Implications of Gender Metastereotypes for Addressing Sexist Behavior

Abstract

Women often experience competence questioning communication (CQC), in which their contributions are overlooked or credit is misdirected to a male colleague. We examine whether gender metastereotypes—the stereotypes that women believe men hold of women, and the stereotypes men believe women hold of men—predict responses to sexism in the workplace. Specifically, through vignette-based experiments, we examine whether women’s and men’s willingness to directly confront male perpetrators of CQC, and men’s willingness to amplify the voice of female colleagues is affected by the activation of gender metastereotypes. For both women and men, positive metastereotypes directly predicted willingness to confront sexism, but, as theorized, only when individuals believed that the stereotypes held of their ingroup were held of them personally. We also found significant indirect effects of metastereotype activation on willingness to address sexism via felt responsibility for addressing sexism (for women) and concern for the group image (for men).