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Gender Decoder for Job Ads

Paste a job ad and see which way its language leans. The decoder checks every word against the masculine-coded and feminine-coded lists from peer-reviewed research, shows you the exact terms it found, and reports the lean. Your ad never leaves your browser.

Your job ad

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The lean
 
Feminine-codedBalancedMasculine-coded
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What the decoder found

Every term below comes from the published Gaucher, Friesen and Kay (2011) word lists. Counts include repeats, and matching includes word endings.

Masculine-coded terms

Feminine-coded terms

Coded language is one of eight ways a job ad leaks candidates

Roast My Job Ad runs this same gender check plus seven more: salary transparency, clichés, vague duties, unicorn hunting, age-coded phrasing, readability and the candidate blind spot. Fair warning: the roast is blunt.

Roast this ad
What is a gender decoder?

A gender decoder is a free tool that checks a job ad for gender-coded language: words that research links to gendered patterns in who applies. Paste an ad and it counts the masculine-coded terms (like competitive and determined) and the feminine-coded terms (like supportive and collaborative), then reports which way the ad leans overall. The lean is an advisory signal from peer-reviewed research, not a compliance verdict.

Where Compono fits

A strongly coded ad narrows the applicant pool before the first CV arrives, and nobody in the hiring team finds out who scrolled past. That is people insight risk in miniature: the decisions that shape who you hire happening out of sight of the process meant to manage them. Compono Hire starts earlier than the ad, defining what the role actually needs and matching candidates on work personality and culture fit against that definition, so the ad can describe the real job instead of the template's idea of one.

See how it works

How it's calculated

The decoder compares your ad against the masculine-coded and feminine-coded word lists published in Gaucher, Friesen and Kay (2011), the peer-reviewed study behind most gender decoder tools. Matching works on word stems, so compet* catches competitive, competing and competition. The two counts are then compared, and the difference sets the verdict: equal counts read as balanced, a gap of one or two terms is a subtle lean, three to five is coded, and six or more is strongly coded.

The verdict is an advisory signal from published research, not a legal finding, and no word on either list is banned language. The point is to catch a strong lean you did not intend. Everything runs in your browser. Your ad is never uploaded, stored or seen by us.

New to the term? Read the plain-English definition of pay equity in the HR Glossary.

The word lists

These are the published stems the decoder matches, exactly as they appear in the research. The asterisk means any ending counts: compet* catches competitive, competing and competition.

Masculine-coded

active*adventurous*aggress*ambitio*analytical*assert*athletic*autonom*boast*challeng*compet*confiden*courag*decisive*determin*dominan*dominat*driven*fearless*force*headstrong*hierarch*impulsive*independen*individual*intellect*lead*logic*objective*opinion*outspoken*persist*self-relian*self-sufficien*stubborn*superior*

Feminine-coded

affectionate*agree*cheer*collab*commit*communal*compassion*connect*considerate*cooperat*co-operat*depend*emotion*empath*enthusias*feel*gentle*honest*inclusive*interpersonal*interdependen*kind*loyal*modest*nurtur*pleasant*polite*quiet*sensitive*submissive*support*sympath*tender*together*trust*understand*warm*yield*

Source: Gaucher, D., Friesen, J. and Kay, A. C. (2011). Evidence That Gendered Wording in Job Advertisements Exists and Sustains Gender Inequality. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 101(1), 109–128.

Want the whole ad pulled apart, not just the gender lean? Roast My Job Ad runs this check plus seven more.

Common questions

Where do the word lists come from?

From Gaucher, Friesen and Kay (2011), "Evidence That Gendered Wording in Job Advertisements Exists and Sustains Gender Inequality", published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. The researchers compiled masculine-themed and feminine-themed word lists from the psychological literature, then showed two things: job ads in male-dominated industries used more of the masculine wording, and the wording itself changed how appealing a role seemed. Nearly every gender decoder online, including this one, uses those published lists.

Does gender-coded language actually change who applies?

In the Gaucher, Friesen and Kay experiments, women rated masculine-worded ads as less appealing and reported a weaker sense that they would belong in the role. The mechanism is the interesting part: the wording did not change whether women believed they could do the job, it changed whether the workplace felt like somewhere they would fit. Feminine-coded wording had much less effect on men. A masculine lean quietly shrinks one side of the applicant pool while leaving the other side untouched.

Is masculine-coded language in a job ad illegal?

No. Words like driven or determined are ordinary language, and using them is not discrimination. That is a different question from explicitly discriminatory wording, such as advertising for a "salesman" or setting an age requirement, which can breach discrimination law in most jurisdictions. The decoder deals only in the subtle lean, and its output is general information, not legal advice.

Should I rewrite every job ad to be feminine-coded?

No. The goal is balance and accuracy, not flipping the lean. If the work genuinely is competitive, say so. The problem the research points at is unintended lean: template language that codes heavily one way without describing anything real about the job. Keep the coded words that carry information and swap the ones that are filler.

How is this different from Roast My Job Ad?

The Gender Decoder does one thing deeply: it decodes gendered language and shows you every matched term. Roast My Job Ad runs the same gender check as one of eight, alongside salary transparency, clichés, vague duties, unicorn hunting, age-coded phrasing, readability and the candidate blind spot, and delivers the verdict as a roast. Decode here when language lean is the question. Roast there when you want the whole ad pulled apart. Both are free and both run entirely in your browser.

This page is general information, not legal advice. We check figures annually and update them on a best-efforts basis, but employment rules change and we cannot promise everything here is current or complete. Before you act on it, confirm the detail with the relevant authority in your country or your own adviser. Last reviewed July 2026.