Femininity culture: Theory and workplace implications.

in nature. It reflects not only prescriptive feminine norms encouraging communality, as commonly assumed, but also proscriptive norms discouraging agency that produce normative pressures toward unmitigated communion. Across two pilots and five studies with over 5,000 respondents from diverse occupations, we found two distinct dimensions of femininity workplace culture, one tapping communal norms and the other tapping unmitigated communion norms, which distinguish workers in female-typed industries from workers in other industries. Femininity workplace culture's ambivalent nature was also reflected in its nomological network: While the communal norms dimension is associated with positive psychological and work-related outcomes (e.g., affective well-being, job satisfaction), the unmitigated communion norms dimension is associated with negative outcomes (e.g., burnout, turnover intentions). These findings open promising avenues for future research into how femininity workplace culture shapes employee well-being and contributes to gender segregation in female-typed occupations. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).