kanter revisited: gender, power and (in)visibility

Kanter Revisited: Gender, Powerand (In)Visibilityijmr_327 141..158

Patricia Lewis and Ruth Simpson1

Kent Business School, University of Kent, Canterbury, Kent, CT2 7PE, UK, and 1Brunel Business School,Brunel University, Uxbridge, UB8 3PH, UK

Corresponding author email: [email protected]

This paper revisits Kanter’s (1977) seminal work Men and Women of the Corporation,rereading her account of numerical advantage and disadvantage through a post-structuralist lens which exposes hidden dimensions of gendered power. This lens iscaptured in the ‘(In)visibility Vortex’ (Lewis and Simpson, 2010) which highlightsstruggles and tensions around the norm through processes of preservation and con-cealment within the norm as well as dynamics of revealing, exposure and disappear-ance as features of the margins. The study draws on developments in feministtheorizing, specially around visibility, invisibility and power, to facilitate this reread-ing. In so doing, the author demonstrate that while Kanter retreated from explana-tions based on the gendering of organizations or from recognition of gendered power,these dynamics can be identified in her text. The authors suggest that rereadingclassic texts can surface dimensions of organizations that have contemporary signifi-cance and can inform future research.

9 to 5, for service and devotionYou would think that IWould deserve a fair promotionWant to move aheadBut the boss won’t seem to let meI swear sometimes that man is out to get me

(Dolly Parton, ‘9 to 5’, 1981)

Introduction

This paper reviews Kanter’s influential work Menand Women of the Corporation and seeks to demon-strate how, through a post-structuralist lens, hiddendimensions of gendered power can be revealed. Wedevelop a conceptual framework around an ‘(In)vis-ibility Vortex’ to highlight the turbulent nature of

these power relations and to frame the processesthrough which gendered hierarchies are perpetuatedand concealed. A need to develop ways of surfacingcurrent, more latent manifestations of gender-basedadvantage and disadvantage reflects recent tenden-cies towards ‘gender denial’ and the view that theproblem of gender in organizations has been ‘solved’(Lewis and Simpson 2010a). We highlight how arereading of classic texts can form the basis of newanalyses, which can have profound contemporarysignificance.

Written at a time when women were largely absentfrom the ranks of management, Kanter was one ofthe first authors to put gender ‘on the map’ in termsof understanding the dynamics of organizationalbehaviour. Translated into several languages andwith over a million copies sold, this pioneeringtext has had far-reaching influence, in particular onearly women-in-management research (e.g. Henningand Jardin 1979; Marshall 1984; Nicholson and West1988; Spencer and Podmore 1992). However, while

The authors are listed in alphabetical order as they are equalcontributors.

bs_bs_banner

International Journal of Management Reviews, Vol. 14, 141–158 (2012)DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-2370.2011.00327.x

© 2011 The AuthorsInternational Journal of Management Reviews © 2011 British Academy of Management and Blackwell Publishing Ltd.Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA02148, USA

Kanter’s work has been and continues to be exten-sively cited, we suggest there has been an under-statement of its impact and of its potential to developnew understandings of gender in a contemporarycontext – largely due to its liberal feminist roots.Drawing on post-structuralist theorizing, specificallya perspective that foregrounds issues of (in)visibilityand power, we revisit Kanter’s classic work in orderto surface aspects of gendered hierarchical relationsthat are present but unrecognized in her text, andargue that this rereading could help us to understandmanifestations of gendered organizational practicestoday.

As a seminal text, Men and Women of the Corpor-ation is normally characterized as representing aliberal feminist perspective due to certain character-istics (Calas and Smircich 1996; Halford andLeonard 2001; Halford et al. 1997; Witz and Savage1992). These include her emphasis on the underlyingsimilarity between men and women. In this respect,while she draws attention to the gender of organiza-tional members, she does not see fundamentallydifferent gendered modes of behaviour. Thus, organ-izations are ‘accidentally’ (Halford et al. 1997, p. 7)as opposed to inherently gendered. Further, from herperspective, what look like gender differences are infact differences in power (Witz and Savage 1992)derived largely from the continued operation of out-moded beliefs, customs and prejudices. These helpto construct women as ‘unsuitable’ for the contem-porary workplace (Halford and Leonard 2001) –attitudes which, with appropriate policies, canbe ‘managed out’. This liberal feminist position isreflective of a ‘politics of optimism’, wherebygender differences can be eradicated, allowingwomen to advance on a non-conflictual basis andinciting little response from men (Blum and Smith1988; Childs and Krook 2008).

In contrast to liberal feminism, organizationalactors from a poststructuralist perspective are notunderstood to be individualized beings with an innercore or essence. Rather, they are the product of theparticular cultural and historical context in whichthey live. In consequence, poststructuralism con-ceives of ‘organization’ as a socially situated practicewith individuals involved in socially situated activi-ties. Following this, gendered relations are under-stood as deeply embedded and continually actedout within organizational contexts (Halford et al.1997, p. 13). Accordingly, unlike liberal feminism,which sees enactments of gender as an anomalywithin organizations, post-structuralism understands

such performances as the reality of organizational life– a reality which cannot simply be ‘managed out’.

This approach lends itself to an understandingof the gendered nature of organizational processesand practices – largely denied in Kanter’s text. Thisdenial can be partly located in her (liberal feminist)focus on the numerical composition of managementteams – together with her associated analysis ofthe detrimental effects of heightened visibilityfrom numerical minority status. This focus is preva-lent today and can be seen in current preoccupa-tions with increasing the number of women insenior management and boardroom positions. Workin this area has drawn on notions of numericalbalance, ‘insider–outsider ratios’ and ‘contagioneffects’ (Huse 2005; Mateos de Cabo et al. 2011;Terjesen et al. 2009). However, research suggeststhat an elite cadre of male directors continuesto maintain a significant grip on organizationalpower (Singh and Vinnicombe 2004), indicatingthat a focus on numerical balance can overlookwhat is referred to as the ‘black box of the board-room’ (Terjesen et al. 2009, p. 333) which concealsongoing systems of gendered privilege. Followingthe above, we argue that, by rereading Men andWomen of the Corporation through a poststructur-alist lens, as opposed to its conventional liberalfeminist positioning, we can expose and explainsome of these often hidden dimensions.

We encapsulate this lens in the notion of the(In)visibility Vortex (Lewis and Simpson 2010a).This conceptualizes key gendered processes of vis-ibility, invisibility and power which we suggest arepresent in Kanter’s work. We accordingly articulatewhat is present, but also marginalized and unsaid,in her text and reveal the insights her work offerstowards a more profound understanding of theimplications of (in)visibility for the maintenance andperpetuation of gendered power. The intellectualground work for the (In)visibility Vortex began inan edited collection: Revealing and ConcealingGender: Issues of Visibility in Organizations (Lewisand Simpson 2010a). This sought, through a series oftheoretical and empirical chapters, to draw attentionto the often contradictory ways in which visibilityand invisibility ‘play out’ in organizations and toexpose the unseen and gendered processes of organ-izing that are buried within norms, practices andvalues. A vortex is a flow, usually in spiral motion,around a centre. The speed of rotation and the levelof turbulence are greater at the centre and decreaseprogressively with distance towards the margins.

142 P. Lewis and R. Simpson

© 2011 The AuthorsInternational Journal of Management Reviews © 2011 British Academy of Management and Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

This, we argue, captures the instability and dynamicsof the norm or ‘dominant centre’, the site of forma-tions of (gendered) power, as well as the politics ofthe margins from where the privileges of the centreare resisted and revealed. The Vortex frameworkhighlights key processes inside and outside the norm– how power is preserved and concealed within thedominant centre as well as how, from the margins,women can reveal the privileges of the centre, can inthe process be exposed as Other and, in response, canbe erased or seek to disappear.

In rereading her work, we focus mainly onKanter’s well-known theory of tokenism, which con-siders the implications of numerical advantage anddisadvantage in organizations, referred to above, andthe problems associated with the visibility of minor-ity groups. In so doing, we elaborate and developthe (In)visibility Vortex, our lens in this endeavour,and provide it with theoretical and empirical weightwhich can take it beyond the original edited collec-tion in which it was first proposed. This paper isorganized as follows: we outline Kanter’s theory oftokenism and the dynamics of numerical advantageand disadvantage. Following this, we present anaccount of how poststructuralist understandings con-ceptualize the links between visibility, invisibilityand power. We then discuss the gendered processes,illuminated through the Vortex, which can be identi-fied from her work. In conclusion we further refineand develop the framework, highlighting its useful-ness for demonstrating processes of visibility andinvisibility in contemporary organizations. Further,we identify future research areas where this frame-work can be used as a means of drawing out thegendered complexities of organizational life.

Kanter and issues of visibility

In Men and Women of the Corporation, Kanter(1977) sought to examine how, through her study of‘Indsco’, numerical group composition could impacton organizational group processes. A central claimof her theory is that group proportions are connectedto social experiences and that, as these proportionschange, so do the work interactions of individualgroup members (Gustafson 2008). Here she deviseda typology of majority–minority distributions withfour specific types: uniform groups containing onenoteworthy social type, i.e. with a ratio of 100:0;skewed groups characterized by a predominance ofone social type with a ratio of 85:15; tilted groups

with a more moderate distribution of social typesdemonstrated by a 65:35 ratio; and finally balancedgroups with a more even distribution with ratios of60:40 or 50:50.

