Women’s Labeling of Gender Discrimination: The Role of Perceived Shared Fate

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We examined whether perceptions of “shared fate” with other women would influence women’s willingness to label an event as discrimination. Study 1 focused on women’s labeling of another woman’s experience with gender discrimination. Undergraduate women (N = 211) wrote about their shared attributes with other women or their unique attributes. Next, they read about a female student who was treated unfairly by a male professor. Women in the shared (versus unique) fate condition were more likely to label the woman’s experience as discrimination, which in turn predicted greater liking for the woman. Study 2 focused on women’s labeling of a personal experience with gender discrimination. Undergraduate women and a confederate (N = 198) each completed a creativity test, which would be graded by either the same male evaluator (shared fate) or a different evaluator (unique fate). After receiving a failing grade with sexist feedback, participants indicated the extent their failure was due to various factors, including discrimination. Participants either gave these ratings privately or publicly in front of the confederate. Women were more likely to label discrimination as a factor when their ratings were made publicly (not privately) in the shared (versus unique) fate condition, which reduced the negative affect caused by the discriminatory experience. Moreover, the pattern for public attributions held even when women later made private attributions. Together, the findings suggest that perceptions of shared fate can encourage women to label unfair treatment as discrimination, whether they are observers of another’s experience or the target of the discrimination.