Feminism,Masculinity,and Active Representation: A Gender Analysis of Representative Bureaucracy

Masculinity and Men in Society

Men and masculinity refer to gender, not sex or sexuality. While sociologists debate whether sex, sexuality, and gender are concepts that can be individually examined (Ekins & King, 2006; Kessler & McKenna, 1978), this article follows Ekins and King’s (2006) guidance to differentiate between the three to better understand how a society that constructs a sex binary (male and female) creates a “bi-polar gender system” and thus a “gender divide” (p. 223). Sex is the biological and anatomical difference between male, female, and at least three sexes that are neither male nor female (Fausto-Sterling, 2000). Garfinkel’s (1963) study belies the immutability of even biological sex determinants by following the journey of Agnes, who by convincing medical professionals that she was intersexed, thereby reconstructing her biological sex to match her sociological gender, successfully physically transitioned from a male to a transgender female. Sexuality is defined by the sexual and romantic desires of individuals. Like biological sex, sexuality influences and is influenced by gender (Ekins and King, 2006).

The concept most relevant to representative bureaucracy theory is gender. Pulling from social contract theory, gender is a “series of social relations” (Walby, 1990, p. 20) that differentiate between and create a hierarchy of power wherein men receive social, economic, and political benefits. Gender dictates that biological males should adopt masculine traits, whereas biological females are expected to adopt feminine traits (Bem, 1981). Such traits can be physical, mental, or behavioral. For example, men are associated with strength, virility, aggression, violence, and loyalty. Males who do not fit within the acceptable mold of masculinity and cannot pass as women are often ostracized by society and subjected to violence (Connell & Messerschmidt, 2005; Pascoe, 2007).

Women, too, experience the pressures of masculinity. The male gaze sets forth demands for women to give “visual pleasure” (Mulvey, 1975). For example, female (and White) sex traits, such as being “busty,” having long hair, or being thin, are celebrated by an American masculine society. Women are expected to possess feminine traits including sensitivity, passivity, patience, and kindness. Trained from birth to adopt appropriate gender behaviors and traits, psychologists find that people who more closely associate with their own gender think in more gendered terms, even remembering gendered items such as guns and bikinis more easily than those who do not associate as closely with their gender (Bem, 1981). It is through this “gender schema” that every aspect of social life is filtered, like a tinted lens that cannot ever be entirely removed (Bem, 1981). This schema is complicated by race, ethnicity, nationality, and origin, all of which combine to impact the lives of public servants in culture, domestic life, and bureaucracies (Walby et al., 2012).

Separating sex and sexuality from gender reveals that masculinity and femininity are nonbinary, existing along a spectrum. Males and females alike can hold attributes such as aggressiveness, loyalty, and strength, as well as sensitivity, passivity, and kindness (Duerst-Lahti & Kelly, 1995). As the feminist movement demonstrates, females can perform roles that were traditionally reserved for men, and the transgender movement shows that males can live their lives almost exclusively as women and vice versa (Ekins & King, 2006). Most men and women live in a space between the masculine and feminine extremes, “performing” gender in response to the expectations and intentions of their social reality (Butler, 1990). It is in this space that women enter bureaucracies that are almost exclusively dominated by people performing masculinity.

Organizations as Masculine Spaces

Masculinity is institutionalized as the correct way for men and women to act within public organizations. Historically, in the United States, work outside of the home was a masculine (and White)-dominated space. Therefore, the office adopted societal perceptions of acceptable masculine traits (Collinson & Hearn, 1996). This was infused into early organization and management theory, in addition to being taught within business and public administration schools, whose students were predominantly wealthy White men (Kanter, 1975). Therefore, a “masculine ethic” was born which celebrates traits such as men being tough on problems, analytical, unemotional, impersonal, and smarter or better problem solvers than women (Kanter, 1975).

