Desigualdades de gênero no âmbito laboral: o papel do sexismo neste contexto

Abstract

This dissertation, whose subject deals with sexism in the work environment, has the objective of investigating the impact of the participants sex (male or female), the evaluator sex (male or female), and the evaluated sex (male or female) in the perception of justice of a professional evaluation in which hiring does not occur, and to evaluate the moderating role of sexism in this relationship. Three studies were conducted, arranged in two articles, in order to reach this objective. The first article, which brought together Studies 1 and 2, aimed to develop a measure of sexism specific to the work environment that is valid for the Brazilian context. For Study 1, participated 398 students from two public northeast Brazilian universities, with a mean age of 22.69 years (SD = 6.56) and a majority of females (52%). Participants answered a scale composed of 37 items formulated by the authors and with items adapted from other scales. The results indicated that a two-factor solution, composed of 16 items, is the most adequate. In addition, both factors of the instrument showed a positive correlation with the factors of the Ambivalent Sexism Inventory of Glick and Fiske. In Study 2, the instrument was tested in a sample of 412 students from two public northeast Brazilian universities, with a mean age of 22.84 years (SD = 6.39) and a majority of females (52.7%), to verify the confirmation of the factorial structure. The results indicate that the structure found was adequate (χ²/gl = 3,31, GFI = 0,91, CFI = 0,92, RMSEA = 0,075). Article 2 aimed to investigate the impact of the participants sex (male or female), the evaluator sex (male or female), and the evaluated sex (male or female) in the perception of justice of a professional evaluation in which hiring does not occur, and to evaluate the moderating role of sexism in this relationship. To achieve this objective, an experimental study was carried out with a 2 x 2 x 2 factorial design, quantitative approach and transversal temporal cut. A total of 256 students from a public northeast Brazilian university, with a mean age of 22.84 years (SD = 6.39) and a majority of females (51.3%), were randomly assigned to the four experimental conditions. The results indicate that sexism is able to moderate the relationship between the sex of the participants, the gender of the evaluator and the agreement with the decision of not hiring (the measure of discrimination), but this relationship does not occur when the variable Sex Evaluator is replaced with the variable Sex of the Evaluated. Broadly speaking, the more sexist men tended to agree more with the discrimination proffered by a male evaluator. Taken together, these results indicate that sexism is still prevalent in the labor context, and that its negative effect is associated both with its hostile and benevolent forms.