Originally published here.

During the past 50 years, women have become incorporatedinto the formal labor market in vast numbers. However, therecan be no talk of full integration because of the gender-related occupational segregation which characterizes the jobmarket (Huffman et al., 2010). Gender segregation in theworkforce has both vertical and horizontal aspects (Hakim,1993). The horizontal aspect (occupational segregation) concernsthe different types of work that men and women perform,and the vertical aspect (occupational inequality) refers to thehierarchical disparities in their work (e.g., Baunach, 2002).

Both are intricately connected and allow that women areoverrepresented in female-dominated occupations, and men inmale-dominated occupations.Since the sixties, psychosocial research has demonstrated theimpact of stereotypes (consensual beliefs about typical traits of women and men) on judgments about professional men andwomen (Broverman et al., 1972). Specifically, many scholarsargue that the typical characteristics of women (feminine)and men (masculine), as well as their traditional roles (menas providers vs. women as homemakers) spill over into theworkplace, leading to discrimination against women and to agender-segregated labor market (Eagly, 1987).

However, it mustbe highlighted that research into this subject has been almostalways focused on stereotypes (cognitive aspects of prejudice)(Bosak et al., 2012). In our opinion, the affective dimensionis likely to be particularly important for professional women,mainly because the discrimination to which women are exposedin the workforce can best be explained by ambivalent feelings(Wade and Brewer, 2006).

Therefore, the main aim of thisresearch is to examine from the Social Role Theory (SRT; Eagly,1987), the Stereotype Content Model (SCM; Fiske et al., 2002)and the behaviors from intergroup affect and stereotypes (BIAS)Map (Cuddy et al., 2007) how professional men and women inhigh and low status positions who work in male and female-dominated occupations are perceived, as well as the affectiveresponses and the behavioral tendencies that they arouse.

The main focus of this study was to examine whether cognitive,affectiveandbehavioralcomponentsofprejudicecouldactjointly to explain the discrimination of women and men who work in traditional and non-traditional gender-linked roles. Overall,relativestatusandperceivedcompetitionareparticularlyrelevantin determining stereotypes of both leaders and secretaries andconsequently emotions evoked and behavioral tendencies elicited(Cuddy et al., 2007), especially for professional men.Regarding our first four hypotheses, data indicate that leadersas well as professional women are perceived as possessing morestatus than secretaries and professional men. Moreover, menand women leaders do not differ in their perceived status,whereas women secretaries are viewed as possessing morestatus than their male counterparts. Results related to perceivedcompetition show a slightly different pattern. Competition isascribed to leaders as well as men workers and professionals inthehealthcompanytoagreaterextentthantosecretaries,womenworkers, and those professionals in the high-tech company.Furthermore, men leaders are considered more competitive thanwomen leaders, whereas men and women secretaries do notdiffer in their perceived competitiveness. All these results takentogether support the basic tenets of SCM (Fiske et al., 2002):In occupational hierarchies, leaders are associated with morestatus and competition than secretaries. Nevertheless, contrary to our expectations, judgments on status and competition seemto depend on the sex-stereotypicality of the target. In this vein,our results suggest that workers perceive that female leaders havethe same ability to control and regulate economic and humanresources (status) but less intention of optimizing them thantheir male counterparts (competition). At an interpersonal level,however, it implies that workers consider female leaders to poseless of a threat to their professional interests such as promotions,professional training or increases in pay. As a result, with thesame status, men leaders retain their advantage over womenleaders to manage and to compete more successfully, regardlessof type of company. In low status positions, however, womenmaintain their “advantage” because men violate gender-basedexpectations that require them to possess higher status thanwomen (Moss-Racusin et al., 2010).

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