Most research to date on misogyny and hostility towards women in the workplace has examined specific incidents and direct targets of such behavior. Preliminary research also shows that working in a context where women are mistreated can have negative effects for employees, even when the mistreatment is merely observed or perceived. While research has identified a link between personal and bystander experiences of harassment and hostility to negative outcomes, few researchers have offered a theoretical rationale for how and why working in an anti-female climate affects outcomes. In this dissertation, I propose a comprehensive theoretical model of the mediating and moderating mechanisms involved in this relationship, and empirically test subcomponents of the model. Specifically, I examined (1) the direct relationship between working in a hostile context for women and outcomes, and (2) gender and jobs status as moderators of this relationship.
Participants included employees from two different organizational contexts: the federal court system (N = 1,158) and a small public university (N = 1,711). Participants completed measures of personal demographics; their perceptions and observations of hostility directed towards female coworkers; personal experiences of mistreatment; psychological, physical, and occupational well-being; and organizational withdrawal behaviors.
Results showed that vicarious exposure to hostility towards women predicts psychological, physical, and occupational well-being; physical and occupational well being in turn predict organizational withdrawal. Organizational responsiveness to sexual harassment appears to be a particularly salient and influential workplace feature. Results also showed that this process operates in similar ways for female and male employees, and for employees at different organizational levels, across two fairly disparate contexts. Results hold even after controlling for personal experiences of mistreatment, job stress, and negative affectivity.
These findings suggest that working in a hostile context for women can have adverse effects for all individuals in the workplace--not just women and targeted employees. Thus, the negative effects of hostility towards women in the workplace can reach beyond targeted individuals and extend to bystanders, workgroups, and whole organizations. The potential ramifications of hostility towards women in the workplace underscore the need for broad, proactive organizational interventions to manage workplace misogyny.
My Research