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Show THE UTAH STATE SENATE: EFFECTS OF TOKENISM AND IMPLICATIONS FOR FUTURE GENDER PARITY Ashley E. DiAna In what follows, I will discuss the tokenism theory, emphasizing the role entrapment component. I will discuss gender consciousness and its impact upon the issues presented within tokenism. Then, I will test the tokenism theory in light of interviews with five of the six female senators and their committee assignments and responsibilities. The implications of these roles in terms of future advancement, the expansion of female presence in the state legislature, and the limitations of this study will then conclude the paper. TOKENISM AND ROLE ENTRAPMENT In her generalized theory, Kanter (1977) argues that proportions (i.e. relative numbers of different people within a group) are fundamentally important to understanding group interaction. She studied a small group of female managers in a large corporate company. The women were a relatively new edition in the managerial level of the studied company. From extensive interviews, observation, and previous studies on related subject matter, Kanter proposed the following general assertions. Group ratios shape the manner in which individuals interact with one another and perceive one another. The type of group most explored is a "skewed" group, one in which there is a sizable preponderance of one type of group member over another. Skewed groups are generally made up of a large "dominant" group (eighty percent or more) and a "token" group (twenty percent or less). Tokens, members of the minority group, are "people identified by ascribed characteristics or other characteristics that carry with them a set of assumptions about culture, status, and behavior that is highly salient for majority category members" (1977, p. 968). Tokens can be members of a minority ethnic or racial group compared to the dominant group; they can be members of a minority religious or cultural group; they can be women or men in a group dominated by the opposite sex. Kanter argues that the tokens take on the role of representative for their entire social or cultural group, regardless of whether that role was desired. An example of this representative function is the hyphenated title: male-nurse, woman-senator, black-professor, etc. The person is never just their professional title, but rather a representative for his/her race, culture, or gender within that profession. The effects of tokenism are heightened when the minority categorical difference is physically obvious and new or rare in the setting of the dominant group. Physically obvious distinctions can include gender, race, religious affiliation (if associated with specific dress), physical disability, or any other physical distinction. Newness or rareness is often associated with the initial minority entrance into a majority group. Kanter bases her study on a large industrial corporation, where women in sales jobs were new and rare in the mid 1970s. The workplace is not the only venue for this dynamic to occur. Any gathering place or stable group is bound to face these issues if the group is largely or completely homogeneous. The first of a distinctly different minority to enter the group will face issues of tokenism. There are three perceptual phenomena on the part of the dominant group in relationship to women as the token group. The first is surplus visibility within the group. Visibility is when all of the actions of the token are noticed and public. There is little to no ability on the part of the token to blend in, so every action is noted. If there are only two women in a group of fifty men, the actions of the women are far more likely to be noticed by the male members than the actions of the other men. Visibility is attached to the token's representative function for her entire category. The actions of the individual women studied are then attributed to women in general. There is added pressure in terms of performance because the woman is not only acting on her own behalf, but she is perceived as acting as a "woman" would act. Consequences of this heightened visibility are that women have to be conscious of all actions in regular settings because of the representational function, and they also have to work doubly hard to get noticed for their work achievement. Because so much attention is paid to their status as women, it is difficult to get their work noticed for its own merit. Women either became overachievers, striving for as much attention for work as possible, or socially invisible, where work was done in private and publicly minimized in order to avoid the heightened level of scrutiny. The second perceptual phenomenon is polarization, where the dominant members become aware of the similarities and differences between them and the tokens and respond to this awareness with heightened boundaries. The boundaries are clarified and tokens are reminded of their outside status through interruptions to the group process, informal isolation, and loyalty tests. Interruptions to the group process are when the group momentarily stops functioning to ask whether the token is okay or fully understands the process about to occur. An example of this is when a group has inside jokes or inside lingo that may or may not be appropriate in the eyes of the token. The dominant members ask the token if it is okay if they continue the standard process, putting the token clearly outside the group and forcing the token to either assert her difference by saying the process is not okay, or making the token approve something that may not necessarily be acceptable. Either way, the boundaries are clarified and the token is forced to acknowledge those boundaries. Informal isolation is when "back room" deals or conversations occur because there are items that the dominant group does not or feels it cannot share with the tokens for fear of breaking down the established boundaries. Tokens are then left out of the informal decision making within the overall group. Loyalty tests are used to promote dominant rule by forcing the token to be the gatekeeper for the overall group and, at times, to turn against her own social or cultural group to 22 |