The Disappearance of Gender Discrimination and Advantage in Male-Dominated Professions: The Career Accounts of Compartmentalizers, Lucky Men, and Tough Women

References

• Acker J (1990) Hierarchies, jobs, bodies: A theory of gendered organizations. Gender Soc. 4(2):139-158.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Adler L, Ayala-Hurtado E (2025) A little help from my friends? Navigating the tension between social capital and meritocracy in the job search. Admin. Sci. Quart. 70(2):496–537.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Ahmed S (2021) Complaint! (Duke University Press, Durham, NC). Crossref, Google Scholar
• Alonso NM, O’Neill O (2022) Going along to get ahead: The asymmetric effects of sexist joviality on status conferral. Organ. Sci. 33(5):1794–1815.Link, Google Scholar
• Anteby M (2024) The Interloper: Lessons from Resistance in the Field (Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ).Crossref, Google Scholar
• Anteby M, Molnár V (2012) Collective memory meets organizational identity: Remembering to forget in a firm’s rhetorical history. Acad. Management J. 55(3):515–540.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Ashcraft K (2005) Resistance through consent? Occupational identity, organizational form, and the maintenance of masculinity among commercial airline pilots. Management Comm. Quart. 19(1):67–90. Crossref, Google Scholar
• Baker DT, Kelan EK (2019) Splitting and blaming: The psychic life of neoliberal executive women. Human Relations 72(1):69–97.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Barbulescu R, Jonczyk C, Galunic C, Bensaou B (2022) Management of fortuity: Workplace chance events and the career projections of up-or-out professionals. J. Vocational Behav. 139(2022):1–18.Google Scholar
• Beckman CM, Phillips DJ (2005) Interorganizational determinants of promotion: Client leadership and the attainment of women attorneys. Amer. Sociol Rev. 70(4):678–701.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Belkin L (2003) The opt-out revolution. New York Times (October 26), https://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/26/magazine/the-opt-out-revolution.html.Google Scholar
• Berdahl J (2007a) Harassment based on sex: Protecting social status in the context of gender hierarchy. Acad. Management Rev. 32(2):641–658.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Berdahl J (2007b) The sexual harassment of uppity women. J. Appl. Psychol. 92(2):425–437.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Berdahl J, Cooper M, Glick P, Livingston R, Williams J (2018) Work as a masculinity contest. J. Soc. Issues 74(3):422–448.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Blair-Loy M, Cech EA (2022) Misconceiving Merit: Paradoxes of Excellence and Devotion in Academic Science and Engineering (University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL).Crossref, Google Scholar
• Bowker GG, Star SL (1999) Sorting Things Out: Classification and Its Consequences (MIT Press, Cambridge, MA).Crossref, Google Scholar
• Bowles HR, Babcock L, Lai L (2007) Social incentives for gender differences in the propensity to initiate negotiations: Sometimes it does hurt to ask. Organ. Behav. Human Decision Process 103(1):84–103.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Bowles H, Thomason B, Bear J (2019) Reconceptualizing what and how women negotiate for career advancement. Acad. Management J. 62(6):1645–1671.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Byerly CM, McGraw KA (2020) Axes of power: Examining women’s access to leadership positions in the news media. Djerf-Pierre M, Edström M, eds. Comparing Gender and Media Equality Across the Globe: A Cross-National Study of the Qualities, Causes, and Consequences of Gender Equality in and through the News Media (Nordicom, Gothenburg, Sweden), 191–232.Google Scholar
• Cardador MT, Hill PL, Salles A (2022) Unpacking the status-leveling burden for women in male-dominated occupations. Admin. Sci. Quart. 67(1):237–284.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Carlson JH, Crawford M (2011) Perceptions of relational practices in the workplace. Gender Work Organ. 18(4):359–376.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Castilla EJ (2008) Gender, race, and meritocracy in organizational careers. Amer. J. Sociol. 113(6):1479–1526.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Castilla EJ, Benard S (2010) The paradox of meritocracy in organizations. Admin. Sci. Quart. 55(4):543–676.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Castilla EJ, Ranganathan A (2020) The production of merit: How managers understand and apply merit in the workplace. Organ. Sci. 31(4):909–935.Link, Google Scholar
• Charmaz K (2006) Constructing Grounded Theory: A Practical Guide Through Qualitative Analysis (Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks, CA).Google Scholar
