Tokenism

The theory of tokenism was coined in the late 1970s by sociologist Rosabeth Moss Kanter. She studied the hiring criteria of a large corporation, noting the “slippery slope principle,” or tokenism. Kanter noted that women who worked in this company had a symbolic role: Their employment served as an alibi to shield the company from accusations involving sexism and exclusion. They were used as representatives of the category of women. By becoming representatives of an entire heterogeneous group, they were no longer perceived as individuals. If one of these few women made a mistake, this mistake affected the external perception of the whole group. If, on the other hand, one woman was particularly good in her field of work, this was not inferred from the entire group, but she was regarded as an exceptional talent. Tokenism is thus close to essentialism. At the same time, tokenism does not only refer to women in a male-dominated environment – members of all marginalized groups can be affected by tokenism. In addition, people in their function as representatives are under enormous pressure of expectations.