Public relations students' attitudes towards woman managers in public relations: Effects of gender and gender role orientation

In recent years public relations has become a field that women are intensely employed and the number is increasing day by day. The increasing number of woman practitioners and their roles in public relations has arouse interest on researchers who study the field and the number of the articles that researching gender related problems has risen. The aim of the present study is to determine the public relations students' attitudes towards woman managers in public relations. The study also examines the impact of gender and gender role orientation on the attitudes of the students.Study sample consisted of 249 public relations students (139 female, 110 male). The participants are majoring in the public relations departments of 4 universities (Başkent University, Atılım University , Ankara University, Gazi University) in Ankara, whose ages are varied between 18-28. Data were collected via Determination Scale for Attitudes Toward Woman Managers (Akçamete, 2004) and Bem Sex Role Inventory (Bem, 1974).Findings indicated that male and female participants have different attitudes towards woman managers. Male participants exhibited more negative attitudes towards woman managers than female participants did. Gender role orientation findings shows that male participants' scores were high in masculinity and female participants' scores were high in feminity. In addition, the number of androgynous women were higher than androgynous men. Analysis indicated that there is no significant correlation between age and attitudes towards woman managers. The study indicated that students from the state universities exhibited more negative attitudes towards woman managers than the students from private universities did.