• Clarke J, Hurst C, Tomlinson J (2024) Maintaining the meritocracy myth: A critical discourse analytic study of leaders’ talk about merit and gender in academia. Organ. Stud. 45(5):635–660.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Connell RW, Messerschmidt JW (2005) Hegemonic masculinity: Rethinking the concept. Gender Soc. 19(6):829–859.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Correll SJ, Benard S, Paik I (2007) Getting a job: Is there a motherhood penalty? Amer. J. Sociol. 112(5):1297–1339.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Correll SJ, Weisshaar KR, Wynn AT, Wehner JD (2020) Inside the black box of organizational life: The gendered language of performance assessment. Amer. Sociol Rev. 85(6):1022–1050.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Cortina LM, Areguin MA (2021) Putting people down and pushing them out: Sexual harassment in the workplace. Ann. Rev. Organ. Psych. Organ. Behav. 8(2021):285–309.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Crosby F (1984) The denial of personal discrimination. Amer. Behav. Sci. 27(3):371–386.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Daniels AK (1987) Invisible work. Soc. Problems 34(5):403–415.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Deaux K, Emswiller T (1974) Explanations of successful performance on sex-linked tasks: What is skill for the male is luck for the female. J. Personality Soc. Psychol. 29(1):80–85.Crossref, Google Scholar
• DiBenigno J (2026) Women lifting up women: The transformative potential of parallel-peer connections. Admin. Sci. Quart., ePub ahead of print May 13, https://dx.doi.org/10.1177/00018392261436817. Crossref, Google Scholar
• Dobbin F (2009) Inventing Equal Opportunity (Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ).Crossref, Google Scholar
• Doering L, Tilcsik A (2024) Location matters: Everyday gender discrimination in remote and on-site work. Organ. Sci. 36(2):547–571.Link, Google Scholar
• Doering L, Doering J, Tilcsik A (2023) “Was it me or was it gender discrimination?” How women respond to ambiguous incidents at work. Sociol. Sci. 10(18):501–533.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Douglas M (1986) How Institutions Think (Syracuse University Press, Syracuse, NY).Google Scholar
• Eagly AH, Karau SJ (2002) Role congruity theory of prejudice toward female leaders. Psychol. Rev. 109(3):573–598.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Edmondson AC, Lei Z (2014) Psychological safety: The history, renaissance, and future of an interpersonal construct. Ann. Rev. Organ. Psych. Organ. Behav. 1(1):23–43.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Ely R (1995) The power in demography: Women’s social constructions of gender identity at work. Acad. Management J. 38(3):589–634.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Ely R, Padavic I (2007) A feminist analysis of organizational research on sex differences. Acad. Management Rev. 32(4):1121–1143.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Ely R, Stone P, Ammerman C (2014) Rethink what you “know” about high-achieving women. Harvard Bus. Rev. (December), https://hbr.org/2014/12/rethink-what-you-know-about-high-achieving-women.Google Scholar
• Eren D (2026) When interpretations of merit thresholds vary and reproduce inequality: Entering the tech industry without computer science credentials. Organ. Sci. 37(2):490–515.Link, Google Scholar
• Ewick P, Silbey SS (1995) Subversive stories and hegemonic tales: Toward a sociology of narrative. Law Soc. Rev. 29(2):197–226.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Faniko K, Ellemers N, Derks B (2022) Lack of ambition or lack of support? Diverging career experiences of men and women explain the persistence of gender bias. J. Appl. Soc. Psychol. 52(9):851–864.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Faulkner W (2009) Doing gender in engineering workplace cultures. II. Gender in/authenticity and the in/visibility paradox. Engrg. Stud. 1(3):169–189.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Fernando D, Prasad A (2018) Sex-based harassment and organizational silencing: How women are led to reluctant acquiescence in academia. Human Relations 72(10):1565–1594.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Ferrier M (2018) Attacks and Harassment: The Impact on Female Journalists and Their Reporting (Internal Women’s Media Foundation & Troll-Busters.com, Washington, DC).Google Scholar
• Fletcher JK (2001) Disappearing Acts: Gender, Power and Relational Practice at Work (MIT Press, Cambridge, MA).Google Scholar
• Flynn E (2025) Constraints, competencies, or choices? How lay theories of the gender gap impact diversity support. Acad. Management J. 68(6):1380–1406.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Funk C, Parker K (2018) Women and Men in STEM Often at Odds Over Workplace Equity (Pew Research Center, Washington, DC).Google Scholar
• Geertsema-Sligh M, Vos TP (2022) Running up against a brick wall: U.S. metajournalistic discourse of gender equality in newsrooms. J. Stud. 23(14):1758–1778.Google Scholar
• Gerson K (1985) Hard Choices: How Women Decide About Work, Career, and Motherhood (University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA).Google Scholar
