Male Coworkers Research Articles

Joking, Gender, Power, and Professionalism among Japanese Inn Workers

Female workers at a Japanese inn express their identity and pride through joking about their work experience and private lives. Their joking is a discourse that reflects yet resists their employment conditions and social relations. (Japan, joking behavior, power relations, gender) ********** Studies of joking relations in different cultural contexts have been of interest in anthropology for at least a half-century (e.g., Radcliffe-Brown 1952; Douglas 1968; Rigby 1968; Spradley and Mann 1975). While acknowledging the vast domain of insights opened by those studies, an analysis of the joking among female workers at a Japanese inn, located at a hot-springs resort region called Hanayu, enlarges and deepens an understanding of the social functions of joking. (2) The women workers are the epitome of politeness and courtesy when dressed in their kimonos and serving guests, but when they are out of their guests' sight they joke among themselves and behave in an antistructural manner. That is, they drop manners and formality to be casual, use their own dialect, and omit polite forms of speech such as female markers. With a rudeness inappropriate before guests, they make cynical remarks about their working conditions and their superiors, thereby mocking the conditions of their lives that they can neither change nor escape. The female staffs of the large inns at Japanese hot-spring resorts provide the resorts' primary interaction with the public. The women serve meals, make and pour tea, set out bedding, and in other ways strive to make guests feel welcome, comfortable, and relaxed. In their relations with guests the women manifest a highly skilled professionalism. They use a formal, socially distancing style of speech, move in their kimonos in a graceful, feminine manner, and serve the various breakfast and dinner dishes with meticulous care. This rigid formality before guests is dropped when they gather among themselves away from and out of sight of the guests. Then they joke and banter with one another, relax, use informal speech in the local dialect, don regional dress, and frequently are crude or gross in behavior. Ambiguities exist in the employee structure of the inn. For example, men provide support services for the women workers, but the men's work in running the inn is subordinate to that of the women. Men in Japanese society in general have greater social status and power than women. Such ambiguities inform much of the women's joking. Because men are subordinate to women in the inn business, they frequently are the butt of jokes, and sometimes face particularly skilled jibes. They then have no recourse but to quietly and humbly swallow their pride. Another area of ambiguity that provokes joking is the strain between the most experienced female workers and the less experienced woman in charge of the female staff. The workers under her supervision contest her authority through joking and other means. The Japanese believe that virtue comes from having persevered through hardship and suffering (kuro). Overcoming suffering and hardship is one of the ways authority is contested. The more experienced workers use this moral or spiritual superiority in their joking to dispute the authority of the head of the female workers. Her power stems from her position in the organization and not from hardship and suffering. The workers' jokes point to how their own identity is constructed. The jokes convey the concept that the status of a full-fledged worker is proudly built from hardship and the women consider that they embody the pride of hardship in their work more than do their male co-workers. GENDERED TECHNIQUES In contrast to a hotel, where guests receive services mostly from male workers, at a Japanese inn (ryokan) female workers in kimonos take care of guests throughout their stay. They welcome guests at the front entrance, carry their bags, serve tea and sweets in the guest rooms, inform them about services and sightseeing, bring them robes for bathing, and serve their meals. …

Inmate Supervisory Style

This exploratory study examines the inmate supervisory styles of women and men working as correctional officers in two medium security state prisons. In-depth interviews concerning hypothetical incidents are utilized to explore the approaches of officers toward inmates. Findings indicate that officers of both genders perceive women to have a unique style of supervision. Men officers viewed their female counterparts as less aggressive, more lenient, and too friendly with inmates. Women correctional officers see themselves as adopting a more personalized, service-oriented approach to inmates. Data from the hypothetical incidents reveals that both genders respond similarly in confrontational situations with inmates. Where differences are present, they are much different than the literature and the officers in the present study surmised. Women tended to be strict and assert their authority while male officers were more likely to talk things out with the inmate. Findings suggest that training may neutralize the influence of gender in inmate supervision. Any differences in styles may be attributed to ongoing problems with acceptance by male coworkers and the pressure felt by women correctional officers to prove themselves. Further research is needed to confirm these findings using a larger comparative sample and through direct observation of correctional officers and their interactions with inmates.

Don't Lean on the Window

Don't Lean on the Window

Women Deputies and Jail Work

This article examines the adjustment problems and work strategies of female deputy sheriffs working in four county jails and three local adult detention centers. Semistructured interviews were conducted with 108 women deputies. The findings suggest that in their role as jail officers, women experience integration difficulties predominantly imposed on them by their male coworkers; these difficulties include gender stereotyping, role conflict, and differential performance expectations. This article explores the impact of and response to these work problems.

