Workers Care More About Rudeness Directed At Same-Gender Co-workers

Acts of workplace incivility bother us more when someone of the same gender is on the receiving end.

Or so says a new Texas A&M/Buena Vista University study of male and female restaurant workers.

So Courtney feels stressed out (but isn't outraged...) as she watches someone being intentionally rude to her male co-worker Chris, but she's gonna have a total fit if the same thing happens to her female co-worker Chris. Ditto for men witnessing workplace rudeness hurled at a male co-worker. It doesn't matter that both parties have the same boring, unisex name; it's the gender-related principle of the thing. We share the same X or Y chromosome, therefore I feel your pain. Or maybe you're Canadian?


see more Monday Through Friday

The biggest surprise, however, might lie in how men and women react in the aftermath. Women tend to become much more demoralized after watching a female co-worker get picked on. Men, however, tend not to feel demoralized after watching a male colleague suffer a personal attack, but they sure are more angry. It's a Mars vs. Venus workplace thing that we wish to not disclose. Maybe we all need to become Canadian.