Gendered organisation

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between them, but a recognition of the political and ethical in organising (for) diversity.

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organisations are gendered, that gender is embedded as a substructure of organisation. By substructure, I am not implying subordination to other structures in organisations, merely that gender is but one among other structures. Besides being gendered, organisations are, for example, also found to be classed, raced and sexed (Ahonen, Tienari, Meriläinen, & Pullen, 2013). The title of Kanter’s (1977) book hints at a possessive relationship between people and organisation. With a structural view of organisation, we may be able to discern men and women in an organisation. However, it is from a process view that we can observe their relations;

that is, how they become men and women of the organisation, as Kanter claimed (1977). The book puts forward the argument that it is the job and, hence, organisational structure that shapes the person through experiences at work. The attitudes of organisational members depend on the opportunities offered as well as the power distributed by the organisation. With limited opportunities, people tend to lower their productivity, and the situation turns into a self-fulfilling prophecy.

People high in power use it to influence others and are very confident in doing so, whereas people with less power have lower self-esteem and amplify what little power they actually have. Power, understood this way, works episodically (cf.

Fleming & Spicer, 2014), but Kanter (1977) also displayed a relational understanding of power.

In creating the concept of tokenism, Kanter (1977: 209) was able to elucidate more systemic power dynamics in relation to group compositions where the minority, in this case women, accounts for 20 per cent or less, in which case she denoted them as tokens. She showed the mechanisms of proportional representation of social categories in organisation through what she called the law of increasing returns:

‘[A]s individuals of their type (tokens) represent a smaller numerical proportion of the overall group, they each potentially capture a larger share of the awareness given

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to that group’ (1977: 210, emphasis in original). The obvious visibility of tokens, given their few numbers, which make them stand out from the majority-norm, leads to performance pressure. These performance pressures are a double-edged sword, because tokens are turned into representatives of their group: ‘The few of another type in a skewed group can appropriately be called “tokens”, for, like the Indsco [pseudonym for the case organisation Kanter studied] exempt women, they are often treated as representatives of their category, as symbols rather than individuals’

(1977: 208). Whenever a contrast – a token – is present in a majority group, the culture of that group is exaggerated rather than undermined. And if not assimilating, then the token is stereotyped; for instance, by being assigned ‘the woman’s slot’ – a position deemed suitable for the stereotypical prescribed roles of women. Kanter (1977) observed a number of interruptions that women in the organisation faced due to their status as tokens and which reminded them of their difference. An example is when a group of men asked a token-woman for permission to chat about girls.

However, another reaction to token-presence would be to isolate women informally, which would be the case if the group of men decided to chat about girls at times when the token-woman is excluded from the conversation.

Those women who were few in number among male peers and often had

‘only woman’ status became tokens: symbols of how-women-can-do, stand-ins for all women. Sometimes they had the advantages of those who are

‘different’ and thus were highly visible in a system where success is tied to becoming known. Sometimes they faced the loneliness of the outsider, of the stranger who intrudes upon an alien culture and may become self-estranged in the process of assimilation. (Kanter, 1977: 207)

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Kanter’s (1977) study is old but definitely not dated. The test of time has proven that it is not obsolete either; studies of contemporary organisation report findings that substantiate her insights. For example, more recent and replicated studies applying role congruity theory demonstrate the existence of a perceived incongruity between the female gender role and leadership (e.g. Eagly & Karau, 2002; Powell

& Butterfield, 2013). These studies reveal how women are often ascribed with welfare attributes, such as being affectionate, helpful, kind and sympathetic, unlike men who, conversely, are characterised as assertive and controlling in addition to being endowed with properties like aggressive, ambitious, dominant, independent, confident, etc. The potential prejudice against female leaders that the studies find, therefore, is explained with dissimilar beliefs about leaders and women, and similar beliefs about leaders and men, given that the features associated with leadership are congruent with those associated with men. The role incongruence between women and leadership, on the other hand, may lead to women being evaluated less favourably, even if enacting the leader role with the prescribed behaviour. While the example with role congruity theory focuses on gender diversity specifically, the insights that Kanter’s (1977) study provided seem to hold true more broadly to other diversity categories, since the decisive factor is proportionality in representation – or lack thereof.

