the type of leadership characteristics that are required for top management positions, which fit better with typical male and agentic attributes, are another key barrier to career advancement for women [e.g., 92 , 160 ].

Hiring is the entrance gateway for women into the workforce. Therefore, it is related to other workforce topics such as compensation , role , career progression , decision-making , human capital , performance , organization and education .

A first stream of literature focuses on the process leading up to candidates’ job applications, demonstrating that bias exists before positions are even opened, and it is perpetuated both by men and women through networking and gatekeeping practices [e.g., 164 , 165 ].

The hiring process itself is also subject to biases [ 166 ], for example gender-congruity bias that leads to men being preferred candidates in male-dominated sectors [e.g., 167 ], women being hired in positions with higher risk of failure [e.g., 168 ] and limited transparency and accountability afforded by written processes and procedures [e.g., 164 ] that all contribute to ascriptive inequality. In addition, providing incentives for evaluators to hire women may actually work to this end; however, this is not the case when supporting female candidates endangers higher-ranking male ones [ 169 ].

Another interesting perspective, instead, looks at top management teams’ composition and the effects on hiring practices, indicating that firms with more women in top management are less likely to lay off staff [e.g., 152 ].

Performance.

Several scholars posed their attention towards women’s performance, its consequences [e.g., 170 , 171 ] and the implications of having women in decision-making positions [e.g., 18 , 19 ].

At the individual level, research focused on differences in educational and academic performance between women and men, especially referring to the gender gap in STEM fields [e.g., 171 ]. The presence of stereotype threats–that is the expectation that the members of a social group (e.g., women) “must deal with the possibility of being judged or treated stereotypically, or of doing something that would confirm the stereotype” [ 172 ]–affects women’s interested in STEM [e.g., 173 ], as well as their cognitive ability tests, penalizing them [e.g., 174 ]. A stronger gender identification enhances this gap [e.g., 175 ], whereas mentoring and role models can be used as solutions to this problem [e.g., 121 ]. Despite the negative effect of stereotype threats on girls’ performance [ 176 ], female and male students perform equally in mathematics and related subjects [e.g., 177 ]. Moreover, while individuals’ performance at school and university generally affects their achievements and the field in which they end up working, evidence reveals that performance in math or other scientific subjects does not explain why fewer women enter STEM working fields; rather this gap depends on other aspects, such as culture, past working experiences, or self-efficacy [e.g., 170 ]. Finally, scholars have highlighted the penalization that women face for their positive performance, for instance when they succeed in traditionally male areas [e.g., 178 ]. This penalization is explained by the violation of gender-stereotypic prescriptions [e.g., 179 , 180 ], that is having women well performing in agentic areas, which are typical associated to men. Performance penalization can thus be overcome by clearly conveying communal characteristics and behaviors [ 178 ].

Evidence has been provided on how the involvement of women in boards of directors and decision-making positions affects firms’ performance. Nevertheless, results are mixed, with some studies showing positive effects on financial [ 19 , 181 , 182 ] and corporate social performance [ 99 , 182 , 183 ]. Other studies maintain a negative association [e.g., 18 ], and other again mixed [e.g., 184 ] or non-significant association [e.g., 185 ]. Also with respect to the presence of a female CEO, mixed results emerged so far, with some researches demonstrating a positive effect on firm’s performance [e.g., 96 , 186 ], while other obtaining only a limited evidence of this relationship [e.g., 103 ] or a negative one [e.g., 187 ].

Finally, some studies have investigated whether and how women’s performance affects their hiring [e.g., 101 ] and career progression [e.g., 83 , 160 ]. For instance, academic performance leads to different returns in hiring for women and men. Specifically, high-achieving men are called back significantly more often than high-achieving women, which are penalized when they have a major in mathematics; this result depends on employers’ gendered standards for applicants [e.g., 101 ]. Once appointed, performance ratings are more strongly related to promotions for women than men, and promoted women typically show higher past performance ratings than those of promoted men. This suggesting that women are subject to stricter standards for promotion [e.g., 160 ].

Behavioral aspects related to gender follow two main streams of literature. The first examines female personality and behavior in the workplace, and their alignment with cultural expectations or stereotypes [e.g., 188 ] as well as their impacts on equality. There is a common bias that depicts women as less agentic than males. Certain characteristics, such as those more congruent with male behaviors–e.g., self-promotion [e.g., 189 ], negotiation skills [e.g., 190 ] and general agentic behavior [e.g., 191 ]–, are less accepted in women. However, characteristics such as individualism in women have been found to promote greater gender equality in society [ 192 ]. In addition, behaviors such as display of emotions [e.g., 193 ], which are stereotypically female, work against women’s acceptance in the workplace, requiring women to carefully moderate their behavior to avoid exclusion. A counter-intuitive result is that women and minorities, which are more marginalized in the workplace, tend to be better problem-solvers in innovation competitions due to their different knowledge bases [ 194 ].

The other side of the coin is examined in a parallel literature stream on behavior towards women in the workplace. As a result of biases, prejudices and stereotypes, women may experience adverse behavior from their colleagues, such as incivility and harassment, which undermine their well-being [e.g., 195 , 196 ]. Biases that go beyond gender, such as for overweight people, are also more strongly applied to women [ 197 ].

Organization.

The role of women and gender bias in organizations has been studied from different perspectives, which mirror those presented in detail in the following sections. Specifically, most research highlighted the stereotypical view of leaders [e.g., 105 ] and the roles played by women within firms, for instance referring to presence in the board of directors [e.g., 18 , 90 , 91 ], appointment as CEOs [e.g., 16 ], or top executives [e.g., 93 ].

Scholars have investigated antecedents and consequences of the presence of women in these apical roles. On the one side they looked at hiring and career progression [e.g., 83 , 92 , 160 , 168 , 198 ], finding women typically disadvantaged with respect to their male counterparts. On the other side, they studied women’s leadership styles and influence on the firm’s decision-making [e.g., 152 , 154 , 155 , 199 ], with implications for performance [e.g., 18 , 19 , 96 ].

Human capital.

Human capital is a transverse topic that touches upon many different aspects of female gender equality. As such, it has the most associations with other topics, starting with education as mentioned above, with career-related topics such as role , decision-making , hiring , career progression , performance , compensation , leadership and organization . Another topic with which there is a close connection is behavior . In general, human capital is approached both from the education standpoint but also from the perspective of social capital.

The behavioral aspect in human capital comprises research related to gender differences for example in cultural and religious beliefs that influence women’s attitudes and perceptions towards STEM subjects [ 142 , 200 – 202 ], towards employment [ 203 ] or towards environmental issues [ 150 , 204 ]. These cultural differences also emerge in the context of globalization which may accelerate gender equality in the workforce [ 205 , 206 ]. Gender differences also appear in behaviors such as motivation [ 207 ], and in negotiation [ 190 ], and have repercussions on women’s decision-making related to their careers. The so-called gender equality paradox sees women in countries with lower gender equality more likely to pursue studies and careers in STEM fields, whereas the gap in STEM enrollment widens as countries achieve greater equality in society [ 171 ].

Career progression is modeled by literature as a choice-process where personal preferences, culture and decision-making affect the chosen path and the outcomes. Some literature highlights how women tend to self-select into different professions than men, often due to stereotypes rather than actual ability to perform in these professions [ 142 , 144 ]. These stereotypes also affect the perceptions of female performance or the amount of human capital required to equal male performance [ 110 , 193 , 208 ], particularly for mothers [ 81 ]. It is therefore often assumed that women are better suited to less visible and less leadership -oriented roles [ 209 ]. Women also express differing preferences towards work-family balance, which affect whether and how they pursue human capital gains [ 210 ], and ultimately their career progression and salary .

On the other hand, men are often unaware of gendered processes and behaviors that they carry forward in their interactions and decision-making [ 211 , 212 ]. Therefore, initiatives aimed at increasing managers’ human capital –by raising awareness of gender disparities in their organizations and engaging them in diversity promotion–are essential steps to counter gender bias and segregation [ 213 ].

Emerging topics: Leadership and entrepreneurship

Among the emerging topics, the most pervasive one is women reaching leadership positions in the workforce and in society. This is still a rare occurrence for two main types of factors, on the one hand, bias and discrimination make it harder for women to access leadership positions [e.g., 214 – 216 ], on the other hand, the competitive nature and high pressure associated with leadership positions, coupled with the lack of women currently represented, reduce women’s desire to achieve them [e.g., 209 , 217 ]. Women are more effective leaders when they have access to education, resources and a diverse environment with representation [e.g., 218 , 219 ].

