IB3610 Equality and Diversity 2022

L4 MEN AND
MASCULINITIES;
WOMEN AND THE
BOARDROOM
Deborah Dean
Organisation and Work
Group
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 The invisible man

We don’t see many things because they are in the majority

or are dominant. They are the norm from which other
things differ

So ‘gender’ became synonymous with ‘women’

‘Man’ has generally become naturalised as representing

‘people’ (see e.g. Monique Wittig 1992; David Morgan 1981) and
as majority-ethnicity people - in the UK, white
 that note on patriarchy

Allan G. Johnson (1997): patriarchal cultures are

a) male dominated (over-representation)
b) male identified (male norms determine/shape value)
c) male centred (society focuses on men’s activities and
stories told through them)

Cynthia Cockburn (1991) summarises the idea of patriarchy

as pointing to the persistent, society-wide structures and
practices in and through which (hierarchies of) women are
subordinated by (hierarchies of) men
 Masculinities
Don’t exist except in relation to ‘femininities’ (and vice
versa)

Hierarchies (masculinities are

raced/sexualised/classed/etc)

Aspiration, anxiety, exclusion – what’s the ‘right’ way to be

a person who is a man?

Not natural and fixed, changes over time and space

Has to be ‘done’. See e.g., Butler (1988) ‘Gender is…an

identity…instituted through a stylized repetition of acts’
(nb research on police and performers)
Culturally dominant form of masculinity in a given setting is
‘hegemonic masculinity’ Will be highly visible, though not most
common form (Connell 2015)

It includes 4 types of relations that are hierarchical: Dominant

masculinity; Complicit masculinities; Marginalized masculinities;
Subordinated masculinities
(Connell and Messerchmidt 2005; see Kahn 2009)

Hierarchy of masculinities – different groups of men hold

‘unequal shares’ in the privilege men collectively have over
women.

Conduct defined at individual and at collective levels, e.g. -

‘masculinities are defined and sustained in institutions such as
corporations, armies, and governments or schools... in the
workplace…in informal groups like street gangs.’ (Connell 2015)
 Effects of ideas of masculinity

Understanding of what work is, definition of a worker,

organisation of work, organisational culture

Meaning and functions of pay – e.g. breadwinner, pin

money (pay for housework?)

Meaning and functions of authority – what is it, who do

we recognise as having it?

So ideas have real-life effects (who works where/how,

who gets promoted, who gets paid more, long-hours
culture)
Women and the boardroom

(by which, what do we mean?)

Managers: by 1911 women constituted 19% employers,
proprietors and 20 % managers, administrators, higher
professionals. 1931 declined - 13% of managers women.
2013 - 34% (15% increase in 95 years…)

Big ↑ women’s representation in management since 1970s

However, Chartered Management Institute report 2022:

In UK women make up nearly half working
population, but only 2 in 5 (41%) of
management roles and only 38%
of senior leaders

In 2021, on FTSE 100 boards

women held 13.7% of
executive director positions
 FEW WOMEN REACH THE TOP
Women don’t just face a glass ceiling – it’s a ‘glass pyramid’,
with wider pay gaps for women the higher they reach.

DIRECTORS 19%

26% 74% £34,144

GENDER PAY GAP*

REPRESENTATION
SENIOR MANAGERS 18%

Most senior managers 36% 64% £19,852

men;
Managerial gender pay MIDDLE MANAGERS 10%

gap; 40% 60% £6,341

Caring responsibilities
and perceptions of PROFESSIONAL 11%
effects (differences 50% 50% £4,364
between women and
men); relevance of ENTRY LEVEL / JUNIOR 4%
66% 34% £960
these responsibilities at
different levels *Because the pay gap between men and women at senior levels is far bigger than junior levels
So, why? Are there differences between women and men in style
of managing?

If yes, what are the implications of under-representation? If

no, why is there under-representation?

Concept of ‘different styles’ implicitly treats organisations

as uniform.

See Joan Acker’s highly influential work on the gendered

organisation.

+ Cliff et al (2005) study of small firm owners self-

perception: misattribution of differences to owner’s sex,
when other explanations (e.g. small firm size = less
bureaucracy) more appropriate.
Green Park Leadership Recruitment and Consultancy Service annual
report on senior management roles (2021):

‘The Business Leaders Index shows for the first time that there are no
black leaders in C-suite roles at FTSE 100 companies, dropping to zero
after stalling for the past 6 years.’

