Tokenism In The Workplace

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Being a woman working in male dominant facilities is hard in many ways, but being a woman and working as a Correctional Officer in men’s prisons shines a different light on what women endure when it comes to fitting in. Tokenism becomes the first big issue along the lines of being a female correctional officer. Tokenism, the practice of hiring or appointing a token number of females in order to deflect criticism or comply with the affirmative action rules (Cheeseman, K.A. and W. Goodlin-Fahnck. 2011). Researchers feel that facilities only hire females in male dominant job fields to keep away all the critics and to avoid a lot of negative attention from people outside of the facilities. For example, if there was a hiring manager at a grocery …show more content…

The conflict between security and service functions-- and the dangerous, overcrowded conditions in these facilities intensified hostile reaction (Jurik, N.C. 1985). On an informal level there is much of a boundary between the male inmates and the women that worked in the facilities. The more overcrowded and dangerous these facilities get, the harder it may be for the women in the workplace as security. Nancy felt with such resistance in the workplace of being a female correctional officer in mens prison, women were not going to perform adequately to all of the pressure. In addition, the combination to these old hostilities with the informal rules governing advancement further limited the opportunities available to female officers (Kanter, 1977; 264). Because this specific job field is so hostile and intimidating, researchers found that women were not getting promoted because of it. Which made it harder on women to do as well as they wanted knowing they were not going to get rewarded or promoted to a higher form of …show more content…

These findings makes up the attitudes and attributes of the women working in nontraditional workplace, in specific of being a female correctional officer in male prisons. These findings demonstrate the relevance of both organizational dynamics and individual attitudes in developing more complete explanations of the difficulties that women experience in nontraditional occupations (Jurik, N.C. 1985). This research emphasizes that stereotyping in the workplace is real and has a lot to do with the gender role that has taken place throughout the years.
In addressing the issue of stereotyping in the workplace, women should continue to stand their ground. Having a backbone in a male dominant occupation is the most important way to make everyone overlook the fact that there are women working in male dominant jobs and that will not stop them from continuing. Researchers feel that the more women get themselves involved in the male occupations, the more it becomes understood that women are capable of doing what men do. If given enough time and opportunity, women could possibly stand above the men in the job that for hundreds of years came across as male

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