Gender Differences in Clerical Workers' Disputes over Tasks, Interpersonal Treatment, and Emotion

Abstract

Although more than a quarter of American women work in clerical and administrative support jobs, little is known about the day-to-day experience of clerical work. We explore workplace dispute resolution among women and men clerical workers, focusing on how they define and resolve “personality conflicts.” “Personality conflict” is a label women clerical workers tend to use more than men to describe disputes over how tasks should be accomplished, interpersonal treatment, and emotional issues. In-depth interview data from two contrasting firms indicate that institutional dispute processing forums (a union-negotiated grievance procedure in “Firm A” and an open-door policy in “Firm B”) are ill-equipped to handle personality conflicts, causing women to laterally transfer, which in turn reduces their human capital. We suggest that workplace dispute resolution is an intra-organizational process which may create, maintain, or nullify employment inequality.