Ivona Hideg

Public discourse on current inequalities often invokes past injustice endured by minorities. This rhetoric also sometimes underlies contemporary equality policies. Drawing on social identity theory and the employment equity literature, we suggest that reminding people about past injustice against a disadvantaged group (e.g., women) can invoke social identity threat among advantaged group members (e.g., men) and undermine support for employment equity (EE) policies by fostering the belief that inequality no longer exists. We find support for our hypotheses in four studies examining Canadian (three studies) and American (one study) EE policies. Overall, we found that reminders of past injustice toward women undermined men’s support for an EE policy promoting women by heightening their denial of current gender discrimination. Supporting a social identity account, men’s responses were mediated by collective self-esteem, and were attenuated when threat was mitigated. Reminders of past injustice did not influence women’s support for the EE policy.

We advance our understanding of women’s continued underrepresentation in leadership positions by highlighting the subtle, but damaging, role benevolent sexism, a covert and socially accepted form of sexism, plays in this process. Drawing on and integrating previously disparate literatures on benevolent sexism and social support, we develop a new theoretical model in which benevolent sexism of both women and those in their social networks (i.e., managers and intimate partners) affect women’s acquisition of career social support for advancement at two levels, interpersonal and intrapersonal, and across multiple domains, work and family. At the interpersonal level, we suggest that managers’ and intimate partners’ benevolent sexism may undermine their provision of the needed career support to advance in leadership positions for women. At the intrapersonal level, we suggest that women’s personal endorsement of benevolent sexism may undermine their ability to recognize and willingness to seek out career support from their family members (i.e., intimate partners) and managers for advancement to leadership positions. Implications for theory and future research are discussed.

Gender equality issues have witnessed an unprecedented public interest and social debate in the second decade of the 21st century. Yet, despite this attention and many gender-related social movements, gender inequality persists, especially in the workplace. We believe that industrial-organisational (I-O) psychology and management scholars have the unique expertise to tackle these issues by conducting innovative research in this area and contributing insights into the current public discourse and policymaking. To encourage more work in this area and stimulate an innovative agenda for future workplace gender equality work, we first provide a descriptive overview of gender equality research published in the past 2 decades in leading, highly relevant, and valued journals by I-O and management scholars. Next, we provide insights for future research, starting with theoretical and methodological considerations. In particular, we discuss the need for a greater inclusion of women in leadership as a social responsibility rather than a business need, emphasise the need to move from documenting bias to providing solutions, and highlight the importance of focusing on men and their experiences as a part of a broader conceptualisation of gender equality. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved)