Tokenism

In sociology, tokenism is the social practice of making a perfunctory and symbolic effort towards the equitable inclusion of members of a minority group, especially by recruiting people from under-represented social-minority groups in order for the organization to give the public appearance of racial and gender equality, usually within a workplace, government, or a school. The sociological purpose of tokenism is to give the appearance of inclusivity to a workplace or a school that is not as culturally diverse as the rest of society.

History

The social concept and the employment practice of tokenism became understood in the popular culture of the United States in the late 1950s.
In the face of racial segregation, tokenism emerged as a solution that though earnest in effort, only acknowledged an issue without actually solving it.
In the book Why We Can't Wait, civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. discussed the subject of tokenism, and how it constitutes a minimal acceptance of black people to the mainstream of U.S. society.
When asked about the gains of the Civil Rights Movement in 1963, human rights activist Malcolm X answered:

"Tokenism is hypocrisy. One little student in the University of Mississippi, that's hypocrisy. A handful of students in Little Rock, Arkansas, is hypocrisy. A couple of students going to school in Georgia is hypocrisy. Integration in America is hypocrisy in the rawest form. And the whole world can see it. All this little tokenism that is dangled in front of the Negro and then he's told, 'See what we're doing for you, Tom.' Why the whole world can see that this is nothing but hypocrisy? All you do is make your image worse; you don't make it better."

Malcolm X highlights that tokenism is used as a tool by America to improve its image but fails in its attempts.
For instance, in 1954, the United States ruled segregation in public schools unconstitutional through the Brown v. Board of Education case. Malcolm X references Little Rock, Arkansas, where nine students sought to fight for their rights to attend school.
On September 4, 1957, Arkansas National Guard troops were sent around Central High School to prevent the entry of nine African American students into an all-white school, defying federal law. President Eisenhower federalized the Arkansas National Guard and used federal troops to uphold the law.
While this marked the day that ignited change within Arkansas' school system for African-American children, desegregation did not constitute equality. All nine of the students were brutally bullied by white students and this behavior was encouraged by the school's administration.
Malcolm X's example of Little Rock exemplifies how tokenism can be intended to create the impression of social inclusiveness and diversity without bringing about any significant changes to the inclusion of underrepresented groups.

In psychology

In the field of psychology, the broader definition of tokenism is a situation in which a member of a distinctive category is treated differently from other people.
The characteristics that make the person of interest a token can be perceived as either a handicap or an advantage, as supported by Václav Linkov. In a positive light, these distinct people can be seen as experts in their racial/cultural category, valued skills, or a different perspective on a project. In contrast, tokenism is most often seen as a handicap due to the ostracism of a selected sample of a minority group.
Linkov also attributes drawbacks in psychology to Cultural and Numerical Tokenism, instances that have shifted where value of expertise is placed and its effect on proliferating information that is not representative of all the possible facts.

In the workplace

A Harvard Business School professor, Rosabeth Moss Kanter, asserted back in 1977 that a token employee is usually part of a "socially-skewed group" of employees who belong to a minority group that constitutes less than 15% of the total employee population of the workplace.
By definition, token employees in a workplace are known to be few; hence, their alleged high visibility among the staff subjects them to greater pressure to perform their work at higher production standards of quality and volume and to behave in the expected, stereotypical manner.
Given the smallness of the group of token employees in a workplace, the individual identity of each token person is usually disrespected by the dominant group, who apply a stereotype role to them as a means of social control in the workplace.
In order to avoid tokenism within the workplace, diversity and inclusion must be integrated to foster an environment where people feel connected and included. Employees must be hired on the basis of their capabilities rather than their gender, ethnicity, race, and sexuality.
Tokenism can also have an impact on mental health in the workplace. According to one study, racial minorities also experience heightened performance pressures related to their race and gender; however, many reported that racial problems were more common than gender problems.
Being a token makes one appear more visible within the workplace, placing more scrutiny and pressure for them to represent an entire group. Anxiety, stress, exhaustion, guilt, shame and burnout can arise from overworking in efforts to become a good representative of their identity group.
In professor Kanter's work on tokenism and gender, she found that the problems experienced by women in typically male-dominated occupations were due solely to the skewed proportions of men and women in these occupations.
For example, women are often underrepresented within the STEM field, where women also sometimes face more hostile working environments where discrimination and sexual harassment are more frequent. Women in STEM may experience greater performance pressure to work harder in a male-dominated field while also experiencing social isolation from the males within their workplace. The pressure to perform better can be influenced by the stereotype of women being less competent in mathematics and science. These non-inclusive measures contribute to the lack of women in STEM.
Professor Kanter found that being a token evoked three behaviour consequences of visibility, polarization, and assimilation. Firstly, tokens often felt that they were being watched all the time, leading to the feeling of more pressure to perform well. In attempts to perform well, tokens will feel the need to work harder and strive for perfection. Secondly, polarization implies that the dominant group are uncomfortable around tokens or feel threatened by them due to their differences. As a result, tokens may experience social isolation from the exclusion of the majority group. Finally, tokens will feel the need to assimilate to the stereotyped caricature of their roles. For instance, women will feel forced to perform the "suitable behaviour" of a woman in reinforcing the behaviour of stereotypes attached to which they are associated with.
There has been much debate surrounding the concept of tokenism behind women directors on corporate boards. Since men disproportionately occupy the majority of board seats globally, governments and corporations have attempted to address this inequitable distribution of seats through reform measures.
Reform measures include legislation mandating gender representation on corporate boards of directors, which has been the focus of societal and political debates. All-male boards typically recruit women to improve specialized skills and to bring different values to decision making.
In particular, women introduce useful female leadership qualities and skills like risk averseness, less radical decision-making, and more sustainable investment strategies. However, the mandate of gender diversity may also harm women. Some critics of the mandate believe that it makes women seem like "space fillers", which undermines the qualifications that women can bring to their jobs.

In politics

In politics, allegations of tokenism may occur when a political party puts forward candidates from under-represented groups, such as women or racial minorities, in races that the party has little or no chance of winning, while making limited or no effort to ensure that such candidates have similar opportunity to win the nomination in races where the party is safe or favoured. The "token" candidates are frequently submitted as paper candidates, while nominations in competitive or safe seats continue to favor members of the majority group.
The end result of such an approach is that the party's slate of candidates maintains the appearance of diversity, but members of the majority group remain overrepresented in the party's caucus after the election—and thus little to no substantive progress toward greater inclusion of underrepresented groups has actually occurred.
Legal scholar David Schraub writes about the use of "dissident minorities" by political movements to give themselves a veneer of legitimacy while promoting policies that the majority of the minority group opposes. He uses the examples of anti-Zionist Jews and African-American conservatives, both of which dissent from their demographic group's consensus position on matters critical to their group's collective liberation or interests.
These "dissidents" from minority groups are accused of either allowing the majority to tokenize them, or willingly tokenizing themselves as a shield against complaints and accusations made by the rest of that minority, and an excuse for the majority to avoid addressing or considering the concerns of the minority in question. Sometimes they may actively work to exclude non-dissident members of their group, to preserve their social and political power within the movement they support.
Schraub contends that the majority of the movement dissident minorities support values them not for their contributions but for their identity, since more weight is given to people of minority background when talking about issues concerning that minority. If they break ranks and criticize their political movement, they often find themselves shunned, since they are no longer a reliable token.