Action Research on the Masculinity Contest

Sauder School of Business
Mascot, Wally the Bull

Since asking whether Arvind Gupta lost the masculinity contest at UBC, many have weighed in to consider whether such a contest occurred in Gupta's case. No one has rejected the idea that such contests occur in leadership, however, and much of the fallout from this post has revealed how they do at UBC.

In my post I gave general examples of masculinity contests and organizational cultures that support them, and I vaguely referred to “UBC leadership,” in order to avoid airing specific dirty laundry I’d witnessed in my first year at UBC. But others, some unwittingly, have rushed to provide examples and identify leadership. From a personal standpoint this has sometimes been troubling; from a research standpoint it has been fascinating. My post and its fallout have amounted to a form of action research, shedding light on how the masculinity contest plays out in others’ minds. Like a Rorschach test, reactions to the post were more diagnostic of its interpreters and their experiences than of the post itself.

I now know that some people saw themselves, and their colleagues, in my post, even if I did not have them in mind when I wrote it. For my colleague James Tansey, the post conjured the image of “tall, athletic white men bullying Dr. Gupta,” which my post did not describe. Tansey wrote, “the part of this story that really bothers me and has received the least attention is that, in her blog, Dr. Berdahl refers to the departing president as a 'brown man' who 'isn’t tall or physically imposing',” revealing that he considers being brown or short, and mentioning these characteristics, to be insulting. For UBC math professor Nassif Ghoussoub, the post summoned the image of trophy kills, from the head of a lion to university presidents. Others have written or spoken to me directly about masculinity contests in their places of work, and both “losers” and “winners” of these contests acknowledge their existence and the advantage they give to “masculinity” over merit.

The masculinity contest analysis of why so few women and minorities make it to positions of leadership has struck a deep and polarizing nerve, suggesting an uncomfortable but seldom spoken truth about the path to leadership in universities and beyond. Some seem unable to interpret this analysis as anything than blaming the so-called “winners” of the contest – primarily white men – for the lack of gender and diversity in organizations. They would miss the point that it is the contest itself that is the problem, and the harm that it does to everyone and the organizations in which these contests take place, including to those who find themselves masking up and competing to "win." For those interested in scholarly work on this topic, please see some of the publications by members of the research group below.

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Further Reading

Bai, F., Uhlmann, E. L. & Berdahl, J. L. (in press). The robustness of the win-win effect. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.

Benedet, J. (2000). Same-sex sexual harassment in employment. Queen's Law Journal, 26, 101-141. 

Berdahl, J. L. (2007). Harassment based on sex: Protecting social status in the context of gender hierarchy. Academy of Management Review, 32 (2), 641-658.

Berdahl, J. L. & Moon, S. (2013). Workplace mistreatment of middle class workers based on sex, parenthood, and caregiving. Journal of Social Issues, 69, 341-366.

Berdahl, J. L., Uhlmann, E. L. & Bai, F. (2015). Win–win: Female and male athletes from more gender equal nations perform better in international sports competitions. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 56, 1-3.

Blair-Loy, M. (2003). Competing Devotions: Career and Family among Women Executives. Cambridge, MA:  Harvard University Press.

Bosson, J. K., Vandello, J. A., Burnaford, R. M., Weaver, J. R., & Wasti, S. A. (2009). Precarious manhood and displays of physical aggression. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 35, 623-634.

Brescoll, V. L. (2012). Who takes the floor and why: Gender, power, and volubility in organizations. Administrative Science Quarterly.

Brescoll, V. L., Uhlmann, E. L.  and Newman, G. E. (2013). The Effects of System Justifying Motivates on Endorsement of Essentialist Explanations for Gender Differences. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 105, 891-908.

Cooper, M. (2015). Cut adrift: Families in insecure times. University of California Press.

Ely, R. J., and Meyerson, D. E. (2000). "Theories of Gender: A New Approach to Organizational Analysis and Change." Research in Organizational Behavior, 22.

Ely, R. J., and Meyerson, D. E. (2008). "Unmasking Manly Men." HBS Centennial Issue Harvard Business Review 86, nos. 7/8: 20.

Ely, R. J., and Meyerson, D. E. (2010). "An Organizational Approach to Undoing Gender: The Unlikely Case of Offshore Oil Platforms." Research in Organizational Behavior, 30, 3–34.

