A talk of interest to the COR community…

TALK TITLE: When Two Bodies Are (Not) a Problem: Gender and Relationship Status Discrimination in Academic Hiring

SPEAKER:     Lauren Rivera

Associate Professor of Management & Organizations

UNIVERSITY:        Northwestern University

Kellogg School of Management

TIME:        10:30 am – 12:00 pm

WHERE:        SB1 5200

Lyman Porter Colloquia Room & Executive Terrace

ABSTRACT:  Although junior faculty search committees serve as gatekeepers to the professoriate and play vital roles in shaping the demographic composition of academic departments and disciplines, how committees select new hires has received minimal scholarly attention. In this paper, I highlight one mechanism through which committees evaluate applicants and contribute to gender inequalities in academic careers: relationship status discrimination. Through a comparative, ethnographic case study of junior faculty search committees at a large R1 university, I show that committees actively considered women’s—but not men’s—relationship status when selecting hires. Drawing from gendered scripts of career and family that present men’s careers as taking precedence over women’s, committee members believed that heterosexual women whose partners held academic or high-status jobs were not “moveable” and excluded such women from offers, when there were viable male or single female alternatives. Conversely, male applicants’ relationship status was discussed infrequently, and all female partners were seen as moveable. Consequently, I show that the “two-body problem” is a gendered phenomenon embedded in cultural stereotypes and organizational practices that can disadvantage women in academic hiring. I conclude by discussing the implications of such relationship status discrimination for sociological research on labor market inequalities and faculty diversity.

Dear COR community,

You are cordially invited to attend a colloquium co-sponsored by COR and the Department of Sociology.

IMAGINED FUTURES AND CAPITALIST DYNAMICS

Prof. Jens Beckert, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, Cologne, Germany

Friday, February 10

12:00-1:30pm

SSPB 1208

Abstract: In a capitalist system, consumers, investors, and corporations orient their activities toward a future that contains opportunities and risks. How do actors assess the future if this future is open and uncertain? Jens Beckert adds a new chapter to the theory of capitalism by demonstrating how fictional expectations drive modern economies—or throw them into crisis when the imagined futures fail to materialize. Collectively held images of how the future will unfold are critical because they free economic actors from paralyzing doubt, enabling them to commit resources and coordinate decisions even if those expectations prove inaccurate. Since they are not confined to empirical reality, fictional expectations are a source of creativity in the economy. In the talk Beckert will develop the notion of fictional expectations and relate it to the operation of investments, innovation and consumption. The talk is based on Beckert’s new book “Imagined Futures. Fictional Expectations and Capitalist Dynamics” (Harvard University Press, 2016).

Speaker bio: Jens Beckert is professor and director at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, Cologne, Germany. His research examines the role of economy in society, especially based on studies of markets, organizational sociology, sociology of inheritance, and sociological theory. His books in English include Beyond the Market: The Social Foundations of Economic Efficiency (Princeton University Press, 1996), Inherited Wealth (Princeton University Press, 2008), and Imagined Futures: Fictional Expectations and Capitalist Dynamics (Harvard University Press, 2016). He is (co)editor of The Worth of Goods: Valuation and Pricing in the Economy (Oxford University Press, 2011) and Constructing Quality: The Classification of Goods in Markets (Oxford University Press, 2013), among others. Prof. Beckert is a member of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, and currently serves as one of the editors of the European Journal of Sociology.

 

Dear COR community,

You are cordially invited to participate in a COR Faculty Workshop where we will discuss a paper by Prof. Sharon Koppman (Merage), “The Glass Hallway: Why Men Get Core Jobs in Feminized Occupations” (see abstract below).

Friday, November 18

1:30-3:00

SBSG 1321

(Late) lunch will be provided.

Professors Matt Huffman (Social Sciences) and Melissa Mazmanian (Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences) will serve as discussants, before we open it up to everyone’s input.

Sharon Koppman

The Glass Hallway: Why Men Get Core Jobs in Feminized Occupations

In light of a large literature on occupational sex segregation, advertising stands apart.  Within this feminized occupation, women show high interest, aptitude, and qualifications for creative work, yet relatively few are employed in creative jobs.  I explain this empirical puzzle through an overlooked source of sex segregation: beliefs that circulate within occupations.  By analyzing in-depth interviews (N=54) with advertising practitioners, I reveal how beliefs that circulate within advertising-specifically, the male ideal of the emotional and independent creative person-inform individual decisions to stay in creative jobs or leave.  Through the use of primary survey data (N=351), I demonstrate that identification with this internal ideal patterns sex segregation.  Together, this study suggests that, much like the “glass escalator” lifts men in feminized occupations into management, these occupational beliefs provide a “glass hallway” through which men stride into the jobs defined as most desirable within the occupation itself.

A talk of interest to COR members….

Brokering Access through the Glass Ceiling: Sponsorship of Women and Minorities via an Identity Lens

SPEAKER:        Amy Randel

UNIVERSITY:        San Diego State University

TIME:        10:30 am~ 12:00pm

WHERE:        SB1 5200 Porter Colloquia Room

ABSTRACT: The need for increasing access to high-level positions for women and minorities and eliminating discriminatory practices in organizations has been identified by scholars and practitioners alike for many years (e.g., Dipboye & Colella, 2005; Haberfeld, 1992). One of the practices that organizations have turned to in order to improve the organizational experiences and career outcomes of women and minorities is mentoring. However, even well-intentioned mentoring of women and minorities has not consistently yielded desired benefits and may not be as efficacious as once hoped. Despite being mentored in higher proportions than men, women graduates of top MBA programs worldwide are paid less, hold lower-level positions, and experience lower career satisfaction than men according to a 2008 Catalyst survey (Ibarra, Carter, & Silva, 2010). While mentoring often contributes to psychosocial benefits for protégés (Kram, 1985; Ragins, 2012), mentoring does not appear to consistently result in the brokering of relationships that result in the placement of women and minority protégés in positions that accelerate their career development.