Stigmatization of Women in the Workplace: Sources of Stigma and its Consequences at the Individual, Organizational and Societal Level

Gender balance has been a declared goal in business and society for decades as gender diversity leads to more equality and better decision-making, enhances financial performance of organizations, and fosters creativity and innovation. Although there is a steady upward trend in the number of women actively participating in the workplace, there is still a dearth of women in top leadership positions. This motivates a closer look at the reasons why this happens. Stigmatization – a social process of disapproval based on stereotypes or particular distinguishing characteristics of individuals (e.g. gender) – has been recognized as one of the primary explanations for the barriers to career advancement of women. This chapter aims to address workplace inequality by analysing different sources of stigma women face in the workplace. Previous research has mostly focused on visible sources of stigma, such as gender or race/ethnicity. We propose to go beyond visible sources of stigma and expand the focus to other physical (e.g. physical appearance, age, childbearing age), emotional (e.g. mental health) and societal (e.g. flexibility) sources of stigma. We are especially interested in the consequences of stigma for women in the workplace. Stigmatization of women is a multi-level process, so this chapter focuses on the antecedents (sources of stigma) and outcomes (consequences of stigma) for women at the individual level, organizational level and the societal level. The proposed chapter will make contributions to the areas of management, diversity and gender studies.