Focusing on the ‘skewed’ group, she consideredwhat happens to women who occupy the position of‘token’ within a peer group of men. In particular, sheexplored the implications of visibility and differencefor inter-group relations and for the subjectivestate of members of the minority. She argued thatthe majority male members of the group, which shereferred to as ‘dominants’, control and determinethe group and its culture. As the ‘dominants’ (men)develop a heightened sensitivity to the visible minor-ity status of ‘tokens’ (women), three particular chal-lenges emerge for token individuals. First, theirheightened visibility means that they are subject toperformance pressures which require that they eitheroverachieve or seek to reduce their exposure. Second,they become isolated as ‘dominants’ emphasize theirown commonalities while highlighting the token’sdifference (particularly the case with informal activi-ties). Third, distortion of the social characteristics of‘tokens’ according to dominants’ own stereotypicalbeliefs sets up a situation of ‘role entrapment’,whereby women are forced into a limited numberof work positions. These perpetuate stereotypes,restricting prospects for progression and continuingto set women apart from the dominant group of men(Chambliss and Uggen 2000; Childs and Krook2008; Gustafson 2008).

Kanter’s work has generated a stream of researchwithin gender and organizational studies, with hertokenism theory being tested in a variety of workcontexts. This body of research includes unionrepresentatives (Izraeli 1983), elite law firms (Cham-bliss and Uggen 2000), Wall Street professionals(Roth 2004), male nurses (Heikes 1991; Simpson2004, 2005), women managers (Blum and Smith1988; Lyness and Thompson 2000; Maddock 1999;Marshall 1994; Powney 1997; Simpson 1997, 2000),women on corporate boards (Elstad and Ladegard2010; Mateos de Cabo et al. 2011; Seierstad andOpsahl 2011; Singh and Vinnicombe 2004), maleflight attendants (Young and James 2001), femalelegislators (Bratton 2005; Childs and Krook 2008;Crowley 2004; Towns 2003) and police officers(Gustafson 2008; Martin 1994). As with Kanter’swork, this research demonstrates how visibility canhave negative consequences for women throughperformance pressures, heightened career barriersand the creation of a hostile working environment, as

Kanter Revisited 143


well as through strong social constraints on behav-iours in social interactions. Tokens may accordinglyrespond in ways that help to reduce the effects ofvisibility – from keeping a low profile to attempts tobecome assimilated into the world of men (Lewis2006). Visibility is therefore largely associated with anegative state of exclusion and difference (Simpsonand Lewis 2005, 2007).

From a liberal feminist perspective, such dis-advantages can be overcome by an increase innumbers of women in organizations and hence amore gender-balanced group. As Kanter argues,where a skewed group becomes a tilted group, a shiftin group dynamics occurs, leading to a reduction inthe visibility of the minority – mitigating feelings ofpsychological discomfort and creating an acceptingculture. This situation would lead to a change inwomen’s behaviour in a number of ways: alliancescan be established between women impacting onthe culture of the group as a whole and minoritymembers can establish themselves as individuals asopposed to representatives of the social category of‘woman’. Further, while an increase in number isrequired for supportive alliances to develop, she alsosuggests that ‘women-identified-women’ (i.e. womenwho identify with other women) are important if theimpact of token effects is to be reduced or removed(Childs and Krook 2008). Underlying these changesis an assumption of solidarity behaviour, wherebywomen see the increasing of their number as theirpersonal responsibility (Mavin 2008). However,research indicates that senior women prefer to berecognized for their individual abilities, as opposedto being seen as representatives of their gendercategory. Further, the anticipation of solidaritydoes not acknowledge the gendered context of workand organizations – a context which may encouragesenior women who perceive themselves to benon-prototypical, to distance themselves from theirfemale colleagues (Ellemers et al. 2004; Mavin2006, 2008).

As the above suggests, Kanter (along with theliberal feminist perspective in general) has been criti-cized for the weight given to numerical proportions.Despite references made to gender in tokenismtheory, Kanter removes its impact from her analysisby asserting that ‘rarity and scarcity rather thanfemaleness per se . . . shaped the environment forwomen’ (Kanter 1977, p. 207). Associated with thisposition, she conceptualizes power as ‘the ability toget things done’ (Kanter 1977, p. 166), divorcing itfrom considerations of gender and from masculine

values and practices. Power differences accordinglyemanate not from gendered hierarchies, but fromdifferences in job attributes and organizational(e.g. opportunity) structures, so that the problem ofwomen in managerial roles ‘spring into focus as prob-lems of powerlessness, not sex’ (Kanter 1977, p. 6).From Kanter’s perspective, both men and women canexpect to experience similar token effects when theyare in a minority within an organizational context as‘the same pressures and processes can occur aroundpeople of any social category who find themselvesfew of their kind among others of a different socialtype’ (Kanter 1977, p. 240).

However, as many have subsequently argued,Kanter’s approach overlooks a gender bias thatfavours masculinity as a source of cultural priorityand relative advantage within organizational struc-tures, processes and procedures (Alvesson and DueBilling, 1992; Childs and Krook 2008; Collinson andHearn 1995; Gustafson 2008; Heikes 1991; Kerfootand Knights 1993, 1998; Yoder 1991, 2002; Zimmer1988). Research which has considered how men andwomen differentially experience the visibility oftoken status (e.g. Cross and Bagilhole 2002; Lupton2000; Simpson 2000, 2004, 2005; Williams 1993)has demonstrated how men are less likely to facenegative consequences compared with their femalecounterparts. Williams (1993) and later Simpson(2004, 2005) found that men working in the female-dominated occupations of nursing, teaching andlibrarianship enjoyed enhanced career opportunitiesand rode a ‘glass escalator’ to the top. As Yoder(1991) points out, if the experiences of token womenand men diverge so much that the negative conse-quences of tokenism extend only to women, thenwhat Kanter regarded as the result of numbers hasas its basic, root cause sexism – the denigration ofwomen as women. Therefore, numbers alone cannotcreate equality, because other social and culturalfactors which privilege the masculine and devaluethe feminine intervene (Childs and Krook 2008;Gustafson 2008; Zimmer 1988).

Overall while Men and Women of the Corporation(Kanter 1977) was ground breaking in its analysis,and while Kanter’s work included gender at a des-criptive level in its outline of certain gender-typedbehaviours, it did not draw on gender as a frameworkof analysis. However, we argue that gender dynamicsand a more profound analysis of gendered powercan be identified from her research. Specificallythrough the framework of the (In)visibility Vortexand its associated poststructuralist lens, we show



how visibility and invisibility as well as the strugglesaround the normative position are implicated in theway power is reproduced and maintained.

Poststructuralism: power, the normand the (In)visibility Vortex

One key difference between liberal feminismand poststructuralist feminism is the way in whichthese two perspectives understand the issue of power.In developing a liberal feminist analysis, Kanter,as stated above, understands power as essentiallythe ability to get things done or to realize one’s will.Further, she believes there is a fixed amount of powercirculating within organizations and that women’stoken position impacts on their ability to secureaccess to power, with men possessing ‘more thantheir fair share’ (Halford and Leonard 2001). Withinthe context of ‘balanced groups’, as she argues, theinfluence of outmoded behaviour, outlined earlier,is significantly reduced, and men and women cansecure equal access to organizational power (Witzand Savage 1992).

In contrast, from a poststructuralist perspectiveand drawing on the work of Foucault (1991), power isnot a ‘thing’ that can be held by or belong to anyparticular individual or group – or comprise a fixedamount to be either ‘taken over’ or ‘shared out’.Rather, power is connected to the notion of dis-course. This refers to a system of knowledge whichprovides us with a ‘whole way of constituting theworld through the ways we have to know and talkabout it . . . discourses do not describe or represent“the real”; they bring realities (including who weare) into being’ (Miller 2008, p. 252). Within thecontext of Men and Women of the Corporationpower as a discursive relation is centred aroundcirculating discourses of gender based on notionsof ‘natural’ sexual variation, which place men andwomen in subject and object positions. Men andwomen in ‘Indsco’ are ‘made subject’ through thesediscourses, while at the same time they are also sub-jected, i.e. constructed as objects of power. Thus whoan individual is ‘is not an unchanging essence butrather a shifting product of power . . .’ (Miller 2008,p. 257). Significant here is the possibility of resist-ance. Male power is not unilaterally imposed onwomen – rather the relationship between men andwomen involves strategies and counterstrategies ofpower (Witz and Savage 1992). In this way, the‘oppressed’ are never entirely powerless. Power is

accordingly highly mobile and influenced by chang-ing associations and circumstances. In other wordspower moves around through different individualsand groups – though certain people or factions mayhave greater opportunities to influence how power isplayed out (Danaher et al. 2002). Associated withthis notion of power are two specific disciplinarytechniques: surveillance and normalizing judge-ments both of which produce a complex play ofvisibility and invisibility in the manufacture andmaintenance of power (Danaher et al. 2002; Miller2008). Through these two disciplinary techniques,power circulates in capillary fashion within a socialcontext such as an organization, making it difficult topinpoint its source in terms of a particular categoryor group (Miller 2008).