One sector where there is potential for women to carve out a leadership role is entrepreneurship . Although at the start of the millennium the discourse on entrepreneurship was found to be “discriminatory, gender-biased, ethnocentrically determined and ideologically controlled” [ 220 ], an increasing body of literature is studying how to stimulate female entrepreneurship as an alternative pathway to wealth, leadership and empowerment [e.g., 221 ]. Many barriers exist for women to access entrepreneurship, including the institutional and legal environment, social and cultural factors, access to knowledge and resources, and individual behavior [e.g., 222 , 223 ]. Education has been found to raise women’s entrepreneurial intentions [e.g., 224 ], although this effect is smaller than for men [e.g., 109 ]. In addition, increasing self-efficacy and risk-taking behavior constitute important success factors [e.g., 225 ].

Finally, the topic of sustainability is worth mentioning, as it is the primary objective of the SDGs and is closely associated with societal well-being. As society grapples with the effects of climate change and increasing depletion of natural resources, a narrative has emerged on women and their greater link to the environment [ 226 ]. Studies in developed countries have found some support for women leaders’ attention to sustainability issues in firms [e.g., 227 – 229 ], and smaller resource consumption by women [ 230 ]. At the same time, women will likely be more affected by the consequences of climate change [e.g., 230 ] but often lack the decision-making power to influence local decision-making on resource management and environmental policies [e.g., 231 ].

Research gaps and conclusions

Research on gender equality has advanced rapidly in the past decades, with a steady increase in publications, both in mainstream topics related to women in education and the workforce, and in emerging topics. Through a novel approach combining methods of text mining and social network analysis, we examined a comprehensive body of literature comprising 15,465 papers published between 2000 and mid 2021 on topics related to gender equality. We identified a set of 27 topics addressed by the literature and examined their connections.

At the highest level of abstraction, it is worth noting that papers abound on the identification of issues related to gender inequalities and imbalances in the workforce and in society. Literature has thoroughly examined the (unconscious) biases, barriers, stereotypes, and discriminatory behaviors that women are facing as a result of their gender. Instead, there are much fewer papers that discuss or demonstrate effective solutions to overcome gender bias [e.g., 121 , 143 , 145 , 163 , 194 , 213 , 232 ]. This is partly due to the relative ease in studying the status quo, as opposed to studying changes in the status quo. However, we observed a shift in the more recent years towards solution seeking in this domain, which we strongly encourage future researchers to focus on. In the future, we may focus on collecting and mapping pro-active contributions to gender studies, using additional Natural Language Processing techniques, able to measure the sentiment of scientific papers [ 43 ].

All of the mainstream topics identified in our literature review are closely related, and there is a wealth of insights looking at the intersection between issues such as education and career progression or human capital and role . However, emerging topics are worthy of being furtherly explored. It would be interesting to see more work on the topic of female entrepreneurship , exploring aspects such as education , personality , governance , management and leadership . For instance, how can education support female entrepreneurship? How can self-efficacy and risk-taking behaviors be taught or enhanced? What are the differences in managerial and governance styles of female entrepreneurs? Which personality traits are associated with successful entrepreneurs? Which traits are preferred by venture capitalists and funding bodies?

The emerging topic of sustainability also deserves further attention, as our society struggles with climate change and its consequences. It would be interesting to see more research on the intersection between sustainability and entrepreneurship , looking at how female entrepreneurs are tackling sustainability issues, examining both their business models and their company governance . In addition, scholars are suggested to dig deeper into the relationship between family values and behaviors.

Moreover, it would be relevant to understand how women’s networks (social capital), or the composition and structure of social networks involving both women and men, enable them to increase their remuneration and reach top corporate positions, participate in key decision-making bodies, and have a voice in communities. Furthermore, the achievement of gender equality might significantly change firm networks and ecosystems, with important implications for their performance and survival.

Similarly, research at the nexus of (corporate) governance , career progression , compensation and female empowerment could yield useful insights–for example discussing how enterprises, institutions and countries are managed and the impact for women and other minorities. Are there specific governance structures that favor diversity and inclusion?

Lastly, we foresee an emerging stream of research pertaining how the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic challenged women, especially in the workforce, by making gender biases more evident.

For our analysis, we considered a set of 15,465 articles downloaded from the Scopus database (which is the largest abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature). As we were interested in reviewing business and economics related gender studies, we only considered those papers published in journals listed in the Academic Journal Guide (AJG) 2018 ranking of the Chartered Association of Business Schools (CABS). All the journals listed in this ranking are also indexed by Scopus. Therefore, looking at a single database (i.e., Scopus) should not be considered a limitation of our study. However, future research could consider different databases and inclusion criteria.

With our literature review, we offer researchers a comprehensive map of major gender-related research trends over the past twenty-two years. This can serve as a lens to look to the future, contributing to the achievement of SDG5. Researchers may use our study as a starting point to identify key themes addressed in the literature. In addition, our methodological approach–based on the use of the Semantic Brand Score and its webapp–could support scholars interested in reviewing other areas of research.

Supporting information

S1 text. keywords used for paper selection..

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0256474.s001

Acknowledgments

The computing resources and the related technical support used for this work have been provided by CRESCO/ENEAGRID High Performance Computing infrastructure and its staff. CRESCO/ENEAGRID High Performance Computing infrastructure is funded by ENEA, the Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development and by Italian and European research programmes (see http://www.cresco.enea.it/english for information).

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CUNY Academic Works

Home > Dissertations, Theses & Capstones Projects by Program > Women's and Gender Studies Master's Theses

Women's and Gender Studies Master's Theses

As of 2014, all newly submitted Graduate Center dissertations and theses appear in Academic Works shortly after graduation. Some works are immediately available to read and download, and some become available after an embargo period set by the author.

Dissertations and theses from before 2014 are generally accessible only to the CUNY community, but some authors have chosen to make theirs open access.

Dissertations/Theses/Capstones from 2024 2024

Not Sanitized for Your Protection: AIDS and the Politics of Trash , Emma Banks

“Back from Cuba with Machetes and Cameras” Feminist Contour Lines through the Venceremos Brigade: 1969-1971 and Today , Nicolette Bull

Cinema and Ritual: Decolonial Feminist Approaches to Image-Making in the Americas and the Caribbean , Natalie M. Erazo

Final Report: Media Intern Position at CLAGS , Nicolle Marquez

Dissertations/Theses/Capstones from 2023 2023

An Analysis of Feminist Care Networks in the Editorial Intern Position at Women's Studies Quarterly , Angela G. Boscarino

Overview of the Intern Position at SexGenLab and the Importance of Public Scholarship , Elizabeth S. Chapin

How the U.S. Mainstream Media Perpetuates Cis White Masculine Hegemony , Yelena Dzhanova

The Queer Comedy Boom: The History of LGBTQ+ Stand-up Comedy , Marcelle Karp

The Queer Life of Lorena Hickok , Samantha D. Leyerle

Uprooting Patriarchy: Meditations on Gender, Masculinities, and Healing Through Buddhist Practices , Noah Souder-Russo

Dissertations/Theses/Capstones from 2022 2022

A History of the Center for the Study of Women and Society, 1975–2015 , Clarisa Gonzalez

Lactating Justice: Constructing a Society Economically Focused on Optimizing Health through Human Lactation , Shadley Hobour

An Overview and Assessment of the Editorial Assistant Position at Women’s Studies Quarterly , Amy M. Iafrate

A Qualitative Exploration of Discourses in Fan Community, /r/boyslove , Jessica Lin

My Favorite Thing is Monster Theory: Horror Comics and deMONSTRating Difference in Emil Ferris’s "My Favorite Thing is Monsters" , Jennifer Rossberg

Exploring the Boundaries of Queerness from Academia to Activism , Jillian M. (Silvia) Miranda

Let ‘Em Talk: An Exploration of and Challenge to the White Supremacy and Colonization of Black and Brown Girls in United States Public Schools , Keara Small

Dissertations/Theses/Capstones from 2021 2021

Put Yourself First (In a Sexy Way): Postfeminist Beauty Messaging and Resistant Media Texts , Margarita Artoglou

Constructing Curriculum: Centering Identities in Sex Education , Jozette Belmont

The Impact of State Violence on Women During the 22 Years of Dictatorship in The Gambia , Isatou Bittaye-Jobe

