Bropropriating, or bropropriation, is when a woman has an idea that is later appropriated by a man. Perhaps the woman speaks in a meeting and is ignored, only for her ideas to be stolen and credited to a man. The term ‘hepeating’ is also accepted to describe this behavior (Webber, 2024). The term draws attention to the historical and current experiences of women’s intellectual thought erasure, highlighting a societal power differential. Bropropriating falls along a pattern of ‘man’ prefix terms recently used to describe often misogynistic tendencies women experience in their personal and professional lives. Other examples include; ‘Manspreading’, ‘Manterrupting’, and ‘Mansplaining’.
Framing & Perspectives
The term is a combination of the words bro, referring to men, and appropriating. It refers to situations when a man appropriates an idea that a woman came up with, taking the credit and following recognition (Gupta, 2020). The term was popularized alongside the term ‘Manterrupting’ after Jessica Bennett’s 2015 TIME magazine article (Bennett, 2015). The parallel term, ‘hepeating’, was coined by Nicole Gugliucci and her friends on Twitter in 2017 (Smith, 2018).
Unfortunately, idea stealing is a common practice in the workplace, and most people do not notice it. Masters-Waage et al. (2024) found in a VR meeting simulation that only 30% of participants noticed idea stealing, with many unable to identify the originator of the idea. Another study found that in mixed-gender groups, women received less credit even when putting in an equal amount of effort (Heilman & Haynes, 2005). Men rated in the top 25% of their peers were seen as no different from the top 2%. However, women in the top 25% were rated less favorably than the top 2%, and even more, they were rated no differently than women with no past performance information.
Marginalized scholars frequently speak within their communities about this theft of intellectual thought, but get dismissed when bringing it to attention (Wilkinson et al., 2016). Often, victims of this seek to justify and excuse away the perpetrator’s actions, rationalizing their inner turmoil as justified because “he is a nice senior academic” or “he is a nice student” (Wilkinson et al., 2016). Historically, we see a trend of erasure of women’s ideas and accomplishments being replaced by men (Chávez, 2019), possibly leading to further justification of “nice” men’s proposition pilfering. For example, Esther Lederberg played a pivotal role in gene regulation, DNA, and microbial genetics, discovering lambda phage (Baron, 2018; Chávez, 2019, Pisano, 2022; Steinmetz, 2019). Despite her work being the basis for their reward, her husband, her mentor, and a research associate were awarded the Nobel prize while she was relegated to the title of wife and not the accomplished bacterial geneticist she was.
Relevance
Having ideas stolen can lead to professional stagnation, motivational loss, and creative block (Gupta, 2020). On the flip side, recognition in the workplace is important for self-esteem and well-being, and can increase job satisfaction, performance, and monetary reward (Bradler et al., 2016; Danish & Usman, 2010; Grawitch, Gottschalk & Munz, 2006; Fairburn & Malcomson, 2001). Bennett (2015) suggests that increasing the number of women in the room would ensure women are heard the first time around. Men and women can equally look out for moments such as this and can reiterate the idea. Amplification, the strategy that women repeat and give credit to ideas proposed by other women the moment they happen, is another form of resistance against this phenomenon (Gupta, 2020). This forces perpetrators to recognize and credit the women, denying them the possibility of stealing the idea. Other activists suggest speaking up for yourself, getting your ideas down in writing with a timestamp, or safely confronting the perpetrator (Smith, 2018).
Keywords: Feminist topics, feminism, sexism, gender politics
Connected terms: Manspreading, Manterrupting, Classical Feminisms, “Toxic” Masculinity
References
Barron, M. (2018, October 4). Women in microbiology. Women in Microbiology; wiley. https://doi.org/10.1128/9781555819545
Bradler, C., Dur, R., Neckermann, S., & Non, A. (2016). Employee recognition and performance: A field experiment. Management Science, 62(11), 3085-3099. https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2015.2291
Bennett, J. (2015, January 20). How Not to Be “Manterrupted” in Meetings. TIME Magazine. https://time.com/3666135/sheryl-sandberg-talking-while-female-manterruptions/
Chávez, K. (2019, February 28). 19 Discoveries by Women That Were Credited to Men . https://www.marieclaire.com/culture/g5026/female-discoveries-credited-to-men/
Danish, R. Q., & Usman, A. (2010). Impact of reward and recognition on job satisfaction and motivation: An empirical study from Pakistan. International Journal of Business and Management, 5(2), 159-167. https://doi.org/10.5539/ijbm.v5n2p159
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Gupta, D. (2020, August 17). Today I learnt: Bropriating And How It Robs Women Of Their Due Rec…. https://www.shethepeople.tv/home-top-video/bropriating-robs-women-recognition-deserve/
Heilman, M. E., & Haynes, M. C. (2005). No credit where credit is due: Attributional rationalization of women’s success in male-female teams. Journal of Applied Psychology, 90(5), 905-916. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.90.5.905
Masters-Waage, T. C., Kinias, Z., Argueta-Rivera, J., Stewart, D., Ivany, R., King, E., & Hebl, M. (2024). Social inattentional blindness to idea stealing in meetings. Scientific Reports 2024 14:1, 14(1), 1–9. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-56905-6
Pisano, I. (2022, September 27). Esther Lederberg – Pioneer in Microbial Genetics. Frontiers. https://www.frontiersin.org/news/2022/09/27/children-in-science-esther-lederberg-pioneer-in-microbial-genetics
Smith, L. (2018, December 18). Why “hepeating” prevents women from moving up the career ladder. https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/hepeating-prevents-women-moving-career-ladder-070040842.html
Steinmetz, K. (2019, April 11). Why Don’t We Remember More Trailblazing Women Scientists? . TIME. https://time.com/longform/esther-lederberg/
Webber, J. (2024). Sartre’s Critique of Patriarchy. French Studies, 78(1), 72-88. https://doi.org/10.1093/fs/knad237
Wilkinson, C., Eken, E. M., Mills, L., Krystalli, R., Gould, H. D., Crane-Seeber, J., & Kirby, P. (2016). Responding to #AllMalePanels: A Collage. International Feminist Journal of Politics, 18(3), 477–491. https://doi.org/10.1080/14616742.2016.1189673