Visibility, power and the ‘gaze’

Foucault (1991) refers to the notion of power out-lined above as ‘disciplinary power’, arguing that itsassociated techniques can be used by any institution.A key invention which facilitated the emergence ofdisciplinary power is Bentham’s Panopticon, whichcaptured the relationship between visibility, powerand subjectivity. Focusing on the issue of the controlof convicts, Bentham’s model consisted of a towerplaced in a central position within a prison, fromwhich guards would be able to observe every pris-oner in every cell. However, the Panopticon wasdesigned in such a way that prisoners could neverbe sure whether they were under observation – butthrough the possibility of scrutiny at any momentthey would adjust their behaviour accordingly(Danaher et al. 2002). According to McHoul andGrace, panopticism is the ‘exemplary techniquethrough which disciplinary power is able to function(as) it relies on surveillance and the internal trainingthis produces to incite states of docility’ (McHouland Grace 1993, p. 67). In a contemporary context,this authoritative gaze need no longer be incorpor-ated into an external edifice, but can be institution-alized and projected through internal systems andprocedures of surveillance and assessment where,through frames of classification, codification andmeasurement (Townley, 1992), power and know-ledge are constituted and maintained. Further, thegaze is a way for individuals to look at their ownbehaviours, i.e. individuals can be the subject of theirown gaze (Danaher et al. 2002).

According to Danaher et al. (2002), there is agender dimension to the authority of the gaze in that



it is saturated with the male values of objectification,patriarchy and phallocentrism (Snow 1989; Tyler andAbbott 1998). In Men and Women of the Corpor-ation, Kanter (1977) suggests that heightened visibil-ity and practices of surveillance can push tokenwomen, through processes of assimilation, into gen-dered stereotypes, defined by dominant men. Theseinclude the role of: ‘seductress’ or sex object, whichfocuses on a woman’s sexuality and which demandsthat women behave in recognizably ‘feminine’ ways;the ‘mother’, whereby women are seen to representan ethic of care – impeding their ability to perform aleadership role; the ‘pet’, which perceives a womanas a non-threatening ‘cheerleader’ and mascot forher male colleagues; while the final stereotype ofthe ‘iron maiden’ is applied to a woman who, in a bidto appear competent, may exhibit too many mascu-line traits and who is often criticized for beinginsufficiently feminine.

These stereotypical, constraining ‘role traps’, intheir different embodiments of femininity, containlimited behavioural repertoires of influence andpower and are accompanied by strong sanctions, inthe form of marginalization and ridicule if womenstep outside their domains. The ‘gaze’ can thereforebe seen to have a disciplining and normalizing effectin that thought (e.g. about the position and charac-teristics of women) and action are structured intopre-existing norms and categories. The ‘gaze’ allowsa (partial) knowledge to develop, irrespective ofindividual and personal dispositions, and control(through correction, classification, exclusion) to beexercised over those in view. Though Kanter firstidentified these stereotypes over thirty years ago,pointing to how they discipline women’s behaviourand restrict their access to power, a recent studyof media representations of female candidates inthe 2008 American presidential election highlightedtheir continuing significance. Here, both HillaryClinton and Sarah Palin were subject to gender stere-otypes and ‘experienced the wrath of a society seem-ingly afraid to see a woman in power . . .’ (Carlin andWinfrey 2009, p. 338).

Invisibility, power and the norm

The second technique of disciplinary power identi-fied by Foucault seeks to compare and judgeeach individual against a standard of normalcy. Eachperson is evaluated against a culturally based norm,and those who cannot meet the required standard aretargeted for exclusion, improvement or correction

(Miller 2008). Foucault refers to ‘dividing practices’as the means by which an individual’s normalityis assessed and judgements reached as to whethersomeone is a ‘proper’ member of the social order.These ‘dividing practices’ actively produce problem-atic identities, ‘such as the delinquent who servesas the “Other” against which normality can bemeasured’ (Danaher et al. 2002, p. 61) or the femalemanager who is ‘Othered’ within an organizationalcontext because she differs from the managementnorm. However, while judgements about normalityare based on visibility and surveillance, the powerof normalization lies in its invisibility, as individualsare constituted and reconstituted through discourses(and a gaze) that reflect the accepted and ‘taken-for-granted’. Dominant values and entrenched privilegesare accordingly reproduced and sustained by dis-cursive formations that, through their wide-scaleacceptance, remain unrecognized, unproblematizedand hidden from view.

In terms of gender, the invisibility of masculinepractices and privileges has been recognized ascentral to understandings of gender dynamics. Asgender theorists have argued (e.g. Collinson andHearn 1994; Kaufman 1994; Robinson 2000; White-head 2001), men’s experiences and subjectivity havebeen universalized to form objective knowledge,rendering invisible the ‘strong presence’ and salienceof masculinity in organizations. According toRobinson (2000), this invisibility is an essentialcondition for the maintenance of male dominance.Masculinity is thus a disembodied and unmarkedcategory, divorced from gender, and ‘against whichdifference is constructed, [masculinity] never has tospeak its name, never has to acknowledge its role as anorganizing principle in social and cultural relations’(Lipsitz 1998, cited in Lewis 2006, p. 455). Membersof a minority group such as token women in Kanter’sstudy are judged by and evaluated against a normativeestablished by the male majority. This is presented asthe self-evident standard against which difference ismeasured, with the connection between the normativeand the majority group being invisible. This norm isapplied to everyone in a similar manner such thatdisparities between the majority and minority are illu-minated, with the latter being marked out as divergingfrom the normative standard (Lewis 2006). Within‘Indsco’, women’s difference from an unacknowl-edged masculine norm meant that they experiencedan ‘Othering’ (Hearn 1996) and were stereotyped andforced into limited and caricatured work roles whichrestricted advancement opportunities.



Despite its invisibility, the masculine centre ornorm can be seen to be chronically insecure andsubject to challenge, as individuals from the marginsdispute and reveal its privileged status (Haraway1991; Puwar 2004; Robinson 2000). In the context ofgender, women may seek recognition and challengethe privileges of men through resistance strategiesand the mobilization of subordinate discourses suchas that of femininity. Such resistance will itself beresisted and partly revoked – as demonstrated bythe incorporation of discourses of femininity thathave recently infiltrated notions of leadership, intothe masculine, so that a remasculinization of man-agement (e.g. the strategic use of emotions at work)can be seen to have occurred (Fondas 1997; Lewisand Simpson 2007; Metcalfe and Linstead 2003).These ‘battles’ can be understood as a ‘struggleover normativity’ in the form of a contestation ofmasculinity’s cultural and material priority and of itsprivileged domain (Miller 2008; Robinson 2000).

The (In)visibility Vortex

The nature of power from a poststructuralist perspec-tive outlined above and the disciplinary techniqueswhich attach to it are encapsulated in the frameworkof the (In)visibility Vortex (Lewis and Simpson2010a). Our contention is that the processes and

practices of visibility and invisibility and how theyare played out in day-to-day organizational life canbe elucidated through this lens. The dynamic whichthe Vortex represents is resonant with the processesof Preservation and Concealment that occur withinthe norm as well as the challenges that take placefrom outside it. In other words, the norm can be seento be a site of agitation and defensive action as indi-viduals and groups seek to maintain the invisibilityof their privileged state and to hang on to its materialand cultural advantages, while those excluded fromthis advantaged position seek to challenge this situ-ation of priority. The concept of the Vortex, repre-sentative of a poststructuralist perspective, highlightsissues relating to the maintenance and reproductionof this (gendered) power while also capturing theturbulence and insecurity that surrounds it – throughchallenges to the norm and the processes of revealingits privileged status (Figure 1).

The Vortex as presented below also captures thedynamics of movement outside the centre and howvisibility and invisibility may play out in the margins.There is a flow which potentially moves from Rev-elation (as those in the margins challenge and revealdominant practices and values) to the resultant Expo-sure (as, through the challenge, individuals renderthemselves exposed as Other and are marked asvisibly different). One outcome is to seek invisibility

Figure 1. The (In)visibility Vortex



through acts of self-exclusion or to have Disappear-ance, through oversight and neglect, imposed. Thispreliminary frame, we argue, can help surface,through a rereading, hidden dimensions of Kanter’swork. From this perspective, she can be seen to throwlight on the processes and struggles around the norm(the strategies and counter strategies to maintaininvisibility and to conceal its privileges and power)as well as on the behaviours and practices of themargins that seek to contest its privileged domain.In so doing, we refine and develop the Vortex as aninterpretive lens.

Kanter revisited: preservation andconcealment within the norm

In Men and Women of the Corporation, Kanter(1977) presents tokenism processes as solely dueto numerical imbalances and as inherently genderneutral. She also outlines homophily processeswhich demonstrate a tendency for organizationalmembers to prefer to associate with others who arelike themselves (Roth 2004) – the consequencesof which are the exclusion of token women andthe continued dominance of majority men. Kanterargues that these homophily processes – the ten-dency for men to prefer other, similar men – aredriven by the uncertainties and insecurities ofmanagerial work. These uncertainties, includingvague performance criteria, unstructured tasks andunknown elements in decision-making, can be miti-gated if fellow managers share the same ‘worldview’. Viewed through the poststructuralist lens ofthe Vortex, however, we suggest that these processesare, instead, motivated by the exigencies of mascu-line behaviours and gendered power. As we haveseen, Kanter’s analysis overlooks masculinity andmanagement as sites of power and how that poweris reproduced and maintained. Nevertheless, wesuggest that these dynamics are present but un-recognized in her text. We unfold the argument below.

