Perceptions on Working Women and Mothers: Interactions among Motherhood, Perspective, and Job Stereotypicality

Abstract

Women, and particularly mothers, face prejudice in the workplace. Likewise, women face prejudice and backlash when they act in gender-incongruent ways, like having a masculine job or not having children. Also, prior work and anecdotal evidence suggest that coworkers may be harsher judges of working mothers. Thus, this study looks at the interaction between motherhood, masculine or feminine professions, and the relationship to either an acquaintance or coworker. The study hypothesized main effects and interactions between the three variables and ratings on warmth and competence, and exploratory hypotheses including that benevolent and hostile sexism would predict judgments to the women in the traditionally feminine and masculine roles. Some hypotheses were supported, and many exploratory and unexpected significant results emerged. The results suggest that working mothers were admired overall and rated highly on warmth, as expected, but also marginally significantly high on competence. Unexpected interactions revealed multiple gender-incongruent factors present at the same time led to negative warmth ratings for women. For example, being a childless woman in a masculine job as perceived by a coworker led to negative evaluations of warmth. However, women in the male stereotypic job seemed more competent than those in the female stereotypic job, and working mothers were rated as marginally significantly more competent than working non-mothers; specifically, acquaintances viewed mothers as most competent. Finally, exploratory analysis revealed benevolent sexism praised working women in the female stereotypic occupation.