The Origin of the Nemesis

fell in love with the Nemesis in the summer of 1978. That was Tokyo. A town not impartial to romance. Any city will do when you're in love - St. Louis, Pads, New York - all you need is park, few lonely lanes and care or two. Everywhere you have the night. Idle while under streetlight and you charge that spot with moment of memory. Enough of these moments and you will ping emotionally everywhere you go, uptown, downtown, at crosswalks and monuments, waterfronts and alleys, under glowing clocks and signposts. Time goes by. Then the town belongs to the one you loved. Before and after me is history of schoolboys, college students and salary-men, all having passed the blue hour with Yuki Kara, alias the Nemesis. nickname was consequence of her war with my great friend, Oe. had warned him about her powerful effect on men. Most either loved or despised her, depending on how high they allowed their hopes to rise. Practical Oe never expected love, but he wanted respect. Nemesis, for the most part, expected to be left alone. hoped they would get along, but upon first sight of one another they were enemies. We were all three employed by Hakuhodo Inc., the prestigious and second-largest advertising agency in Japan. Miss Kara was part of the MacDonalds Japan team. Next door to her was the Kirin-Seagram room where worked. Oe was officially assigned to the Creative Division, but he frequently visited our floor to confer with the account executives. Oe had heard rumors of an American assigned to the Kirin account, and he walked the halls until he heard either my excellent English or my renegade Japanese. He introduced himself and offered to treat me to the finest ra-men shop in Tokyo. From then on we often had lunch together. Sometimes, after work, he would take me to one of his many drinking spots in the Yurakucho area. Usually it was just the two of us. Oe had few friends among his male coworkers. It was as much his language abilities as his irregular profile which set him apart. He ridiculed hostess bars and karaoke, and he dismissed Japanese male camaraderie as crypto-misogynist. Oe was thirty and single. He had about him the nervous air of boy-virgin which affected maternal and sexually-inhibited women like drugged chocolate. knew something of his kind of girl. Unloved and unlovely, they widened their tiny eyes with eyeliner and cast chemical blush over their naturally buttery, smooth complexions. They washed regularly, shaved their upper lips and never mismatched skirt with the wrong shoes. Oe's plain women fretted over him but never despaired. Living at home and flush with disposable income, they showered an indifferent Oe with gifts. One tall, executive secretary presented him with an expensive electric typewriter for Valentine's Day. He lugged it into the Seagram room where he ostentatiously offered to touchtype page of the sales report. It is rare Japanese male at ease behind keyboard, and more so one who'd brag of his secretarial skills. Oe sensed he could air his conceits before me without censure, and before long was confided his greatest deeds and feats, the highlights of his life. One of these, The Oe Mirror, he both designed and patented. According to Oe, it reflected an unreversed image of the viewer off concave steel surface. Oe boasted how he had mastered all of the intricate legal terminology and drafted the patent application himself, saving a veritable fortune in legal fees. was honestly impressed. had encountered Japanese know-it-alls before, but none with his nervy style. His pedantry fueled his creativity which was real and unexpected. Once Oe met me for lunch at Maxim's in the basement of the Sony Building wearing an ill-fitting pair of calico slacks which it was soon disclosed, he had cut and stitched together by hand. I am unafraid to dabble my talents in the emasculate arts, he said. cornerstone of his act, the plumb line of his eccentricity, was his magnificent English. …

Stressors and adverse outcomes for female construction workers.

The authors examined the impact of a number of job stressors, including sexual harassment and gender-based discrimination, on female construction workers' level of job satisfaction and psychological and physical health. Results from a telephone survey with 211 female laborers indicated that having responsibility for others' safety and having support from supervisors and male coworkers was related to greater job satisfaction. Increased reported psychological symptoms were also related to increased responsibility, as well as skill underutilization, experiencing sexual harassment and gender-based discrimination from supervisors and coworkers, and having to overcompensate at work. Perceptions of overcompensation at work and job uncertainty were positively associated with self-reports of insomnia. Finally, sexual harassment and gender discrimination were positively related to reports of increased nausea and headaches.

Putting Your Body on the Line: A Meditation on ?Hostile Environment? Sexual Harassment in Working-Class Perspective

