> Our small study showed what you'd expect- students- men and women students rated male writers more highly than female writers, and initials were right in the middle, though they tended to be more like responses for men.
Most things I read I have no idea of the sex of the author. Do people even look at author names before they start reading (online, say), and even then they can be nom de plumes, or non-gendered names (sometimes surprisingly).
We announced the name of the author. The script went something like "We're going to ask you to read this piece, written by J. Smith.".
During debriefing, we would tell the subjects what we were actually looking for (perceptions based on gender) and most reported not remembering/caring about the gender of the author, but nonetheless the results were clear that there was a gender bias, regardless of whether they reported remembering or caring about the gender of the author.
How much more? That's really important.