Preservation of power

Kanter’s identification of a majority group referredto as ‘dominants’ can be understood as a ‘dominantcentre’ which encapsulates an invisible masculinenorm. This centre is the site of privilege and powerin the form of material and cultural advantage andis supported by hegemonic understandings whichserve to both preserve that power and to conceal its

benefits. Thus, practices around this dominant centrewhich, from her perspective, keep control and privi-lege in the hands of a small and socially homogene-ous group and which exclude those who are different(i.e. women), can be seen as part of a process ofnormalization and an impetus to both preserve andconceal this centre as a site of masculine privilegeand advantage.

Given this, Kanter argues it is inevitable thatothers will seek to enter the exclusive group of‘dominants’ and ‘challenge the control by just onekind’ (Kanter 1977, p. 68). The Vortex and the tur-bulence it represents highlight how the norm is a siteof insecurity and struggle as the dominant malegroup seeks to preserve its privilege and power. Inthis respect Kanter refers to the resultant drawing ofboundaries and the defensive ‘closing’ of the circle.This occurs through the twin homophily processesthat she identifies (homosexual and homosocialreproduction), which create ‘exclusive circles’ and a‘kinship system’ which excludes women and thosemen who do not ‘fit in’. These processes also supportcommon understandings of the ‘rightful’ allocationof privilege and power within concealing discoursesof inevitability.

In identifying such processes, Kanter describes ineffect how the dominant centre of male managementis preserved. Homosexual and homosocial reproduc-tion support hegemonic understandings of whoshould (and should not) hold power. As Kanter pointsout, keeping management positions in the hands ofpeople of ‘one’s own kind’ not only protects privilegeand keeps it within a small circle but also, self-fulfillingly, ‘provides reinforcement for the beliefthat people like oneself actually deserve to have suchauthority’ (Kanter 1977, pp. 62–63). The drawingof boundaries between the centre and the marginsthrough these twin processes accordingly helps tosustain and preserve privilege through the develop-ment of a self-sustaining justificatory logic. The verydifficulty that women encounter in terms of enteringthe centre can be taken, reassuringly, as a ‘sign ofincompetence, a sign that insiders were right toclose their ranks’ (Kanter 1977, p. 68). The fewwomen who are allowed (or pressured) to enter andbe incorporated into the norm are expected to alignthemselves with masculine practices and distancethemselves from other women.

These ‘integrated’ women, referred to by Kanteras ‘Queen Bees’, act as ‘gatekeepers’, regulatingthe movement of other women and their potential tochallenge men’s dominant status. First identified by



Staines et al. (1973), Queen Bees are seen as un-helpful to other women. They may be reluctant topromote female colleagues for fear of the negativeimpact on their careers or out of a desire to remain‘unique’ in the organization (Davidson and Cooper1992). In this way, Queen Bees can be seen to beunderscoring existing gendered configurations oforganizational power. In fact, arguing that an equiva-lent ‘Queen Bee’ label is not applied to senior men(nor are individual men required to take responsibil-ity for the position of men in management ingeneral), Mavin (2006, 2008) strongly contends thatsuch a characterization applied to individual womendeflects attention from the gendered context oforganizations.

By drawing on poststructuralist vocabulary, wecan see how a dominant discourse (of male privilegeand entitlement) maintains its hegemonic statusthrough normalization – by appearing to be inevita-ble and ‘right’ and by both supporting and beingsupported by appropriate behaviours and practices(e.g. preference given to men; ‘gate-keeping’ activi-ties of ‘Queen Bees’). Thus, while Kanter explainshomosocial and homosexual reproduction in termsof a need to overcome the uncertainties inherent inmanagerial positions, she also gives inference to (butdoes not name) the struggles around the norm: howdominant discourses (of management; of masculin-ity) retain their power by appearing as inevitableand ‘common sense’; how such discourses andassociated ‘ways of doing’ marginalize and suppressalternatives (e.g. femininity); and how (e.g. exces-sively masculine) behaviours are normalized, therebyreflecting and supporting their assumptions andunderstandings.

Concealment of privilege

As we have seen, the preservation of power involvesthe ability to conceal its privilege so that entitlementis normalized and appears routine (Simpson andLewis 2005, 2007). However, as Kanter tellinglynotes, the need for concealment is more pressing indealings with those closest to the centre. Such indi-viduals see first-hand ‘how the other half live’ andcan potentially question and challenge its privilegedstatus. The practices of concealment are evidentin Kanter’s account of the gendered dynamic of theboss–secretary relationship. Firmly located in themargins, their low salary a ‘material marker’ for thisposition, secretaries are nevertheless close to andhence aware of the rewards of the dominant centre

through their relationship with their manager boss.As Kanter argues, a relationship based on fealty (i.e.a demand for personal loyalty) and emotional gainbased on principles of arbitrariness (the absenceof limits on managerial discretion) serve to facilitateacceptance of inequitable status and to suppressresentments of the differential rewards between thetwo groups. Drawing on Weberian notions of patri-mony as governance based on ‘ruler’s personalhousehold and private property’ (Kanter 1977, p. 73),personalized expectations meant that secretarieswere ‘bound’ to bosses ‘in ways that were largelyunregulated by rules of the larger system’.

As Kanter points out, unlike other positions wherecontact with those much lower down the hierarchy(and vice versa) is limited, secretaries have closedaily interaction with their bosses and therefore haveaccess to the ‘real story’ behind public presentations– a knowledge that can potentially (and embarrass-ingly) trigger unfavourable evaluations and revealinequitable differential rewards. These rewards relatenot just to salary, but to levels of autonomy, careeropportunities and access to space and mobility. AsKanter argues, it was important for the maintenanceand legitimacy of the system that secretaries do notbecome resentful of these material differences and oftheir disadvantaged position. From a poststructuralistperspective, maintenance and legitimacy of thesedifferentials require the manufacture of identitiesderived from discourses which support the systemof power and which frame a subordinate Other. Dis-courses of personal loyalty and devotion supportedby practices based on expectations of personalservice (secretaries frequently performed mundane/domestic tasks for their boss) were thus activated tokeep secretaries remote from systems of authority –where lines of privilege are highly visible and wherethe dominant have an interest in obscuring discrep-ancies in rewards and power. By assigning an abjectstatus of servility to secretaries (beyond that whichwas strictly required by the formal job specification),managers not only manufactured a contrasting,super-ordinate managerial identity derived from dis-courses of loyalty and devotion, but also conferred asubjectivity on the secretary as Other, based on lackof authority and power.

While Kanter located these dynamics (in genderneutral) opportunity structures, job functions and‘role relationships’, she does acknowledge the poten-tial for those in the margins to challenge the domi-nant position. Secretaries may accordingly, fromtheir position of proximity, query the inevitability of



masculine and managerial priority. Perhaps morepertinently, she points to the need for the ‘dominant’to conceal their privileges and, drawing implicitlyon post-structuralist thinking, to activate alternativediscourses based on the private and the personal inresponse to this potential threat. Thus, as she pointsout, bosses had a stake in ‘suppress(ing) resentmentsof differential material privileges of bosses and cleri-cal workers by valuing instead the symbolic andemotional rewards of the secretarial job’ (Kanter1977, p. 82). Nevertheless as Pringle (1989) writingfrom a poststructuralist perspective suggests, theboss–secretary relationship should not simply beunderstood as the bosses ‘having’ power while thesecretaries do not. Rather the secretary has her own‘quiet means of resistance’, highlighting that theprivileges of the centre and the meanings that attachto that centre are not fully secure and, through chal-lenges to men’s normative status, may not remainhidden from view.

Overall, while positioning these dynamics within agender-neutral organizational structure, the analysisabove exposes how Kanter’s work highlights boththe durability and the insecurity of the norm: how itconceals gendered practices and processes throughnormalizing discursive regimes as well as the chal-lenges that are being made to its dominant status. Asher work shows, the norm draws defensively on takenfor granted discourses and rhetoric to conceal a privi-leged status and to support hierarchically positionedidentities. Preserving order and concealing politicalintent embedded in practices such as homosocial andhomosexual reproduction therefore requires strategicmanoeuvring, surveillance, speed, contrivances,tactics, machinations – in short, they involve aturbulent ‘ebb and flow’. The Vortex consequentlycaptures and highlights the turmoil and struggles thatoccur around the norm.

Kanter revisited: the margins andprocesses of revelation, exposureand disappearance

What of others outside the norm – on the margins orthe periphery? How do visibility and invisibility playout in these contexts? We argue here that, while the(In)visibility Vortex helps surface the strong associa-tion between invisibility and the norm as well as thedynamics (practices, processes, behaviours, rhetoric)that seek to conceal, both visibility and invisibilityare implicated in different ways within the margins.

