Race, Gender, And Discrimination At Work by Samuel Cohn

Author:Samuel Cohn [Cohn, Samuel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780367317560
Google: eicgyQEACAAJ
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Group
Published: 2019-09-05T04:00:13+00:00

Differential Visibility Models

Differential visibility models were developed by Rosabeth Moss Kanter to explain the differences in promotion and advancement among men and women executives in contemporary large U.S. corporations. Her Men and Women of the Corporation (1979) is one of the great classics of the sociology of gender, and rightly so. The book is one of the most profound and nuanced discussions of the promotion process ever written; it is filled with unusual and intelligent insights about corporate life in general and the struggle to get ahead in particular.

Rosabeth Moss Kanter’s primary observation is that minorities have difficulty advancing in large bureaucracies. By minorities, however, she does not mean African Americans, or Hispanics, or ethnic groups per se. She is referring to anyone who belongs to a group that represents less than 50 percent of the people at the job site: being the only Texan in a New York workplace, being the only New Yorker in a Texan workplace, being the only white in a black workplace, or being the only opera lover in a country-and-western-lovers’ workplace. Anything that makes an individual stand out represents a risk.

The risk exists because minorities are conspicuously visible. Whenever there is a group of people, everyone notices and pays attention to the one who is different. In a typical corporate “diversity” public relations photo, people look at the African American or female executive. In a rock and roll band of five guys and a girl, everyone looks at the girl. At political conventions, both parties schedule a lot of speeches by women and members of minorities, not only out of an attempt to self-interestedly appeal to those particular blocs of voters, but because people of all races and genders tend to pay more attention to the atypical speaker.

Visibility used well can be an enormous asset. However, it also represents a very real risk. Visibility is wonderful when you are performing well. Everyone takes note of your accomplishments and spreads tales of your triumphs to the highest circles. Often one of the laments of the nameless, faceless bureaucrat is that no one pays attention to what he is doing and that his great contributions go unacknowledged, soon to be lost to oblivion.

However, visibility is not so wonderful if you are not prepared to perform and everyone is watching you two weeks too early. Think about the phenomenon of undergraduates in a class where a paper is due, but they haven’t written it yet. No one wants to be seen by the professor no matter that the profesor can figure out in two seconds who has or has not turned in a paper. Students cut class if this is practically possible; if they don’t, they slide into the classroom invisibly, sit towards the back or off to the side, and they certainly don’t engage the professor in conversation after class.

This aspect of life does not change when you enter the business world. Although there are fewer solo term papers and a lot more team projects in

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