This article presents a study that sought to identify the gender dynamics prevailing in a health-related context of tokenism ‐ nursing ‐ in which the members of a dominant group in society ‐ men ‐ are proportionally scarce. Specifically,
this study aimed to consider how men experience their integration into a feminized profession. Furthermore, the individual experiences and professional dynamics were placed in perspective with the results of other studies focusing on male populations in high-status professions, in particular
medicine, to analyse the intersectionality of status and power. This study involved individual, semi-structured interviews with twelve male nurses, aged between 40 and 58 years, from across the six existing nursing specialties in Portugal. Analysis of the results, obtained through the Alceste
software and thematic study carried out according to the social constructionist perspective in gender studies, indicates that tokenism dynamics interweave a double power asymmetry: the professional asymmetry between male doctors and male nurses, and the gender symbolic asymmetry between men
and women. In the nursing profession, this double asymmetry proves beneficial to male nurses.
Despite a progressive increase in the number of women in medicine, gender inequalities remain. This article presents a study analyzing the gender dynamics of tokenism in the medical field in Portugal, through the experiences of male specialists in female areas and female specialists in male areas and through their strategies for coping with such situations.We conducted individual, semi-structured interviews with nine female doctors and eight male doctors aged between 32 and 62 years old. Results show the links between tokenism dynamics and gender asymmetry in medicine, putting female tokens at a disadvantage in relation to male tokens. Token positions occasionally produce gender arrangements but, all things considered, do not transform female and male positions either in the medical field or in the private sphere. We conclude that tokenism contributes to maintaining the gender social order.
This article presents a study that identifies the gender dynamics prevailing in a specific context of tokenism-elementary school teaching-in which the members of an otherwise socially dominant group are proportionally scarce-men. Our results contradict Kanter's (1977) theory by showing that male elementary school teachers do not experience the tokenism dynamics. In line with the Williams (1995) and gender symbolic asymmetry (Amâncio, 1997) perspectives, we have found that although men constitute a small minority in elementary education, they do not lose the social advantages they generally have, on the contrary, they seem rather to gain several privileges. Indeed, the results show strong links between the tokenism dynamics and gender asymmetry, putting the token men at an advantage. Thus, tokenism seems to be limited to contributions to maintaining the gender social order.
In this review article, we argue that the transformations related to the modernisation of Portuguese society triggered by the implementation of democracy did not fully accommodate gender equality. In particular, when we consider the areas where the most progress has been made in keeping with a broadly shared urge for modernisation, education and science; whereas women have contributed to boosting the Portuguese population’s level of education, thus inverting the worst legacy of the dictatorship and developing scientific research, gender inequalities are still visible in highly qualified professions. Reviewing the results of studies from different professions, science, medicine and engineering, our analysis illustrates several factors that hinder not only the recognition of women’s competences and merit at work but also their career opportunities. Some of these factors are rooted in the type of gender ideology that was central to the propaganda of the dictatorship, thereby establishing continuity with the previous regime that seems particularly difficult to break in the absence of women’s voices to raise awareness on gender equality.
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