Thus, as Kanter powerfully demonstrates, womenmanagers stand out as tokens in male-dominatedroles and are highly visible. They symbolize theircategory ‘woman’ and experience material conse-quences of overexposure while they are at the sametime invisible in terms of authority required forthe job. Women may therefore seek invisibility as acoping mechanism – creating spaces where they canremain unnoticed and where, enshrouded in oblivion,they can effectively disappear. Reading Kanter’swork through the lens of the (In)visibility Vortex,we can identify three interrelated processes that takeplace in the margins. These relate to processes ofrevelation, exposure and disappearance.

Revelation

In terms of revelation, we have already seen from ourdiscussion of the boss–secretary relationship thepotential for those in the margins to reveal the privi-leges and advantage of the norm. As discussed above,the closer individuals or groups lie in relation to thenorm, the more likely they are to both see and secureaccess to its privileges (Simpson and Lewis 2007).Effective challenges are therefore likely to emanatefrom those closest to that centre – such as fromsecretaries who have close working contact withmale managers or women managers who seek toshare the privileges of men. For example, womenwho were fast-tracked into senior roles through topmanagement sponsorship, bypassing routine andaccepted procedures, were often seen as challengingthe assumption that career success and competitionfor top jobs were the preserve of men. From Kanter’sanalysis, Revelation of privilege (while not namedas such) may be overt, taking the form of directchallenge or confrontation, or operate on a lessobvious subversive level. The latter could emanatefrom simple presence as women infiltrate leadershipand management positions, bringing in new waysof thinking and doing. ‘Habitual modes of practice’,illuminated through an alternative and appraising‘reversal of the gaze’, may accordingly be subvertedand revealed. Thus one woman appraised (andrejected) the behaviour of male colleagues:

I felt like one of the guys for a while. Then I gottired of it. They had crude mouths and were veryimmature. Finally, when we were all out drinking, Iadmitted to myself, this is not me. I don’t want toplay their game. (Kanter 1977, p. 226)

Those in the margins, through radical acts, sub-versive stories and interpersonal relations, can



consequently reveal and so challenge normativepractices and discourses that give priority to mascu-linity. Revealing, whether overt or at a more sub-versive level, can, however, attract retribution, andKanter highlights some of the difficulties of chal-lenging the norm – how the ‘camaraderie of men’ andexcessive masculine displays frame women as Other,exposed as outside the normative domain.

Exposure

These ‘politics of revealing’ and the dialecticsbetween revealing and concealing highlight the linksbetween revelation and exposure. To reveal dominantpractices for what they are or even to simply enterfrom the margins and hence challenge the masculinedomain is to draw attention to difference and alterity.Women are not seen as managers per se but aredefined by their gender (‘female’ manager), ‘trapped’through assimilation into constraining stereotypicalroles, their characteristics ‘distorted to fit the gener-alisation’ (Kanter 1977, p. 211). To challenge andreveal is to render oneself visible and exposed – inFoucault’s (1991) terms, to be subject to the control-ling gaze. The well-known implications of height-ened visibility that emerged from Kanter’s work areconceptualized as ‘life in the limelight’, as ‘excessivescrutiny’ and as the ‘symbolic consequences’ ofrepresenting a category. Women typically experiencevisibility detrimentally through feelings of abjection,‘self-conscious self-representation’, performancepressures and fear of making mistakes.

Some women, however, found positive value inthe visible state. They welcomed the ‘attention-getting edge’ of publicity, flaunting their differenceand enjoying their women-only status. Others usedvisibility and exposure strategically to challenge(and reveal) normative practices and values and toeffect change. They accordingly ‘seized the chance’on offer through their symbolic status to get includedin particular gatherings or task forces. One womanchallenged a dress code by deliberately wearingtrousers as she walked through an office of clericalassistants whose male supervisor insisted they weardresses. She also let it be known that she was leavingat 4pm once a week to attend ballet lessons, fullyaware that this would cause ridicule among men(even though they routinely did the same to playgolf). As Davies and Thomas (2004) have similarlydemonstrated, individuals can use visibility anddifference to challenge the status quo – rejectingthe subjectivizing effects of competitive masculine

discourses to present ‘trailblazing’ identities thatdispute current practices and champion differentways of doing. To be visible, therefore, is not alwaysto be exploited or abject, the subject of a Foucauldianpathological and subjectifying gaze (Yar 2003).Instead, the gaze can be a source of pleasure, so thatdifference can be flaunted and enjoyed. Moreover, insome contexts, exposure is to be epistemologicallyadvantaged, allowing individuals to do and say thingsthat are otherwise denied (Davies and Thomas 2004).

Disappearance

Despite this, in many contexts, visibility as Other is aproblematic state of alterity. As Kanter argues, oneresponse is to seek invisibility – to overcome abjec-tion and to disappear. Thus, some women optedfor ‘withdrawal’. They strove for social invisibilitythrough conservative dress, avoiding controversy orhigh-profile meetings. They sought out spaces (e.g.accepting routine projects, working from home)where they could effectively disappear. There was,however, a price to pay, in that invisibility, throughits symbolism of lack of worth and negation (Tylerand Cohen 2010), meant that aspects of women’sperformance could also disappear. In these respects,disappearance as ‘erasure’ is imposed. This canbe seen in the ‘role traps’ which Kanter identifiedfrom her research, where individuality is obliteratedthrough assimilation into stereotypically based cat-egorizations. Further, through the ‘tokenism eclipse’,a focus on physical appearance blots out aspects ofwomen’s performance such as leadership or techni-cal abilities. While visible as exceptions, womencan be ignored in their divisions and overlooked inreward allocations. In short, under these circum-stances, their skills, aptitudes and contributions canbe erased.

However, in contrast to this first type of invisibilitywithin the margins, there are other women whomay seek to strategically disappear. As Lewis (2006)found in the context of female entrepreneurs, somewomen may attempt to separate from damagingfemininity and, in poststructuralist terms, to evadethe marking of their bodies as ‘women entre-preneurs’ in order to be seen, like men, as entre-preneurs per se. As we have seen, from Kanter’s(1977, p. 230) account, those referred to as ‘QueenBees’ strive to become ‘insiders’ and, being inter-preted as having ‘turned against their own socialcategory’, are perceived to behave like men. Thismay be based on a recognition of the power of



masculinity (and those who personify and symbolizeit) to represent maleness as a universal, unexamineddisembodied norm which excludes and marks out-siders. Thus, viewed through the lens of the Vortex,the actions of these women can be understood not as‘betrayal’ or ‘self-aggrandisement’ as the ‘QueenBee’ label suggests, but rather as a quest for invis-ibility (Lewis 2006) as they seek incorporation intothe valorized world of men. Therefore, by refusing toaccept difference between male and female managersand by understanding their experiences as the abilityto abide by ‘universal’ (male) standards of manage-ment, women who seek strategic invisibility by striv-ing to be incorporated into the norm on the samebasis as men, establish a distance from any practicesand values (particularly those associated with femi-ninity) which might exclude or marginalize them.

In summary, while invisibility within the norm issymbolic of power and privilege, outside the norm itcan signify forms of ‘cultural marginalisation andsymbolic negation’ (Tyler and Cohen 2010, p. 35).Thus, through acts of withdrawal and self-exclusion,women can seek to disappear and to evade the effectsof alterity in the form of perceived disadvantage.Keeping a low profile (withdrawal) is, however, to‘invisibilize’ one’s merit and potential, while erasure(through role traps; through the tokenism eclipse)can similarly be imposed. Finally, disappearance can

be a strategic choice as women seek incorpora-tion into the norm, where it is hoped that, by actinglike men, their gender and marked femininity willdisappear.

Developments in the (In)visibilityVortex

These dynamics paint a complicated picture of howdifferent forms of visibility and invisibility are lived,experienced and managed and of the implicationswhich result.

These dynamics are captured in a revised andrefined conceptualization, presented in Figure 2.Based on the original framework and drawingdirectly from its rereading of Kanter’s work, it seeksto make sense of this multifarious terrain.

In so doing, the revised Vortex as outlined belowdoes three things. First, from its poststructuralistunderstanding of the concept of power, the Vortexdemonstrates how those at the centre, in Kanter’sterms the ‘dominants’, preserve and concealtheir privileged position. This is achieved throughessentialist discourses of difference that supportedunderstandings of women as incomprehensible, non-rational and unpredictable – and which justify theirlocation outside the circle of power. By mobilizing

Figure 2. The revised (In)visibility Vortex



narratives of difference and non-suitability, thepower and privileges of the centre are preserved –concealed beneath meanings and rhetoric ofentitlement. However, as would be expected within apoststructuralist interpretation, this situation cannotbe interpreted as inherently stable. The Vortex alsogives weight to the turbulence around the norm as themargins seek to infiltrate and contest its domain andas the norm resists these material and discursiveincursions. As we have seen from the rereadingof Kanter’s work, in preserving and concealing itsprivilege and advantage, the norm must, throughresistance and opposition, seek to protect itself fromchallenge.

