Femininity Culture: Conceptualization and Workplace Implications

Prior research on the psychological mechanisms that sustain gender employment segregation has examined the spillover of masculine gender role norms into organizational norms in male-typed fields. We expand this theoretical lens to examine the spillover of feminine gender role norms into organizational norms in female-typed fields, introducing the Femininity Workplace Culture construct. We theorize and demonstrate empirically that femininity workplace culture is ambivalent 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 cultures’ 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.