Listening to Anita Hill's testimony about pubic hairs on Coke cans and Long Dong Silver, I was immediately sure that she was telling the truth. When friends said, But it's all so goofy. Who would really say things like that? I replied that the goofiness of the stories was exactly what made me sure of their credibility. I had experienced such hostile environment sexual harassment, and that's how it was: unsettling but oblique, causing one to pause, confused and disbelieving, thereby insulating the perpetrator from direct counterattack. That he was only joking or making an innocent observation or engaging in collegial horseplay, are all defenses that the harasser calculatedly wants to keep available to himself should his target make a fuss. My own experience of such harassment occurred in 1978 and 1979, when I worked for the United States Postal Service as a letter-sorting machine operator. On this job, we spent perhaps forty-five minutes of every working hour keying (machine-sorting letters) and perhaps fifteen minutes (removing the sorted letters from the machine's bins and placing them in trays for delivery to local post offices). Keying was done at the front of the machine, where one was part of a long line of workers, with many people around; sweeping was done at the back of the huge machine, where one was out of sight, in relative isolation. Frequently, when women went to the back to sweep, we would find hand drawings of penises-some erect, some not-or other such offerings waiting for us on the ledges of the machine, left there by the male coworkers who had been sweeping just before us. The drawings weren't signed, nor were they addressed to anyone in particular; they were just there, unsettling, confusing, and conveying a hostility that was impossible to ignore. Still, how and whether to respond to them was not, to any of us, obvious. We didn't want to come across as prudes or as unsophisticated-certainly we'd seen things like this before-and, more important, we didn't want our male coworkers thinking we were crybabies who were thrown by little things (no pun intended). So we never mentioned the drawings-none of us. We just threw them under the machine or in the trash and went on about our business. No one ever told a supervisor (which would have been disloyal tattling on a fellow worker), no one ever told the union (actually, a shop steward was among our leading suspects), no one even much talked about it.

The Sexualized Work Environment: A Look at Women Jail Officers

This article examines the nature of a sexualized work environment and adjustment strategies of female deputy sheriffs working in four county jails and three local adult detention centers. Semistructured interviews were conducted with 108 women deputies. The findings suggest that women experience various problems stemming from sexism and sexual harassment by their male coworkers. The impact of and response to these work problems are explored.

Reply [to “Comment on ‘Policy offers protection from harassment” by Marcia McNutt”

I certainly agree with the second paragraph of the accompanying reply. I cringe when a friend says that he would have liked to comment on a female colleague's stunning blue jacket, but feared that his compliment would be misinterpreted. Or when an AGU member hesitates to walk his female dinner companion back to her hotel for fear that she would resent being considered a potential victim. I think that the entire country has lost its common sense when it comes to male/female issues. I hope my male coworkers will always feel comfortable offering to carry my new computer if I cannot lift it, and I hope that they will not be offended if I insist on actually wiring it up.

Ego-net diversity: Same- and cross-sex coworker ties

Negative binomial regression analysis is used to explore how characteristics of 1985 GSS respondents and their work environments contribute to the inclusion of female and male coworkers in their personal networks. Compared to women, men cited more same-sex and fewer cross-sex coworker ties. The results support a model of gender differences in workplace interaction that arise from differing social structural positions (e.g. occupational sex composition and prestige) as well as from individual dispositions.

Repetitive Strain in Nonrepetitive Work: A Case Study.

In a Québec factory, a woman in a nontraditional job suffered from epicondylitis whereas her male coworkers were unaffected. A study was undertaken in order to enumerate the operations at risk for epicondylitis. Workers were interviewed in order to identify difficult operations and systematic observations were done over 4 work days. Although tasks were extremely varied, certain movements at risk for epicondylitis were repeated many times. Fifty-three valves were turned against resistance as part of this job, and one valve requiring a particularly difficult movement was turned 20 times in one day. There were at least 61 operations at risk for epicondylitis per day over a 4-day period. Strain on the elbow joint was particularly intense for the woman worker because the design of the workplace gave an advantage to taller workers with larger hands. Although this case study does not permit us to conclude that the worker's epicondylitis was due to her job, it enables us to suggest that it would be wise to adapt the dimensions of relevant equipment and worksites to a wider range of potential worker sizes. We also raise some questions about the definition of repetitive strain in epidemiological studies. We suggest that it may be necessary to consider not only the cycle time but also the total of forces exerted on a joint in order to study workplace injuries to the musculoskeletal system.

"Outsider within" the Station House: The Impact of Race and Gender on Black Women Police

Most of the research on the effects of discrimination on occupational behavior has focused either on race or gender, ignoring the unique social location of black females. Recent feminist scholarship has identified the need for an interactive model articulating the interlocking nature of racial and sexual systems of subordination. This paper examines the interactive effects of race and gender in one male-dominated occupation—police work. Based on in-depth interviews with 106 black and white officers and supervisors from five large municipal agencies, it explores the perspectives, experiences, and structural barriers black women officers face in dealing with white female and black and white male co-workers. This study finds that the combination of their race and gender statuses leads to both unique problems and perspectives for black women. The interaction of racism and sexism results in each form of expression modifying the nature and impact of the other.

Sexual Harassment of Female Registered Nurses in Hospitals

Sexual harassment of nurses seriously affects nursing performance and productivity. In this survey, sexual harassment by male patients and coworkers was reported by greater than 70% of the female staff nurses surveyed. The most common manifestations of harassment were sexual remarks; however, behaviors involving touch were frequent. Nurses noted that they often confronted patients when these behaviors occurred, but were less likely to confront male co-workers. Findings suggest that nursing managers and executives must discover and eliminate sexual harassment in hospital work settings and create work cultures that discourage manifestation of sexually harassing behaviors.