• Gorman E (2005) Gender stereotypes, same-gender preferences, and organizational variation in the hiring of women: Evidence from law firms. Amer. Sociol. Rev. 70(4):702–728.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Government of Canada SC (2024) The daily—Gender results framework: A new data table on workplace harassment. Retrieved June 3, 2026, https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/240212/dq240212a-eng.htm.Google Scholar
• Hanson R, Richards P (2019) Harassed: Gender, Bodies and Ethnographic Research (University of California Press, Berkeley).Google Scholar
• Hart CG (2021) Trajectory guarding: Managing unwanted, ambiguously sexual interactions at work. Amer. Sociol. Rev. 86(2):256–278.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Hatmaker DM (2013) Engineering identity: Gender and professional identity negotiation among women engineers. Gender Work Organ. 20(4):382–396.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Heilman MH, Caleo S, Manzi F (2024) Women at work: Pathways from gender stereotypes to gender bias and discrimination. Annual Rev. Organ. Psych. Organ. Behav. 11(2024):165–192.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Hershcovis MS, Vranjes I, Berdahl J, Cortina LM (2021) See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil: Theorizing network silence around sexual harassment. J. Appl. Psychol. 106(12):1834–1847.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Hewlin PF, Dumas TL, Burnett MF (2017) To thine own self be true? Facades of conformity, values incongruence, and the moderating impact of leader integrity. Acad. Management J. 60(1):178–199.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Hirsh CE, Kornrich S (2008) The context of discrimination: Workplace conditions, institutional environments, and sex and race discrimination charges. Amer. J. Sociol. 113(5):1394–1432.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Ibarra H, Petriglieri JL (2017) Impossible selves: Image strategies and identity threat in professional women’s career transitions. Storberg-Walker J, Haber-Curran P, eds. Theorizing Women and Leadership: New Insights and Contributions from Multiple Perspectives (Information Age Publishing, Charlotte, NC), 19–36.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Ilies R, Hauserman N, Schwochau S, Stibal J (2003) Reported incidence rates of work-related sexual harassment in the United States: Using meta-analysis to explain reported rate disparities. Personnel Psychol. 56(3):607–631.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Jiang WY, Wrzesniewski A (2023) Perceiving fixed or flexible meaning: Toward a model of meaning fixedness and navigating occupational destabilization. Admin. Sci. Quart. 68(4):1008–1055.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Joshi A (2014) By whom and when is women’s expertise recognized? The interactive effects of gender and education in science and engineering teams. Admin. Sci. Quart. 59(2):202–239.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Joshi A, Son J, Roh H (2015) When can women close the gap? A meta-analytic test of sex differences in performance and rewards. Acad. Management J. 58(5):1516–1545.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Kanter RM (1977) Some effects of proportions on group life: Skewed sex ratios and responses to token women. Amer. J. Sociol. 82(5):965–990.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Knowles ED, Lowery BS, Chow RM, Unzueta MM (2014) Deny, distance, or dismantle? How white Americans manage a privileged identity. Perspect. Psych. Sci. 9(6):594–609.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Kolb D, Williams J (2001) The Shadow Negotiation: How Women Can Master the Hidden Agendas That Determine Bargaining Success (Simon and Schuster, New York).Google Scholar
• Koppman S, Bechky BA, Cohen AC (2022) Overcoming conflict between symmetric occupations: How “creatives” and “suits” use gender ordering in advertising. Acad. Management J. 65(5):1623–1651.Crossref, Google Scholar
• L.A. Times Guild (2018) Los Angeles Times Guild Pay Study (Los Angeles Times Guild, Los Angeles).Google Scholar
• Lamont M (2023) Seeing Others: How Recognition Works―and How It Can Heal a Divided World (Simon & Schuster, New York).Google Scholar
• Lamont M, Swidler A (2014) Methodological pluralism and the possibilities and limits of interviewing. Qualitative Sociol. 37(2):153–171.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Liebler CM, Ahmad W, Ni Q (2024) #MeToo in the newsroom: Image repair and allegations of sexual misconduct. Journalism Practice 18(6):1365–1377.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Luhr S (2025) “We’re better than most”: Diversity discourse in the San Francisco Bay Area tech industry. Soc. Problems 72(1):261–276.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Lyness KS, Heilman ME (2006) When fit is fundamental: Performance evaluations and promotions of upper-level female and male managers. J. Appl. Psychol. 91(4):777–785.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Major B, Schmader T (2001) Legitimacy and the construal of social disadvantage. Jost JT, Major B, eds. The Psychology of Legitimacy: Emerging Perspectives on Ideology, Justice, and Intergroup Relations (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK), 176–204.Google Scholar
