Anneke van Baalen, HIDDEN MASCULINITY, Max Weber's historical sociology of bureaucracy,
Amsterdam 1994, dissertation University of Amsterdam INTRODUCTION
4
present themselves: one can try either to translate the factors that define the position of
women versus the 'organization' or 'bureaucracy' into the factors that define the position of
sex-neutral 'individuals' according to universalist sociology, or one can try to translate the
sex-neutral concepts of universalist sociology in sex-defined terms.
If the first option is chosen, universalist sociology is enriched with some more 'laws',
formulated in sex-neutral concepts. The most famous of these is the 'law of numbers' which
was formulated in 1977 by Rosabeth Moss Kanter. It says that as soon as people who work
in an organization or department, where they form a minority of a 'significant social type'
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which is deviant from the 'significant social type' of the majority, they become either totally
invisible or too visible to the majority.
15
In the latter case they become 'tokens'.
The concept 'token' was formulated by the black and feminist movements: the token black,
the token woman, is the exception who proves the rule - the exclusion of blacks or women
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- by displaying all the stereotyped characteristics members of the majority expect; the
majority then reacts by in its turn exaggerating its own stereotyped characteristics.
Kanter takes all her illustrations of her concept of 'numbers' from her own experience as an
organization adviser and from reports of other women in organizations, which she found in
feminist texts. As soon as a token woman appears on the scene, the men around her
become more masculinist, especially in social contacts outside the formal work situation:
young men brag about their sexual victories, older men of their business ones.
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The token
woman is visible only as a woman, not as a colleague; if she tries to show her achievements,
the men, fearing she performs better, often retaliate. She is also pressurized to turn against
other women, since she has to share the men's notions about her own sex: to believe that
women just are not able to perform the tasks she herself performs.
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The token woman is therefore compelled to conform to female stereotypes - she can only
choose which one.
19
Kanter's analysis here echoes the feminist theory that in patriarchal
culture men divide women in 'mothers' and 'whores'; to the types of 'mother' and 'seducer',
though, she adds those of the 'iron lady' - unmarried aunt - and 'mascot' - 'kid sister'. Of all
these only the iron lady expects equal treatment from men; since men do not know how to
deal with her claim, she finds herself isolated. One could summarize Kanter's description in
the statement that the token woman can be seen both as the symbol of equality between
women and men and as a living proof of their inequality.
Kanter's approach of 'numbers' is easy to criticize: any investigation of the situation of men
who form a minority among women will show that their 'visibility' results in quite different
14
Kanter p. 208; or 'persons bearing a different set of social characteristics', p. 210.
15
Kanter p. 210: 'The proportional rarity of tokens is associated with three perceptual tendencies: visibility,
contrast, and assimilation. These are all derived simply from the ways any set of objects are perceived.'
16
See Oxford Concise Dictionary on 'token': beside the meaning of 'sign, symbol, evidence (of affection etc'
another meaning is given: that of 'a. Serving as token(s) or sample; perfunctory; ~money (...); ~payment, 1.
payment of small proportion of sum due as indication that debt is not repudiated, 2. nominal payment;
~resistance, ~strike (brief, to demonstrate strength of feeling only); ~vote, Parliamentary vote of money in which
the amount stated pro forma to allow discussion is not meant to be binding; ~Ism, policy of making only a token
effort of doing no more than is minimally necessary.'
17
Kanter p. 221 ff.; see also Rogers (1988) p. 22 ff.
18
Kanter (1977) p. 228 ff.
19
Kanter p. 233 ff.
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