First comes love, then comes marriage, then come flex-time and a baby carriage." -Statement of a supervisor, Velez v. Novartis lawsuit (Wilson, 2010)

We propose that a key reason why the workplace gender revolution has stalled (England, 2010) is that work remains the site of masculinity contests among men. In this article, we outline a theoretical framework for thinking about work as a masculinity contest, beginning with a brief review of scholarship on masculinity and exploring how the workplace is a context in which men feel particular pressure to prove themselves as “real men.” We identify different dimensions of masculinity along which employees may compete and how the competition may differ by work context. We propose that organizations with Masculinity Contest Cultures (MCCs) represent dysfunctional organizational climates (e.g., rife with toxic leadership, bullying, harassment) associated with poor individual outcomes for men as well as women (e.g., burnout, low organizational dedication, lower well‐being). We discuss how papers in this special issue contribute insight into MCCs and end with a discussion of the contributions made by conceptualizing work as a masculinity contest, and directions for future research.

Research on the work-family interface began in the 1960s and has grown exponentially ever since. This vast amount of research, however, has had relatively little impact on workplace practice, and work-family conflict is at an all-time high. We review the work-family research to date and propose that a shift of attention is required, away from the individual experience of work and family and toward understanding how identity and status are defined at work. Several factors enshrine cherished identities around current workplace norms. The work devotion schema demands that those who are truly committed to their work will make it the central or sole focus of their lives, without family demands to distract them. Importantly, the work devotion schema underwrites valued class and gender identities: Work devotion is a key way of enacting elite class status and functions as the measure of a man--the longer the work hours and higher the demand for his attention, the better. Advocating change in the way work is done and life is lived meets resistance because it places these cherished identities at risk. Resistance to these identity threats keeps current workplace norms in place. This is why even the business case-which shows that current practices are not economically efficient-fails to persuade organizations to enact change. What is needed now is sustained attention to the implicit psychological infrastructure that cements the mismatch between today's workplace and today's workforce.

Although the economic and social position of women has improved considerably in the last decades, some gendered expectations and roles have proved remarkably resilient. Increasingly, the gender gap in compensation has become an issue of “mother” versus “other,” as, for example, working mothers earn 60% of what working fathers earn. Conservatives tend to frame the gender imbalance in terms of women's choices; but feminists, including those in this issue, debunk explanations that blame women for gender differences in earnings. Contributors to this issue, whose work we introduce here, chronicle and analyze the power of stereotypic thinking and behavior, and also discuss how to change both stereotypes and realities.

The demands of today's workplace-long hours, constant availability, selfsacrificial dedication-do not match the needs of today's workforce, where workers struggle to reconcile competing caregiving and workplace demands. This mismatch has negative consequences for gender equality and workers' health. Here, the authors put forth a call to action: to redesign work to better meet the needs of today's workforce and to redefine successful work. The authors propose two avenues for future research to achieve these goals: research that (a) builds a more rigorous business case for work redesign/redefinition and (b) exposes the underlying gender and class dynamics of current work arrangements.

Mothers get caught between the prescriptive image of the ideal worker and the prescriptive image of the ideal mother.NEW DIRECTIONS FOR The glass ceiling in academia is well documented. Women are more likely than men to end up in non-tenure-track positions. Women on tenure track are less likely than men to be at four-year institutions. And highly ranked four-year institutions tend to employ low percentages of women (Mason and Goulden, 2002). Why?Part of the problem is gender bias, of two types. The more familiar is the glass ceiling that prevents successful women from reaching the summit of their professions. But what exactly is the glass ceiling? Typically, it is defined demographically, by documenting the dearth of women at the top. But why the dearth of women, when most academics (men as well as women) see themselves as committed to gender equality? Little information surfaces to help academic administrators who are determined to give women a fair shake.Many women never get near the glass ceiling because of a type of gender bias that has only recently been documented. In a 2003 law review article, a coauthor and I documented the "maternal wall" that inhibits women's progress once they become mothers (Williams and Segal, 2003). Mason and her team also have documented the sharp impact of having children on academic women's careers. Women who have children soon after receiving their Ph.D. are much less likely to achieve tenure than men who have children at the same point in their career. Prestigious research universities tend to grant tenure to men at a much higher rate, relegating women to secondtier teaching and adjunct positions (Mason and Goulden, 2002). The result is that most women who earn Ph.D.s never get near tenure, much less tenure at a leading institution.

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Workers who request flexibility are routinely stigmatized. The authors experimentally tested and confirmed the hypothesis that individuals believe others view flexworkers less positively than they do. This suggests flexibility bias stems, in part, from pluralistic ignorance. The authors also found that flexplace requesters were stigmatized significantly more than flextime requesters. Given this finding, they recommend research distinguish between different types of flexwork. In a second study, they assessed whether exposure to information suggesting organizational leaders engage in flexible work reduced bias. They found that when the majority of highstatus employees work flexibly, bias against flextime (but not flexplace) workers was attenuated.