• McCluney CL, Durkee MI, Smith RE, Robotham KJ, Lee SSL (2021) To be, or not to be…Black: The effects of racial codeswitching on perceived professionalism in the workplace. J. Exp. Soc. Psychol. 97(2021):1–12.Google Scholar
• McKinsey & Company (2024) Women in the workplace 2024: The 10th-anniversary report. Accessed June 3, 2026, https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/diversity-and-inclusion/women-in-the-workplace-2024.Google Scholar
• McLaughlin H, Uggen C, Blackstone A (2017) The economic and career effects of sexual harassment on working women. Gender Soc. 31(3):333–358.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Miller KC, Lewis SC (2022) Journalists, harassment, and emotional labor: The case of women in on-air roles at US local television stations. Journalism 23(1):79–97.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Neeley TB, Dumas TL (2016) Unearned status gain: Evidence from a global language mandate. Acad. Management J. 59(1):14–43.Crossref, Google Scholar
• NewsGuild-CWA (2021) NewsGuild-CWA Study of Pay Equity in 14 Gannett Newsrooms (The Newsguild: Communications Workers of America, Washington, DC).Google Scholar
• O’Neill OA, Rothbard NP (2017) Is love all you need? The effects of emotional culture, suppression, and work–family conflict on firefighter risk-taking and health. Acad. Management J. 60(1):78–108.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Padavic I, Ely R, Reid E (2020) Explaining the persistence of gender inequality: The work–family narrative as a social defense against the 24/7 work culture. Admin. Sci. Quart. 65(1):61–111.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Parker K, Funk C (2017) Gender Discrimination Comes in Many Forms for Today’s Working Women (Pew Research Center, Washington, DC).Google Scholar
• Perez CC (2019) Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men (Abrams Press, New York).Google Scholar
• Phillips LT, Lowery BS (2015) The hard-knock life? Whites claim hardships in response to racial inequity. J. Exp. Soc. Psychol. 61(2015):12–18.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Phillips KW, Rothbard N, Dumas TL (2009) To disclose or not to disclose? Status distance and self-disclosure in diverse environments. Acad. Management Rev. 34(4):710–732.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Poorhosseinzadeh M, Özbilgin MF, Strachan G (2024) Gendered constructions of luck at work: The case of career narratives of female and male managers. Gender Issues 41(6):1–18.Google Scholar
• Pugh AJ (2013) What good are interviews for thinking about culture? Demystifying interpretive analysis. Amer. J. Cultural Sociol. 1(1):42–68.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Ramarajan L, Reid E (2013) Shattering the myth of separate worlds: Negotiating non-work identities at work. Acad. Management Rev. 38(4):621–644.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Ramarajan L, Reid E (2020) Relational reconciliation: Socializing others across demographic differences. Acad. Management J. 63(2):356–385.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Reid E (2015) Embracing, passing, revealing, and the ideal worker image: How people navigate expected and experienced professional identities. Organ. Sci. 26(4):997–1017.Link, Google Scholar
• Rhode DL (1988) Perspectives on professional women. Stanford Law Rev. 40(5):1163–1207.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Rhode DL (1999) Speaking of Sex: The Denial of Gender Inequality (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA).Google Scholar
• Ridgeway CL (1997) Interaction and the conservation of gender inequality: Considering employment. Amer. Sociol. Rev. 62(2):218–235.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Ridgeway C (2011) Framed by Gender: How Gender Inequality Persists in the Modern World (Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK).Crossref, Google Scholar
• Ridgeway CL (2014) Why status matters for inequality. Amer. Sociol. Rev. 79(1):1–16.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Rivera L (2008) Managing “spoiled” national identity: War, tourism and memory in Croatia. Amer. Sociol. Rev. 73(4):613–634.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Rivera LA (2012) Hiring as cultural matching: The Case of elite professional service firms. Amer. Sociol Rev. 77(6):999–1022.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Rivera LA (2015) Pedigree: How Elite Students Get Elite Jobs (Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ).Crossref, Google Scholar
• Rivera LA, Tilcsik A (2016) Class advantage, commitment penalty: The gendered effect of social class signals in an elite labor market. Amer. Sociol Rev. 81(6):1097–1131.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Roscigno V, Mong S, Byron R, Tester G (2007) Age discrimination, social closure and employment. Soc. Forces 86(1):313–334.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Roth L (2006) Selling Women Short: Gender and Money on Wall Street (Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ).Google Scholar
