Content area
Full text
Using network data from 40 groups, we examine the effect of social context on the gendering of power relations. By modeling reported data on power relations as the result of a stochastic response process that may be gendered, we examine how this gendering is related to group-level contextual factors. We find that much of what appears to be a gendering of the way in which power relations are perceived, namely that women tend to stress equality in relationships more strongly than men, is actually due to their structural position, although women increase their propensity to stress equality when the balance of power between the genders is structurally anomalous.
Although gender inequality has been explored in almost every possible sociological context, from small, face-to-face groups to large organizations to whole societies, with methods ranging from laboratory experiments to ethnography, researchers consistently find that that gender inequality, although widespread, varies with context (e.g. Collier and Rosaldo 1981; Kanter 1977; MoIm 1986; Pfeffer and Ross 1990; Ridgeway and Smith-Lovin 1999; Roos and Gatta 1998). Furthermore, in a number of interesting cases, this variability is due to the ways in which contextual factors shape interaction and, as a result, influence the production of status orders.
Yet relatively little is known about the contextual variables that affect gender differences in status, by which we mean overall standing in an Informal vertical ordering of persons in terms of power and/or influence. In particular, relatively few comparative studies of contextual variation have been conducted involving naturally occurring, informal groups. This scarcity is understandable: in addition to the normal difficulties in gaining access to and studying a number of comparable naturally occurring groups, additional complications arise when one studies gender inequalities in power. If a group's status hierarchy does not map directly onto some formal positions, the degree of gender inequality is difficult to determine by inspection. Further, it is hard to distinguish signs of informal status from gendered behaviors (e.g., interrupting); therefore taking "dominance behavior" as a criterion may lead us to misjudge gender differences in power. Most important, the ways in which power and status are enacted may differ among groups. Of course, one can ask respondents explicitly about their power relations, but even self-reports made by respondents without any...