Secondly, from the perspective of the margins, therevised Vortex as exemplified in Kanter’s work pro-vides a more nuanced account of challenges to thenorm. Thus, Revelation can be overt through directchallenges to the practices and values of the centre.Equally, through simple presence and the potential tohighlight alternatives, women can subvert thesenorms. Similarly, Exposure can be differentiallyexperienced and managed: it can be abject anddetrimental, flaunted as pleasurable display or canbe used strategically to effect change. Finally, Dis-appearance can take several forms: as withdrawalas women choose low-profile spaces and roles; aserasure if invisibility is imposed and as incorporationas some women seek to enter the (invisible) norm.

Thirdly, the revised Vortex foregrounds some ofthe complexities of the (in)visibility terrain. In thisrespect, the processes outlined above may not besequential, may be differentially experienced and areby no means discrete. Women can simultaneouslyexperience or move between visibility and invisibil-ity. They can be both overexposed and erased (Tylerand Cohen 2010) in that, from Kanter’s account, ifthey perform femininity and their gender is exposed,their worth as managers disappears. Through the‘tokenism eclipse’ auxiliary and defining features(dress and physical appearance) blot out technical ormanagerial expertise. Assigned to constraining ‘roletraps’, they are visible as a category, but their indi-viduality disappears. While often ‘in the spotlight’as ‘the most visible and dramatized of performers’,they are simultaneously removed from the site anddynamics of influence and ‘kept away from theorganizational back-stage where the dramas are cast’(Kanter 1977, p. 239).

In this respect, the Vortex and its underlying proc-esses and conceptualization help to ‘map’ and makesense of some of the obscurities and often contradic-

tory tendencies that are implicated in organizationalexperiences of advantage and disadvantage. Ourrereading of Kanter can be seen to have given empiri-cal weight to some of the processes identified inthe Vortex. Further, through this application, newtheoretical insights, based on the original frame, haveemerged.

Conclusion

We have argued in this paper that, while extensivelycited, Kanter’s work may have been underestimatedin terms of its contribution to the gender and organ-ization studies terrain. Kanter approached her studyfrom a liberal feminist perspective that foregroundsdisadvantage in gender-neutral opportunity struc-tures and job characteristics – retreating from issuesof gendered power. However, by undertaking a post-structuralist re-evaluation of her work, consideredthrough the (In)visibility Vortex and struggles overnormativity, we show how visibility and invisibilitycan be surfaced in her account of everyday behav-iours and practices and associated with the mainte-nance and preservation of gendered power. Theseprocesses and dynamics have significance in contem-porary contexts and can give insight into present-dayconcerns.

Following this, our paper makes the followingcontributions. First, our theoretical orientation andrereading of Kanter’s work help us to query thepersuasiveness of current ‘number based’ solutionsto gender inequalities that predict positive outcomesfrom having more women, particularly at seniorlevels. Existing research suggests that greaternumerical balance does not always lessen the ten-sions faced by tokens or their experiences of exclu-sion. Rather, they may encounter less co-operationand more discrimination, hostility and competition(Paxton et al. 2007; Rosenthal 1998). Read throughthe Vortex, these behaviours and practices can beexplained in terms of the insecurity of the ‘dominantcentre’ and how its incumbents seek to preserveadvantage and privilege through defensive action aswell as the mobilization of beliefs regarding whoshould rightfully occupy positions of power. Relat-edly, our analysis suggests that increasing numericalbalance can reinforce rather than destabilize the nor-mative power of men, as women ‘take up’ masculinepractices and values. Here, despite increases in thenumber of women managers, the reliance on a smallnumber of elite female candidates at senior levels has



led to the critique that such women have benefiteddisproportionately at the expense of their femalecolleagues. As Mavin (2008) argues regarding themoniker ‘Queen Bees’, such criticisms distract atten-tion from the gendered processes inherent in mostorganizations. Our framework draws attention tosome of these processes and offers an explanation forthese women’s supposed lack of ‘female friendli-ness’: their uncertain positioning within a masculinedomain may mean that they seek ‘strategic invisibil-ity’ which helps to erase damaging markers of(embodied) femininity. They therefore adopt mascu-linity and distance themselves from other women.Taken together, and viewed through the lens of theVortex, it is possible to see why a focus on numbersalone might fail, opening up further inquiry into thenature of gendered practices in and around the norm.

Secondly, our poststructuralist rereading ofKanter’s work can help to identify contemporaryforms of gender disadvantage and uncover hiddenforms of gendered power. These have contributed tothe persistence, even intensification, of high levels ofsex segregation both within and between occupations(Charles 2011). For example, Lyng (2010) demon-strates how normative, high-commitment careers inprofessions such as Law, characterized as having amasculine gender, exclude women and how dis-courses of meritocracy and individual choice help toconceal the gendered nature of its dynamics (Lyng2010); Harwood (2010) exposes the ‘hidden’ atti-tudes and practices in the police that support a mas-culine culture; while Watts (2010) explores, withinthe highly masculinized occupation of engineering,the ways in which ‘token’ women can be undermined– both conspicuous as ‘physical spectacle’ and invis-ible in relation to the authority required for the job.Read through the frame of the (In)visibility Vortex,these accounts can expose the mechanics of segrega-tion in terms of the durability, insecurity and invis-ibility of the norm, how it preserves and concealsgendered processes through normalizing discursivepractices such as those around the notion of ‘natural’difference, as well as the ways in which visibility andinvisibility are implicated in day-to-day interactions,experiences and strategies of the margins. The(In)visibility Vortex accordingly helps to give a theo-retical foundation for understanding these dynamicsand, potentially, a way of surfacing more hiddenforms.

Thirdly, and following from the above, the (In)vis-ibility Vortex offers a ‘way through’ current concep-tualizations, influenced by post-feminist discourses

of increased opportunities, choices and freedoms,that gender disadvantage has been largely ‘solved’(Lewis and Simpson 2010b; Simpson et al. 2010).In this respect, there is a tendency among men andwomen to deny (or accept) gender-based disadvan-tage at work (Lewis 2006; Lewis and Simpson2010b) – even though women are still a minorityat senior levels. Explanations for these and othergender-based disparities often draw on the persua-siveness of meritocratic discourses and the rhetoricof individual choice (Lewis and Simpson 2010b) aswell as underlying assumptions regarding ‘natural’gender difference that supports the status quo. Withtheir reliance on the primacy of personal decisionsand on so-called objective criteria of reward alloca-tion, these discourses can serve to justify unequaloutcomes and so further conceal practices of gen-dered power (Anderson et al. 2010; Broadbridge2010; Kumra 2010; Sealy 2010).

From a post-structuralist perspective captured inthe (In)visibility Vortex, we can accordingly begin torecognize a battle for priority and for normativestatus that may be waging at the discursive level andwhich can conceal ongoing privilege. This occursthrough the widespread acceptance and reproductionof the view that ‘women’s problems’ in organizationshave been solved or that variations in organizationalposition are due to ‘natural’ difference based on aseparate-but-equal ideology. The latter contributes toa gender culture (Campbell and McCammon 2005)which acts to limit women’s entry into organizationalspaces historically dominated by men. In this respect,the Vortex offers a way of connecting the individualto organizational processes, discourses and culturalnorms so that what may be seen as personal choicesand capabilities can be positioned within, and under-stood in the context of, broader practices and discur-sive regimes.

Finally, and following the above, our frameworkcan help to examine and understand the haltingnature of gender change. In this respect, there hasarguably been a ‘stalling’ of progress, particularly atthe senior levels of organizations (England 2010).Our analysis offers some explanation for this un-certain route to gender equality by highlighting theongoing struggles around the norm, the turbulentnature of gendered power and how the impositionand reproduction of inequality can, as discussedabove, take new and sometimes insidious forms. AsSwan (2005) points out, dominant norms of genderare inherently unstable and always open to reinter-pretation. Through its focus on the dynamics of



resistance, counter-resistance and challenge, theVortex can throw light on the often faltering natureof gender progress and on the uneven nature of gen-dered change.

Future research

From the above, we identify the following key areasof future research. In terms of numbers, work couldusefully consider how the entry of women into the‘dominant centre’ alters social relationships insideand outside the norm. For example, how are proc-esses of erasure and/or exposure experienced indifferent organizational contexts? How do womenmanage the ‘marking’ of their bodies as genderedand Other, and how is masculine normative ‘disem-bodiment’ practised and conveyed? A further strandmay include how men maintain power in differentorganizational contexts in invisible ways as wellas how these power dynamics are resisted and‘revealed’. For example, what attitudes and valuesaround entitlement circulate within the norm and towhat extent are they more widely shared? What rec-ognition is afforded to organizational and structuralconstraints, and how are organizational and widerdiscourses drawn upon to legitimize (and so conceal)experiences of advantage and disadvantage?

On a more specific level, and as an exemplar,the Vortex could help open up the ‘black box ofthe boardroom’ which, according to Terjesen et al.(2009), has eluded most researchers and which, interms of the low proportion of women, is a currentfocus of concern for both individual countries andsupranational bodies such as the European Union.While an attempt has been made to understand theimpact of women’s minority status on organizationaloutcomes such as profit levels, this has often over-looked intervening processes associated with cat-egorical difference, including gender. The Vortexenables a focus on these processes in the form ofday-to-day interactions, behaviours and practices thatsignify ongoing struggles around the norm.

