Empowered by Adversity? Exit, Voice, and Silence in the Aftermath of Gender Discrimination at Work
通过深度访谈职业女性，研究性别歧视后她们选择退出、沉默或发声的原因，发现支持网络是关键机制，帮助女性避免自责并激发抗争。
Social psychological research suggests that workplace discrimination harms women’s self-confidence and mental health, which may lead them to remain silent or quit their jobs after facing discrimination. However, feminist scholarship argues that discrimination can generate feminist consciousness and resistance. To interrogate these conflicting expectations, we draw on in-depth interviews with professional women to examine exit, voice, and silence in discrimination’s aftermath. We find that some women remain silent or exit organizations in search of less hostile environments. Others, however, develop feminist consciousness, voice complaints, and sometimes accomplish hard-fought changes within their organizations. To explain these divergent responses, we identify support networks as a crucial mechanism. Support networks help women avoid self-blame and rumination by resolving the ambiguity that frequently obscures discrimination. Support networks also spread awareness of discrimination and generate feminist solidarity. In doing so, they encourage women to contest negative treatment by exercising voice. Implications for the study of workplace discrimination, the debate over the stalled gender revolution, and occupational segregation are discussed.