Kanter’s (1975) understanding of gender was folded into institutional theory by Joan Acker. Acker (2012) categorizes gender integration in the workforce into four gender substructures including organizing processes, organizational culture, interactions on the job, and gendered identities. Gender substructures are “an often invisible process in the ordinary lives of organizations in which gendered assumptions about women and men, femininity and masculinity, are embedded and reproduced, and gender inequalities perpetuated” (p. 215). Organizing processes are gendered in how wages are determined, who makes decisions and has power, how the workplace is designed, and in what ways organizational rules favor men. Organizational culture speaks to acceptable beliefs, attitudes, values, and behaviors, emphasized by gender differences, images of masculinity, and a denial that inequality exists between men and women. On-the-job interactions are gendered when women are excluded or belittled and when men are given deference, especially within man-dominated industries.

Gendered experiences of women as managers are deeply embedded in social role perceptions that ascribe leadership and managerial roles to men and those that demonstrate masculine traits (Sabharwal, 2015; Schein, 1975, 2001). Eagly and Karau (2002) and Schein and Muller (1992) apply gender congruity theory to explain sex stereotyping that women encounter as they perform in traditionally male-dominated roles. Essentially, role incongruity arises when women act in positions that are socially accepted as fitting for men. This incongruity creates barriers to women in organizations where they must prove their ability to overcome their femininity before they can be judged for their competence (Koenig & Eagly, 2005; Eagly & Johnson, 1990). Finally, gendered identities created by societal beliefs about how men and women should act, and strengthened through organizational processes, determine how men and women are perceived differently based on their behavior. For example, women who “manage like a man” may be seen as too aggressive, controlling, or “bitchy” while managing like a woman may be perceived as too complacent or ineffective (p. 216).

Thus, in historically masculine spaces, such as the office, the “gender-neutral, abstract worker” embodies expectations associated with historically masculine experiences and socially constructed masculine characteristics including a worker who is unencumbered by life outside the office (p. 218).

Masculinity in Government

Institutionalized masculinity and gender has, to some extent, also been studied by public administration scholars (Bishu & Alkadry, 2017; D’Agostino & Rubin, 2018; Gooden & Portillo, 2011; Guy & Newman, 2004; Heckler, 2019; Rubin & Bartle, 2005; Stivers, 1993, 2002). Stivers’s (1993) Gender Images in Public Administration was a response to the lack of feminist work in public administration and the need to justify the administrative state through the principles of representative democracy. Stivers argues that public administration as a field has been dominated by men and therefore is filled with masculine values and images of experience, knowledge, leadership, and virtue, all of which are biased toward men. Furthermore, because men hold positions of power and are decision makers, they are likely to gain more from political and economic policies than women. This systemic masculinity is supported through power dynamics within society and has repercussions for more feminine genders when resources or opportunities are allocated. These masculine biases mean that women in public administration have to change who they are and the way they work to fit in or they will be marginalized (Stivers, 2002). Beyond the obvious sexist and unethical implications related to a gender-biased public administration, an enormous amount of knowledge and experience is lost when doors are closed to women in government.

As described by Stivers (2000), masculine domination in government faced a fundamental change during the Progressive Era in which government reform was divided by gender. In attempting to transform corrupt municipal government, men worked for the New York Bureau of Municipal Research and women worked predominantly in settlement houses. Because of the culture of the times, and the distinction between masculine and feminine roles in the family, men were deemed more suited to businesslike and scientific efficiency, both of which were socially constructed as masculine traits. Using a scientific approach and choosing “efficiency over caring” allowed men to focus on benevolent activities considered womanly, while maintaining their masculinity (p. 125). Therefore, in the face of government corruption and waste, the bureau men looked to objective reasoning to understand the problems of government and prescribed systematic budgets, neutral political-administrative relationships, and a centralized government led by experts. Citizens were considered clients, but as most were uneducated, were not included in making decisions (p. 16).

Alternatively, Stivers (2000) argues that women naturally fit into “municipal housekeeping” work (p. 48). Because morality was considered a natural female trait, women’s work focused on cleaning up the city, feeding and caring for the poor or infirmed, and making neighborhoods a better place in which to live. The traditional idea of women being the keepers of the house and the defenders of children and family justified the settlement women’s argument for the suffrage movement and involvement in public administration. Their view of science was one of connection and experience. They visited people’s homes and interviewed them to understand what the problems of the city were and how they could help. Their recommendations included humanizing processes, networking and cooperation between agencies and people, and making decisions on a case-by-case basis. Unlike bureau men, settlement women believed that politics and administration were not neutral but affected each other. Their role in the movement was one of citizen, and not expert, and they viewed other citizens as participants in government and not merely as clients or customers.

