EFFECTS OF TOKENISM AND GENDER STEREOTYPES ON WORK EXPERIENCE : AN EXPLORATORY STUDY OF MALE NURSES

Abstract

Researchers examining the integration of women into 'male-fields' have identified discrimination as a major barrier to women. This discrimination has taken the laws or institutionalized rules prohibiting the hiring or promotion of women into certain job specialties or manifest in devaluation of their work. Discrimination can also be "informal", as when women encounter sexual harassment, sabotage, or other forms of hostility from their male co-workers resulting in a poisoned work environment. What happens to men in traditionally "female" occupations? Do they experience discrimination as well? Broadly speaking, the aim of this study is to look at the issue of whether men in female-dominated occupation, in this case, nursing, experience discrimination or otherwise. One perspective argues that relative numbers is the key determining factor of discrimination. As long as the member(s) of any social group is numerically insignificant as compared to another in the workplace, he/she/they will experience discrimination. Thus, men in a female-dominated occupations will also experience discrimination just like women in male-dominated occupations. Yet another perspective argues that the effects of gender, that is, the sociocultural inequality between the sexes would lead to men experiencing advantage rather than discrimination in the workplace, even in a female-dominated occupation. This study thus explore the issue of relative numbers or numeric proportions (tokenism) versus gender status per se in determining the experience of discrimination at work. It is found that for this group under study, gender status overrides the effect of relative numbers as the determining factor of discrimination. Male nurses of this study, though numerically rare, still experience advantage in a traditionally "female occupation." In contrast, the female nurses of this study, though numerically dominant, experience some forms of discrimination.