“Off the Grid” – Women’s Workplace Exclusion

This paper presents a study to understand women’s experiences of exclusion in corporate workplaces. Using semi-structured, indepth interviews of 17 mid-senior management women corporate professionals working with large Indian and multinational conglomerates across industries and functions, this study unravels their lived experiences of being excluded at workplace. Respondents reported overwhelmingly high numbers of discriminatory instances of being ‘left out’ or ‘kept out’ pointing to the evolution of a new theme of gender microaggression and adding to the taxonomy. Its ubiquitous signals the silent proliferation of covert microaggressions into women’s daily workplace experiences, leaving them lonely and demotivated. This study adds significant inputs for professionals still struggling to find the exact cause of leakage to the women’s talent pipeline.