The effects of the division between the bureau and settlement are still felt today. While there are now more women staff and leaders in public administration than ever before, the field is still highly gendered, and women continue to feel marginalized and struggle with balancing work and family responsibilities (Stivers, 2010). Stivers (2010) writes

. . . to enter the public sphere as currently given, women must leave behind part of themselves—as, indeed, must men. The transformation suggested by feminist thought is the opportunity to become whole in the process of writing what has not yet been written. (p. 223)

Masculinity is now the dominant and invisible ideology of public administration. Duerst-Lahti and Kelly (1995) argue that some “may be surprised to learn that men have gender just as much as women have gender” (p. 1). This invisibility of masculinity is no mere accident but rather part of an ideology that protects and advocates for men just as feminism sometimes appears to protect and advocate for women (Duerst-Lahti & Kelly, 1995; Linstead, 2000). This invisibility guards masculinity from strong theorization by rendering its mere observation ideological and therefore biased. Rather than the norm being unbiased, Newman (1994) exposes the masculinity inherent in public administration theory by revealing the masculine assumptions at the core of Lowi’s (1972) typology of government agencies. Newman (1994) empirically demonstrates that redistributive agencies are the most conflictual and simultaneously the most likely to employ women. This and a myriad of other examples documented by authors including Duerst-Lahti and Kelly (1995), Stivers (1993), and others reveal the hidden gender assumptions that guide public administration research and theory, including representative bureaucracy theory.

Analytical Methods

To assess the conceptual application and development of representative bureaucracy theory, we conducted a content analysis of 96 peer-reviewed journal articles (Bishu & Kennedy, 2019). Content analysis is a “set of methods for analyzing the symbolic content of any communication . . . to reduce the total content of communication . . . to a set of categories that represent some characteristic of research interest” (Singleton & Straits, 2010, p. 420). We used multiple strategies to select articles for review. First, we started from references included in the “Representative Bureaucracy Database” which is made available by the Project for Equity, Representation and Governance. Second, we went through the references of each article listed in the Database to select additional relevant papers. Then, we used keywords to search online for articles that applied the theory. At the end of this process, we identified 227 papers (both published and working papers), 33 book chapters, and four dissertations that applied the theory of representative bureaucracy.

Of these papers, book chapters, and dissertations, we decided to only include empirical and theoretical papers published in peer-reviewed journals. In addition, we included only those that directly applied the theory of representative bureaucracy, excluding papers published in political science journals. In the end, we were left with 96 peer-reviewed journal articles that directly applied the theory. A list of these articles can be found in the authors’ meta-review (Bishu & Kennedy, 2019).

Once we finalized our list of articles, we created a coding procedure with categories of the different emerging themes such as which form of representative bureaucracy is observed, what type of identity matching is tested, which methodology is used, and the policy area or geographical context in which representative bureaucracy manifests, among others (Bishu & Kennedy, 2019). We then read through each of the articles, coded them independently, and compared our coding to determine reliability. Any differences were discussed and a decision was made to how a phrase should be coded for this analysis.

For this article, we reexamined the data and focused on representative bureaucracy literature that operationalizes gender. Gender effects of representative bureaucracy have been addressed by about 40 studies (e.g., Andrews et al., 2014; Andrews & Miller, 2013; Atkins & Wilkins, 2013; Grissom et al., 2012; Keiser et al., 2002; Kim, 2003; Riccucci & Saidel, 1997; Thielemann & Stewart, 1996). Of these studies, only a few clearly differentiate between sex and gender, exploring gendered conditions to interpret when and how active representation occurs (e.g., Atkins & Wilkins, 2013; Keiser et al., 2002; Meier & Nicholson-Crotty, 2006).

Previous studies of how representative bureaucracy is impacted by gender matching can be organized into three categories. The first group, which measures passive representation, examines proportions of women who have been recruited, employed, and/or promoted to various levels of management within government organizations. The second category includes research focused on when passive representation and symbolic representation become active representation. These studies look at the effects of women’s presence within organizations and how their gender impacts policy and program decisions for women citizens. The final category examines in what ways passive representation may become active representation without measuring outcomes.