• Diversity & Inclusion leadership roles: 85.4% women

• D&I leaders: 62.5% white women; minority ethnic females second

most represented group, 22.9%; minority ethnic males least
represented, 6.3%

• Human Resources 55% white women; white men dominate in Digital,

Data and Technology (76%), Governance and Operations (73%)
Commercial and procurement (71%) and Finance (69%) – all much
more direct routes to the top
Organizations themselves — not just the people within them — are the
bearers of gender (Acker 1990; 2006) and necessarily then of
race/ethnicity and class

The overall pattern of gender relations within an organization - its

gender regime. Regime involves all the dimensions of gender relations.
In this model (Connell 2002, 53 – 68), four dimensions are distinguished:

• Gender division of labour

• Gender relations of power
• Emotion and human relations
• Gender culture and symbolism

This model provides a template for describing any organization’s gender

regime (Connell 2006, in reading list)
Sandberg and Grant 2015 (https://nyti.ms/3F8khPe) on women doing
‘office housework’, draw on Heilman and Chen (2005): Participants had
to evaluate performance of male or female employee who did or did not
stay late to help colleagues prepare for important meeting

• For staying late and helping, a man was rated 14% more favorably
than a woman
• When both declined, a woman was rated 12 % lower than a man

• Over and over, after giving identical help, a man was significantly
more likely to be recommended for promotions, important projects,
raises and bonuses
• A woman had to help just to get the same rating as a man who didn’t
help
 Bushell, Hoque and Dean (2020) The Network Trap
Building on Granovetter (1973 passim), existing research shows ‘networking’
very important. Study with highly unusual access to boardroom aspirants,
head-hunters and Chairs of FTSE 350 companies.

Bushell et al. first discount traditional explanations such as human capital,

preference, self-attribution. Cannot explain disparity at this level.

Two main lines of argument

Differences in male / female networking behaviours and motivations for

networking
Do women face exclusion from certain forms of networking or certain
network relationships?

Particularly important here is the concept of ‘homophily’: preference of

individuals to interact with others who are similar to them in terms of social
class, education, race and gender (Ibarra, 1992, 1995; Pfeffer & Salancik,
1978)
Men/women differences in networking behaviours
women generally less comfortable
than men with networking/don’t
like to promote themselves in the
same way (Kumra & Vinnicombe, 2010;
Greguletz et al., 2019; Singh et al., 2002)

Bushell et al. (2020):

§over half of men saw business-
social events as important in
maintaining/building relationships
§the women almost universally
shunned such events.
§3/4 of the men regularly attended
‘industry-focused’ networking
events compared with one-fifth of
the women.
Warwick Business School
Gendered differences in motivations for networking
§ Ibarra (1993) differentiates between ‘instrumental’ and ‘expressive’
networks
§ Women more likely to focus on developing ‘expressive’ networks
(van Emmerik, 2006; Vinnicombe & Colwill, 1995), and given this, their
instrumental networks may suffer

However, Bushell et al. (2020) found slightly different picture:

§ friendship is important for men as well as women; and all women in
the sample networked for instrumental business reasons

§ BUT subtle differences between men/women in business-oriented

networking:
§ helps explain why women’s ‘functional’ networks are well
developed, but strategic networks are not. As in previous research
(e.g., Singh et al. 2002), almost all women in sample felt that career
advancement should be based on merit
Warwick Business School
However, are networking ‘behaviours’ relevant?

Significance of homophily established by research of last 30 years

Bushell et al: Of all boardroom aspirants only one man kept in contact with a female
peer once they moved jobs. Women occupy 28.6% of FTSE 100 leadership roles
(non-exec/exec) yet significantly fewer than 28.6% of former colleagues with whom
male interviewees had kept in touch were female.
By contrast, the female boardroom aspirants had remained in touch with very few
former superiors or peers. This is as predicted by homophily, given most of these
peers and superiors would have been male.

‘I think as I’m getting old there’s no danger of my motives being mistaken

anymore, probably! But I feel more comfortable approaching another woman. [
sent] her an email saying, ‘hope you had a really nice summer, be really great to get
together, don’t mind if it’s coffee, lunch or a drink’. If I sent that same message to a
man I’d be slightly worried that it would be misinterpreted.’

Plus, golf, football, drinking, etc.

Warwick Business School
Can homophily explain differences in networking
behaviours/motivations for networking?
§little point women seeking manage/foster relationships with senior
male contacts via proactive relationship management techniques if
homophily means their efforts unlikely to be fruitful

§little point managing female network contacts systematically given

they are likely to yield little instrumental support

§a rational decision (subconsciously or otherwise) not to manage

networks particularly strategically?

§women may be less inclined attend business-social/industry-focused

networking events given that, as a result of homophily, this unlikely
result in forging of enduring interpersonal relationships

Warwick Business School

This is the essence of the ‘network trap’
Next week -

‘Race’, Ethnicity, Equality