Glick, P., & Fiske, S. T. (2001). An ambivalent alliance: Hostile and benevolent sexism as complementary justifications of gender inequality. American Psychologist, 56, 109-118.

Glick, P., Gangl, C., Gibb, S., Lumpner, S. & Weinberg, E. (2007). Defensive reactions to masculinity threat: More negative affect toward effeminate (but not masculine) gay men. Sex Roles, 57, 55-59.

Glick, P., Lameiras, M., Fiske, S. T., Eckes, T., Masser, B., Volpato, C. et al. (2004). Bad but bold: Ambivalent attitudes toward men predict gender inequality in 16 nations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 86, 713-28. 

Hirsh, E. C. (2013). Beyond treatment and impact: A context-oriented approach to employment discrimination. American Behavioral Scientist.

Kellogg, K. C. (2011). Challenging operations: Medical reform and resistance in surgery. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Kimmel, M. S. (2006). Manhood in America: A cultural history. Oxford University Press.

Kimmel, M. S. (2013). Angry white men: American masculinity at the end of an era. Nation Books.

Livingston, R. W. & Pearce, N. A. (2009) The teddy bear effect: Does babyfaceness benefit Black CEOs? Psychological Science, 20, 1229-1236.

Livingston, R. W., Rosette, A. S., & Washington, E. F. (2012). Can an angry Black woman get ahead? The impact of race and dominance on perceptions of female leaders. Psychological Science, 23, 354-358.

Martell, R. F., Emrich, C. G. & Robinson-Cox, J. (2012). From bias to exclusion: A multilevel emergent theory of gender segregation in organizations. Research in Organizational Behavior 32, 137-162.

Mavriplis, C. & Croft, E. (2013). Leadership development programs for women in engineering industry. Proceedings of the Canadian Engineering Education Association.

Munsch, C. L. (2015). Her support, his support: Money, masculinity, and marital infidelity.” American Sociological Review 80: 469-495.

Munsch, C. L., Ridgeway, C. L. & Williams, J. C. (2014). “Pluralistic ignorance and the flexibility bias: Understanding and mitigating flextime and flexplace bias at work. Work & Occupations, 41:40-62.

O'Neill, O. A. & O'Reilly, C. A. (2010). Careers as tournaments: The impact of sex and gendered organizational culture preferences on MBAs' income attainment. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 31, 856-876. 

O'Neill, O. A. & O'Reilly, C. A. (2011). Reducing the backlash effect: Self‐monitoring and women's promotions. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 84, 825-832.

Ramarajan, L. (2014). Past, present and future research on multiple identities: Toward an intrapersonal network approach. Academy of Management Annals, 8, 589–659.

Ramarajan, L. & Reid, E. M. (2013). Shattering the myth of separate worlds: Negotiating non-work identities at work. Academy of Management Review 38, 621–644.

Reid, E. (2015). Embracing, passing, revealing, and the ideal worker image: How people navigate expected and experienced professional identities. Organization Science, 997-1017.

Reid, E. (2015). Why some men pretend to work 80-hour work weeks. Harvard Business Review, April.

Rosette, A. S., & Livingston, R. W. (2012). Failure is not an option for Black women: Effects of organizational performance on leaders with single versus dual-subordinate identities. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 48, 1162-1167.

Schmader, T. & Croft, A. (2011). How stereotypes stifle performance. Personality and Social Psychology Compass, 5, 792-806.

Schmader, T., Hall, W., & Croft, A. (in press). Stereotype threat in intergroup relations. In J. Simpson & J. Dovidio (Eds.) APA Handbook of Personality and Social Psychology. Washington, D.C., APA.

Vandello, J. A., Hettinger, V. E., Bosson, J. K., & Siddiqi, J. (2013). When equal isn’t really equal: The masculine dilemma of seeking work flexibility. Journal of Social Issues, 69, 303-321.

Vandello, J. A., & Bosson, J. K. (2013). Hard won and easily lost: A review and synthesis of research on precarious manhood. Psychology of Men & Masculinity, 14, 101-113.

Williams, J. C., Berdahl, J. L. & Vandello, J. A. (in press). Beyond work-life 'integration.' Annual Review of Psychology, 67.

Williams, J. C., Blair-Loy, M. & Berdahl, J. L. (2013). Cultural schemas, social class, and the flexibility stigma. Journal of Social Issues, 69: 209-234. 

Williams, J. C. (2010). Reshaping the work-family debate: Why men and class matter. Harvard University Press.