Minimizing a sexist act and derogating the female victim: To be or not to be in the same boat?

By Anne-Laure Hernandez, Sandrine Redersdorff, Delphine Martinot
English

Research reports inconsistent results on reactions of women towards a discriminated peer. Two experiments examine the impact of the commonality of fate on supportive or derogative reactions towards a discriminated female target. Female participants observed an ambiguous (Experiment 1) or an unambiguous (Experiments 1 and 2) sexist act against a female target with whom they shared or not a common fate. The results showed that, when they shared a common fate, participants minimized more discrimination against the target regardless the ambiguity of discrimination, and derogate her more if she claimed discrimination. These unsupportive reactions from observers did not occur in a dissimilar fate context.

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