Although sex stereotypes have often been cited as barriers to women's entry into and advancement within management, few sex differences have actually been found on many important employment-related variables. To examine the extent to which sex stereotypes serve as barriers to women in management, 115 female and 110 male managers used the Descriptive Index, a 92-item adjective checklist, to rate one of seven possible targets: adult male; adult female; successful manager; unfamiliar manager, female or male; or familiar manager, female or male. Intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC) were used to measure the similarity of the characteristics assigned to the various targets. Results showed that ratings made by both male and female subjects of familiar and unfamiliar male and female managers were similar. Thus, it appears that categorization was based upon manager as the salient characteristic and not sex or degree of familiarity. In the condition involving men in general and women in general, sex seemed to be the characteristic used to categorize responses. The findings suggest that a separate categorization process is involved, such that when "manager" is salient, the characteristics attributed to the female manager are like those attributed to managers. When "sex" is salient, the characteristics attributed to the female target are like those assigned to women in general. (The appendices contain the adjective list and a six-item questionnaire measuring familiarity with the manager who was evaluated.) (JAC)