Fantasies of Representation: Methods of Feminist Literary Analysis , Alexandra Johnson

Towards a Decolonial Feminist Aesthetics: Gender, Race, and Empire in Theresa Hak Kyung Cha’s Dictee , Juwon Jun

What Do You Think She’s Gonna Do With a Set of Real Claws?: Gender, Race, and Sexuality in Onscreen Portrayals of Women Werewolves , Ashleigh K. Williams

The Compressed Modernity of Legalizing Same-sex Marriage in Taiwan: Digital Activism, Human Rights Discourse, and Intertwined Sexual, Political and National Identities , Jyun-Jie Yang

Dissertations/Theses/Capstones from 2020 2020

If It Wasn’t for the Women: An Exploration of Works by Renita Weems, Wil Gafney, & Kelly Brown Douglas , Charlene Adams

“I’m Real I Thought I Told Ya”: Developing Critical Media Literacy Through U.S. Latinx Digital Media Representations , Solange T. Castellar

Cracks in the Bathroom Stall: A Discourse Analysis on Transgender Bathroom Usage at Garden Spot High School , Kirsten D. Corneilson

Legitimizing Violence at the European Border: Gendered Misrepresentations at Sea and the Vulnerable Other , Michela Demelas

Transgender in College: Engaging Marginalized Collegiate Students , Lo Ferguson

¿Cómo Traducimos "Ni Una Más" al Inglés?: Latin American Manifestation of the Phenomenology of Femicide, and the United States’ Subsequent Internal Neglect , Suemi Mendez

Desexualizing Queer Identities: Methods to Validating Non-Sexual Romantic Attraction and Relationships , Unnati Patel

Dissertations/Theses/Capstones from 2019 2019

“Let’s Call Painful Sex Disorders Sexual Disabilities Instead”: A Feminist Disability Critique of Feminist Representations and Medical Representations of Sexual Disorders of Pain , Oyku Akin

Intergenerational Teenage Motherhood: Memory and Material Culture , Aspen Christian

Refusing White Privacy , Olivia Dunbar

Feminist and Anti-Feminist Discourses on Abortion in Haiti from 2010 to 2019 , Katia Henrys

“The Least Sexually Confident Women in the World”: International NGOs and the Racialized Politics of Obstetric Fistula , Googie S. Karrass

Paradoxes of Feminist Stances in “New Turkey”: Reconceiving NGO-State Relationships in the Case of KAMER , Irem Kilic

Gender Affirmative Monopoly: Who is "Trans* Enough" to Receive Gender Affirmative Treatment In Norway? , Emilie Kristine Krumsvik

HEARING/s: Will in the Carceral Archive , Kayla Morse

Sexual Harassment of Professional Women: Joan Williams's The Wintering and Her Apprenticeship with William Faulkner , Naoko Ohri

Black Amerinquen , Kayla Marie Rodriguez

Dissertations/Theses/Capstones from 2018 2018

"It's like They're Right There Next to You": Maintaining Girls' Camp Friendships via Mobile Media , Elise Bragard

Progressive Commemoration: Public Statues of Historical Women in Urban American Cities , Melanie D. Chin

Queer Repurposed Artifacts: The State of New York City’s Contemporary West Village Bars , Stephanie DeBiase

Who Is It For? Personal Writing and Antagonistic Readers , Dana Glaser

Dolls Who Speak: Sex Robots, Cyborgs and the Image of Woman , Victoria E. Pihl Sorensen

A Critical Assessment of the Internship at the NGO Committee on the Status of Women, New York , Ching-Kang Wang

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  • 01 May 2024

Why it’s essential to study sex and gender, even as tensions rise

You have full access to this article via your institution.

Person in a black t-shirt holding a sign protests outside the school districts educational support complex in Katy.

In 2023, students protested against a new policy in Texas, where parents would be notified if their child asks to be identified as transgender. Credit: Brett Coomer/Houston Chronicle/Getty

This week, Nature is launching a collection of opinion articles on sex and gender in research. Further articles will be published in the coming months. The series will highlight the necessity and challenges of studying a topic that is both hugely under-researched and, increasingly, the focus of arguments worldwide — many of which are neither healthy nor constructive.

Some scientists have been warned off studying sex differences by colleagues. Others, who are already working on sex or gender-related topics, are hesitant to publish their views. Such a climate of fear and reticence serves no one. To find a way forward we need more knowledge, not less.

dissertation topics on gender

Collection: Sex and gender in science

Nearly 20 researchers from diverse fields, including neuroscience, psychology, immunology and cancer, have contributed to the series, which provides a snapshot of where scholars studying sex and gender are aligned — and where they are not. In time, we hope this collection will help to shape research, and provide a reference point for moderating often-intemperate debates.

In practice, people use sex and gender to mean different things. But researchers studying animals typically use sex to refer to male and female individuals , as defined by various anatomical and other biological features. In studies involving humans, participants are generally asked to identify their own sex and/or gender category. Here, gender usually encompasses social and environmental factors , including gender roles, expectations and identity.

For as long as scientific inquiry has existed, people have mainly studied men or male animals. Even as recently as 2009, only 26% of studies using animals included both female and male individuals, according to a review of 10 fields in the biological sciences 1 . This bias has had serious consequences. Between 1997 and 2000, for instance, eight prescription drugs were removed from the US market, because clinical testing had not revealed women’s greater risk of developing health problems after taking the drugs.

dissertation topics on gender

Male–female comparisons are powerful in biomedical research — don’t abandon them

The tide, however, is turning. Many journals, including those in the Nature Portfolio , and funders, such as the US National Institutes of Health, have developed guidelines and mandates to encourage scientists to consider sex and, where appropriate, gender in their work.

These efforts are reaping benefits 2 . Studies, for example, are showing that a person’s sex and/or gender can influence their risk of disease and chances of survival when it comes to many common causes of death — including cardiovascular conditions and cancer.

Despite this, many researchers remain unconvinced that the inclusion of sex and gender information is important in their field. Others, who are already doing so, have told Nature that they’re afraid of how their work is perceived and of how it could be misunderstood, or misused.

Podcast: Sex and gender discussions don't need to be toxic

Because researchers who are exploring the effects of sex and gender come from many disciplines, there will be disagreements. An often-raised and valid concern, for example, is that when researchers compare responses between female and male animals, or between men and women, they exclude those whose sex and/or gender doesn’t fall into a binary categorization scheme. Another is that variability between individuals of the same sex could be more important than that between sexes.

Sometimes sense does seem to get lost in the debates. That the term sex refers to a lot of interacting factors, which are not fully understood, does not invalidate its usefulness as a concept 3 . That some people misinterpret and misuse findings concerning differences between sexes, particularly in relation to the human brain, should not mean denying that any differences exist.

Tempering the debate

Many of the questions being raised, however, are important to ask, especially given concerns about how best to investigate biological differences between groups of humans , and the continued — and, in some regions, worsening — marginalization of people whose sex and/or gender identity doesn’t fall into narrowly defined norms. Often, such questions and concerns can be addressed through research. For example, studies might find that variability between individuals of the same sex in diet, or body weight, say, are more important predictors of how likely they are to develop anaemia than whether they are male or female.

dissertation topics on gender

We need more-nuanced approaches to exploring sex and gender in research

The problem, then is not the discussions alone: science exists to examine and interrogate disagreements. Rather, the problem is that debates — and work on sex and gender, in general — are being used to polarize opinions about gender identity. As Arthur Arnold, a biologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, and his colleagues describe in their Comment article , last September, legislation banning gender-affirming medical care for people under 18 years old was introduced in Texas on the basis of claims that everyone belongs to one of two gender groups, and that this reality is settled by science. It isn’t. Scientists are reluctant to study sex and gender, not just because of concerns about the complexity and costs of the research, but also because of current tensions.

But it is crucial that scholars do not refrain from considering the effects of sex and gender if such analyses are relevant to their field. Improved knowledge will help to resolve concerns and allow a scholarly consensus to be reached, where possible. Where disagreements persist, our hope is that Nature ’s collection of opinion articles will equip researchers with the tools needed to help them persuade others that going back to assuming that male individuals represent everyone is no longer an option.

Nature 629 , 7-8 (2024)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-01207-0

Beery, A. K. & Zucker, I. Neurosci. Biobehav. Rev. 35 , 565–572 (2011).

