Strength in numbers? A test of Kanter's theory of tokenism

Reinventing the Matron: The Continued Importance of Gendered Images and Division of Labor in Modern Policing

“…This does not imply that these women are undeserving of their positions, but merely that their accounts of women officers fit better with specific assignments focused on communication skills than on traditional patrol behaviors. Furthermore, expectations of women officers develop because of either contrast effects or the visibility of their behaviors (Kanter 1977;Stichman et al 2010). Specifically, the behavior of women in comforting situations may be more visible or may be used to contrast the behavior of men.…”

“…Furthermore, prior research has found an informal curriculum in the training of police recruits designed to 258 D. L. Kurtz et al encourage women officers' dropout or to exaggerate gender difference between officers (Prokos and Padavic 2002). Recruitment education, shift meetings, field training, and other organizational instruction should shift attention away from the importance of physical size and brute force by focusing on offender deescalation techniques, communication skills, intelligence, and cognitive decision making as earmarks of affective policing (Stichman et al 2010). This could also include the selection of case examples, training stories, and practices that focus less on contrasting or exceptional behavior linked to gender stereotypes (Stichman et al 2010).…”

“…Despite the fact that women are more represented in modern policing than they were in the past, the lingering gendered division of labor, lack of advancement, and the underrepresentation of women result in a perception of tokenism in law enforcement (Archbold and Schulz 2008;Kanter 1977;Stichman, Hassell, and Archbold 2010). Kanter (1977) originally conceived of a token as an identifiable subgroup of people in an organization that represent less than 15 percent of total organizational demographics; she applied this concept to her study of gendered behavior in corporate America.…”

“…Kanter (1977) originally conceived of a token as an identifiable subgroup of people in an organization that represent less than 15 percent of total organizational demographics; she applied this concept to her study of gendered behavior in corporate America. She determined that tokens generally shared one of three experiences: assimilation, contrast, or visibility (Archbold and Schulz 2008;Kanter 1977;Stichman et al 2010). A key concern for the application of tokenism to policing is the use of images of women officers in a manner consistent with Kanter's theory, in particular the contrast and visibility of female officers within police organizations.…”

Gender stereotyping within career and technical education : exploring relationships among gender, coursetaking, and outcomes of high school CTE students.

“…Kanter's theory is based upon a numeric ratio (less than 15% of the majority) and can be applied to both males and females in nontraditional work environments (Stichman, Hassell, & Archbold, 2010). However, although tokenism originated as a gender-neutral concept, Zimmer (1988) argued that this theory was an insufficient explanation for gender-based issues (such as job satisfaction) since it did not take into account how "organizational structures and the interactions that take place within them are imbedded in a much broader system of structural and cultural inequality between the sexes" (p.72).…”