But how many push-ups can she do? The influence of sexism on peer ratings in a military setting

Perceived gender differences remain salient in occupational settings and biases that arise maintain inequalities. We examined rater behavior of male military cadets to test how hostile sexism impacted occupationally-relevant attributions, namely, perception of peers' physical fitness, social skill, and military demeanor, items from a larger rating system and previously linked to gender bias. Linear mixed models determined how ratings were influenced by raters' own beliefs or performance, ratee performance, and whether these relationships differed by ratee gender (N = 2520 raters and 4154 ratees). Men with sexist beliefs rated women lower on military demeanor and physical fitness. Sexism was further associated with rating women's physical fitness, more so than other men's, according to push-up scores, suggesting sexist men “keep track” of women's upper body capabilities. Physical fitness scores were positively related to military demeanor rating for women but unrelated to men's score, regardless of rater's sexism. Overall, ratings were associated with different performance characteristics for men vs. women, especially for physical abilities, suggesting a mechanism for expression of gender bias in a field setting. •We tested sexism's impact on ratings of gender-linked traits in male cadets.•Ratings obeyed gender roles and hostile sexism potentiated rating other men higher.•Different traits predicted scores of men vs. women; female fitness was more important.•Hostile sexism shifted attention toward women's push-ups and prosocial behavior.•Spotlighting different traits by gender is a mechanism of confirmation bias.