Article   PubMed   Google Scholar  

Tannenbaum, C., Ellis, R. P., Eyssel, F., Zou, J. & Schiebinger, L. Nature 575 , 137–146 (2019).

Velocci, B. Cell 187 , 1343–1346 (2024).

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The scholarly interests of the graduates from our joint PhD programs are wide-ranging. Recent dissertations have explored how cultural ideologies about gender, race, and class influence social norms for appropriate and acceptable bodies; the history of perfume and how the sense of smell contributed to people’s understandings of self and culture; the role of gender, race, and class anomalies in the production of Black medical doctors in South Africa during apartheid: gender roles in intimate relationships; and Midwestern black and white racial and ethnic identities.

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Harley Dutcher , "Dispersion of Values: A Discursive Examination of Attitude Self-Report Item Designs"

Anastasia Gusakova , "A Dyadic Longitudinal Examination of the Efects of Minority Stressors on Relationships Outcomes for Interacial and Same-Race Male Couples"

Aidyn Osgood , "Armies in the Sexual Imaginary of France and the Holy Roman Empire, 1500-1650"

Catherine Fairfield , "Learning to Read Outside: The Vital Role of Feminist Literaturein Creating Lively Futures Amidst Environmental Change"

Kayla Fike , "Examining Perceptions of Neighborhood Quality for Black Urban-Residing Emerging Adults"

Sunhay You , "The Shadow Erotic: Inarticulate Pleasures in Asian/American Women's Literature and U.S. Empire"

Molly Miller Brookfield , "Watching the Girls Go By: Sexual Harasment in the American Street, 1850-1980"

Sarah Beth Chadwick , "When Orgasm Does Not Equal Pleasure: Three Empirical Studies on How Orgasm Experiences Can be "Bad"'

Ozge Savas , "Negotiating Belonging: Atitudes Towards Immigrants and Refugees,  and Experiences of Displaced Syrians in the U.S."

Zach Schudson , "Gender/Sex Diversity Beliefs: Heterogeneity, Links to Prejudice, and Diversity-Afirming Interventions"

Jennifer Frederick , "Atitudes About Disability and Political Participation Since the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election"

Joseph Gamble , "Sex Before Sex Ed: Sexual Practice, Pedagogy, and Afect in Early Modern England"

Alessio Ponzio, "Scandalous Practices: Homosexuality, Male Prostitution, and Sexual Citizenship in Post-Fascist Italy"

Jennifer Rubin , "#Fragilemasculinity: The Roles of Masculinity Threatand Anonymity in Men's Endorsement and Perpetration of Online Gender Harassment"

Charisse Willis , "Gendering Violence: Re-thinking Coercion and Consent in Early Modern English Literature"

Sarah Bell , "What Happens in a Hook Up? You Women's Behaviors, Emotions, and Pleasures." View abstract

Scott De Orio , "Punishing Queer Sexuality in the Age of LGBT Rights." View abstract

Kevin Goodman , "Profiling Institutional Estrangement: Contours and Consequences of Gendered Mistreatment in College." View abstract

Amanda Healy , "Loving Empire: Intimacy and Expansion in U.S. Women's Historical Writing, 1880-1900"

Christina LaRose , "Arab American Women's Poetry: Violence and Boundaries in the Levantine Diaspora." View abstract

Diana Caroline Sierra Becerra , "Insurgent Butterflies: Gender and Revolution in El Salvador, 1965-2015." View abstract

Kathryn Holland , "Sexual Assault Response Systems in an Evolving Legal Landscape: Implications for Reporting and Help-Seeking." View abstract

Joshua Hubbard , "Reproductive Subjects: The Global Politics of Health in China, 1927-1964." View abstract

Hafsa Kanjwal , "Building a New Kashmir: Bakshi Ghulam Muhammad and the Politics of State-Formation in a Disputed Territory." View abstract

Ángela Pérez-Villa , "Disorderly Love: Illicit Friendships, Violence, and Law in a Slave Society at War, Popayan-Colombia, 1809-1830." View abstract

Verónica Caridad Rabelo , "Cleaning the Ivory Tower: (De)constructing Neoliberal Discourse and Dignity in Dirty Work." View abstract

Rita Seabrook , "Alpha Alpha Alpha Male: Relations Among Fraternity Membership, Traditional Masculine Gender Roles, and Sexual Violence." View abstract

Kate Silbert , "'Committed to Memory': Gender, Literary Engagement, and Commemorative Practice, 1780-1920." View abstract

Lanice Avery ,   "The Sound of (Black) Music: Black-Oriented Media Use and Hegemonic Gender Beliefs as Liabilities to Black Women's Sexual Well-Being." View abstract

Tiffany Ball ,   "Weak Feelings: Femininity, Affect, and Sexuality in Modern Fiction and Theory." View abstract

Catherine Cassel ,   "Bugs After the Bomb: Insect Representations in Postatomic American Fiction and Film." View abstract

MicKenzie Elise Fasteland , "Empire and Adolescence: Whiteness and Gendered Citizenship in American Young Adult Literature, 1904-1951." View abstract

Nicole Renee Golda Greer , "To Shape the Future of the Nation: Gender and Family Order in the Age of Americanization, 1890-1952." View abstract

Jina Kim , "Anatomy of the City: Race, Infrastructure, and US Fictions of Dependency." View abstract

Yidi Li , "Institutional Support, Mentor Sponsorship, Department Climate, and Social Identities: Factors in Developing Academic Confidence of Doctoral Students." View abstract

Jessica Matsick , "The Establishment and Functionality of Upward Contempt: Promoting Positive Psychological Outcomes among Minority Group Members." View abstract

Jessica (Lotus) Seeley , "Repairing Computers and (Re)producing Hierarchy: An Ethnography of IT Support and Organizational Status." View abstract

L.E. Hunter , "Exiting the Ivory Tower Before and After Graduation: Attrition and Pursuit of Non-Faculty Career Goals Among Diverse Students." View abstract

Emily Johnston , "Poisoned Subjects: Testimonial Justice in Toxic Life Narrative." View abstract

Amy Moors , "Men's Endorsement of Monogamy: The Role of Gendered Relationship Scripts on Beliefs about Committed Relationships, Love, and Romance." View abstract

Jamie Small , "Trying Male Rape: Legal Renderings of Masculinity, Vulnerability, and Sexual Violence." View abstract

You-Sun Crystal Chung , "Across the Colonial Divide: Friendship in the British Empire, 1875-1940." View abstract

Saida Grundy , "The Makings of Men: The Institutionalization of Class and Masculinity at a Historically Black College for Men." View abstract

Trevor Hoppe , "From Sickness to Badness: Michigan HIV Law as a Site of Social Control." View abstract

Samantha Montgomery , "Personality and Everyday Social Justice Behavior: 'A Broader Set of Acts.'" View abstract

Cookie Woolner , "'The Famous Lady Lovers:' African American Women and Same-Sex Desire from Reconstruction to World War II." View abstract

Ali Ziegler , "Explaining Sexual Fantasy: What Predicts Submissive Fantasies for Women?" View abstract

Kara French , "The Politics of Sexual Restraint: Debates over Chastity in America, 1780-1860." View abstract

Emma Garrett , "Undoing Home: Queer Space and Black Women's Writing 1865-1953." View abstract

Molly Hatcher , "'Disputes, Disorders, and Confusion': Authorship, Remediation, and Intellectual Property Regulations in the Digital Age." View abstract

Yan Long , "Constructing Political Actorhood: The Emergence and Transformation of AIDS Advocacy in China, 1989-2012." View abstract

Elma Lorenzo-Blanco , "Latino/a Acculturation, Smoking, and Depression: Towards the Development of Integrative Socio-cultural Models." View abstract

Grace Sanders , "La Voix des Femmes: Haitian Women's Rights, National Politics, and Black Activism in Port-au-Prince and Montreal, 1934-1986." View abstract

Lai Sze Tso , "'Making It' In China: Why Young Rural Women Climb the Ladder by Moving into China's Cities." View abstract

Megan Ahern , "Affect in Epistemology: Relationality and Feminist Agency in Critical Discourse, Neuroscience, and Novels by Bambara, Morrison, and Silko."  View abstract

Natalie Sabik , "An Exploration of Body Image and Psychological Well-Being Among Aging African American and European American Women." View abstract

Danielle Shapiro , "Parent and Child Mental Health in Nontraditional Families: The Intersecting Roles of Gender, Dyadic Support, and Communication." View abstract

