A new study looking at workplace attitudes begs the question: how do we talk about problems of sexism when people are sick of hearing about it? Dr. Elisabeth Kelan proves understanding a problem is not the same as solving it.

In the Canadian Journal of Administrative Sciences, Kelan's article ""Gender Fatigue: The Ideological Dilemma of Gender Neutrality and Discrimination in Organizations," cuts right to the heart of the issue:

Dr. Kelan found that workers acknowledge gender discrimination is possible in modern organizations, but at the same time maintain their workplaces to be gender neutral. The author notes, "gender fatigue" as the cause for workers not acknowledging that bias against women can occur. [...]

Employees from both companies claimed their organizations were gender neutral and that employees were evaluated based on merit. With further questioning, men and women interviewed could describe past situations where gender bias occurred against women, but limited it to happening 10 to 20 years ago, from contacts outside their own organizations (i.e. customer contacts), or to an isolated male colleague from an "older" generation. "Instead of denying gender discrimination, workers acknowledge it can happen but construct it as singular events that happened in the past, placing the onus on women to overcome such obstacles," stated Dr. Kelan. [...]

The problem with gender fatigue is that it prohibits productive discussion regarding inequalities between men and women, making gender bias difficult to address," noted Dr. Kelan. "Future studies should explore what happens to gender fatigue over time and whether practical strategies can be developed to shape the way in which people in organizations speak about gender."

In the interest of helping with Dr. Kelan's research, I'll throw this one out the room - has the perception "gender fatigue" stopped you from bringing up issues of gender discrimination?

Gender discrimination still a factor in modern organizations — 'that's what she said' [Eureka Alert]

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