ABSTRACT
Rosabeth Moss Kanter defines tokens as those individuals and/or groups whose presence in white male-dominated organizations result in undue pressure in areas like performance that make them outliers given their visibility. Yoder sees the differential treatment of tokens as less about their numeric representation within the organization and more about the perceived stature of the groups. Kanter concedes that even if tokens, in this case women, attain critical mass, the degree to which their dissimilarity and corresponding hypervisibility bring attention to them will not minimize their status as tokens, despite any increase in representation. Hubert Morse Blalock's take on the treatment of tokens does not dismiss the aforementioned but views such treatment as an outgrowth of economics. Tokens are additionally subjected to always being in the spotlight whenever they perform, with their performance constantly being filtered through asymmetric lenses. Using the minority proportion hypothesis, Rosen et al. concluded that bias against women was beyond their status as tokens.