Nicola Curtin , "The Roles of Experiences of Discrimination, Collective Identification, and Structural Awareness in Own-group and Ally Activism." View abstract

Quyen Epstein-Ngo , "'We Just Live and Forget': Latino Adolescent Coping with Neighborhood Violence Exposure and the Roles of Culture and Parent-Adolescent Relationships." View abstract

Dasa Francikova , "All Czechs, but Particularly Women: The Positionality of Women in the Construction of the Modern Czech Nation, 1820s-1850s." View abstract

Kirsten Leng , "'Contesting the "Laws of Life': Feminism, Science and Sex Reform in Germany and Britain, 1880-1914." View abstract

Zakiya Luna , "Domesticating Human Rights: Possibilities and Ambiguities in the Emerging Reproductive Justice Movement." View abstract

Kristine Molina , "A Multiple-Group Path Analysis of the Role of Social Marginality on Self-Rated Physical Health among U.S. Latina/o Adults: An Intersectional Perspective." View abstract

Lynn Verduzco Baker , "Charmed Circle of Motherhood: How Motherhood Discourses Discredit and Empower Young and Low-Income Mothers." View abstract

Shanta Kanukollu , "Exploring perceptions of child sexual abuse and attitudes towards help-seeking among South Asian college students." View abstract

Emily Kazyak , "The Space and Place of Sexuality: How Rural Lesbians and Gays Narrate Identity." View abstract

Jennifer McFarlane-Harris , "Autobiographical theologies: Subjectivity and religious language in spiritual narratives, poetry, and hymnody by African-American women, 1830--1900." View abstract

Navaneetha Mokkil-Maruthur , "Sexual Figures of Kerala: Cultural Practices, Regionality and the Politics of Sexuality." View abstract

Desdamona Rios , "Minority status and privilege in the academy: The importance of race, gender, and socialization practices for undergraduates, graduate students and faculty." View abstract

Ying Zhang , "Politics and morality during the Ming-Qing dynastic transition (1570-1670)." View abstract

Victoria Castillo , "Indigenous 'messengers' petitioning for justice: Citizenship and indigenous rights in Peru, 1900-1945." View abstract

Erin Graham , "'She's Black more than she's a woman' A mixed method analysis of the construction of gender and psychological outcomes among Black female college students." View abstract

Sridevi Nair , "Writing the lesbian: Literary culture in global India." View abstract

Carla Pfeffer , "Trans(Formative) Relationships: What We Learn About Identities, Bodies, Work and Families from Women Partners of Trans Men." View abstract

LaKisha Simmons , "Black girls coming of age: Sexuality and segregation in New Orleans, 1930-1954." View abstract

Jennifer Yim , "'Being an Asian American male is really hard actually': Cultural psychology of Asian American masculinities and psychological well-being." View abstract

Christine Delisle , "Navy wives/native lives: The cultural and historical relations between American naval wives and Chamorro women in Guam, 1898-1945." View abstract

Janice Habarth , "Thinking 'Straight': Heteronormativity and Associated Outcomes Across Sexual Orientation." View abstract

Michelle Lilly , "Shattered Assumptions, Coping and Religiosity in Intimate Partner Violence Survivors: A Partial Explanation for Variation in PTSD Symptoms?" View abstract

Emily Lutenski , " In the Land of Enchantment : Multiethnic Modernism and the American Southwest." View abstract

Jennifer Palmer , "Atlantic crossings: Race, gender, and the construction of families in eighteenth-century La Rochelle." View abstract

Jinny Prais , "Imperial Travelers: The Formation of West African Urban Culture, Identity, and Citizenship in London and Accra, 1925-1935." View abstract

Monica Burguera , "Liberalism and the origins of the social: Women, poverty, and the political meanings of philanthropy in nineteenth-century Spain (Madrid 1834—1843)." View abstract

Juanita Cabello , "Literary travel, the woman traveler, and twentieth century constructions of Mexican tourist spaces." View abstract

Erika Gasser , "Manhood, witchcraft and possession in old and New England." View abstract

Sumiao Li , "Fashionable people, fashionable society: Fashion, gender, and print culture in England 1821—1861." View abstract

Christa McDermott , "Understanding the psychology of unsustainability: Linking materialism, authoritarianism, attitudes toward gender and the environment, and behavior." View abstract

Rebekah Pite , "Creating a common table: Dona Petrona, cooking, and consumption in Argentina, 1928-1983." View abstract

Pavitra Sundar , "Sounding the Nation: The Musical Imagination of Bollywood Cinema." View abstract

Emma Crandall , "Gertrude and Her Boys: Collaborative Friendship, Masculine Styles, and Queer Affairs in the Modern World." View abstract

Andrea Dottolo , "Black and White Racial and Ethnic Identities in the Midwest." View abstract

Julie Eastin , "Predictors of Maternal Satisfaction: The Experiences of LBGQ Mothers." View abstract

Breanne Fahs , "Female sexuality after women’s ‘liberation’: Negotiating repression and performance norms." View abstract

Cathleen Power , "Feeling class: How affect reinforces social inequality." View abstract

Jennifer Churchwell , "Becoming an Academic: Factors that Influence a Graduate Student’s Identity Commitment." View abstract

Holly Dugan , "The Ephemeral History of Perfume: Scent and Sense in Early Modern England." View abstract

Julie Konik , "Harassment as a System for Policing Traditional Gender Norms in the Workplace: The Structure and Process of Sexual Harassment and Heterosexist Harassment." View abstract

Maureen McDonnell , "Crossing the Line: Performing Cultural Identities through Global Shakespearean Drama." View abstract

Vanessa Noble , "Doctors Divided: Gender, Race, and Class Anomalies in the Production of Black Medical Doctors in Apartheid South Africa, 1948–1994." View abstract

Diana T. Sanchez , "In the Bedroom and Beyond: Doing Gender in Intimate Relationships." View abstract

Laura Citrin , "Disgust and 'Normal' Corporeality: How Cultural Ideologies about Gender, Race, and Class Are Inscribed on the Body." View abstract

Gabrielle Dawn Lawhon , "Individual Psychotherapy and the Patient’s Significant Other." View abstract

Kathi Miner-Rubino , "Beyond targets: Vicarious exposure to hostility towards women in the workforce." View abstract

Melanie Boyd , "Troubling Innocence: Convention and Transgression in Feminist Narratives of Incest." View abstract

Theresa Braunschneider , "Maidenly Amusements: Narrating Female Sexuality in Eighteenth-Century England." View abstract

Cari Carpenter , "Seeing Red: Anger, Femininity, and the American Indian of Nineteenth-Century Sentimental Literature." View abstract

Zaje Harrell , "Trait Self-Objectification in College Women’s Mental Health: An Examination of Smokers and Never-Smokers." View abstract

Sheryl Pimlott-Kubiak , "Social Location and Cumulative Adversity in Traumatized Women." View abstract

Jocelyn Fenton Stitt , "Gender in the Contact Zone: Writing the Colonial Family in Romantic-era and Caribbean Literature." View abstract

Colleen O’Brien , "Contested Visions of a New Republic: Race, Sex, and the Body Politic in American Women's Writing, 1850–1938." View abstract

Benita Jackson , "Gender and psychological correlates of use of alcohol to cope with emotional distress." View abstract

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TOP 100 Gender Equality Essay Topics

Jason Burrey

Table of Contents

dissertation topics on gender

Need ideas for argumentative essay on gender inequality? We’ve got a bunch!

… But let’s start off with a brief intro.

What is gender equality?

Equality between the sexes is a huge part of basic human rights. It means that men and women have the same opportunities to fulfil their potential in all spheres of life.

Today, we still face inequality issues as there is a persistent gap in access to opportunities for men and women.

Women have less access to decision-making and higher education. They constantly face obstacles at the workplace and have greater safety risks. Maintaining equal rights for both sexes is critical for meeting a wide range of goals in global development.

Inequality between the sexes is an interesting area to study so high school, college, and university students are often assigned to write essays on gender topics.

In this article, we are going to discuss the key peculiarities of gender equality essay. Besides, we have created a list of the best essay topic ideas.

What is the specifics of gender equality essay?

Equality and inequality between the sexes are important historical and current social issues which impact the way students and their families live. They are common topics for college papers in psychology, sociology, gender studies.

