Categorizing Competence: Consumer debt and the reproduction of gender-based status differences

Abstract

We examine how gender inequalities are reproduced through categorization processes in mainstream discourse. Drawing from an analysis of six years of US media coverage of credit card borrowers throughout the recent financial crisis, we show how categorization processes facilitate gender-based status differences by categorizing male and female credit card borrowers based on competence. We find that three dimensions of competence—savviness, responsibility, and agency—are constructed through two discursive mechanisms: accounts and vocabularies. Additionally, we highlight how vocabularies work to amplify stereotype-consistent accounts, yet undermine stereotype-inconsistent accounts. We contribute to research on institutional maintenance by highlighting the role of categorization processes in the reproduction of institutionalized relations of inequality. Further, we contribute to research on gender inequality by offering an in-depth examination of the micro-processes involved in the social construction of gender-based status differences. In this way, we shed new light on the cultural means through which gender inequalities are reproduced.

Inequality, Institutions and Organizations

“…In the second paper, Sean Buchanan, Trish Ruebottom and Suhaib Riaz (2018) demonstrate how gender inequality was reproduced in US media coverage of credit card borrowers in the six years following the global financial crisis. Buchanan and his colleagues examine how linguistic descriptors used in categorisation processes in mainstream media discourse reinforce pre-existing gendered understandings.…”

“…Gray and colleagues (2018) similarly gained an intimate familiarity with the research context through their experiences as college professors and students. Deep engagement can also be achieved through historical methods: Audebrand and Barros (2018) draw on a 70-year history in their study of Quebecois funeral co-operatives while Buchanan and colleagues (2018) examined hundreds of articles appearing in four national newspapers over a six-year period. In each case, deep engagement allowed the authors to develop nuanced understanding that provided the foundation for important theoretical advances that would otherwise not have been possible.…”

Public Discourse and Category Formation: A Topic Modelling Exploration of ‘Historical Shops’ on Italian Media

“…In a study on U.S. government assistance to the arts, Di Maggio et al (2013) rely on media coverage as an embodiment of elite and public opinion. Others then highlighted how public discourse plays a role in (re)constructing asymmetric power relations, reproducing stereotypes and perpetuating institutionalised situations of inequality -e.g., gender inequality in the U.S. credit card system (Buchanan, Ruebottom and Riaz, 2018), or superior and inferior national identities in a transnational merger (Risberg, Tienari and Vaara, 2003).…”

The Interlinking Theorization of Management Concepts: Cohesion and Semantic Equivalence in Management Knowledge

“…While these actors may never meet in person, they are linked by the same social knowledge governing their role and are therefore similarly positioned in the social structure (e.g. Buchanan, Ruebottom, & Riaz, 2018). In analogy, management concepts are embedded in specific parts of management knowledge and acquire meaning based on the general business vocabulary to which they link.…”