Reexamining Backlash: Evidence from High-Achieving Women

Abstract: In this paper, we examine how high-achieving women navigate negotiation backlash and its downstream consequences through an inductive sense-making analysis of 40 in-depth interviews. We find that although explicit gender-based backlash from negotiating is not widely reported, perceptions of gender bias in negotiation remain pervasive. In response, women describe a consistent pattern of constructing, communicating, and validating their value in advance in order to establish the legitimacy of their requests before entering negotiations. These behaviors include tone moderation, allyship-building, data-driven overpreparation, and sustained overperformance. Our findings suggest that women may find it necessary to overperform in order to achieve advancement and rewards comparable to their peers. We will next test the effectiveness of these strategies in mitigating backlash in experimental settings and compare with men.

Keywords: gender, negotiations, backlash, qualitative