Engineering Women: A View From The Workplace

Demographers suggest that the engineering profession must find ways to attract and retain women and minorities. Attitudes about women in the engineering workplace were examined by surveying 14 female engineers, eight of their male engineering coworkers, and eight of their supervisors. The questions ranged from those concerning stereotypical gender characteristics, to differential treatment, to technical ability. The respondent's answers and examples provide valuable insights into the attitudinal environment of an engineering office. These insights can provide a basis for designing a more welcoming ambience, which will be essential if the profession is to adapt to the more varied workforce of the nineties by drawing from groups other than white males. Because of its small data base the survey is not conclusive, but the findings do suggest that engineering skill and ability are individual, not a gender‐related issues.

Relationships with waitresses: Gendered social distance in restaurant hierarchies

This paper explores the use of gendered social distance mechanisms by higher status male coworkers and employers as they participate with waitresses in ongoing restaurant activities. Formal and informal gendered interactional techniques, such as degrading uniforms and terms of address, skewed ideas about skill differences, and sexual harassment, are used by men as they attempt to gain or sustain power thereby reinforcing the sexual division of labor. Sometimes they are successful, other times they are not, as when women resist or fight back. The analysis is derived from participant observation in two New Jersey restaurants. Formal and informal interviews were also conducted with fifty servers employed in a wide variety of restaurants.

Men's Behavior and Women's Interest in Blue-Collar Jobs

Several factors have limited women's inroads into skilled blue-collar jobs. With questionnaire and interview data from employees at a large utility firm, this paper examines whether men's reactions to women who worked temporarily in plant jobs discouraged women from permanently returning to such jobs. Women who held male blue-collar plant jobs during a strike of unionized male workers experienced hostility, sexual harassment, paternalism, and functional differentiation from their male coworkers and supervisors. Although none of our measures of these male behaviors directly discouraged women against transferring to plant jobs, they did have a minor indirect effect on how much they liked their strike job, which in turn influenced their interest in transferring to plant jobs. These results suggest that male coworkers' reactions and the quality of women's relationships with male coworkers—while they affect women's daily work experiences in blue-collar jobs—are less a barrier to women's interest in male blue-collar jobs than is often presumed.

Female workers' acceptance in traditionally male-dominated blue-collar jobs

This study examined possible differential treatment by and negative attitudes of civilian male co-workers and male supervisors toward civilian female workers in traditionally male-dominated blue-collar jobs. Surveys were completed by 53 male supervisors and 327 male co-workers of four departments of a large government agency. Male supervisors indicated they would not treat female employees differently than they have treated male employees. Male co-workers, however, reported they have treated other male co-workers more favorably than they would treat female co-workers. In addition, supervisors, compared with male co-workers, reported more favorable attitudes toward female workers.

Sex Differences in Support for Organizational Advancement

While women workers have often been thought to receive less support than men to advance in organizations, these sex differences have not been systematically explored. Using a sample of 486 male and 356 female employees of a large federal bureaucracy, this article examines differences between men and women in their reports of social support from four potential sources: male peers, female peers, male supervisors, and female supervisors. Our findings indicate that, in general, (1) employees receive the most support from coworkers of the same sex, but supervisors support their male and female subordinates about equally, (2) when other variables are held constant, female employees give equal support to their male and female coworkers, while men continue to favor male coworkers, (3) youth and high-level position increase the amount of support men receive from each other, but diminish or have no effect on the amount of support women receive from men, and (4) workers receive more support from opposite-sex colleagues when members of their sex constitute a relatively small proportion of the total group.

Role styles of women police officers

This study identified women patrol officers utilizing four styles in relating to male officers: neutral-impersonal, semimasculine, feminine, and mixed. The role styles were helpful in understanding how women cope with conflicts generated by the demands of gender and occupational role. Patterns of emphasizing aspects of each role, of assigning priorities, and of coping techniques emerged around the different styles. The women did not express attachment to any one style in relations with those who were not male co-workers.

Pandora's box: Women guards in men's prisons

The assignment of women guards to security positions in men's prisons in the United States is increasingly a correctional reality. This article considers the problems these women face in entering a previously all-male, “front-line” occupation. The discussion focuses on (1) how well female officers meet the security demands of security work, (2) the nature of, and basis for, difficulties in relating to male co-workers, and (3) occupational socialization and advancement. Drawing on available empirical and anecdotal data on women officers in male prisons and on the more general prison guard literature, the intent is to present what is known about these women officers. A research agenda is offered to guide inquiry into the problems of the sexual integration of correctional institutions.