Feminized management and backlash toward agentic women: The hidden costs to women of a kinder, gentler image of middle managers

Women who display masculine, agentic traits are viewed as violating prescri ptions of feminine niceness (L. A. Rudman, 1998). By legitimizing niceness as an employment criterion, "feminization" of management (requiring both ag entic and communal traits for managers) may unintentionally promote discrim ination against competent women. Participants made hiring recommendations f or a feminized or masculine managerial job. Agentic female job applicants w ere viewed as less socially skilled than agentic males, but this perception only resulted in hiring discrimination for the feminized, not the masculin e, job. Communal applicants (regardless of sex) invariably received low hir ing ratings. Thus, women must present themselves as agentic to be hireable, but may therefore be seen as interpersonally deficient. Ironically, the fe minization of management may legitimize discrimination against competent, a gentic women.