Peter Glick, Lawrence University: BS at Work: How Benevolent Sexism Undermines Women and Justifies Backlash

The following are my notes from Glick's HBS Gender & Work Conference presentation, February 28, 2013.

“The battle of the sexes will never end -- there's too much fraternizing with the enemy” - Henry Kissinger

Paradox: The interdependence of the sexes -- male dominance coexists with intimate dependence on women.

Ambivalent sexism theory (Glick & Fiske, 1996): Dominance & intimate interdependence lead to hostile sexism (HS, directed toward women who threaten male power) and benevolent sexism (BS, directed at women who conform to feminine ideals, serve men’s needs), respectively. Sample items of HS and BS.

BS is a pedestal: A narrow and confined space, difficult to stay up on, especially in high heels. BS justifies HS, fosters unrecognized, patronizing discrimination, elicits backlash when resisted, saps women’s career ambitions, makes inequality more palatable.

For men, BS protects self image, they can see themselves as not an oppressor, but rather as a provider & protector.

For women, BS promises male affection and protection.

Women score lower than men on HS but equal to men on BS.

BS & HS go together because they’re firmly rooted in traditional gender roles. Average .4 correlation between HS & BS in individuals; in nations, they are correlated more on the order of .85, and BS correlates with the absence of women in “male” roles, or measures of gender inequality in nations.

BS masquerades as benign help etc.

Study: managers in energy industry; women received less criticism than men (less negative feedback) but also less challenging assignments (Theresa Vescio’s work that women get praise but not challenges or rewards in the lab).

Biernat,Tocci & Williams (2012): Junior associates in a Wall Street firm, women received more positive comments than men in evaluations, but on numerical ratings they did less well, much less likely to be viewed as “partner material” – real world proof of Vescio’s work.

Dardenne,Dumont & Bollier (2007): Women undermined by BS comments, not by HS comments; BS led to intrusive self-doubts in women; didn’t recognize recruiter who exhibited BS toward them as sexist, but recognized recruiter who exhibited HS as sexist.

How to respond though? Dilemma for women -- how to respond to an obviously patronizing offer of help (Becker, Glick, Ilic & Bohner, 2011). “Let me help you, that's too hard for a woman” -- if woman accepts help, she's perceived as incompetent; if she rejects help, she's perceived as cold; men don’t get competence penalty for accepting help or a warmth penalty for declining it; thus, BS presents a double bind for women.

BS’s implicit message: forget about a career, find a man!

Women’s BS scores in high school leads to lower academic aspiration and performance (M et al., 2013, less ambition for financial independence (Peach & Glick, 2013), increased concern with finding a financially successful mate (Eastwick et al, 2006), fear that career success could threaten husband/relationship.

Jost &Kay (2005): having women exposed to BS statements led to women seeing system as more just

Becker & Wright (2012): women exposed to BS statements less inclined to do something about women’s rights

Solutions?

1. Recognize the problem! Many people don’t recognize the problem at all (BS statements are even endorsed by “feminists”).
2. Diminish HS to encourage women to reject BS -- HS motivates women to endorse BS – a “protection racket” – the more women feel threatened by men, the more they run to other men to protect them (start with women because more likely to recognize, do something about it).
3. Organizational awareness/vigilance; recognize the “praise but no raise” pattern, less challenging assignments.
4. Legal remedies: the law relies on intuitive psychology (e.g., discrimination = hostile intent); patronizing discrimination may require new legal theories informed by social scientific advances (Krieger & Fiske, 2006).

[These results are consistent with my research showing that mothers are treated better than non-mothers in the workplace (Berdahl &Moon, 2013) -- so mothers, receive more praise/less criticism -- and with other work on the maternal wall (e.g., Correll, Benard, Paik, 2007) showing that mothers are less likely to be hired, promoted, and given raises; praise but no raise phenomenon -- double bind is that you can either be well treated or advance, but not both.]