Gender's Role In Workplace Bullying

According to the Workplace Bullying Institute (2017) report, women are 66% of bullying targets within the workplace. This implies that gender plays a significant role in workplace bullying. In the same report, it was revealed that 70% of the perpetrators were men. While women do comprise 30% of being the perpetrator, the report also indicates that women target women 67% in most cases (p. 5). As you can see, women are more likely to become targets of workplace bullying than men.

Workplace bullying proves to be very difficult for women since they juggle their workload, home life, children, education, care for their aging parents and all the other duties that women take upon themselves. It is also bothersome to women that it happens within

There are many affects that workplace bullying can have on women. The Washington State Department of Labor and Industries (2011) states that the targeted victims of bullying experience significant physical and mental health problems. Bullying can cause them to have low self-esteem, work withdrawal, sickness absence, sleep disturbances, depression, self-blame, family tension and stress. These effects can be long term depending on the individual situations and how the victims cope with the bullying. Bullying can also affect the organization due to replacing staff members if victims leave, having to train new employees, low work productivity and even potential legal actions (p. 2).

In Sherry Benson-Podolchuk’s youtube video, How I survived bullying in the workplace (2015), she describes a bullying episode that spanned over a period of years where her emotions were awry. She struggled to deal with being called names such as “stupid” and was constantly being monitored which was torment for her in front of

In the journal written by C. Brotherridge and R. Lee, Restless and Confused: Emotional responses to workplace bullying in men and women, they discuss the different emotions that are experienced during workplace bullying. These are positive emotions (happiness), outward-focused negative emotions (anger), and inward-focused negative emotions (sadness, restlessness, tiredness, and confusion). The positive emotions, joy and happiness, are actually found in rewarding and motive-consistent situations where bullies undermine their targets ability to maintain a sense of self. Outward-focused negative emotions (anger) result due to the blame or responsibility on the part of others. These emotions occur when a situation is threatening or harmful and it keeps someone from meeting their objectives. The inward-focused negative emotions occur when victims feel negative about themselves or when they feel that others are passing judgement on them (p. 689). Workplace bullying can definitely have a devastating impact on your emotional health and your own