Gender Microaggression In Corporate Workplaces

Abstract

newline Over the last couple of decades, the world has seen a significant amount of progress for newline women in the workplace. This is evident in the increased number of women receiving newline higher education and actively participating in the labour markets, not to mention the newline increased awareness of gender equality. Despite all these advancements, corporate newline workplaces remain painfully underrepresented for women. And, if the diminutive newline number of C-suite women leaders is anything to go by, we have a long way to catch up newline to reach gender equity as well as equality (ILO, 2016) newline Although blatant gender harassment against women is still prevalent, scholars propose newline that the manifestation of gender discrimination has also taken more subtle, covert and newline unconscious forms known as gender microaggressions. These slights are often veiled newline and hence difficult to identify. As the workforce gets increasingly gender diverse, better newline identification and understanding of such contemporary manifestations of gender-based newline discrimination at work is required. This is a critical gap in organizational development newline as unconscious workplace behaviours may lead to an unfavourable work climate thus newline impeding the engagement and development of women professionals. newline This research study explored the lived experiences of mid-senior management women newline working in corporate workplaces in India. Given that the participants worked at large newline multinational corporations with explicit claims of discrimination-free workplaces, it newline was expected that this would reflect in their experiences. On the contrary, participants newline shared instances that were soaked in discriminatory ideologies carefully veiled under newline the garb of a casual comment, subtle actions or exclusion. Such gender newline microaggressions continue to remain an unrecognised and unaddressed menace even in newline large corporate workplaces. The nature of these experiences was such that it did not newline warrant a complaint under any of the well-crafted anti-discrimination policies newline nevertheless clearly communicated the hegemony. Women shared their stories of how newline their workplaces and leadership continued to perpetuate discrimination, albeit in these newline newer forms. In conclusion, the study found that despite the continued efforts by the newline corporate DandI and HR professionals to create a gender-equal, discrimination-free work newline environment, women s negative gendered experiences have continued to thrive newline unabated. Additionally, contrary to the popular belief that the 3 Ms (Marriage,xi newline Maternity and Motherhood) contributed to the women s talent pipeline leak, the newline findings of this study suggest that underlying Microaggressions manifested during these newline 3 phases of a woman s life could be at the core reason for them being inched-out of the newline workplace.