Thus, research could consider the implicationsof women’s entry into the ‘dominant centre’ of theboard room for the reproduction of boundariesbetween the centre and the margins, e.g. through theconstruction of gender-based ‘boardroom’ identitiesas well as the ways in which women’s presence mayalter interactional processes such as frequency ofcommunication or intensity of conflicts. Researchcould explore the different ways in which women

experience the processes of erasure (e.g. of beingsilenced, interrupted or not heard) and how genderedpractices may cause women’s merit and authorityto be ‘disappeared’. Other areas include the differentways in which female board members may revealgendered privilege and assumptions of entitlementas well as how exposure is experienced – as abjectand constraining, as trailblazing and/or as seductiveontology and pleasurable display. In terms of thelatter, does pleasure derive from being part of a smallbut elite group, as women secure access to corporateboards – referred to as the ‘Golden Skirts’ in theNorwegian context (Milne 2009) – and what are theimplications for how female board members encoun-ter and relate to each other? Further, how do womenaccommodate or resist the ‘normalizing gaze’ of bothwomen and men in their embodied performances andin what ways do men seek disembodiment and anormative a-gendered status? How is gendered privi-lege concealed through perceptions of difference andinequality (given the low proportions of women inthese senior roles) and how are these discursivelyaccepted, justified and explained? Overall, futureresearch could usefully explore in different organiza-tional contexts the diverse and often hidden ways inwhich male privilege may be protected and deniedand how, through strategies and counter-strategiesinvolving concealing, exposure and erasure, gen-dered power can be both preserved and revealed.

We started this paper with the desire to draw outthe gendered complexities of organizational life witha discussion of the diverse ways in which visibilityand invisibility have been implicated in organiza-tional experience and some of the contradictoryprocesses involved. Our endeavour is therefore set inthe context of a complicated terrain. The concepts ofvisibility and invisibility as played out in the genderdynamics of organizations are, at best, slippery andinsecure. However, it is through these disjuncturesand these gaps in understanding, through these con-tradictions and tensions, that new research areascould be framed. Through this deconstruction ofKanter’s work and the more nuanced understandingthat has emerged, we seek to ‘open up’ complexity(Currie 1998) and to problematize previousaccounts. As Kilduff and Keleman (2004) argue,there are benefits from revisiting classic texts inorder to both recover and challenge discourses oftheory and practice. Similarly, from Thomas (2003),while text can be seen to be reflective of a specifictime and place, insights can be drawn from ‘reflexivecommentary’ that surfaces hidden interpretations



and voices. We have accordingly, through a post-structuralist rereading of Kanter’s (1977) Men andWomen of the Corporation, challenged her inter-pretations based on the liberal feminist perception ofgender-neutral organizational structures. In contrast,through the poststructuralist Vortex, we have sur-faced some of the implicitly drawn links betweenrevealing and concealing and between visibility,invisibility and gendered power.

ReferencesAlvesson, M. and Due Billing, Y. (1992). Gender and

organization: towards a differentiated understanding.Organization Studies, 13, pp. 73–102.

Anderson, D., Vinnicombe, S. and Singh, V. (2010). Womenpartners leaving the firm: choice, what choice. Gender inManagement: An International Journal, 25, pp. 170–183.

Blum, L. and Smith, V. (1988). Women’s mobility in thecorporation: a critique of the politics of optimism. Signs,13, pp. 528–545.

Bratton, K.A. (2005). Critical mass theory revisited: thebehaviour and success of token women in state legisla-tures. Politics and Gender, 1, pp. 97–125.

Broadbridge, A. (2010). Choice or constraint? Tensions infemale retail executives’ career narratives. Gender inManagement: An International Journal, 25, pp. 244–260.

Calas, M.B. and Smircich, L. (1996). From ‘the woman’s’point of view: feminist approaches to organizationstudies. In Clegg, S.R., Hardy, C. and Nord, W.R. (eds),Handbook of Organization Studies. London: Sage,pp. 218–257.

Campbell, K.E. and McCammon, H.J. (2005). ElizabethBlackwell’s heirs: women as physicians in the UnitedStates, 1880–1920. Work and Occupations, 32, pp. 290–318.

Carlin, D.B. and Winfrey, K.L. (2009). Have you come along way, baby? Hillary Clinton, Sarah Palin and sexismin 2008 campaign coverage. Communication Studies, 4,pp. 326–343.

Chambliss, E. and Uggen, C. (2000). Men and women ofelite law firms: reevaluating Kanter’s legacy. Law andSocial Inquiry, 25, pp. 41–68.

Charles, M. (2011). A world of difference: internationaltrends in women’s economic status. Annual Review ofSociology, 37, pp. 355–371.

Childs, S. and Krook, M.L. (2008). Critical mass theory andwomen’s political representation. Political Studies, 56,pp. 725–736.

Collinson, D. and Hearn, J. (1994). Naming men as men:implications for work, organization and management.Gender, Work and Organization, 1, pp. 2–22.

Collinson, D. and Hearn, J. (1995). Men managing leader-ship? Men and women of the corporation revisited. Inter-national Review of Women and Leadership, 1, pp. 1–24.

Cross, S. and Bagilhole,, B. (2002). Girls’ jobs for the boys?Masculinity and non-traditional occupations. Gender,Work and Organization, 9, pp. 204–226.

Crowley, J.E. (2004). When tokens matter. LegislativeStudies Quarterly, 29, pp. 109–136.

Currie, M. (1998). Postmodern Narrative Theory. NewYork:St Martin’s Press.

Danaher, G., Schirato, T. and Webb, J. (2002). Under-standing Foucault. London: Sage.

Davidson, M. and Cooper, C. (1992). Shattering the GlassCeiling: The Woman: Manager. London: Paul Chapman.

Davies, A. and Thomas, R. (2004). Gendered identities andresistance in public service organizations. In Thomas, R.,Mills, A. and Helms Mills, J. (eds), Identity Politics atWork: Resisting Gender, Gendering Resistance. London:Routledge, pp. 105–122.

Ellemers, N., van den Heuvel, H., de Gilder, D., Maass, A.and Bonvini, A. (2004). The under representation ofwomen in science: differential commitment or the queenbee syndrome. British Journal of Social Psychology, 43,pp. 1–24.

Elstad, B. and Ladegard, G. (2010). Women on corporateboards: key influencers or tokens? Journal of Manage-ment and Governance, Online first, 23 November.

England, P. (2010). The gender revolution: uneven andstalled. Gender and Society, 24, pp. 149–166.

Fondas, N. (1997). Feminization unveiled: managementqualities in contemporary writings. Academy of Manage-ment Review, 22, pp. 257–282.

Foucault, M. (1991). Discipline and Punish. Harmonds-worth: Penguin.

Gustafson, J.L. (2008). Tokenism in policing: an empiricaltest of Kanter’s hypothesis. Journal of Criminal Justice,36, pp. 1–10.

Halford, S. and Leonard, P. (2001). Gender, Power andOrganisations. Basingstoke: Palgrave.

Halford, S., Savage, M. and Witz, A. (1997). Gender,Careers and Organisations. Basingstoke: Macmillan.

Haraway, D. (1991). Simians, Cyborgs and Women: TheReinvention of Nature. New York: Routledge.

Harwood, S. (2010). The critical (and subversive) act of(in)visibility: a strategic reframing of ‘disappeared anddevalued’ women in a densely masculinist workplace. InLewis, P. and Simpson, R. (eds), Revealing and Conceal-ing Gender: Issues of Visibility in Organizations. Basing-stoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 194–218.

Hearn, J. (1996). Deconstructing the dominant: making theone(s) the other(s). Organization, 3, pp. 611–625.

Heikes, J. (1991). When men are the minority: the case ofmen in nursing. Sociological Quarterly, 32, pp. 389–401.

Henning, M. and Jardin, A. (1979). The Managerial Woman.London: Marion Bogars.

Huse, M. (2005). Accountability and creating accountabil-ity: a framework for exploring behavioural perspectivesof corporate governance. British Journal of Management,16, pp. S65–S79.



Izraeli, D. (1983). Sex effects or structural effects? Anempirical test of Kanter’s theory of proportions. SocialForces, 62, pp. 153–165.

Kanter, R.M. (1977). Men and Women of the Corporation.New York: Basic Books.

Kaufman, M. (1994). Men, feminism and men’s contradic-tory experiences of power. In Brod, H. and Kaufman,M. (eds), Theorizing Masculinities. London: Sage,pp. 142–164.

Kerfoot, D. and Knights, D. (1993). Management, masculin-ity and manipulation: from paternalism to corporate strat-egy in financial services in Britain. Journal ofManagement Studies, 30, pp. 679–677.

Kerfoot, D. and Knights, D. (1998). Managing masculinityin contemporary organizational life: a man(agerial)project. Organization, 5, pp. 7–26.

Kilduff, M. and Keleman, M. (2004). Deconstructing dis-course. In Grant, D., Hardy, C., Oswick, C. and Putnam,L. (eds), Organizational Discourse. London: Sage,pp. 259–272.

Kumra, S. (2010). Exploring career ‘choices’ of work-centred women in a professional service firm. Gender inManagement: An International Journal, 25, pp. 227–243.

