Workplace Mistreatment of Middle Class Workers Based on Sex, Parenthood, and Caregiving

Abstract

Research suggests that women, but not men suffer negative professional consequences if they have children. These unequal consequences can be attributed to stereotypes about women's and men's roles as caregivers and breadwinners for their families, respectively. Two field studies of workplace mistreatment among middle-class employees examined whether fathers who violate these gender stereotypes by actively caregiving for their families suffer negative consequences at work. Study 1 (N = 232) examined not man enough harassment (being derogated as insufficiently masculine) and Study 2 (N = 451) examined general forms of mistreatment. Results showed that caregiving fathers experience more harassment and mistreatment than traditional fathers and than men without children. Women without children experience more harassment and mistreatment than mothers, and mothers who spend less time on caregiving experience more harassment and mistreatment than mothers who spend more time on caregiving. We discuss implications for theory and practice.Plenty of anecdotes exist about men getting teased and put down if they take leave, exercise flexible work options, or signal in other ways that they take care of children. An employee at a public utility company who took 3 weeks off when his second child was born explained, "Comments were made and my work

Fathering and Flexible Working Arrangements: A Systematic Interdisciplinary Review

“…The pervasive patriarchal family structure, in which men are situated in the public work sphere and women relegated to the home (Thébaud & Pedulla, ; Humberd et al, ) means that idealized masculine norms and identities are still tightly bound to wage earning and the primacy of work (Humberd et al, ; Thébaud & Pedulla, ), which prevents men from becoming more actively involved with their children. Men, especially those in professional and managerial roles, who deviate from such norms and ideals may be subject to a range of punitive consequences, such as social isolation (Berdahl & Moon, ), career penalties (Coltrane et al, ; Rudman & Mescher, ), and threats to masculine identity (Borgkvist et al, ; Vandello et al, ). At the same time, the ways mothers position fathers' use of workplace flexibility and their own constructions and experiences of gender and “intensive” or “good” mothering (Hays, ) also play a role in whether men adopt such practices (Karu & Kasearu, ; Radcliffe & Cassell, ).…”

“…When men from lower‐status roles do request flexibility, it is often out of necessity because their partner also works; thus, they often need to share more of the caring responsibilities than professional and managerial men. Consequently, these men have been shown to suffer from harassment and mistreatment in the workplace, with their masculinity being questioned (Berdahl & Moon, ). Research has largely failed to address how men across occupation, skill level, and social class experience flexible working arrangements (Nomaguchi & Johnson, ).…”

“…Such research has described the similarities and differences in flexible working arrangements across countries, including a focus on Nordic policies and practices as the gold standard for egalitarianism in balancing work and family (Narvi, ; Naz, ; Tervola, Duvander, & Mussino, ). Like sociology and cultural and gender studies, research from the discipline of business and management research has predominantly focused on the role of workplace culture and norms (Sanders et al, ), paternal identity (Humberd, Ladge, & Harrington, ; Ladge, Humberd, Watkins & Harrington, ), and gendered expectations (Atkinson & Hall, ; Berdahl & Moon, ; Burnett et al, ; Gatrell & Cooper, ; Radcliffe & Cassell, ), assessing how workplace organizational culture interacts with gendered expectations of men (and women) to positively or negatively affect organizational and social support for flexible working for men (Burnett, Gatrell, Cooper, & Sparrow, ; Gatrell, Burnett, Cooper, & Sparrow, ; Sanders et al, ).…”

“…For example, it is well established that men working in professional and managerial roles are expected to subscribe to the “work‐devotion schema,” which emphasizes the importance of work to one's life and reinforces the notion that a man should work long hours and commit himself to his career (Cech & Blair‐Loy, ; Williams, Berdahl, & Vandello, ). A move away from this schema and toward caring for children can signify a lack of compliance with the masculinized “ideal worker” norm (Bornstein, ), as well as a deviation from gender norms that situate men who are fathers as workers rather than carers (Berdahl & Moon, ; Vandello, Hettinger, Bosson, & Siddiqi, ). At the same time, class location has been shown to shape attitudes toward the division of labor in the household and the role of work in men's lives (Hochschild & Machung, ), and income has been shown to act as a barrier to men adopting flexible working arrangements, particularly regarding parental leave for low‐income fathers (Birkett & Forbes, ).…”

Masculinity and the Stalled Revolution

“…For instance, more men than women still endorse the prescriptive belief that women ought to be primarily responsible for caregiving (Cotter, hermsen, and Vanneman 2011); thus, even when policies are in place that otherwise mitigate financial risks, men may be unlikely to change their behavior on ideological grounds and/or to view such policies as solving "women's problem" of balancing work and care (Duvander 2014;Padavic, Ely, and Reid 2013). Accordingly, studies find that men often face negative social stigma when they take advantage of leave policies or flexible work arrangements, and that such stigma is rooted in their violation of this normative vision of masculinity (Berdahl and Moon 2013;Rudman and Mescher 2013;Vandello et al 2013). Indeed, men are still often expected to be primarily focused on paid work and breadwinning rather than caregiving (Potuchek 1997).…”