Ricerc@Sapienza

We investigate gender representations applied to a Ministerial political office, the attitudes
towards women in a group of Chinese college students and whether such attitudes are reflected
in the representations of the Ministerial political office. These representations were detected, inter
alia, by the request of three free associations to the stimulus-words Man/Woman Minister. With
the scale of Glick and Fiske (1996), administered after the free associations, we verified the twofactor

The research has investigated the role of sexist language, gender stereotypes, and roles
prescriptions in the political sphere. It was framed in the tradition of social representations. We
have studied the impact of specific linguistic categories – relative both to masculine or feminine
declination for a Minister's political office, and to the use of references to stereotypical or counterstereotypical
behaviours - on 1) the evaluation of political effectiveness, 2) the associations to the

The last two Presidents of the United States of America, the Democratic Barack Obama and the Republican Donald J. Trump, certainly are characterized by the contents of their messages, result of specific and different political choices.

The Social Sciences and, specifically, the sociological research has
progressively assumed the gender factor as one of the strategic keys to
understand contemporary phenomena. In fact, as a variable for sociostatistical
analysis or as a characterizing trait of individual identity, it is a
decisive factor in the interpretation of the deep social transformations and it
inspires the self-reflection of the sociologists about the analytical tools of their
discipline. The contribution proposes, through a lexicometric approach, an

The Social Sciences and, specifically, the sociological research, have progressivelyassumedthegenderfactorasoneofthestrategickeys to understand contemporary phenomena. In fact, as a variable for socio-statistical analysis or as a characterizing trait of individual identity, it is a decisive factor in the interpretation of the deep social transformations, and it inspires the self-reflection of the sociologists about the analytical tools of their discipline.