We investigate fairness views of impartial spectators towards workers who act or communicate competitively but are unseccssful in the labor market. In our online experiment with over 5,800 UK residents of working age, people show significantly less concern towards unsuccessful workers who deliberately entered a competition for pay rather than taking a piece-wise rate, workers who behaved selfishly in the competition and tried to gain an advantage over other workers and those who communicated in a dominant rather than nice tone. We find varying gender effects: male unsuccessful workers are treated harsher when competitiveness is held constant. When workers act selfishly or communicate in a dominant tone, workers of both genders are shown equally low concern by spectators. At the same time, communicating in a dominant tone and being unsuccessful implies greater social costs of being competitive for women. Strong gender norms make it more likely for people to treat selfish women significantly harsher than men.