Our content analysis shows that the majority of the studies that investigate representative bureaucracy in public organizations use quantitative analytical methods. Often, studies apply inferential statistics to investigate substantive gender representation outcomes (Atkins & Wilkins, 2013; Meier & Nicholson-Crotty, 2006) or explore moderating factors that facilitate the transformation of passive representation into active representation (Keiser et al., 2002). Studies also apply descriptive statistics to present a summary of gender representation at senior administrative positions in federal, state, and local governments (Dometrius, 1984; Dometrius & Sigelman, 1984; Naff & Capers, 2014).

Although some studies use qualitative and mixed methods to examine representative bureaucracy across race and gender (Atkins & Wilkins, 2013; Kennedy, 2013; Rehfuss, 1986; Watkins-Hayes, 2011), overall, qualitative analytical techniques or mixed methods are underutilized in the examination of gender influences on representative bureaucracy (Bishu & Kennedy, 2019; Kennedy, 2014). Thus, work on representative bureaucracy should take into account a more complete theory of gender including using diverse methods and asking research questions that acknowledge gender as nonbinary. The next section describes in more detail the conditions under which gender is studied in representative bureaucracy literature.

Gendered Conditions

Prior to 2002, gender and sex were used interchangeably within representative bureaucracy studies. Keiser et al.’s (2002) paper was the first to distinguish sex and gender and to explicitly use feminist theory to articulate institutional and society pressures faced by women in the workplace. For example, when examining improved test scores for girl students who are taught by women math teachers, Keiser et al. (2002) include a discussion of feminist theory to differentiate gender from sex and to interpret their empirical results. The authors justify using sex as a proxy for gender when analyzing quantitative data if specific gender conditions are met. They argue that

researchers can make data tell a more complex story about gender even when they are limited by the binaries of their data; and we suggest that a large part of that project is entailed in the process of interpreting the data or, more precisely, interpreting data in light of the larger institutional features that shape the circumstances in which bureaucrats exercise discretion and act to affect policy outcomes, in other words, in the ways that female bureaucrats identify as women and translate passive into active representation. (p. 555)

By incorporating feminist and neoinstitutional theory, Keiser et al. (2002) and those who have studied gender after their article was written (Atkins & Wilkins, 2013; Meier & Nicholson-Crotty, 2006) use gendered conditions by which passive representation becomes active representation, thus supporting positive outcomes for women including acting within gendered policies (Keiser et al., 2002). Representative bureaucracy scholars define gendered policies as those that directly affect women or that are identified as women’s issues through some sort of political process. In addition, if the gender of the bureaucrat affects how she, he, or they interact with the public, the program or policy area in which she, he, or they work may become gendered.

In critical studies of gender, Britton (2000) identifies the different ways that one can investigate the gendered nature of organizations. She argues gendered processes can manifest in how bureaucracies are arranged, interact, and produce outcomes. Along with Acker (2006), Britton’s (2000) argument mainly emphasizes the ways in which organizational processes produce gendered outcomes. Outcomes involve allocation of power and monetary and material benefits. Manifestations of gendered processes in organizations are located at different levels, including at extra-, intra-, and within organizational interactions (Acker, 2006). Extra-organizational interaction, that is the geographic and social context within which organizations are located, shapes their practice of gender and the ways in which gendered processes manifest and perpetuate in the daily life of organizations.

Within organizations, Acker (2006) argues gender processes are institutionalized by the policies and rules that are practiced daily (p. 196). At intra-organizational levels, gender processes impact organizational culture and affect how organizations interact with one another and with citizens through public service outcomes. Organizational studies that apply the gender lens to examine organizational outcomes report that gendered social norms, biases, and perceptions shape men and women’s expectations and interactions in the workforce (Acker, 2006; Kanter, 1975). In addition, Acker (2006) specifically highlights that individual-level interactions between men and women in an organization are influenced by established social arrangements.

