Gender stereotypes: A sociolinguistic study of

“The Amazing Race Asia Season Two”

Nicole Chui-shan Chan

The University of Hong Kong

lindsay@hkusua.hku.hk

The objective of this study is to examine gender stereotypes in the reality show The
Amazing Race Asia season 2. Serving as the major mass media, the reality show plays
an important role in modifying our underlying gender stereotypes. It is found that this
reality show challenged the stereotypical behavior of masculinity and femininity.
Women could be masculine exemplified by their competitiveness in the race while men
appear collaborative, which is stereotypically associated with femininity, in order to
win the race. Besides, the gendered style of talk shown in TARA reinforces the
stereotypical ideas that women stress sympathy while men stress problem solving.
However, the reality show only depicts a limited lens of reality. The gendered
behaviors shown in the show are influenced by the producer’s choice.

1. Introduction

This paper explores gender stereotypes represented in the reality show The Amazing
Race Asia season 2 (TARA). There have been a vast number of research papers on
language and gender over the years. Yet, the overwhelming majority of research
focused on gendered behavior (Kendall & Tannen, 1997; Talbot, 1998; Holmes &

LCOM Papers 2 (2008), 45 – 56

46 Nicole Chui-shan Chan

Stubbe, 2003; Koch, Schey & Thimm, 2003). Few attempts were made on how gender
stereotypes are being reinforced or challenged on TV, a dominating mass media,
influencing our perception. This article endeavors to investigate how a reality show
addresses gender stereotypes. I will start by rethinking the meaning of language and
gender by pointing out the pitfalls in doing research in the field of language and
gender. Discourse analysis will be used in order to explore how the popular reality
television show TARA portrays masculine and feminine features and how these
features are influential in winning the race. The data were drawn from the Amazing
Race Asia season 2 in which with 10 teams of two from different nationalities in Asia
race around the world in 13 episodes. The 24 days race around the world comprised
teams made up of siblings, best friends, couples and ex-flat mates of same or
mixed-sex. Racers are required to complete several tasks in each leg of the race,
which includes “Road Blocks” - i.e. tasks in which only one member of the
two-person team may participate. Teams will receive their clue for their next
destination once they finished the tasks. Teams will continue to race 12 hours after
they have reached each pit stop, which is the final destination for each leg of the race.
In each episode, the last team to arrive at the pit stop will be eliminated.

2. Rethinking language and gender

Language is a medium of expressing and reflecting gender identity (Talbot, 2003). In

this paper, I will subscribe to the behaviorist’s idea that language is a type of behavior
(Chapman, 2006). In other words, language is like any other observable human
activity. Gender is a social construct rather than a biological constitution (Cameron,
1996). A woman acts femininely not due to the fact that she is biologically a female,
but by repeated practice and imitation of being a woman in the process of social
learning. Feminine and masculine behaviors are learned. They are not innate and
gender is performative in nature. People constantly change their gendered behavior.
Men can behave in ways stereotypically associated with femininity and women can be
masculine. A woman may display masculine behavior when she needs to appear
strong. We can conclude that gender representation is a set of repeated regular
behavior (Cameron, 2003). A research study on gendered behavior done by Koch,
Schey & Thimm (2003) suggested a rather simplified list of feminine and masculine
attributes, but it still grasped their conventional conceptions. The authors found that
men were regarded as more assertive, direct, analytical, logical, aggressive, and
verbose, while women were regarded as being friendlier, more cooperative, empathic,
 Gender stereotypes: A sociolinguistic study 47

holistic, less assertive, more indirectly aggressive, and with higher communicative
competence than men.

Cameron (1996) stated that women and men are categorically said to be different.
Early research on language and gender stressed two dichotomies – female and male.
As the first work on this topic, Robin Lakoff (1975) contained a debatable view that
women’s language is deficient due to their diffidence and powerlessness. We cannot
deny the biological differences between women and men, but language does not
necessary reflect this dichotomy (Bergvall & Bing, 1996).The traditional question
being asked of “how do women and men speak differently” is problematic in the
sense that we presuppose that females and males speak essentially different. However,
we need to be careful not to fall back onto stereotypes and instead acknowledge that
certain behaviors that are stereotypically associated with men or women. Therefore, in
doing research, we should carefully unravel the presuppositions underlying our
thoughts about language and gender so as to avoid overgeneralization and distortion
of reality.

In spite of the copious literatures on language and gender representation in the field of
linguistics, the subject on how mass media present femininity and masculinity has not
yet been covered significantly. This paper aims at carrying out an investigation on this
matter by abandoning the entrenched concepts of binary dichotomies and the binary
question by investigating the gender stereotypes found in TARA.

3. Data

The research data were drawn from the 13 episodes of the Amazing Race Asia Season
2. The racers that will be discussed in this paper are presented in the order of
elimination. It is believed that this show will be an appropriate tool to analyze gender
stereotypes because although the participants respond spontaneously (i.e. they display
non- predetermined speech pattern) the gender representation could be constricted to
the editor’s choice, which may reveal a certain more or less stereotypical gender
image.
48 Nicole Chui-shan Chan

3.1 Racers’ profiles

Name Sex Age

Pamela Chong Female 24
Vanessa Chong Female 29
Marc Nelson Male 31
Rovilson Fernandez Male 30
Paula Taylor Female 24
Natasha Monks Female 24
Henry Read Male 48
Terri Read Female 44

4. Language and gender representation

4.1 Masculine women and feminine men

With reference to Holmes and Stubbe (2003), the features of stereotypical feminine
and masculine speech styles could be summarised as follows.

Feminine Masculine
Indirect Direct
Conciliatory Confrontational
Facilitative Competitive
Collaborative Autonomous
Minor contribution (in public) Dominates (public) talking time
Supportive feedback Aggressive interruptions
Person/ process-oriented Task/ outcome- oriented
Affectively oriented Referentially oriented

I will conduct discourse analysis on the decision making patterns in the “Road Block”,
a task which only one team member may perform. It is crucial to make the right
decision as choosing the most capable person could help speed up teams’ racing pace.
Different decision making patterns are found among different teams. The
communication strategy plays a significant role in becoming the strongest team. In
“Road Block”, two typical strategies are found: “offer yourselves” and “recommend
the other person to perform the task”. I label these two ‘direct’ interaction styles.
 Gender stereotypes: A sociolinguistic study 49

Another strategy observed is “asking questions to confirm speaker’s decision”, this

will be the indirect interaction style.

Example 1

Except from episode 6

Gender Road block: Who has the patience? That’s the key. Interaction
strategy
Male Rovilson: that’s you Direct
Male Marc: that’s me
Male Collin: I’ll have patience, I’ll go. Direct
Female Vanessa I think you can do it Direct
Female Natasha: Patience? Indirect
Female Paula: me?
Female Natasha : (Nodding)
Female Paula: yea.
Female Terri : I’ll do it. Direct
Female Diane: Do you wanna do it? Indirect
Female Ann I ‘ll do it. Direct
Male Daichi I will do it. Direct
Female Sawaka Ok.

According to this classification, it is found that there are no distinctive different

speech patterns between mixed-sex teams and same-sex teams. 12 pairs of indirect
speech patterns are identified out of 64 and both same-sex and mixed-sex team
adopted this pattern. Yet, the indirect interaction styles were often used by female
racers. Female team members tended to ask questions such as ‘Do you want me to do
it’ before making this decision. Some research claimed that the frequent use of
questions in conversations has been associated with women’s speech (e.g., Coates,
1997; Freed, 1996; Weatherall, 2002). Talbot (1998) asserted that such frequent usage
of questions is a sign of uncertainty and powerlessness. As Holmes (1995) pinpointed,
questions may perform multiple functions. Thus, the frequent use of questions in
speech does not necessarily suggest that women are weak and unconfident as put
forward by Lakoff (1975). In this race, the female team members asked questions that
aimed at seeking agreement or clarification. The image of confident and clear-minded
female racers in this reality show replaces stereotypical images of femininity as
women being weak and indecisive.
50 Nicole Chui-shan Chan

Example 2

Excerpt from episode 6

Natasha: Patience?
Paula: me?
Natasha: (Nodding)
Paula: yea.

One of the functions of indirect questions is to elicit responses from the listener
(Talbot, 1998). By asking such questions, speakers expect to receive a response from
the listeners. Paula asked a rising tone question me? to Natasha who will reassure her
that she is capable of doing the task which required patience. Paula was looking for a
reply that would support her decision. However, this indirect speech pattern is often
found in the Thai team, Paula & Natasha. They asked questions to each other before
making decisions in 7 out of 13 Road Blocks. This reveals that Paula and Natasha
used question as a major speech pattern throughout the decision making process. Thus,
it is not convincing to conclude that questions are found in female speech by solely
observing one female team that used this strategy extensively. The gender identity
generated from the speech pattern suggested that female and male teams share similar
and common traits that they are both direct and assertive. The overwhelming majority
of male and female racers did not hesitate in choosing the “Road Block”. I interpret
this phenomenon as the blurring of gender stereotypes that it is difficult to draw a
clear line between masculinity and femininity. The traditional view of femininity as
described by Lakoff (1975) is gradually shifting closer to stereotypical ideas of
masculinity. I am not suggesting that men are in a more superior role than women in
this race and that women need to act like a man so as to win the game. Displaying
stereotypically masculine behaviours, such as competitive and direct, does take
advantages in this race. The shift is brought by the dynamic social change that women
are no longer socialized to be stereotypically feminine (Bergvall &Bing, 1996).

