Sex stereotyping in the workplace: a manager's guide - Women in Business

Business Horizons, March-April, 1993 by Eileen P. Kelly, Amy Oakes Young, Lawrence S. Clark

Nine years of attorney fees and court costs, portrayal in national media coverage as an employer that discriminates, a $371,000 judgment for back pay, and a court order to reinstate and partner a former employee would be a nightmare for any firm. But this nightmarish scenario was precisely the cost to one employer for engaging in sex stereotyping.

Ann Hopkins billed more than $34 million in consulting contracts for her employer, Price Waterhouse---more than anyone else among the firm's 88 partner candidates. She was the sole female candidate. Nevertheless, she was denied partnership on the basis that she needed to "walk more femininely, talk more femininely, and wear makeup."

Unfortunately, Hopkins' experience is common for women in business who face the pernicious effects of sex stereotyping. Ruined careers, glass ceilings, lost job opportunities, and hostile working environments are causing women to leave corporate America in droves to start their own businesses. Employers, on the other hand, lose valuable employees, face discrimination suits, and generate negative public images. Managers need to be aware of the risks associated with gender bias in the workplace, and take appropriate measures to remove it. Given the recent Price Waterhouse decision, managers that fail to minimize or eliminate sex stereotyping face substantial potential liability.

The purpose of this article is to provide managers with a practical guide to sex stereotyping in the workplace by identifying what it is, discussing the legal issues surrounding it, and providing suggestions for minimizing it. With this purpose in mind, the article is organized into three sections. The first section examines the types of behavior that constitute sex stereotyping and the circumstances under which it is most likely to occur. The second section discusses both the legal theories under which sex stereotyping claims can be made and the leading Supreme Court case on the subject, Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins. The third section sets forth practical strategies managers can undertake to minimize or even eradicate sex stereotyping in the workplace.

SEX STEREOTYPING IN THE WORKPLACE

Sex stereotyping occurs when employees are judged according to traditional stereotypes based on gender. Such discriminatory attitudes can take many forms and are generally rooted in culturally based prescriptions of acceptable gender behavior. For example, women in the United States historically have been socialized as passive, deferential, and softspoken, while men have traditionally been socialized to be aggressive, forceful, and dominant. Individuals not conforming to gender roles are subject to criticism. Working women, in particular, find themselves in a Catch-22 situation when sex stereotypic prescriptive demands to be feminine occur simultaneously with job-specific demands to be aggressive.

During the past 20 years, society has undergone dramatic cultural and social changes that have challenged traditional gender prescriptions. Nonetheless, years of socialization have left many managers and employees, consciously or unconsciously, clinging to sex stereotypes based on outmoded attitudes. In a recent survey by Fortune (Ferman 1990), 81 percent of CEOs acknowledged that women are barred from reaching the top echelons of corporate America because of sex stereotyping and gender preconceptions. According to one Wail Street Journal article ("Flexible Policies ..." 1992), "Persistent stereotypes about the way women manage family responsibilities are a major reason that only 3 to 5 percent of the top jobs at big companies are held by women."

Increasingly, and ironically, men are also becoming victims of sex stereotyping. As more and more men become single parents or exercise such nontraditional options as paternity leave, they find themselves subject to criticism for departing from the traditional company man who gives all to the corporation while making family considerations secondary.

Sex stereotyping can take a variety of forms. In its most blatant form, outright prejudice and hostility are exhibited toward those who do not fit a stereotype. For example, in the Price Waterhouse case, one partner annually repeated in his evaluations of female candidates that he could not consider any woman seriously as a potential partner and believed women were not even capable of functioning as senior managers. Rarely today do managers openly express such bla- tant prejudice. Managers typically are more sophisticated and cognizant of the legal liabilities involved in discrimination suits. In today's corporate work environment, sex stereotyping is generally displayed in more subtle varieties. But in small businesses, studies show that most daughters are still automatically excluded from taking over the family business started by their father.

According to Susan T. Fiske (1989), the industrial psychologist who testified as an expert witness on behalf of Ann Hopkins, symptoms of stereotyping include:

1. Unnecessarily categorizing and evaluating someone according to gender or race (lady partner or black professor);