LOOKING BEYOND NUMBERS - THE EFFECTS OF GENDER STATUS, JOB PRESTIGE, AND OCCUPATIONAL GENDER-TYPING ON TOKENISM PROCESSES

Researchers of women workers in gender-skewed work groups repeatedly r eport evidence of visibility, contrast, and role encapsulation. The pu rpose of the present study was to explore the potential impact of four causal factors frequently confounded in these studies: proportional u nderrepresentation (tokenism), gender status, job prestige, and occupa tional gender-inappropriateness. Study participants' expectations for targets suggested that token numbers alone were not sufficient to prod uce tokenism; subordinated gender status also contributed regardless o f the gender-appropriateness or prestige of the occupation. A theory o f tokenism based solely on numbers thus is limited by its failure to a cknowledge the impact of organizational and societal gender-based disc rimination.