Diversity in organizations: benefits, challenges, and implementation strategies

Diversity in Organizations

The Ambivalent Sexism Inventory (ASI) provides a tool to assess the attitudes and expectations of individuals in relation gender stereotypes and to generate a quantifiable score measuring the degree of latent gender hostility based on those scores. More specifically, there are two measures generated by this instrument: the first is a score of hostile sexism that corresponds to negative feelings toward women; the send is benevolent sexism that corresponds to those aspects of attitudes about gender that could be considered positive. The meaning of the hostile sexism measure is obvious and straightforward; however, benevolent sexism is also related to hostility simply because it is a product of differential expectations based on gender. Therefore, even ostensibly positive aspects of gender-oriented attitudinal difference correspond to hostility, especially in connection with deviations from gender-based roles and expectations.

Discussion

Naturally, ASI scores are likely to vary considerably from culture to culture and from society to society since our attitudes, values, beliefs, and expectations are substantially products of the messages the individual absorbs from society (Henslin, 2008; Macionis, 2007). Nevertheless, every individual is different because his or her attitudes and values also reflect the messages received from the nuclear family, the local community, and from individual reflection and exposure to various potential influences on personal attitudes. Generally, one would expect individuals from sexist and chauvinistic societies to have higher scores on both ASI measures; conversely, individuals from societies that emphasize gender equality and that value and protect the rights of women to have lower scores on both measures. It may also be reasonable to expect a greater difference in the hostile sexism measure than in the benevolent sexism measure because the former is more consciously and more directly associated with negative attitudes about gender equality and women. The benevolent sexism measure might differ less because its elements are generally perceived as being positive and not perceived as being consistent with negative attitudes toward women.

My particular scores were much lower on both measures than the average for my society in the United States. Whereas my Hostile Sexism score was 0.73, the average score for Americans is approximately 3.5 for men and 2.75 for women; whereas my Benevolent Sexism score was 1.91, the average score for Americans is approximately 3.5 for men and 3.0 for women. I would consider that difference to reflect the fact that I have spent considerable time thinking about gender-based stereotypes and expectations. I already know from my interactions and discussions with peers that I am much less prone to allowing gender to determine what I expect from people as individuals. My scores are even lower in comparison to the average scores from Belgium, Cuba, Japan, and Nigeria, mainly because none of those countries has devoted as much effort to eliminating gender bias in their societies: if anything, gender biases are still firmly part of their cultures, especially in many African Asian, and Latin societies (Healey, 2009; Schaefer, 2008).

For one example, it has always seemed particularly ridiculous to me that so many otherwise intelligent people accept the belief that women who exhibit certain patterns with respect to their sexuality are subject to entirely different (and very pejorative) conclusions about their character whereas men are typically rewarded for the exact same types of behavior patterns. Without ever addressing the objective validity or invalidity of the underlying moral judgment in relation to personal sexual choices, there is one thing that has always seemed very clear to me: namely, the morality or immorality of any given choice can not possibly be determined by a person's gender so that the identical conduct is acceptable when it involves a man but unacceptable when it involves a woman. The fact that it is much more typical for women to be the emotional victims of predatory sexual attitudes of men than vice-versa, the common gender-based double standard

Conclusion -- Implications for Human Resource Management and Improvement

The results of the ASI tool would seem to have valuable implications from the Human Resource Management (HRM) perspective. Possibly the most useful is the knowledge that benevolent sexism corresponds to hostility toward women. That is because workplace policies and regulations only dictate conscious behavior. Meanwhile, it is likely that some of those who still retain the highest levels of hostility toward women would also be inclined to focus on the outwardly positive behaviors and gestures associated with politeness and respect for women. From the point-of-view of the HRM professionals, the ASI tool provides a glimpse under the surface where the outward statements and behavior of the individual might otherwise mask relatively high levels of hostility toward women. That information could help HRM professionals identify employees with the greatest potential for gender-bias-related and/or sexual harassment-related problems before they occur and refer employees to necessary training based on the ASI results before any such problems manifest themselves outwardly to the detriment of the organization.