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Social status is highly consequential in organizations but remains elusive for many professional women. Status characteristics theory argues that women are particularly status disadvantaged in masculine organizational cultures. These types of cultures valorize traits and abilities stereotypically associated with men, making it difficult for women in these settings to be seen as skilled and gain status. In the present study, we build and test novel theory explaining when and why masculine organizational cultures create the conditions for some women—those willing and able to skillfully navigate the espoused norms—to disproportionately gain status. We introduce and define the construct of a sexist culture of joviality, a type of masculine organizational culture representing the intersection of sexism and joviality that emerged inductively from our initial qualitative data. A sexist culture of joviality is characterized by norms …