In November 1975, the UK’s Sex Discrimination Act passed into law. The Act made it illegal to discriminate on the basis of sex or marital status – promoting ‘equality of opportunity between men and women’ – and was eventually replaced in 2010 by the Equality Act.

Almost 50 years on, it’s easy to get disheartened about a perceived lack of progress. After all, gender pay gaps abound, women remain under-represented in senior positions and many still face sexual harassment in the workplace.

However, Professor Nancy Harding believes there is nonetheless cause for cautious celebration.

"Women have entered management and the professions in large numbers and will not tolerate the types of treatment regarded as ‘normal’ 50 years ago,” she says. “The internet may be a breeding ground for misogyny, but now we fight back.”

Nancy’s recent research, conducted with Professor Sarah Gilmore from Cardiff Business School and Professor Jackie Ford from Durham University Business School, examined one of the author’s memories of working in a male-dominated trade union in the 1990s. It did so through the lens of both feminist psychoanalytic theory and their experiences over the succeeding years.

This approach enabled the researchers to identify some of the everyday strategies women have employed to resist misogyny in the workplace. Despite their ‘micro’ nature, Nancy believes that these are key forms of resistance, and that their aggregate effect is what has helped to drive change over the past five decades. She explains:

“The Act did not usher in a revolution that changed things quickly. Instead, women developed strategies of micro-resistances that, little by little, slowly changed culture. There is still a long way to go, and we are still very concerned by how ‘women’s work’, especially caring work, is under-valued – but we’ve laid the foundations for more change.”

“Remember how we survived conferences by going to them with friends. Remember the macho fights for intellectual dominance!”

Women may turn to female colleagues for support, advice and empathy in difficult situations. By forming a mutual understanding, even covertly, they find the strength to reject negative forces such as misogyny.

“I am presented with my boss’ symbolic samurai sword for safekeeping. My PA and I shove it behind a filing cupboard in disgust.”

In making light of difficult situations by laughing at them, women are able to undermine problematic objects and, by extension, their owners. As a result, this robs the offensive or aggressive artefacts of their agency and thus their power.

“I am overcome with a sense of amused resignation, but I don’t think that this man and what he stands for is the future.”

By excusing themselves from uncomfortable situations – such as one-on-one meetings with inappropriate male colleagues – women silently refuse to perpetuate these colleagues’ power over them. By refusing to submit to the status of ‘objects’, they regain their own authority.

“When I left, I distributed all my teaching/learning resources [only] to appropriate colleagues I had worked with to promote women’s inclusion and leadership.”

If recognition on one’s own terms is not offered by those in charge, women may choose to cooperate only with those whom they have connected in meaningful ways – resisting those who have denied their selfhood and seeking recognition elsewhere.