Any situation where proportions of significant types of people are highly skewed can produce similar themes and processes. It was rarity and scarcity, rather than femaleness per se, that shaped the environment for women in the parts of Indsco mostly populated by men. (Kanter, 1977: 207, emphasis in original)

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In revisiting some of the early works on gender diversity and organisation, including that of Kanter (1977), Acker (2012: 215) notes that organising processes are generative of gendered substructures, which are ‘[(re)]created in the organizing processes in which inequalities are built into job design, wage determination, distribution of decision-making and supervisory power, the physical design of the work place, and rules, both explicit and implicit, for behaviour at work’. She goes on to explain how the gendered substructure is also produced and maintained by the collective beliefs about gender differences and (in)equality that inform organisational culture, as well as the gendered identities and interactions. Put differently, diversity is shaping and also itself gets shaped by both formal and informal organisational workings. According to Holck (2018), diversity is embedded in organisational structure. Taking inspiration from a classic text on organisational structure, namely that of Lawrence and Lorsch (1967), Holck (2018) argues that organisational structures are emergent and contingent upon the balancing acts between differentiation and integration. To her, the accelerating differentiation that a diverse workforce presents will call for requisite integration as a mechanism to manage the organisational diversity.

Acker (2006) adds that the gendered inequalities that Kanter (1977) reported on in one particular organisation are in fact part of any organisation. ‘All organizations have inequality regimes’, as Acker (2006: 443) writes, ‘defined as loosely interrelated practices, processes, actions, and meanings that result in and maintain class, gender, and racial inequalities within particular organisations’. Inequality is defined as power asymmetries that result in disparate levels of discretion between organisational members over goals, resources and outcomes. With a nod to Fleming and Spicer (2014), we may interpose that the (re)arrangements of relations between people and the distribution of resources or goods that happen through the

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mobilisation of power are expressions of organisational politics. As such, inequality in organisation is related to everything from how work is organised and opportunities for promotion and interesting work to security in employment and benefits, pay and other monetary rewards, respect and pleasures in work and work relations – thereby pointing to both basic and higher-order needs (cf. Maslow, 1943) and what the diversity literature acknowledges as a need not only for redistribution of power and resources (broadly understood), but also for recognition (e.g. Fraser, 1995; Young, 1997). To Acker (2006), diversity understood as difference is the

‘base’ (or ‘part’, using the terminology of Mintzberg, 1983) of inequality in organisation.

A concrete example is homosexuality – or what I prefer to signify as non-heterosexuality (to put emphasis on the norm and it epistemologically negates homosexuality), the reflection value against which homosexuality derives its meaning as the ‘ghost’ of heterosexuality (Søndergaard, 2006: 108). Non-heterosexuality disrupts organising processes because it flouts the assumptions of heterosexuality. In deviating from the organisational norm, non-heterosexuality disturbs an otherwise well-oiled machinery and, thereby, the smoothness of organisational functioning. After all, the organising utility of norms lies with them operating off the fact that we do not have to think about them – something that I also point to in my third article. The point is that the organising practices and processes of organisation produce inequality regimes in organisations. So, diversity or difference, which to Acker (2006) is the base of organisational inequality, is a by-product of people and things coming together to organise stuff (cf. Parker’s (2018) basic definition of organisation). By ‘by-product’ I mean to say that it is an unintended outcome of organisation (assuming that no one wants to organise for the purpose of creating inequality), but an outcome, nonetheless. Of course, sometimes

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inequality is purposefully designed as part of the organisation – and fully legitimate.

Weber’s (1924) bureaucracy is a good example of this, albeit only if the authority of some can be defended with their superior technical knowledge and skills. Such a defence is difficult to uphold if the inequality turns out to be gendered; that is, if, for instance, women’s exclusion from positions of power and control can be shown to be systematic and linked to unconscious biases that implicitly favour men and disadvantage women (see e.g. Christensen & Muhr, 2019). The same goes if the inequality is raced or classed or founded on any other diversity category. This brings me to the diversity term itself.