Lewis, P. (2006). The quest for invisibility: female entre-preneurs and the masculine norm of entreprenurship.Gender, Work and Organization, 13, pp. 453–469.

Lewis, P. and Simpson, R. (2007). Gender and emotions:introduction. In Lewis, P. and Simpson, R. (eds), Gender-ing Emotions in Organizations. Basingstoke: PalgraveMacmillan, pp. 1–15.

Lewis, P. and Simpson, R. (2010a). Introduction: theoreticalinsights into the practises of revealing and concealinggender within organizations. In Lewis, P. and Simpson, R.(eds), Revealing and Concealing Gender: Issues ofVisibility in Organizations. Basingstoke: Palgrave Mac-millan, pp. 1–22.

Lewis, P. and Simpson, R. (2010b). Meritocracy, differenceand choice: women’s experience of advantage and dis-advantage at work. Gender and Management: An Inter-national Journal, 25, pp. 165–169.

Lipsitz, G. (1998). The Possessive Investment in Whiteness.Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.

Lupton, B. (2000). Maintaining masculinity: men whodo women’s work. British Journal of Management, 11,pp. S33–S48.

Lyness, K. and Thompson, D. (2000). Climbing the corporateladder: do female and male executives follow the sameroute. Journal of Applied Psychology, 85, pp. 86–101.

Lyng, S.T. (2010). ‘Mothered’ and othered: (in)visibilityof care responsibility and gender in processes of exclud-ing women from Norwegian law firms. In Lewis, P. andSimpson, R. (eds), Revealing and Concealing Gender:Issues of Visibility in Organizations. Basingstoke: Pal-grave Macmillan, pp. 76–99.

Maddock, S. (1999). Challenging Women: Gender, Cultureand Organization. London: Sage.

Marshall, J. (1984). Women Managers: Travellers in a MaleWorld. Chichester: John Wiley.

Marshall, J. (1994). Why women leave senior managementjobs: my research approach and some initial findings.In Tantum, M. (ed.), Women in Management: The SecondWave. London: Routledge, pp. 63–79.

Martin, S. (1994). Outsider within the station house: theimpact of race and gender on Black women police. SocialProblems, 41, pp. 383–399.

Mateos de Cabo, R., Gimeno, R. and Escot, L. (2011).Disentangling discrimination on Spanish boards of direc-tors. Corporate Governance: An International Review, 19,pp. 77–95.

Mavin, S. (2006). Venus envy: problematizing solidaritybehaviour and queen bees. Women in ManagementReview, 21, pp. 264–276.

Mavin, S. (2008). Queen bees, wannabees and afraid to bees:no more ‘best enemies’ for women in management?British Journal of Management, 19, pp. S75–S84.

McHoul, A. and Grace, W. (1993). A Foucault Primer:Discourse, Power and the Subject. London: UCL Press.

Metcalfe, B. and Linstead, A. (2003). Gendering teamwork:rewriting the feminine. Gender, Work and Organization,10, pp. 94–119.

Miller, L. (2008). Foucauldian constructionism. In Holstein,J.A. and Gubrium, J.F. (eds), Handbook of ConstructionistResearch. New York: The Guilford Press, pp. 251–274.

Milne, R. (2009). Skirting the boards. Financial Times, 15June.

Nicholson, N. and West, M. (1988). Managerial JobChange: Women and Men in Transition. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press.

Paxton, P., Kunovich, S. and Hughes, M.M. (2007). Genderin politics. Annual Review of Sociology, 33, pp. 263–284.

Powney, J. (1997). On becoming a manager in education.In Eggin, H. (ed.), Women As Leaders and Managersin Higher Education. Milton Keynes: Open UniversityPress, pp. 22–38.

Pringle, R. (1989). Secretaries Talk: Sexuality, Power andWork. London: Allen & Unwin.

Puwar, N. (2004). Thinking about making a difference.British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 6,pp. 65–80.

Robinson, S. (2000). Marked Men: White Masculinity inCrisis. New York: Columbia University Press.

Rosenthal, C.S. (1998). When Women Lead: IntegrativeLeadership in State Legislatures. New York: OxfordUniversity Press.

Roth, L.M. (2004). The social psychology of tokenism:status and homophily processes on Wall Street. Socio-logical Perspectives, 47, pp. 189–214.

Sealy, R. (2010). Changing perceptions of meritocracy insenior women’s careers. Gender in Management: AnInternational Journal, 25, pp. 184–197.

Seierstad, C. and Opsahl, T. (2011). For the few not themany? The effects of affirmative action on presence,



prominence and social capital of women directorsin Norway. Scandinavian Journal of Management, 27,pp. 44–54.

Simpson, R. (1997). Have times changed? Career barriersand the token woman manager. British Journal of Man-agement, 8, pp. 121–129.

Simpson, R. (2000). Gender mix and organizational fit: howgender imbalances at different levels of the organizationimpacts on women managers. Women in ManagementReview, 15, pp. 5–20.

Simpson, R. (2004). Masculinity at work: the experiences ofmen in female dominated occupations. Work, Employmentand Society, 18, pp. 349–368.

Simpson, R. (2005). Men in non-traditional occupations:career entry, career orientation and experience or rolestrain. Gender, Work and Organization, 12, pp. 363–380.

Simpson, R. and Lewis, P. (2005). An investigation of silenceand a scrutiny of transparency: re-examining gender inorganization literature through the concepts of voice andvisibility. Human Relations, 58, pp. 1253–1275.

Simpson, R. and Lewis, P. (2007). Voice, Visibility andthe Gendering of Organizations. Basingstoke: PalgraveMacmillan.

Simpson, R., Ross-Smith, A. and Lewis, P. (2010). Merit,special contribution and choice: how women negotiatebetween sameness and difference in their organizationallives. Gender and Management: An InternationalJournal, 25, pp. 198–207.

Singh, V. and Vinnicombe, S. (2004). Why so few womendirectors in top UK boardrooms: evidence and theoreticalexplanations. Corporate Governance: An InternationalReview, 12, pp. 479–488.

Snow, E. (1989). Theorizing the male gaze: some problems.Representations, 25, pp. 30–41.

Spencer, A. and Podmore, D. (1992). Essays on Women inMale Dominated Professions. London: Tavistock.

Staines, G., Travis, C. and Jayerante, T.E. (1973). The QueenBee syndrome. Psychology Today, 7, pp. 55–60.

Swan, E. (2005). On bodies, rhinestones and pleasures:women teaching managers. Management Learning, 36,pp. 317–333.

Terjesen, S., Sealy, R. and Singh, V. (2009). Women direc-tors on corporate boards: a review and research agenda.Corporate Governance: An International Review, 17, pp.320–337.

Thomas, A. (2003). Organizing the past: a history andits de-construction. In Linstead, S. (ed.), Text/Work:

Representing Organization and Organizing Representa-tion. London: Routledge, pp. 21–39.

Townley, B. (1992). The eye of the gaze: the constitutive roleof performance appraisal. In Townley, B., Barrar, P. andCooper, C. (eds), Managing Organizations. London:Routledge, pp. 45–61.

Towns, A. (2003). Understanding the effects of larger ratiosof women in national legislatures: proportions and genderdifferentiation in Sweden and Norway. Women and Poli-tics, 25, pp. 1–29.

Tyler, M. and Abbott, P. (1998). Chocs away: weight watch-ing in the contemporary airline industry. Sociology, 32,pp. 433–450.

Tyler, M. and Cohen, L. (2010). Livings and working in greyareas: gender (in)visibility and organizational space. InLewis, P. and Simpson, R. (eds), Revealing and Conceal-ing Gender: Issues of Visibility in Organizations. Basing-stoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 23–38.

Watts, J.H. (2010). ‘Now you see me, now you don’t’:The visibility paradox for women in a male-dominatedprofession. In Lewis, P. and Simpson, R. (eds), Reveal-ing and Concealing Gender: Issues of Visibilityin Organizations. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan,pp. 175–193.

Whitehead, S. (2001). The invisible gendered subject: menin education management. Journal of Gender Studies, 10,pp. 67–82.

Williams, C. (ed.) (1993). Doing Women’s Work: Men inNon-Traditional Occupations. London: Sage.

Witz, A. and Savage, M. (1992). The gender of organiza-tions. In Savage, M. and Witz, A. (eds), Gender andBureaucracy. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, pp. 3–62.

Yar, M. (2003). Panoptic power and the pathologisationof vision: critical reflections on the Foucauldian thesis.Surveillance and Society, 1, pp. 254–271.

Yoder, J. (1991). Rethinking tokenism: looking beyondnumbers. Gender and Society, 5, pp. 178–192.

Yoder, J. (2002). 2001 Division 35 presidential address:context matters: understanding tokenism processes andtheir impact on women’s work. Psychology of Women’sQuarterly, 26, pp. 27–36.

Young, J.L. and James, E.H. (2001). Token majority:the work attitudes of male flight attendants. Sex Roles, 45,pp. 299–319.

Zimmer, L. (1988). Tokenism and women in the workplace:the limits of gender neutral theory. Social Problems, 35,pp. 64–77.



kanter revisited: gender, power and (in)visibility

Documents