Public Reactions to Instances of Workplace Gender Discrimination

The number of people witnessing or experiencing gender discrimination at work is still high around the globe. While the existing literature has investigated potential mechanisms underlying gender discrimination and the consequences of experiencing gender discrimination at work, it remains unclear how third-party observers—as opposed to employees or coworkers—react to specific instances of workplace gender discrimination. The results of six experiments demonstrate that (a) people in general judge organizational decisions that discriminate against individual male (vs. female) workers as more legitimate and (b) this difference in legitimacy judgments is significantly greater among women than men. This discrepancy in legitimacy judgments occurs because women (more than men) consider the collective situation of female and male workers when judging the legitimacy of organizational decisions that discriminate against individual workers based on gender. These findings document how group-level concerns shape people’s legitimacy judgments of organizational decisions discriminating against individuals and equip organizations and policymakers with a better understanding of people’s polarized opinions regarding gender discrimination at the workplace.