Epistemic Gender Gap: A Natural Experiment

“Who Wants to be a Millionaire” is a popular quiz game aired in a number of countries with slight format modifications. The Turkish version of the show, which has had very high audience ratings since its first broadcasting a decade ago, can conveniently be interpreted as a natural experiment to test two widely cited theories: expectations states/status characteristics theory and epistemic injustice. More specifically, we explore perceived status differences and epistemic prejudices between males and females. Expectation states theory has argued that expected competence determines hierarchical structures in small groups and gender has been considered an important status characteristic. With respect to epistemic injustice, we focus particularly on “testimonial injustice” as defined by Fricker (2007). In the Turkish version of the game, contestants are asked to name three so-called “telephone jokers” ahead of time. These are persons whom the contestant considers to be well-informed, knowledgeable and experienced in a wide variety of topics. The contestant is allowed only once to call and consult one of these three “experts” when he/she feels in need of assistance to answer a quiz question. Not all, but many of the shows are put online and are available for later viewing. Availing ourselves of this accessibility, we look at a) genders of the three “experts” named by each contestant, and b) genders of those who are actually called upon by the contestants to give assistance with a particular quiz question. Thus, we have access to a pool of literally hundreds of individuals who are perceived as experts by the contestants. The question is whether or not there is a significant gender difference in this sample and the answer is, yes indeed there is a huge gender gap. To further test of our findings, this time on a specific topic, we designed an online survey question asking a sample of 263 males and 260 females who, if anyone, they would consult about their voting decision prior to national elections. Once again, epistemic gender gap was confirmed beyond a shadow of a doubt.