Normative Discrimination and the Motherhood Penalty
22 Sep 2010-Gender & Society (SAGE PublicationsSage CA: Los Angeles, CA)-Vol. 24, Iss: 5, pp 289-300
TL;DR: The authors examined whether mothers face discrimination in labor-market-type evaluations even when they provide indisputable evidence that they are competent and committed to paid work and found that evaluators discriminate against highly successful mothers by viewing them as less warm, less likable, and more interpersonally hostile than otherwise similar workers who are not mothers.
Abstract: This research proposes and tests a new theoretical mechanism to account for a portion of the motherhood penalty in wages and related labor market outcomes. At least a portion of this penalty is attributable to discrimination based on the assumption that mothers are less competent and committed than other types of workers. But what happens when mothers definitively prove their competence and commitment? In this study, we examine whether mothers face discrimination in labor-market-type evaluations even when they provide indisputable evidence that they are competent and committed to paid work. We test the hypothesis that evaluators discriminate against highly successful mothers by viewing them as less warm, less likable, and more interpersonally hostile than otherwise similar workers who are not mothers. The results support this “normative discrimination” hypothesis for female but not male evaluators. The findings have important implications for understanding the nature and persistence of discrimination towa...
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TL;DR: Flexibility programs have become widespread in the United States, but their use has not. as mentioned in this paper found that 79% of companies say they allow some of their employees, and 37% officially allow all or most employees, to periodically change starting or quitting times (Galinsky, Bond, & Sakai, 2008).
Abstract: Flexibility programs have become widespread in the United States, but their use has not. According to a recent study, 79% of companies say they allow some of their employees, and 37% officially allow all or most of their employees, to periodically change starting or quitting times (Galinsky, Bond, & Sakai, 2008). Although researchers often regard the official availability of flexibility and other work–life policies as an indicator of an organization’s responsiveness to employees’ work–life concerns (Davis & Kalleberg, 2006), having policies on the books does not always mean that workers feel comfortable using these policies (Blair-Loy, Wharton, & Goodstein, 2011). Studies that have assessed usage rates generally find that usage rates are low. This has proved a remarkably resilient problem. The basic forms of workplace flexibility have been around for decades: flextime, part-time schedules, compressed workweeks, job shares (Friedman, n.d.). Yet usage of these programs
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Cites background from "Normative Discrimination and the Mo..."
...…be disliked on the grounds that they are bad mothers, given that elite mothering is seen as requiring time-intensive concerted cultivation of elite children’s every nascent talent to protect their future class status in a winner-take-all society (Benard & Correll, 2010; Frank, 1995; Lareau, 2003)....
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Journal Article•
TL;DR: The Package Deal: Marriage, Work, and Fatherhood in Men's Lives by N. W. Townsend as mentioned in this paper explores the relationship between dominant cultural values about fatherhood and economic and social realities.
Abstract: The Package Deal: Marriage, Work, and Fatherhood in Men's Lives. Nicholas W. Townsend. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. 2002. 248 pp. ISBN 1-56639-958-0. $19.95 (paper). ISBN: 1-56639-957-2. $64.50 (cloth). The questions raised for scholars of fatherhood by recent trends in the intersection of work and family are well known: Why aren't fathers taking women's increased workforce participation as an opportunity to reduce their commitment to work and increase their commitment to housework and child care? Why do fathers' connections to their children typically attenuate in the aftermath of divorce and the father's departure from the household? Cultural anthropologist Nicholas W. Townsend argues that the prevailing answers to these questions fall short because they are partial and decontextualized. The premise of The Package Deal: Marriage, Work, and Fatherhood in Men's Lives is that to understand and help shape contemporary fatherhood, we need to know what fatherhood means to men. Central to these meanings, Townsend argues, are dominant cultural values that link hegemonic masculinity with pervasive images of fatherhood, creating ideals that all fathers must attend to, regardless of their ability (or desire) to live up to them. Understanding fatherhood from fathers' perspectives, then, becomes a task of exploring how "dominant cultural values about fatherhood are embodied and negotiated in individual lives" (p. 29). To this end, Townsend focuses on a group of men who graduated from the same Northern California high school in 1972, and he produces an analysis that is part case study, part ethnography, and part narrative analysis. The core data source is in-depth interviews about the meaning and practice of fatherhood with a racially and ethnically representative sample of 39 fathers from the graduating class. The core interviews are supplemented by couple interviews, interviews with others (e.g., female classmates, former teachers), observation, and a detailed portrait of the demographic and socioeconomic trends that have shaped the area over the last 50 years. The interview data are analyzed as narratives, and Townsend examines them with just the right balance of skepticism and sympathy. He appreciates that inconsistencies in accounts often signal "strains and conflicts in [the men's] values and their lives" (p. 28), and this is where context comes in. Combining the interview data rich contextual information, Townsend shows how the challenges and choices these fathers face can be traced to contradictions between dominant cultural values about fatherhood and economic and social realities. The dominant cultural notion of fatherhood for men of this era, he says, is the "package deal"; fatherhood is just one part of "successful" manhood, which also includes marriage, steady work, and home ownership. …
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References
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TL;DR: Men and Women of the Corporation: The Population, Industrial Supply Corporation: Setting Roles And Images as discussed by the authors, Men and women of the corporation: The population, the setting roles and images, the players and the stage.
