Miranda Fricker maintains that testimonial injustice is a matter of credibility deficit, not excess. In this article, I argue that this restricted characterization of testimonial injustice is too narrow. I introduce a type of identity-prejudicial credibility excess that harms its targets qua knowers and transmitters of knowledge. I show how positive stereotyping and prejudicially inflated credibility assessments contribute to the continued epistemic oppression of marginalized knowers. In particular, I examine harms such as typecasting, compulsory representation, and epistemic exploitation and consider (...) what hearers are obligated to do in response to these injustices. I argue that because epistemic harms to marginalized knowers also arise from prejudicially inflated assessments of their credibility, the virtue of testimonial justice must be revised to remedy them. (shrink)

In this article, the author argues that we need to conceptualize gender as a social structure, and by doing so, we can better analyze the ways in which gender is embedded in the individual, interactional, and institutional dimensions of our society. To conceptualize gender as a structure situates gender at the same level of general social significance as the economy and the polity. The author also argues that while concern with intersectionality must continue to be paramount, different structures of inequality (...) have different constructions and perhaps different influential causal mechanisms at any given historical moment. We need to follow a both/and strategy to understand gender structure, race structure, and other structures of inequality as they currently operate while also systematically paying attention to how these axes of domination intersect. Finally, the author suggests we pay more attention to doing research and writing theory with explicit attention to how our work can indeed help transform as well as inform society. (shrink)

Much has been achieved in terms of human rights for women and people of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual, and queer (LGBTQ) community. However, human resources management (HRM) initiatives for gender equality in the workplace focus almost exclusively on white, heterosexual, cisgender women, leaving the problems of other gender and social minorities out of the analysis. This article develops an integrative model of gender equality in the workplace for HRM academics and practitioners. First, it analyzes relevant antecedents and consequences of (...) gender-based discrimination and harassment (GBDH) in the workplace. Second, it incorporates the feminist, queer, and intersectional perspectives in the analysis. Third, it integrates literature findings about women and the LGBTQ at work, making the case for an inclusive HRM. The authors underscore the importance of industry-university collaboration and offer a starters’ toolkit that includes suggestions for diagnosis, intervention, and applied research on GBDH. Finally, avenues for future research are identified to explore gendered practices that hinder the career development of women and the LGBTQ in the workplace. (shrink)

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. The results contradict Kanter’s theory by showing that male elementary school teachers do not experience the tokenism dynamics. In line with Williams’ gender perspective and Amâncio’s gender symbolic asymmetry, the article finds 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 maintaining the gender social order. (shrink)

This article examines the sexist work experiences of a sample of women lawyers in a mediumsized midwestern city. Specifically, it focuses on reports of discrimination, gender disparagement, and sexual harassment as components of gendered systems that maintain and reinforce inequalities between men and women on the job. The relationships between these experiences, professional role orientation and structural work characteristics are explored. Respondents report lower levels of discrimination at the more visible and legally protected “front door” than on the job. For (...) the most part, private sector employees and those in token positions report higher levels of sexist behavior. Contrary to expectations, those with careerist orientations report more sexual harassment. The interrelations and implications of these findings for women's careers in the law are discussed. (shrink)

This research focuses on women in corporate positions “above the glass ceiling” and explores their perceptions on corporate mobility and strategies for success in elite positions. Through interviews with 16 men and women corporate presidents and chief executive officers in Southern California, it is found that while white men promote the dominant ideology of individualism and patriarchal gender ideology as explanations of corporate mobility and success, white women emphasize alternative perspectives by confirming the importance of social networks and peer similarities (...) for succeeding in elite positions. These women strategically attempt to increase their cultural capital to negotiate male-dominated networks and maintain their high-status positions through such measures as obtaining advanced educational degrees or modifying speech and behavior. (shrink)

From the perspective of African American women firefighters, the authors examine the social interactions that make them excluded “outsiders within” their firehouses and different from not only dominant white men but also other subordinated groups of Black men and white women firefighters. Drawing on extensive survey data from 24 Black women career firefighters nationwide and detailed interviews with 22 of these, the authors found persistent and pervasive patterns of subordination through the exclusion of Black women, reflected in insufficient instruction, coworker (...) hostility, silence, close supervision, lack of support, and stereotyping. Perceived differences of Black women from white and Black men as well as white women created strained relations, especially when Black men and white women gained some acceptance by virtue of their gender and race, respectively, and thus reportedly distanced themselves from Black women. The experiences of African American women firefighters highlight the omnirelevance and intertwining of race and gender. (shrink)