• Rudman LA, Glick P (2001) Prescriptive gender stereotypes and backlash toward agentic women. J. Soc. Issues 57(4):743–762.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Sandel MJ (2020) The Tyranny of Merit: What’s Become of the Common Good? (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York).Google Scholar
• Sands S, Ferraro C (2025) DEI rollbacks: Consequences and considerations for brand managers. Bus. Horizons 69(2):209–216.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Sauder M (2020) A sociology of luck. Sociol. Theory 38(3):193–216.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Schrock D, Schwalbe M (2009) Men, masculinity, and manhood acts. Annual Rev. Sociol. 35(2009):277–295.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Schultz V (1997) Reconceptualizing sexual harassment. Yale Law J. 107(6):1683–1806.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Schultz V (2018) Reconceptualizing sexual harassment, again collection: #MeToo and the future of sexual harassment law. Yale Law J. 128(8):22–66.Google Scholar
• Scott JC (1990) Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts (Yale University Press, New Haven, CT).Google Scholar
• Scully MA (2000) Manage your own employability: Meritocracy and legitimation of inequality in internal labor markets and beyond. Leana CR, Rousseau DM, eds. Relational Wealth: The Advantages of Stability in a Changing Economy (Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK), 199–214.Google Scholar
• Scully MA (2002) Confronting errors in the meritocracy. Organization 9(3):396–401.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Scully MA (2015) Meritocracy. Cooper CL, ed. Wiley Encyclopedia of Management (John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Chichester, UK), 1–2.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Seegars L, Lee S, Reid EM, Ramarajan L (2025) Subordinating humanism: How colliding beliefs about a living wage shape personal fulfillment and “professional-class” identities in working-class jobs. Acad. Management J. 68(5):939–970. Crossref, Google Scholar
• Sims CS, Drasgow F, Fitzgerald LF (2005) The effects of sexual harassment on turnover in the military: Time-dependent modeling. J. Appl. Psychol. 90(6):1141–1152.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Steiner L (2019) Addressing sexual harassment in journalism education. Journalism 20(1):118–121.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Stephens NM, Levine CS (2011) Opting out or denying discrimination? How the framework of free choice in American society influences perceptions of gender inequality. Psychol Sci. 22(10):1231–1236.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Stone P (2007) Opting Out? Why Women Really Quit Careers and Head Home (University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles).Crossref, Google Scholar
• Tedder-King A, Sherf EN (2024) Fairness judgments in the context of structural sexism: The role of beliefs in individual and structural causes of success. Acad. Management J. 67(5):1234–1272.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Thomas DA (1993) Racial dynamics in cross-race developmental relationships. Admin. Sci. Quart. 38(2):169–194.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Trzebiatowski T, McCluney C, Hernandez M (2023) Managing the double bind: Women directors’ participation tactics in the gendered boardroom. Organ. Sci. 34(2):801–827.Link, Google Scholar
• Turco C (2010) Cultural foundations of tokenism: Evidence from the leveraged buyout industry. Amer. Sociol. Rev. 75(6):894–913.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Twohey M, Kantor J (2019) She Said: Breaking the Sexual Harassment Story That Helped Ignite a Movement (Penguin Press, New York).Google Scholar
• Weiss R (1994) Learning from Strangers: The Art and Method of Qualitative Interview Studies (The Free Press, New York).Google Scholar
• West C, Zimmerman DL (1987) Doing gender. Gender & Soc. 1(2):125–151.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Women’s Media Center (2021) The Status of Women in the U.S. Media 2021. Report, Women’s Media Center, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
• Wong JC (2019) Demoted and sidelined: Google walkout organizers say company retaliated. The Guardian (April 22), https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/apr/22/google-mass-protests-employee-retaliation.Google Scholar
• Workman-Stark AL, Lyubykh Z, Vranjes I, Cortina LM, Hershcovis MS, Berdahl JL, Chrusch C (2026) How signals of silence sustain sexual harassment and what to do about it. Human Res. Management 65(4):1033–1054.Google Scholar
• Zerubavel E (1991) The Fine Line (University of Chicago Press, Chicago).Google Scholar
• Zerubavel E (2006) The Elephant in the Room: Silence and Denial in Everyday Life (Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK).Google Scholar