A Perspective of Female Faculty in Hospitality Higher Education

Bullying and related incivility have become critical social issues influencing not only individual lives but also society at large; yet, extensive research on bullying only began about four decades ago (Randall, 2001; Sanders, 2004). Bullying can happen to children, but it can also impact adults more often than one would think. The 2014 WBI U.S. Workplace Bullying Survey, conducted by the Workplace Bullying Institute , found that “, one-quarter of adult Americans (27%) said they directly experienced abusive conduct at work” (Namie, Christensen, & Phillips, 2014, p.4), and over one third of adults are aware of incidents of workplace bullying. One of the many places that workplace bullying can occur is in higher education, and more specifically to women. The number of U. S. female professors has risen steadily in recent years, female professors are still subject to different student expectations and treatment (El-Alayli, 2017). In academia, female professors are hindered by stereotype-driven gender expectations held by students, creating extra burdens beyond what their male peers must endure (Basow 1998; Sprague and Massoni 2005). Some of the difficulties that female professors endure are authority in the classroom, “Momism”, emotional labor, and academic entitlement. Women tend to be perceived as warmer and more nurturing (e.g., helpful, sensitive, and sympathetic), whereas men tend to be perceived as more competent and agentic (e.g., confident, ambitious, independent, and assertive; Eckes 2002; Ridgeway 2001). One of the purposes of the present research is to determine what variables impact women in academia the most frequent, and what can be done to change the current dilemma. It is obvious that gender equality is more prevalent today, but more specifically why is it even prevalent. In the past, students’ behaviors toward male and female professors has been examined, but the professors’ perceptions have not been determined. The topic that the researcher is examining is whether the professor’s perceptions and gender effects professors across disciplines