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09 Jan 1997TL;DR: In this article, the authors propose Continuous Outcomes Binary Outcomes Testing and Fit Ordinal Outcomes Numeric Outcomes and Numeric Numeric Count Outcomes (NOCO).
Abstract: Introduction Continuous Outcomes Binary Outcomes Testing and Fit Ordinal Outcomes Nominal Outcomes Limited Outcomes Count Outcomes Conclusions
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TL;DR: The authors argues that organizational structure is not gender neutral; on the contrary, assumptions about gender underlie the documents and contracts used to construct organizations and to provide the commonsense ground for theorizing about them.
Abstract: In spite of feminist recognition that hierarchical organizations are an important location of male dominance, most feminists writing about organizations assume that organizational structure is gender neutral. This article argues that organizational structure is not gender neutral; on the contrary, assumptions about gender underlie the documents and contracts used to construct organizations and to provide the commonsense ground for theorizing about them. Their gendered nature is partly masked through obscuring the embodied nature of work. Abstract jobs and hierarchies, common concepts in organizational thinking, assume a disembodies and universal worker. This worker is actually a man; men's bodies, sexuality, and relationships to procreation and paid work are subsumed in the image of the worker. Images of men's bodies and masculinity pervade organizational processes, marginalizing women and contributing to the maintenance of gender segregation in organizations. The positing of gender-neutral and disembodie...
5,562 citations
TL;DR: Contrary to antipathy models, 2 dimensions mattered, and many stereotypes were mixed, either pitying (low competence, high warmth subordinates) or envying (high competence, low warmth competitors).
Abstract: Stereotype research emphasizes systematic processes over seemingly arbitrary contents, but content also may prove systematic. On the basis of stereotypes' intergroup functions, the stereotype content model hypothesizes that (a) 2 primary dimensions are competence and warmth, (b) frequent mixed clusters combine high warmth with low competence (paternalistic) or high competence with low warmth (envious), and (c) distinct emotions (pity, envy, admiration, contempt) differentiate the 4 competence-warmth combinations. Stereotypically, (d) status predicts high competence, and competition predicts low warmth. Nine varied samples rated gender, ethnicity, race, class, age, and disability out-groups. Contrary to antipathy models, 2 dimensions mattered, and many stereotypes were mixed, either pitying (low competence, high warmth subordinates) or envying (high competence, low warmth competitors). Stereotypically, status predicted competence, and competition predicted low warmth.
5,411 citations
"Normative Discrimination and the Mo..." refers background in this paper
...Theories of discrimination often examine how cultural beliefs or stereotypes affect behaviors or attitudes (Bobo and Hutchings 1996; Fiske et al. 2002)....
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...These gendered patterns are consistent with a general tendency to characterize groups as competent but not warm when they are perceived to be successfully competing with members of dominant groups in society; Asian Americans and Jewish people are two groups commonly subjected to such discrimination (Fiske et al. 2002)....
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...…are consistent with a general tendency to characterize groups as competent but not warm when they are perceived to be successfully competing with members of dominant groups in society; Asian Americans and Jewish people are two groups commonly subjected to such discrimination (Fiske et al. 2002)....
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TL;DR: Introduction Continuous Outcomes Binary Outcomes Testing and Fit Ordinal Outcomes Nominal outcomes Limited Outcomes Count Outcomes Conclusions
Abstract: Introduction Continuous Outcomes Binary Outcomes Testing and Fit Ordinal Outcomes Nominal Outcomes Limited Outcomes Count Outcomes Conclusions
5,248 citations