Women reporters as experts on security affairs in Jordan? Rethinking gender and issue competency stereotypes

ABSTRACT Research on gender and issue competency stereotypes frequently deems security affairs a “stereotypically masculine” domain. Traditionally, men are seen as more credible authorities in arenas such as crime and the military, while women are assumed to be more credible in “stereotypically feminine” ones like childcare and health. But women’s roles in politics, media, and other influential sectors are rapidly changing in the Mediterranean and MENA region. To test the conventional wisdom, we conducted an original, nationally representative survey in Jordan (n=885) focused on the media sector, using an embedded experiment assessing beliefs about the suitability of men versus women to report and offer commentary on national security affairs—specifically, an internal security threat (a high-profile bank robbery). Strong patriarchal norms suggest that the country should be an “easy case” for theories positing bias against women as experts in stereotypically masculine issue areas. Our results, however, do not support this conventional wisdom, instead suggesting egalitarianism and even a modest credibility advantage for women on assumptions about expertise. Theoretically, we contribute by proposing three novel explanations for why and when women in patriarchal contexts may evade classic sexist backlash, and perhaps achieve greater credibility than men, as authorities in traditionally masculine domains.