“Invisible” Discrimination: The Effects of Intersecting Subordinated Identities on Evaluations of Discrimination

Abstract

Are women of color viewed as non-prototypical victims of gender and racial discrimination? What are the implications of non-prototypicality in this context? In this dissertation, I seek to answer these questions by exploring the relative gender discrimination prototypicality of three subgroups of women (i.e., White women vs. Black women and Asian women) and relative racial discrimination prototypicality of four racial subgroups (i.e., Black women vs. Black men, Asian women vs. Asian men). Further, I examine how victim non-prototypicality influences both the believability and financial remedy outcomes for those who allege discrimination. To this end, in Chapter 1, I review the intersectional invisibility hypothesis (Purdie-Vaughns & Eibach, 2008) and BIAS map framework (Cuddy, Fiske, & Glick, 2007, 2008), discussing their implications for both the believability and treatment of discrimination victims. Integrating these perspectives, I develop a series of predictions regarding Black women’s discrimination non-prototypicality, as well and its downstream consequences for the believability of their discrimination allegations and the financial remedy they receive in discrimination cases, compared to White women and Black men. Specifically, I predict that Black women’s categorical non-prototypicality will reduce the believability of their discrimination claims, but that their non-prototypical attributes will lead to divergent treatment (i.e., financial remedy awards), depending on the type of discrimination alleged.Chapter 2 presents 9 studies that test the hypotheses outlined in Chapter 1. Leveraging discrimination data from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, I demonstrate both the reduced believability of Black women’s discrimination claims and the predicted divergent consequences on financial remedy they receive in gender (Study 1a) versus racial (Study 1b) discrimination cases. I then examine discrimination prototypes, as well as the attributes underlying these prototypes and the emotions they elicit, with an emphasis on prototypical warmth (Study 2). Following these studies, I explore the effects of claimant race and gender on claim believability (Studies 3a–3d), mediated by discrimination prototypicality (Studies 3a and 3b). Finally, I examine the role of prototypical warmth and the induction of pity and contempt in informing the financial remedy awarded in gender (Study 4a) and racial discrimination (Study 4b) cases.Extending the findings presented in Chapter 2, Chapter 3 discusses how these principles may be applied to Asian women and Asian men. Here, I describe competing perspectives regarding the relative gender discrimination prototypicality of Asian women and White women and relative racial discrimination prototypicality of Asian women and Asian men. I also predict that Asian female victims of gender discrimination will be viewed as less warm and elicit less pity than White women, disadvantaging them in the financial remedy process. However, Asian women should receive more financial remedy when alleging racial discrimination than Asian men, due to increased perceptions of their warmth and their attenuated elicitation of contempt. Following this discussion, I present the results of 6 studies that examine these relationships.In Chapter 4, I conclude with a discussion of theoretical and practical contributions, limitations, and future directions for the current work. Overall, this research highlights the importance and utility of considering prototypicality at both the categorical and underlying attribute level to better understand when intersectional advantages versus disadvantages may emerge.