'Gender' in workplace bullying: A phenomenological study on nurses.

Abstract

This paper adopts a gender role socialization theoretical lens to analyze how different types of bullying techniques are heavily influenced by indirect passive aggression strategies usually considered normal 'women's behavior'. Workplace bullying as an organisational phenomenon has so far been examined within gender-neutral parameters. This study tries to overcome this existing lacuna within the literature on gender and workplace bullying. The study integrates dialectical phenomenology and in-depth interviews with nine nurses from the nursing field to examine the gendered nature of workplace bullying. The empirical data reveals that it is possible to interpret workplace bullying as an acceptable practice due to certain societal and cultural conditioning of women, thereby hindering the ability of management to combat and condone it within the health care sector effectively. This study widens perspectives pertaining to power, control, gender and workplace bullying. Insights are provided on how bullying techniques are similar to passive aggressive techniques used by females rendering bullying an integral feature of the nursing profession despite its negative outcomes. It might be challenging to erase workplace bullying from the nursing field because of its gendered implications, raising serious ethical considerations for the health care system.