Gender gaps in academia persist with women being less likely to attain leadership, earning lower salaries, and receiving less research funding and resources compared to their male peers. The current research demonstrates yet another, more intangible gender gap in academia called lack of fit, whereby compared to male academics, female academics perceive higher misfit between their professional self-concept and the agentic ‘superhero’ stereotype of the successful academic. The entire population of Dutch academics (i.e., assistant, associate, and full professors from 14 universities) was approached to participate in a nationwide survey. Results from this unique dataset (N = 3978) demonstrate that academics perceive agency (e.g., self-confident, self-focused, competitive) as more descriptive of the stereotypical successful academic than communality (e.g., team-oriented, good teacher, collegial). Importantly, early career female academics perceived highest lack of fit with this narrowly-defined agentic occupational stereotype, which was correlated with lower work engagement, professional identification and career efficacy, and higher work exhaustion and exit intentions. Thus, lack of fit seems yet another barrier contributing to pervasive gender gaps in academia. Implications for building more inclusive academic cultures, where not only agentic but also communal academic practice is recognized and rewarded are discussed.

中文翻译：

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作为代理超级英雄的学者：女性学者不适应成功的代理刻板印象，限制了她们的职业发展

学术界的性别差距持续存在，与男性同龄人相比，女性获得领导地位的可能性更低，薪水更低，获得的研究资金和资源也更少。目前的研究表明，学术界还有另一个更无形的性别差距，称为缺乏契合度，与男性学者相比，女性学者认为她们的专业自我概念与成功学者的代理“超级英雄”刻板印象之间的不匹配程度更高。荷兰全体学者（即来自 14 所大学的助理、副教授和正教授）被邀请参加一项全国性调查。来自这个独特数据集的结果（N = 3978) 表明学者认为代理（例如，自信、自我关注、竞争）比社区（例如，以团队为导向、好老师、合议）更能描述刻板的成功学术。重要的是，早期职业女性学者认为最不适合这种狭义的代理职业刻板印象，这与较低的工作投入、职业认同和职业效能以及较高的工作疲惫和退出意图相关。因此，缺乏契合度似乎是导致学术界普遍存在性别差距的另一个障碍。讨论了建立更具包容性的学术文化的意义，在这种文化中，不仅代理而且社区的学术实践得到认可和奖励。