When writing an essay on equality between the sexes, you need to argue for a strong point of view and support your argument with relevant evidence gathered from multiple sources.

But first, you’d need to choose a good topic which is neither too broad nor too narrow to research.

Research is crucial for the success of your essay because you should develop a strong argument based on an in-depth study of various scholarly sources.

Equality between sexes is a complex problem. You have to consider different aspects and controversial points of view on specific issues, show your ability to think critically, develop a strong thesis statement, and build a logical argument, which can make a great impression on your audience.

If you are looking for interesting gender equality essay topics, here you will find a great list of 100 topic ideas for writing essays and research papers on gender issues in contemporary society.

Should you find that some topics are too broad, feel free to narrow them down.

Powerful gender equality essay topics

Here are the top 25 hottest topics for your argumentative opinion paper on gender issues.

Whether you are searching for original creative ideas for gender equality in sports essay or need inspiration for gender equality in education essay, we’ve got you covered.

Use imagination and creativity to demonstrate your approach.

  • Analyze gender-based violence in different countries
  • Compare wage gap between the sexes in different countries
  • Explain the purpose of gender mainstreaming
  • Implications of sex differences in the human brain
  • How can we teach boys and girls that they have equal rights?
  • Discuss gender-neutral management practices
  • Promotion of equal opportunities for men and women in sports
  • What does it mean to be transgender?
  • Discuss the empowerment of women
  • Why is gender-blindness a problem for women?
  • Why are girls at greater risk of sexual violence and exploitation?
  • Women as victims of human trafficking
  • Analyze the glass ceiling in management
  • Impact of ideology in determining relations between sexes
  • Obstacles that prevent girls from getting quality education in African countries
  • Why are so few women in STEM?
  • Major challenges women face at the workplace
  • How do women in sport fight for equality?
  • Women, sports, and media institutions
  • Contribution of women in the development of the world economy
  • Role of gender diversity in innovation and scientific discovery
  • What can be done to make cities safer for women and girls?
  • International trends in women’s empowerment
  • Role of schools in teaching children behaviours considered appropriate for their sex
  • Feminism on social relations uniting women and men as groups

Gender roles essay topics

We can measure the equality of men and women by looking at how both sexes are represented in a range of different roles. You don’t have to do extensive and tiresome research to come up with gender roles essay topics, as we have already done it for you.

Have a look at this short list of top-notch topic ideas .

  • Are paternity and maternity leaves equally important for babies?
  • Imagine women-dominated society and describe it
  • Sex roles in contemporary western societies
  • Compare theories of gender development
  • Adoption of sex-role stereotyped behaviours
  • What steps should be taken to achieve gender-parity in parenting?
  • What is gender identity?
  • Emotional differences between men and women
  • Issues modern feminism faces
  • Sexual orientation and gender identity
  • Benefits of investing in girls’ education
  • Patriarchal attitudes and stereotypes in family relationships
  • Toys and games of girls and boys
  • Roles of men and women in politics
  • Compare career opportunities for both sexes in the military
  • Women in the US military
  • Academic careers and sex equity
  • Should men play larger roles in childcare?
  • Impact of an ageing population on women’s economic welfare
  • Historical determinants of contemporary differences in sex roles
  • Gender-related issues in gaming
  • Culture and sex-role stereotypes in advertisements
  • What are feminine traits?
  • Sex role theory in sociology
  • Causes of sex differences and similarities in behaviour

Gender inequality research paper topics

Examples of inequality can be found in the everyday life of different women in many countries across the globe. Our gender inequality research paper topics are devoted to different issues that display discrimination of women throughout the world.

Choose any topic you like, research it, brainstorm ideas, and create a detailed gender inequality essay outline before you start working on your first draft.

Start off with making a debatable thesis, then write an engaging introduction, convincing main body, and strong conclusion for gender inequality essay .

  • Aspects of sex discrimination
  • Main indications of inequality between the sexes
  • Causes of sex discrimination
  • Inferior role of women in the relationships
  • Sex differences in education
  • Can education solve issues of inequality between the sexes?
  • Impact of discrimination on early childhood development
  • Why do women have limited professional opportunities in sports?
  • Gender discrimination in sports
  • Lack of women having leadership roles
  • Inequality between the sexes in work-family balance
  • Top factors that impact inequality at a workplace
  • What can governments do to close the gender gap at work?
  • Sex discrimination in human resource processes and practices
  • Gender inequality in work organizations
  • Factors causing inequality between men and women in developing countries
  • Work-home conflict as a symptom of inequality between men and women
  • Why are mothers less wealthy than women without children?
  • Forms of sex discrimination in a contemporary society
  • Sex discrimination in the classroom
  • Justification of inequality in American history
  • Origins of sex discrimination
  • Motherhood and segregation in labour markets
  • Sex discrimination in marriage
  • Can technology reduce sex discrimination?

Most controversial gender topics

Need a good controversial topic for gender stereotypes essay? Here are some popular debatable topics concerning various gender problems people face nowadays.

They are discussed in scientific studies, newspaper articles, and social media posts. If you choose any of them, you will need to perform in-depth research to prepare an impressive piece of writing.

  • How do gender misconceptions impact behaviour?
  • Most common outdated sex-role stereotypes
  • How does gay marriage influence straight marriage?
  • Explain the role of sexuality in sex-role stereotyping
  • Role of media in breaking sex-role stereotypes
  • Discuss the dual approach to equality between men and women
  • Are women better than men or are they equal?
  • Sex-role stereotypes at a workplace
  • Racial variations in gender-related attitudes
  • Role of feminism in creating the alternative culture for women
  • Feminism and transgender theory
  • Gender stereotypes in science and education
  • Are sex roles important for society?
  • Future of gender norms
  • How can we make a better world for women?
  • Are men the weaker sex?
  • Beauty pageants and women’s empowerment
  • Are women better communicators?
  • What are the origins of sexual orientation?
  • Should prostitution be legal?
  • Pros and cons of being a feminist
  • Advantages and disadvantages of being a woman
  • Can movies defy gender stereotypes?
  • Sexuality and politics

Feel free to use these powerful topic ideas for writing a good college-level gender equality essay or as a starting point for your study.

No time to do decent research and write your top-notch paper? No big deal! Choose any topic from our list and let a pro write the essay for you!

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Gender in the Economy - Areas of Research

Areas of research.

The Study Group will emphasize a number of central topics regarding Gender in the Economy. These include:

1. Victimization, Vulnerability, and Violence against Women . One of the basic differences between men and women is men’s often monopoly on violence. Topics include domestic violence; how women’s geographic mobility is hindered and its economic consequences; patriarchy historically considered; greater financial security as a means to reduce victimization and violence; bargaining in households; harassment and violence in the workplace.

2. Household Finance Issues . Household finance is an expansive subject area in developing and developed nations. The topics include the role of mobile money; bargaining in households; financial literacy of women; access to bank accounts and credit; women’s empowerment as flowing from financial security; the impact of women’s property rights for financial investment decisions; control over money in household bargaining and marital dissolution.

3. Women’s Wellbeing and Children’s Health . Women now live a lot longer than do men in most parts of the world. They didn’t always, and in some parts of the world today, they still do not. Topics here include maternal mortality, contraception, abortion (particularly sex selective), and AIDS. Access to family planning services cuts across all nations and time periods. Changes in health risks due to women’s increased economic roles and more risky behaviors are also important.

4. Women and Education across the World . An irony in the study of gender differences is the remarkable increase in women’s levels of higher education at the same time that gender differences in earnings and employment remain substantial. Still, many of the world’s women struggle to obtain minimal levels of education. This expansive subject area includes returns to education, reasons for barriers to girl’s education in some nations, how gender gaps in the labor market are responding to relative skill levels, and college majors of women and men.

5. U-Shaped Female Labor Force Function across Economic Development and History. It is well known that across a host of nations, market (paid) employment of women traces out a U-shape. But nations often get stuck at the lower level due to persistent social norms, traditions, stigmas, and other ways in which women are limited in their ability to grate out of the home and into the world of paid employment. Topics include barriers to labor force participation and employment, paid versus unpaid labor, self-employment, social norms, structural change.

6. Gender Earnings Gaps . The gap between men’s and women’s earnings exists across the income distribution and the education distribution. But the gap is generally far greater for higher earners and for those with more education. Yet, the economic hardship is generally greater at the bottom. Topics include the role of time controllability and compensating differentials; discrimination in pay in a host of circumstances; women’s bargaining skills; how the gender gap feeds into women’s vulnerability; how firm-level and political leadership impact these gaps; feedback mechanisms between household’s decisions and the labor market.