This research compares and analyzes the verbal commentary of televised coverage of two women's and men's athletic events: the “final four” of the women's and men's 1989 National Collegiate Athletic Association basketball tournaments and the women's and men's singles, women's and men's doubles, and the mixed-doubles matches of the 1989 U.S. Open tennis tournament. Although we found less overtly sexist commentary than has been observed in past research, we did find two categories of difference: gender marking and a “hierarchy of (...) naming” by gender and, to a certain extent, by race. These differences are described and analyzed in light of feminist analyses of gendered language. It is concluded that televised sports commentary contributes to the construction of gender and racial hierarchies by marking women's sports and women athletes as “other,” by infantilizing women athletes, and by framing the accomplishments of women athletes ambivalently. (shrink)

A growing body of work suggests that the presence of women and of independent directors on boards of directors is associated with higher corporate environmental performance. However, the mechanisms linking board composition to corporate environmental performance are not well understood. This study proposes and empirically tests the mediating role of sustainability-themed alliances in the relationship between board composition and corporate environmental performance. Using the population of public oil and gas firms in the United States as the sample, the study relies (...) on renewable energy alliances to measure sustainability-themed alliances and longitudinally analyzes lagged data for independent and control variables. The study found that the higher the representation of women on a firm’s board, the more likely the firm is to form sustainability-themed alliances, and the higher the representation of independent directors on a firm’s board, the more likely the firm is to form sustainability-themed alliances. Such alliances, in turn, positively contribute to corporate environmental performance. This paper discusses the study’s contributions to the board composition-social performance literature. (shrink)

Firms face mounting pressure to appoint ethical leaders who will avoid unnecessary risk, scandal and crisis. Alongside mounting evidence that narcissistic leaders place organizations at risk, there is a growing consensus that women are more ethical, transparent and risk-averse than men. We seek to interrogate these claims by analyzing whether narcissism is as prevalent among women CEOs as it is among men CEOs. We further analyze whether narcissistic women CEOs take the same types of risk as narcissistic men CEOs. Drawing (...) on social role and token theories, we test hypotheses related to gender differences in the prevalence and impact of CEO narcissism on firm-level practices. Using a unique dataset that includes a large sample of CEOs of S&P 1500 companies from 1992 through 2014, we create a narcissism composite score for each CEO based on their photograph size in the annual report, and their cash earnings and non-cash earnings relative to the next highest paid executive. We find that women CEOs are less likely to exhibit narcissistic personality traits compared to men CEOs. Furthermore, we find that gender moderates the relationship between narcissistic CEOs and our outcome variables of risk-taking and questionable behaviors. (shrink)

This article examines gender discrimination in earnings and promotions in a sample of 451 computer professionals employed by 14 organizations in a western Canadian city. The data suggest that women computer professionals do less well than their male counterparts in terms of income and job status; the differences are largely attributable to differences in work experience. Strength apparently does not lie in numbers, however. Organizations that hire relatively more women computer professionals seem to choose those who are less well educated (...) and less experienced than their male employees; they reward them correspondingly less well. The authors argue that the different proportions of women are the result of predictable strategies of recruitment aimed at limiting women's access to positions of authority. (shrink)

This article contributes to a growing conversation about the role of numbers in promoting gendered agendas in potentially contradictory ways. Drawing from interviews with gender advisors—the professionals tasked with mainstreaming gender in development projects—in an East African country, I begin from the paradox that gender advisors articulate a strong preference for qualitative data to best capture the lives of the women they aim to assist while voicing a need for quantitative metrics. I demonstrate that gender advisors come to imagine metrics (...) as expeditious bureaucratic tools able to inspire cooperation from otherwise reluctant coworkers. I argue that development organizations are gendered in ways—acutely seen in how advisors struggle, are sidelined, and attempt to advance their goals with numbers—that lead to the utility of valuing quantitative metrics over qualitative ones. I establish two theoretical contributions: Gendered organizations theory is essential to understanding the adoption and globalization of performance metrics, and in an age of evidence-based decision making, the utility of quantified data to garner resources is heightened, rewarding those who adopt quantified knowledge production. I coin the term “the paradox of quantified utility” to describe how these material advantages encourage even skeptics to value quantitative metrics. (shrink)