Obviously, being competitive and adventurous surely has advantages in this race.
Indeed, female or male racers who are willing to join this race already have these
characters. Though women were physically less strong than men, they were
aggressive and direct in the show as exemplified by their prompt decision making
style. This further confirms that female team members are adapting stereotypical
masculine behaviors. The stereotypical image of femininity is being challenged and
 Gender stereotypes: A sociolinguistic study 51

women are no longer portrayed as less competitive and indirect. Instead, female team
members were relatively masculine in order to stay on top in the race as exemplified
by the strongest female Malaysian teams, Vanessa & Pamela who frequently
displayed stereotypical masculine behaviors in critical times. For example, in a task
where teams had to use a small garden spade to clean out an elephant stalls with tons
of dung, they rolled up their sleeves and used their bare hands in order to speed up. “I
would have thought the other guys may have done the same, especially Marc and
Rovilson (the strongest male team) but I guess they are too clean.” Pamela recalled
her prompt and vigorous behaviour before the camera. Vanessa and Pamela’s behavior
did not coincide with the stereotypical gender image that women are less assertive and
indirect as described by Koch, Schey & Thimm (2003), on the contrary, in this
instance they are more competitive than the male racers.

Stereotypical masculinity describes men as appreciating autonomous behaviour while

women are viewed as preferring collaborative behaviour. However, in TARA the men
also performed collaborative behaviour as teamwork is influential in winning. The
two strongest male teams were both collaborative in the race. Since being
collaborative is often associated with women while being autonomous is a
stereotypical masculine behavior, male racers can be viewed as assimilating
themselves to the stereotypically feminine when cooperating with team members as a
strategy to win. In addition, their physical fitness permitted them to be always the first
2 teams to arrive the pit stop. Yet, the mixed-sex teams showed poor teamwork. They
encountered ongoing argument, which slowed them down and led to elimination. The
five mixed-sex teams were eliminated in the first 7 episodes, which could be
explained by the stereotypical gendered styles of interaction suggested by Tannen
(1994), which will be discussed in the latter part of this paper.

4.2 Stereotypical gendered style of interaction

As teams were racing in foreign countries, their knowledge of the places was limited
and they were under time pressure. They inevitably needed help from the local people.
Throughout the show, members often asked others for help. The most frequent
strategy of asking for help appeared to be hiring of a vehicle.
52 Nicole Chui-shan Chan

Example 3

Excerpt from episode 1

Rovilson: Girls help me beg, help me beg to make the bus goes.
Vanessa & Pamela: (to the bus driver) Please please please we are in a
hurry.
Marc & Rovilson: Thank you ladies.

Rovilson asked the all-female team, Vanessa and Pamela to ask the bus driver to start
the engine. Marc & Rovilson made use of the merits of femininity as a strategy and
asked the female teams to beg the driver to start the bus. They believed the
stereotypical idea that women are weak and in dire need of sympathy could be
advantageous in asking for help. This shows that men made use of the gender
stereotypes entrenched in their mind and regarded begging as a way to solve problem.
This coincides with Talbot’s (1998) hypothesis about the stereotypical gendered styles
of interaction that women stress sympathy while men stress problem-solving.

Besides, when male team members encountered a problem, they tended to provide
more explanation rather than repeating the request. “We are in a competition; can you
overtake the cab next to you?”said Marc when they were rushing to the pit stop. For
the female team members, they tended to beg / ask for help with repeated speech.
“Faster faster uncle, please faster. Fast fast!” said Vanessa to the taxi driver. This
phenomenon supports the strategic interaction patterns observed by Koch, Schey &
Thimm (2003) that in achieving the same interactional goal, women and men adopt
different types of speech patterns which are defined as strategic interaction. These
researchers suggested that women stereotypically get someone to cooperate by
pleading for help while men stress the importance of the issue. However, the
observation that female team members used begging more did not convey the
impression that they are less competitive; rather this strategy helped them beat the
others. Hence, feminine speech styles are not stereotypical deficient; in this case they
are valuable for winning the race.

One of the features of a reality show is the manifestation of dispute between team
members. The number of disagreements among team members was high. Both
same-sex team and mixed-sex teams encountered disagreements during the race. The
nature of the reality show is to entertain; therefore it is not surprising that ongoing
arguments are constantly highlighted. The most disputative teams were found to be
 Gender stereotypes: A sociolinguistic study 53

the mixed-sex team, Henri & Terri, a couple from the Philippines married for 13 years.
Tannen (1994) and Talbot (1998) argued that ongoing quarrel between couples is the
result of unsatisfactory conversational interaction. Henri & Terri were eliminated in
episode 9 and there were major or minor arguments recorded in every episode. These
frequent disagreements support the stereotypical idea that men and women have
dissimilar gendered interactional styles.