7. Women-Centered Policies, Child-Centered Policies, and Missing Fathers . Much of the world (even developing nations) has embraced paid parental leave. Early education in enabling women’s work and benefitting children is an important topic throughout the world. Interdependencies between these two policies and their political economy are important to study. Topics include parental leave policy, especially programs that incentivize fathers to use them; firm-level policies, especially in developed countries. In developing countries, possible topics include how migration and decline in multi-generational living arrangements affect childcare and women’s work and the rise of market-based childcare services.

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Doctoral Dissertation Research: Intersections of nationality and recovery status in shaping gender

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Gender Dissertation Topics

Gender studies refer to social science that deals with the social development of women and men as genders. The term gender mostly refers to women living a life of depravity and injustice in many places. Gender studies have great scope in academics to empower women in developing countries. Choosing quality gender dissertation topics can help achieve success in resolving this issue.

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When selecting the best gender dissertation topic, start by exploring a diverse range of gender studies research topics. Review existing literature to identify gaps or debates, shaping your research question about gender. Consider areas that align with your interests and have societal significance. By exploring research topics on gender and sexuality, you can choose a dissertation topic that not only engages you but also contributes meaningfully to the evolving discourse in the field.

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Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Gender in education'

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Consult the top 50 dissertations / theses for your research on the topic 'Gender in education.'

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You can also download the full text of the academic publication as pdf and read online its abstract whenever available in the metadata.

Browse dissertations / theses on a wide variety of disciplines and organise your bibliography correctly.

Hudson, Heather M. "Parental gender and literacy in the home environment predict early childhood gender and literacy in the school environment /." Staten Island, N.Y. : [s.n.], 2007. http://library.wagner.edu/theses/education/2007/thesis_edu_2007_hudso_paren.pdf.

Mubireek, Khalid Al. "Gender-oriented vs. gender-neutral computer games in education." Connect to this title online, 2003. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc%5Fnum=osu1056139090.

Aslam, Monazza. "Gender and education in Pakistan." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2006. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.439699.

McDaniel, Bonnie Lyon. "Autonomy, gender and democratic education /." Thesis, Connect to this title online; UW restricted, 2003. http://hdl.handle.net/1773/7728.

Sanderson, Nicole Brigit. "Gender issues in initial teacher education." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1998. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk2/ftp03/MQ33449.pdf.

Gracia, Luque Rosaria. "Access and gender in multimedia education." Thesis, University of East London, 2009. http://roar.uel.ac.uk/3159/.

Bobbitt-Zeher, Donna. "Gender, Higher Education, and Earnings Inequality." The Ohio State University, 2008. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1217947446.

Wipert, Cheryl A. "Promoting Gender Equity Through Art Education." The Ohio State University, 1990. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1391770302.

Valero, Mathilde. "Education and gender in developing countries." Thesis, Aix-Marseille, 2020. http://www.theses.fr/2020AIXM0217.

Thomas, Kim E. "Gender and subject in higher education." Thesis, Aston University, 1987. http://publications.aston.ac.uk/12190/.

Husain, Muna. "Essays on gender differences in education." Ann Arbor, Mich. : ProQuest, 2008. http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&res_dat=xri:pqdiss&rft_dat=xri:pqdiss:3307183.

Romeo, Katherine E. "Adolescents' Reasoning about Gender Harassment| The Role of Grade and Victim/ Perpetrator Genders." Thesis, University of Illinois at Chicago, 2015. http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=3668628.

This study investigated middle and late adolescents’ judgments of and reasoning about an incident of homophobic harassment in four conditions, where the genders of the victim and perpetrator were varied (N = 104). Participants were asked whether they thought the victim in their scenario was upset, as well as whether or not the perpetrator had a negative intention. Social cognitive domain theory served as the framework for coding adolescents’ reasoning. In addition, adolescents’ endorsement of gender stereotypes was measured. As expected, having had a male victim, as opposed to a female victim, was related to lesser odds of believing the harassment was completely wrong among tenth graders, and lesser odds of believing the victim was upset. Participants in tenth grade were also more likely to use conventional reasoning in justifying their judgments about harassment than those in twelfth grade. Participants in the male victim/ perpetrator condition were less likely to believe the perpetrator had a negative intention than those in the female victim/ perpetrator condition. Contrary to expectations, endorsement of gender stereotypes was unrelated to the use of conventional reasoning. The effects of endorsement of gender stereotypes and use of moral reasoning in relation to judgments of harassment were significant among participants in the male victim condition, but non-significant among participants in the female victim condition.

Syachaba, Pandey Zekeza. "Globalisation, education and gender : education provision for girls in Zambia." Thesis, University of Edinburgh, 2006. http://hdl.handle.net/1842/29389.

Hoke-Sinex, Linda. "Discovering the gender lens the influence of an introductory gender studies course on personal change /." [Bloomington, Ind.] : Indiana University, 2006. http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&res_dat=xri:pqdiss&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&rft_dat=xri:pqdiss:3204534.

Blair, Heather Alice 1952. "Gender and discourse: Adolescent girls construct gender through talk and text." Diss., The University of Arizona, 1996. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/282147.

Bamora, Florence Naah. "Gender inequality in secondary education in Ghana." Thesis, University of Hull, 2010. http://hydra.hull.ac.uk/resources/hull:5295.

Kettley, Nigel Charles. "Gender, stratification, and attainment in further education." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2004. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.615689.

Petrie, Kirsten. "Gender construction in New Zealand physical education." Thesis, University of Canterbury. School of Sciences and Physical Education, 2002. http://hdl.handle.net/10092/2870.

Mirembe, Robina. "AIDS education and gender in Ugandan schools." Thesis, University of Birmingham, 1998. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.340967.

Charthaigh, Dearbhal Ni. "Gender issues in teacher education in Ireland." Thesis, Loughborough University, 1988. https://dspace.lboro.ac.uk/2134/33032.

Maharajh, Divya. "Feminine experience : media education and gender representation." Thesis, University of Leeds, 2013. http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/4875/.

Ezeh, Kenechukwu. "Gender inequality in education and economic growth." Thesis, Internationella Handelshögskolan, Jönköping University, IHH, Nationalekonomi, 2020. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:hj:diva-49829.

Papanastasiou, Efthymia. "Gender and leadership in Greek primary education." Thesis, London Metropolitan University, 2016. http://repository.londonmet.ac.uk/1023/.

Braiuka, Sandra. "The construction of gender in physical education /." Title page, contents and abstract only, 1996. http://web4.library.adelaide.edu.au/theses/09ARM/09armb814.pdf.

McCue, Lesley Anne. "The Effects of Teacher Candidate Gender, Principal Gender, and Degree Type on the Elementary Teacher Selection Process." University of Dayton / OhioLINK, 2012. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=dayton1354557126.

Wallenius, Todd J. "Challenging gender roles through STEM education in Nepal." Thesis, California State University, Long Beach, 2017. http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=10259120.

Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics (STEM) education programs are currently being introduced and expanded across “developing” nations. STEM programs often conflict with hegemonic gender norms, for example by targeting girls and women in male dominated societies. However, given the cultural complexity of STEM for girls, implementing educators are rarely asked their point of view on programs from abroad. This study explored the perceptions of educators in Nepal who participated in the Girls Get STEM Skills (GGSS) program, a program funded through the U.S. Department of State for 2015/2016. The 8-month program reached 254 girls across three government schools and included the donation of 30 laptops. In August, 2016, the researcher conducted one-on-one interviews and focus groups with 18 participants at GGSS school sites in Pokhara, Nepal. Qualitative data was gathered on educators’ perceptions of teacher roles, Nepal as a developing nation, gender imbalance in STEM, and the GGSS curriculum. The study argues that educators viewed educational topics through the lens of bikas, the Nepali word for development. This suggests that the principal impact of STEM programs—as part of larger development initiatives—may be the creation and reinforcement of new social meanings rather than the tangible impacts of the projects themselves.

Silva, dos Santos Emanuelle. "Class and Gender in Brazil: Informal Education and the Naturalization of Gender Inequality." Doctoral thesis, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, 2020. http://dx.doi.org/10.18452/21033.

Mahoney, Darbra J. "Gender and Leadership: Female ROTC Cadets' Perceptions of Gender and Military Leadership." Digital Archive @ GSU, 2012. http://digitalarchive.gsu.edu/eps_diss/90.

