Show Notes
The Explainer: 4 Signs That Masculinity Contests Are Holding Back Your Company
6 Aug 2019
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For example, extreme hours are a badge of honor. (Animated by Francesca Cattaneo)
Recent exposés have revealed seemingly dysfunctional workplaces rife with misconduct, bullying, and sexual harassment. Why do companies get caught up in illegal behavior, harassment, and toxic leadership? Research identifies an underlying cause: what we call a “masculinity contest culture.” This kind of culture endorses winner-take-all competition, where winners demonstrate stereotypically masculine traits such as emotional toughness, physical stamina, and ruthlessness. It produces organizational dysfunction, as employees become hyper competitive to win.
Four masculine norms, which together define masculinity contest culture, emerged as highly correlated with each other and with organizational dysfunction:
“Show no weakness”: a workplace that demands swaggering confidence, never admitting doubt or mistakes, and suppressing any tender or vulnerable emotions (“no sissy stuff”). “Strength and stamina”: a workplace that prizes strong or athletic people (even in white collar work) or those who show off their endurance (e.g., by working extreme hours). “Put work first”: a workplace where nothing outside the organization (e.g., family) can interfere with work, where taking a break or a leave represents an impermissible lack of commitment. “Dog eat dog”: a workplace filled with ruthless competition, where “winners” (the most masculine) focus on defeating “losers” (the less masculine), and no one is trusted.
When masculinity contest cultures become “the way business gets done,” both organizations and the people within them suffer. Your organization may have a masculinity contest culture if, for example, expressing doubt is forbidden, “jocks” are preferred even though athleticism is irrelevant to job tasks, extreme hours are viewed as a badge of honor, or coworkers are treated as competitors rather than colleagues. Solving the problem requires meaningful commitment to culture change — to creating a work environment in which mission takes precedence over masculinity.
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