Characteristics of gendered styles of talk are extracted from Talbot (1998) as below.

Feminine Masculine
Sympathy Problem-solving
Rapport Report
Listening Lecturing
Private Public
Connection Status
Supportive Oppositional
Intimacy Independence

Example 4

Excerpt from episode 3

Terri is upset that they came in last during the last two legs. To comfort his
wife, Henry promises to try to be first this time.
(In the airport)
Terri: I am gonna stay away from you.
Henry: No, you can’t! We are…..come on, come here.
Terri: you got to be starting, got to be going.
Henry: Ok. We should be in first place if we…….
Terri: No, I am saying if we get everybody’s ass, we were be in first place.
Henry: That’s right. We should be.
Terri: (yelling) I know, no.
Henry: We should be in the first place. And from now on we are gonna
knock down one at a time.
Terri: (frustrated) Remember I told you I’m watching everybody.
(she left her husband and approached the other teams complaining
that he never listens to her)
54 Nicole Chui-shan Chan

In this argument, Terri complained about being the last team to arrive, and she
expected to get support and comfort from her husband. Yet, Henry regarded this as a
discussion of strategy and stated how he would beat the other teams while Terri was
looking for reassurance that they will not be the last again. These continuous
arguments arose from the stereotypically gendered different styles of talk. Terri was
disappointed that Henry did not “listen”, he did not really understand her. This
confirmed Coates (1997, p.181), who suggested that men are adopting “unilateral
conflict avoidance”. Henry tried to calm down his wife and stated what he could do in
this situation. He aimed at solving the problem whereas Terri expected him to listen
and understand her purpose of the conversation, their goal is divided. This argument
suggests that though there are no distinctive features of speech style differentiating
women and men, the difference in conversational style could be observed from the
mixed-team argument. The continuous arguments found between Henry and Terri
displayed a stereotypical image of difference in conversational style suggested by
Tannen (1994). She claimed that women are looking for emotional support in a
conversation, rather than a solution to the problem. The gendered style of talk shown
in TARA reinforces these stereotypical ideas that women stress sympathy while men
stress problem solving. In TARA, the stereotypical women’s style of talk seems to be
advantageous and strategic so that men also took advantage of it.

5. Implication – the modern gender

Based on the examples discussed above, it could be concluded that this reality show is
reinforcing and at the same time challenging traditional gender stereotypes. In TARA,
successful females are assimilating themselves to males while males are sometimes
adopting the female speech styles as a strategy in the game. In this regard, a modern
gender appears in today’s world. The gap between masculinity and femininity is
closer and what was once perceived as being distinctive oppositions are now blurring.
The existence of assertive women and collaborative men suggests that we take
advantages of each other behavior and imitate the merits of each other and integrate
them as part of our gender identity. At first glance, being masculine (i.e. competitive,
strong and powerful) is more beneficial than being feminine. This belief could be
explained by the fact that most of the authoritative jobs are taken by men in the very
old days (Cameron, 2003). This entrenched superior image of masculinity has resulted
from the power and the high social status men received in the past. However, what is
crucial in the race is doing both stereotypically masculine and feminine behaviours.
 Gender stereotypes: A sociolinguistic study 55

The strong racers in the show are direct, competitive as well as indirect and
cooperative, and adopt the suitable strategies which combine both stereotypical
femininity and masculinity. So, the stereotypical idea does not fit into today’s gender
image. The modern gender combines both stereotypically masculine and feminine
behaviors, which depict a character with ingenuity.

Though gender features are blurring, women and men may sometimes have different
styles of talk. The result of this race suggested that same-sex teams do better than
mixed-sex teams which could be partly explained by the fact that they share similar
conversation styles exemplified by the stereotypical gendered style of talk mentioned
above. Minor but different conversation styles in mixed-sexes teams could lead to
conflict and elimination.

6. Conclusion

In this paper, it was argued that TARA both reinforces and challenges stereotypical
views of femininity and masculinity. Women and men are assimilating to each other in
the sense that members of the female teams appear relatively masculine and that male
team members at times appear relatively feminine in their behaviour and speech. The
conventional spectrum between masculinity and femininity is getting narrower it
seems. Yet, sometimes women and men may have different conversational
expectations which could lead to ongoing argument.

In order to understand the stereotypical description of femininity and masculinity in

modern days, more research on reality shows could be conducted. Other factors such
as culture and age could be discussed to capture a more genuine and comprehensive
picture of language and gender representation in this reality show.

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