Except for the few studies that take into account gendered policy areas (Keiser et al., 2002) and gendered issues (Meier & Funk, 2017), the existing representative bureaucracy literature could be strengthened by investigating how gendered social and organizational contexts shape outcomes. Accounting for the ways in which individual-level interactions and performances of masculinity and femininity impact active representation generates a more accurate and objective analysis of how outcomes can be improved for girls and women.

Existing representative bureaucracy studies operationalize representation in terms of descriptive representation (i.e., the percentage of women in management or leadership positions), or in studies that apply active representation, by looking at gender matching between bureaucrats and citizens. For example, Keiser et al. (2002) use the proportion of women math teachers as an independent variable as a proxy for understanding how those women math teachers are enacting masculine and feminine gender performances in their jobs. It may be that it is the deconstruction of gender norms that benefit girl math students, or it may be that those teachers are folding math into the performance of femininity and symbolically changing what it means to be a girl math student. Both of these possible mechanisms are only comprehensible with the assumption of nonbinary gender.

The primary assumptions of these representative bureaucracy studies are twofold. First, they assume that when critical mass is achieved at management levels, organizations are able to produce outcomes that benefit women (Keiser et al., 2002). Second, these studies assume that gender matching between bureaucrats and citizens yields outcomes that benefit women (Guul, 2018; Keiser et al., 2002). The primary assumption in the latter proposal is that women bureaucrats act in ways that benefit women clients or citizens and women clients are likely to respond positively to women bureaucrats’ actions. Gendered perceptions are constantly maintained during repeated interactions between bureaucrats and citizens. While these assumptions are central to our understanding of the ways in which active representation manifests in public organizations, they fail to take into account how gendered social and organizational processes shape outcomes of representation.

Other conditions studied within representative bureaucracy papers may influence how gender impacts outcomes. Stratification of employment has been linked to gender representation especially in studies that examine the proportion of women who hold administrative positions (Dometrius, 1984; Kanter, 1975). Organizational pressure and its impact on women’s decisions touches on the nature of gendered institutions and masculine spaces without explicitly understanding how such pressures operate in the workplace (Stivers, 1993).

Intersectionality has been only briefly examined in representative bureaucracy literature and generally it is focused around gender and race combinations. For example, Atkins and Wilkins (2013) examine the impact of having Black women teachers decreases high school pregnancy rates for Black girl students. In this study, as in other studies that examine more than one demographic identity, the goal is to understand when a public servant makes decisions based on one identity over another, that is, when individuals choose gender over race (Meier, 2018). Another form of identity that is not specifically discussed but is alluded to is the impact of organizational pressures on professions. In the study of gender, in masculine spaces, such as law enforcement, women are potentially more likely to pick values that benefit the organizations in which they work (or masculine values) than make decisions that positively impact women. For the most part, though, intersectionality has not been studied and generally speaking throughout the literature certain identities have been ignored. To date, there are no studies that examine how religion, disability, sexuality, and transgender identity impact outcomes.

Gendered Contexts

Acker (2006) argues that the meaning of gender in society is shaped by historical, organizational, and societal processes. These processes define how gendered perceptions shape individual, organizational, and social outcomes. Taking into consideration the gendered nature of organizational processes, Keiser et al. (2002) identify factors that facilitate active representation. Among these factors are institutional and political contexts. Studies that examine representative bureaucracy within the context of gender (and those that examine other demographic identities including race) begin with a status quo of an organization. While some papers identify organizations as masculine spaces such as emergency services (Andrews et al., 2014; Meier & Nicholson-Crotty, 2006; Riccucci et al., 2014) or female-dominated organizations such as child support services (Wilkins, 2007; Wilkins & Keiser, 2006), most literature on representative bureaucracy does not address the gendered nature of organizations.

Within representative bureaucracy literature, women dominated spaces include public schools (Atkins & Wilkins, 2013; Dee, 2005, 2007; Grissom et al., 2012). Women’s issues include teen pregnancy (Atkins & Wilkins, 2013), school performance (Dee, 2005, 2007), sexual assault (Meier & Nicholson-Crotty, 2006), domestic violence (Andrews & Miller, 2013; Riccucci et al., 2014), and child support services (Wilkins, 2007; Wilkins & Keiser, 2006). In addition, women’s representation in masculine spaces includes fire rescue service in the United Kingdom (Andrews et al., 2014), in leadership positions at various levels of government (Bowling et al., 2006; Brudney et al., 2000; Burns, 1980; Dolan, 2002; Dometrius, 1984; Grissom et al., 2012), and in law enforcement (Meier & Nicholson-Crotty, 2006; Riccucci et al., 2014).

