Elisabeth Kaukonen ^1,2* Polina Oskolskaia ^1,2 Liina Lindström ^1,2 Raili Marling ²

• ¹ Institute of Estonian and General Linguistics, Faculty of Arts and Humanities, University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia
• ² University of Tartu, Tartu, Tartu County, Estonia

Current research on occupational gender stereotypes in language has indicated that gender bias is influenced by various aspects, including social knowledge about roles associated with either men or women as well as linguistic information. This study focuses on gender perception of language users of Estonian and Russian. The former is a grammatically genderless Finno-Ugric language, while the latter has grammatical gender. Based on previous studies, we investigate whether occupational gender stereotypes in these languages are evoked by social beliefs, stereotypes and other extralinguistic factors and/or by language. Additionally, we examine whether the extent of gender bias varies across these languages. Two separate Likert scale surveys, one in Estonian and one in Russian, incorporating occupational titles were conducted. The results indicate that, as in previous studies, biased perceptions arise from social beliefs, i.e., assumptions about which occupations are more appropriate for men or women. Regarding Russian, we also found that stereotypical information often overrides linguistic cues. The results suggest that language also influences gender perceptions, with generically used masculine forms perceived as more male-biased than neutral forms. Additionally, we propose that Estonian, while grammatically genderless and thus seemingly gender neutral, evokes as much or even more bias than grammatically gendered Russian.