He, she, “They” at the bargaining table… woman, man or just negotiators? A Critical review on gender ideologies in mixed-gender negotiations

Abstract

In recent years, an important number of studies aimed at levelling the playing field for women and men at the bargaining table. In spite of this, women continue to find themselves largely at a disadvantage when negotiating with a male counterpart. In this review, we focus on a neglected yet potentially important factor contributing to the gender gap in negotiations, namely people's gender ideology. We argue that gender ideology shapes day-to-day negotiations and we offer insights regarding its consequences on the bargaining process. We first present the available contributions regarding gender in negotiations and underline the most significant variables that lead to gender effects in negotiations. We then introduce gender ideology as a potentially important variable in the process and lean upon previous studies to support our claim.