Dunlap, Celeste E. "An Examination of Gender Differences in Today's Mathematics Classrooms: Exploring Single-Gender Mathematics Classrooms." Cedarville University / OhioLINK, 2002. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=cedar1033047176.

Schwendenman, Diane. "Gender Role Expectations of Classroom Teachers." University of Dayton / OhioLINK, 2012. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=dayton1337199263.

Parker, Joshua C. "Gender differences in the motivation to learn." Online pdf file accessible through the World Wide Web, 2007. http://archives.evergreen.edu/masterstheses/Accession89-10MIT/Parker_J%20MITthesis%202007.pdf.

Dunn, Robert W. S. "Educator's Perceptions of Gender and Charismatic Leadership." Xavier University / OhioLINK, 2017. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=xavier1513007723954717.

Hummel, Judythe A. "Gender differences of school superintendents /." The Ohio State University, 1988. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1487587604130506.

Rooke, Gunilla. "In Search for Gender awareness in Technology Education." Licentiate thesis, KTH, Lärande, 2013. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-123169.

QC 20130604

Rubalcava, Raymond. "Gender equity and computer use." CSUSB ScholarWorks, 2002. https://scholarworks.lib.csusb.edu/etd-project/2134.

Hsieh, Yu-Chieh. "Gender equity education in Taiwan : policy, schooling and young people's gender and sexual identities." Thesis, Loughborough University, 2010. https://dspace.lboro.ac.uk/2134/7070.

Nollenberger, Castro Natalia. "Three Empirical Essays on Gender Equality and Education." Doctoral thesis, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/10803/125719.

Gracia, Pablo. "Diverging parenting behavior: education, gender, class and institutions." Doctoral thesis, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, 2012. http://hdl.handle.net/10803/85061.

Poldma, Tiiu Vaikla. "Gender, design and education : the politics of voice." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1999. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk1/tape8/PQDD_0026/MQ50557.pdf.

Davey, C. "Gender & subject choice in second level education." Thesis, Queen's University Belfast, 2004. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.403189.

Olivier, Patricia Joan. "Gender equity in mathematics education : the Namibian situation." Thesis, Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2000. http://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/51772.

Ali, Emua. "Somali women in London : education and gender relations." Thesis, University College London (University of London), 2001. http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/10018889/.

Liu, Qian. "Essays on labor economics: education, employment, and gender /." Uppsala : Department of Economics, Uppsala University, 2009. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-101297.

Macha, Elly. "Gender, disability and access to education in Tanzania." Thesis, University of Leeds, 2002. http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/282/.

Hooks, Calvin Rogers. "Single-Gender Education at an Urban Middle School." ScholarWorks, 2016. https://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/dissertations/2186.

Kawana, Sanae. "Gender equity policies in higher education in Japan." Thesis, Queensland University of Technology, 2010. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/43464/1/Sanae_Kawana_Thesis.pdf.

Winsten-Bartlett, Cheryl Sue. "Gender tipping: The effects of a changing student gender composition on new faculty salaries." Diss., The University of Arizona, 2000. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/284253.

Seong, Moonju. "Gender and Educational Inequality in South Korea: The Correlates and Consequences of Education." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2007. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.487053.

Ngai, Siu-keung George, and 倪紹強. "Gender and schooling: a study of gender role socialization in a primary school." Thesis, The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong), 1995. http://hub.hku.hk/bib/B31958187.

McKenzie, Rory. "Online gender discussions| Student experiences in discussions of gender diversity." Thesis, Gonzaga University, 2015. http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=1596075.

This thesis examined graduate level students' experiences of (mainly gender) diversity in the online classroom. The philosophical framework for this study came from John Rawls' work utilizing the veil of ignorance as a strategy to create more objective determinations free from situational and circumstantial biases. Both critical pedagogy and the theory that individuals construct social and cultural meaning through communication provided the theoretical foundations for the thesis. The study analyzed experiences of the students via their contributions to the online discussion boards. The study also utilized interviews of current and former students to discuss their experiences with diversity in their online classrooms. The study came from an understanding that diversity represents a unique component of the online classroom and rests in the idea that students can all benefit from the diversity of other students' experiences. This work provides a jumping off point of analysis on how best to facilitate discussions of diversity in the online classroom. Facilitating these discussions can become a primary way to break down systemic and institutionalized inequalities that exist for minority groups. Thus, this research, while not the end point, can provide a continued impetus to discover ways to make the online classroom a place of equalized learning to maximize its purpose for all students regardless of their identity. Chief findings in the study indicate the following (not-exhaustive) items: students overwhelmingly report that they value diversity conversations; students do not seem to think that conflicting ideas represent an inherent negative; and student's see the role of the instructor in facilitating, but not inserting personal commentary into the diversity discussions.

Gender disparities in research fields in Russia: dissertation authors and their mentors

  • Published: 10 May 2024

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dissertation topics on gender

  • Elena Chechik   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-2277-0490 1  

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This study examines gender disparities in research fields as measured by scientific output in dissertations at two levels within the Russian academic system: PhD and the more advanced Doctor of Science (DS). The data for this study were extracted from over 250,000 dissertations spanning from 2005 to 2016. The chosen data source offers several advantages over bibliometric data for the purpose of this study: (a) it provides representative data, including the Social Sciences and Humanities and STEM fields; (b) gender disambiguation is straightforward due to the gendered nature of Russian patronyms; (c) it allows for easier attribution of text, as there is no need to attribute it to the first author in multi-authored publications; (d) it provides insights into the career stage by differentiating between PhD and DS authors, as well as between PhD and DS mentors. The results of this study reveal a gender imbalance across research fields and academic career levels. Furthermore, our observations indicate that male mentors more frequently collaborate with male authors, and female mentors with female authors, exceeding what would be expected by random chance. This gender homophily is evident in most research fields. While the results largely confirm findings from studies conducted in other countries, the four advantages mentioned above make this study an essential extension of studies based on bibliometric data. This research sheds light on the gender structure within research fields in Russia and invites nuanced discussions about achieving gender equality in the context of identified gender homophily.

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dissertation topics on gender

Abalkina, A., & Libman, A. (2020). The real costs of plagiarism: Russian governors, plagiarized PhD theses, and infrastructure in Russian regions. Scientometrics, 125 (3), 2793–2820. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-020-03716-x

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Bu, Y., Li, H., Wei, C., Liu, M., & Li, J. (2022). On the relationship between supervisor-supervisee gender difference and scientific impact of doctoral dissertations: Evidence from humanities and social sciences in China. Journal of Information Science, 48 (4), 492–502.

Campbell, L. G., Mehtani, S., Dozier, M. E., & Rinehart, J. (2013). Gender-heterogeneous working groups produce higher quality science. PLoS ONE, 8 (10), e79147. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0079147

Canaan, S., & Mouganie, P. (2023). The impact of advisor gender on female students’ STEM Enrollment and persistence. Journal of Human Resources, 58 (2), 593–632. https://doi.org/10.3368/jhr.58.4.0320-10796R2

Cardoso, S., Carvalho, T., Rosa, M. J., & Soares, D. (2022). Gender (im)balance in the pool of graduate talent: The portuguese case. Tertiary Education and Management, 28 (2), 155–170. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11233-022-09093-9

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Cech, E. A., & Blair-Loy, M. (2019). The changing career trajectories of new parents in STEM. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 116 (10), 4182–4187. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1810862116

Clauset, A., Arbesman, S., & Larremore, D. B. (2015). Systematic inequality and hierarchy in faculty hiring networks. Science Advances, 1 (1), e1400005. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.1400005

Duarte-Martínez, V., Cobo, M. J., & López-Herrera, A. G. (2022). Uncovering patterns in the supervision of Spanish theses: A comprehensive analysis. Journal of Informetrics, 16 (3), 101319. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joi.2022.101319

Gallen, Y., & Wasserman, M. (2023). Does information affect homophily? Journal of Public Economics, 222 , 104876.

Gaule, P., & Piacentini, M. (2018). An advisor like me? Advisor gender and post-graduate careers in science. Research Policy, 47 (4), 805–813. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2018.02.011

Ghiasi, G., Larivière, V., & Sugimoto, C. R. (2015). On the compliance of women engineers with a gendered scientific system. PLoS ONE, 10 (12), e0145931. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0145931

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