Geographically, the majority of representative bureaucracy literature examining gender are studies within the context of the United States (Atkins & Wilkins, 2013; Dee, 2005), although additional studies explore representative bureaucracy within the context of the United Kingdom (Andrews et al., 2014), Romania (Meier & Funk, 2017), Hong Kong (Burns, 1980), Denmark (Guul, 2018), Canada (Gidengil & Vengroff, 1997), and the European Union (Stearns et al., 2016). Finally, gender effects on representative bureaucracy are analyzed at multiple levels of government with the majority focused on manager or administrative levels (Dometrius & Sigelman, 1984; Song, 2016). Some studies also examine the interaction between lower-level employees and administrators and others look at the demographics and decisions of street-level bureaucrats (Dee, 2007; Song, 2016; Wilkins & Keiser, 2006).

As discussed above, private and public places of work have historically been dominated by White men, and thus masculine values are expected and incorporated as the status quo of organizations. Research on representative bureaucracy questions this status quo without addressing it. This is achieved in two ways. First, the term “gender” is used interchangeably with “women.” Going back to Keiser et al. (2002), the title “Lipstick and Logarithms” implies that girls and women are the primary focus of the study, and indeed they generally are. The study could just as easily have asked how men math teachers impact girl math students and used the same data to conclude that men math teachers were doing something that hurt girl math students. Instead, the study placed the onus on women to solve the problem, whereas the outcome created by men math teachers is treated as the null condition. This is illustrative of the dominant gender forms in the United States, which are binary and include both men and women. Therefore, by using gender synonymously with “women,” we are missing out on understanding the effect of the other gender, or “man,” which is empirically the more dominant force within our society.

Second, when conducting quantitative analysis, sex is used as a proxy for gender. As stated above, this has been justified by examining sex within gendered contexts, or contexts where women’s issues are dominant (Keiser et al., 2002). However, through this analytical technique, scholars are using female as the independent variable to determine the impact of gender on outcomes for women. Thus, female is the test subject, or the “difference” as compared with the male sex which is examined as the status quo. This is problematic for a few reasons. First, it focuses gender effects solely on women’s spaces and women’s issues, thus leaving us with little understanding of what happens in masculine spaces which is the majority of organizations. Second, it assumes that men do not possess gender, or that the way in which men act is the norm to be compared with, thus otherizing women (Said, 1979). Third, as argued above, it places the onus on women to change the status quo. Finally, it assumes that men do not possess qualities or values held by women and thus are not able to authentically participate in gender equality efforts.

Only recently have the conditions of gender on representative bureaucracy outcomes been explicitly tested outside of a gendered policy area. In an examination of individuals’ feelings toward recycling and coproduction, Riccucci et al. (2015) demonstrate that

the policy area or mission of the agency need not be gendered for such representation effects to emerge. Nor is a shared identity with the agency a motivating factor in this case . . . Thus, we interpret this pattern of findings as suggesting that greater gender diversity may in some cases produce positive effects for everyone in the society, which is significant given the general underrepresentation of women in government leadership positions. (p. 127)

Limitations

This article combines representative bureaucracy literature and critical gender theory to examine in what ways gender is discussed and operationalized within the literature. As discussed above, our analysis draws from a meta-review of representative bureaucracy papers conducted by Bishu and Kennedy (2019). The main limitation to this analysis is we drew from a limited sample of the literature on representative bureaucracy. The meta-review included peer-reviewed articles from a limited number of highly ranked public administration journals, including Public Administration Review and Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory. Therefore, it excluded literature that explores representative bureaucracy in other fields such as political science, psychology, or sociology such as Selden et al. (1998). In addition, other formats such as books (see Peters et al., 2015) and dissertations and any literature that was published after the original submission of the article (see Johnston & Houston, 2018) were not included in our review.