Unpacking the Complexity of Gender Integration in the U.S. Military Using Discourse Analysis: The Case of Servicewomen’s Talk Around Having to Prove Themselves

A quasi-idiomatic expression ‘women have to prove themselves’ reflects various performance pressures and heightened visibility of women functioning in gendered professional spaces as advocated by tokenism theory. It is an example of how discriminatory practice – according to which competent and qualified women entering the culturally masculine professions are explicitly and implicitly expected to work harder for any recognition – gets discoursed in language and becomes a “rhetorically powerful form of talk” (Kitzinger 2000: 124). This paper explores the question: what is it that U.S. servicewomen functioning in the culturally hypermasculine space need to do to prove themselves? To this end, qualitative semi-structured interviews with women veterans of the recent Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts are qualitatively scrutinized with the methods of discourse analysis and conversation analysis to 1) identify practices that U.S. servicewomen engage in to symbolically (re-)claim their place and status in the military, i.e., to prove they belong; 2) find out how the talk around proving emerged in the course of the conversation and how it was further interactionally sustained and/or dealt with in talk-in-interaction. The findings of the micro-level analysis – interpreted through the lenses of tokenism and the category of the ‘honorary man’ – reveal women’s complex and nuanced struggle to fit and find acceptance in the military culture of hypermasculinity. They also re-engage with the ideas of tokenism by demonstrating that various acts of proving, reflecting women’s token status, may concurrently and paradoxically be a means to earn honorary man status.

They’re Comparing Me to Her: Social Comparison Perceptions Reduce Belonging and STEM Engagement Among Women With Token Status

Belonging and academic engagement are important predictors of women’s retention in STEM. To better understand the processes influencing these outcomes, we investigate how numerical underrepresentation (i.e., token status) triggers social comparison perceptions—concerns that others are comparing oneself to another person—that can undermine women’s STEM outcomes. Across four experiments, female college students recruited via subject pool (Study 1a) and MTurk (Studies 1b–3) read a hypothetical scenario in which another female (Studies 1a–3) or male (Study 2) student performed well or poorly in an engineering course. Findings showed that having token (vs. non-token) status in the course increased social comparison perceptions (i.e., perceptions about being compared to an ingroup peer), which subsequently reduced course belonging (Studies 1a and 1b). Study 2 found that (a) token status increased social comparison perceptions in response to the ingroup (vs. outgroup) peer and (b) social comparison perceptions decreased belonging through stereotype threat concerns, particularly when the peer performed poorly. Study 3 directly manipulated social comparison perceptions to further establish their causal role on negative outcomes and demonstrated that these perceived direct comparisons predicted additional consequences signaling STEM disengagement. Collectively, findings identify a novel process that can diminish belonging and academic engagement for women in STEM. Additional online materials for this article are available on PWQ ’s website at http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/suppl/10.1177/03616843211005447

Token Status and Management Aspirations Among Male and Female Employees in Public Sector Workplaces

This study brings the literature on tokenism together with multiple theoretical lenses on the formation and social construction of men’s and women’s career aspirations. The study builds on comprehensive survey data from the Danish public sector. Results show that, after controlling for alternative explanations with respect to both personal life situation and differences between occupations, token status has a significantly negative effect on women’s management aspirations, while it has no effect on men’s aspirations to management. Furthermore, these findings are generalizable across occupational contexts. At the same time, however, analysis across occupations show that token women are mainly to be found in occupations where women have relatively high managerial aspirations. Token women are therefore characterized by aspirations to management positions, but their status as tokens minimizes these aspirations.

How do South Korean female executives’ definitions of career success differ from those of male executives?

Purpose The purpose of this study was to compare South Korean female executives’ definitions of career success with those of male executives, identify their career development strategies for success and provide implications for research and practice. Two research questions guiding our inquiry included: How do female executives’ definitions of career success differ from those of male executives? What career development strategies do male and female executives use for career success? Design/methodology/approach A basic qualitative research design was used and semi-structured interviews were conducted with 15 male executives and 15 female executives in diverse corporations by using an interview protocol of 13 questions regarding participants’ background, definitions of career success and final thoughts. To analyze the interview data, we used both NVivo 11 and a manual coding method. Findings Gender differences were detected in the participants’ definitions of career success and success factors. As previous studies indicated, male and female executives had different perspectives on career success: men tended to define career success more objectively than women. Many male executives, through experiencing transforming changes in their careers, began to appreciate work–life balance and personal happiness from success. Gender differences were also detected in their career development challenges, meanings of mentors and networking activities. While work stress surfaced as a challenge that men faced, experiencing the token status in the gendered workplace was a major challenge for female participants. Research limitations/implications In this study, three research agendas are presented, needing further investigation on career success, women’s token status and comparative analyses. Practical implications Three implications for practice have been provided, including organizational support, government’s role and HRD’s role. Originality/value Gender differences in this study were not as distinctive as previous literature has indicated. Some male executives valued more subjective career success than others, while a few female executives spoke of more objective definitions than others. These subtle differences could be captured through in-depth interviews. By hearing the participants’ stories, both objective and subjective definitions of success, for both genders, could be observed, which might not have been possible in quantitative research. In addition, the study findings reflect the nature of a uniquely Korean context. The participants worked in a Confucian and military culture, which operates in hierarchical structures and the command and control system, coupled with a heightened camaraderie spirit in the workplace.

Beyond ‘Token’ Firefighters: Exploring Women's Experiences of Gender and Identity at Work

Despite the increasing percentage of women entering masculinized workplaces, certain organizations consistently see little change in the gender makeup of their staff. Contemporary scholarship suggests that women in rigidly gendered organizations are often assigned a token status and are victimized due to their gender. This study relocates the conversations of women as tokens towards a fresh conversation of women's agency in masculinized workplaces. This paper uses ten qualitative interviews and ethnographic fieldwork to discuss how female firefighters navigate their gender at work. This article draws on reflexive accounts of everyday gendered negotiations to look at how the female firefighters ‘do gender’ within a specific fire service in Australia. I argue that emergency services, such as firefighting, create a contradictory field where women are located in (1) a paradoxical environment where the ‘female body’ is problematized (2) a work environment where they have to repeatedly prove their cultural competence in order to confirm their professional identity. The findings suggest that while female firefighters do have agency, tokenism locates many of them in a ‘never quite there’ bind that challenges their ability to progress into leadership roles within the service. This article concludes that the nuanced difference between, and at times, within the women's narratives problematizes the bounds of personal agency and cultural change. This consequently results in resistance to policies by some women that may benefit like-situated women, such as affirmative action.

The Status of Women in Sport-Talk Radio: A Survey of Directors

Sport-talk radio has been recognized, along with other forms of sports media, as a masculine space where women’s value as athletes and fans is diminished. Little is known, however, about the gendered dynamics of sport-talk-radio production. This study used a survey of programming directors from across the United States to explore issues around the employment of women and coverage of women’s sport by local stations. Results suggest that many stations do not employ any women, although more than half do. Still, leadership positions belong primarily to men. Programming directors see little value in women’s sport for their listeners and make decisions that reinforce their vision of an audience that also sees little value in women’s sport. Using a feminist lens, the authors speculate on the impact that women in positions of power could have on programming if their representation moved beyond token status, while acknowledging the realities of the sport-media workplace.