'Just Tell Us a Little Bit About Yourself'
A qualitative research on the role of gender in the evaluation
of job applicants in the cultural sector
Student Name and Number: Naomi Loos (10610464)
Document: MA Thesis
Study: Sociology: Social Problems and Social Policy, Department of social and behavioral sciences, Universiteit van Amsterdam
Date: July 9, 2018
Word count: 19,383
Thesis Supervisor: Dr. K. de Keere Second Reader: Dr. A.T. van Venrooij
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First of all, I would like to thank my thesis advisor dr. Kobe de Keere for guiding me through
this thesis, and for providing me the opportunity to undertake a video elicitation study.
I would also like to thank all the people that took the time and effort to participate in this
research, it is much appreciated.
Last but not least, I would like to say a word of thanks to my parents for their
encouragements and support throughout the years.
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Abstract
This study has aimed to examine the role of gender in the evaluation of job applicants, with a
focus on the Dutch cultural sector. Following Lamont (2012), Lamont el al. (2014) and
Ridgeway (2011), the research is based on the theoretical assumption that gender is a
primary category employers use to evaluate job applicants. Job applications are an important
gate keeping moment in the labor market, and influence larger scale labor market outcomes.
The (Dutch) cultural sector proved to be an interesting case, since it is often portrayed as the
glamorous future of work while simultaneously, statistics indicate persisting gender
differences within the sector. 16 semi-structured video elicitation interviews with employers
were conducted to answer the research question. The interviews indicate that male and
female applicants are evaluated differently by employers. Women were evaluated in
communal and emotionally expressive terms, and were simultaneously expected to be eager
workers. Men were evaluated in more passive terms, and were more likely associated with
particularity and agency. The data showed that for women, displaying too much eagerness
could lead to social repercussions. This did not occur for men. Furthermore, the results of the
interviews indicate persisting gendered status beliefs in job allocations. Whereas women
were more likely perceived to be suited for front-stage and service-oriented jobs, men were
more likely allocated to back-stage occupations and explicitly linked to earning money.
Additionally, the research indicates that in more general terms, employers evaluate
candidates in terms of authenticity and (cultural) similarity. Findings that are in line with
Koppman (2016) and Rivera (2012), who state that hiring processes entail a process of
cultural matching rather than just 'skill sorting'. Employers would often refer to their
'gut-feeling' to explain their evaluations.
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Contents
Introduction ... 9
Theoretical Framework ... 12
The Evaluation of Job Applicants ... 12
Sex-Categorization and Gender Stereotypes ... 15
Gender Stereotypes and Status Beliefs at Work ... 18
Agency and Communality ... 18
Working Girls ... 21
Case Selection: Dutch Cultural Sector ... 23
Research Methods and Analysis ... 25
Research Design ... 25
Researching Evaluations ... 27
Researching Gender Differences ... 28
Vacancies ... 29
The Interviews ... 30
Ethics ... 32
Data Analysis ... 32
Results of the Rankings ... 34
General Findings ... 37
The Quest for the True Personality ... 37
The Gut-Feeling ... 40
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Cultural Similarities ... 43
Resemblance ... 45
Gender-Related Findings ... 47
Imagined Work ... 47
Personality Traits and Emotional Expressivity ... 52
Work Ethic ... 56
Conclusions ... 62
Limitations and Further Research ... 64
Bibliography ... 66
Appendix ... 70
Scenarios Played by Actors... 70
Scenarios ... 71
Anouk ... 71
Iris ...
72
Laura ...
73
Sanne ...
74
Stan ...
75
Tom ...
76
Niels ...
77
Lars ...
78
Rankings per Interview ... 79
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Transcriptions ... 82
'Sarah' ... 82
'Ingrid' ... 91
'Aileen' ... 100
'Saskia' ... 116
'Albert' ... 129
'Rosa' ... 148
'Eva' ... 163
'Caroline' ... 175
'Michael' ... 187
'Jennifer' ... 198
'Edith' ... 219
'Willem' ... 237
'Claire' ... 253
'James' ... 264
'Vera' ... 283
'Julie' ... 302
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Introduction
Gender equality and women’s emancipation are more and more defined in terms of
employment. In the past few decades, women have gained more access to the labor market
and young women are expected to 'empower' themselves by building a career (McRobbie,
2007, pp. 722-723). Women are encouraged to be economically independent and to take
their fate in their own hands. Dozens of articles have been written on the ‘work-life balance’
the modern working woman has to find (McRobbie, 2016 pp. 87-93; Prügl, 2015). According
to Angela McRobbie, for many women the idea of romance has shifted from the realm of
love to the realm of work: 'no longer looking for a husband as a sole breadwinner, young
women romanticize the idea of a career' (McRobbie, 2016, p. 91). The Dutch government has
even called ‘work’ and ‘economic independence’ the most important pillars of its recent
women’s emancipation policies (Van Engelshoven 2018, pp. 2-8).
These developments and encouragements do not mean that gender inequality is not still
apparent in the labor market. For example, women in the Netherlands earn approximately
16 percent less than men, a percentage of which 8 percent still goes unexplained (Atria,
2017, p. 1). Women more often work part time and many sectors are partially gendered (e.g.
many women work in health care, men dominate the financing sector)(CBS, 2014, p. 14).
Additional research has shown that in the European cultural sector men still have a higher
chance of being promoted (Gill, 2002, p. 82). This research aims to examine whether these
gender inequalities can also be found in the evaluation of job applicants: an important gate
keeping moment in the light of labor market (in)equality, either granting or denying people
access to paid work. As Rivera stated in her 2012 research on hiring practice: ‘one of the
most crucial moments in labor market stratification is the decision to hire’ (p.999).
The research follows Lamont, Beljean and Clair's (2014) argument that the process of (re)
producing inequalities is complex and multi-layered, involving the daily practice of cultural
processes, such as stigmatization, rationalization and evaluation (pp. 573-574). Lamont et
al.’s (2014) work on cultural processes zooms in on micro-level processes and interactions,
and their relation to the already much-debated macro- and meso-structures (pp. 574-575).
Taking a cultural process perspective helps us acknowledge that inequality often is a process
taking place on the interpersonal level (Lamont et al., 2014, pp. 579- 580).
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This research will mostly focus on the cultural process of evaluation, e.g. the determination
of who is competent and worthy (Lamont et al., 2014, p. 594). In the context of this
research, evaluation means determining who is considered competent and of value for a
particular job by employers in the cultural sector. Employers will have to make sense of a job
applicant and assess his or her competencies while having limited information and time to
do so. In her 2012 study, Rivera demonstrated how this evaluation of job applicants does not
solely involve assessing relevant job-skills, but also the evaluation of all sorts of cultural
markers (pp. 1000-1002). Following Rivera's reasoning that hiring entails more than
processes of 'skill sorting' (2012, p. 1000), I aim to find out what role gender plays in hiring
practice. Collins (1992) McRobbie (2016; 2007), and Ridgeway (2011) have already argued
that in the work place, just as in any other context, people draw from gender stereotypes to
assess a person’s skills and to make sense of a situation. This study will apply their work to
the context of applicant evaluation.
The research will solely focus on the Dutch cultural sector, since it is a sector that shows an
interesting gender paradox: the sector scores above the national average when it comes to
both the gender wage gap and the amount of female employees working in the sector (Atria,
2017, pp. 1-4; CBS, 2014, p.14.). Furthermore, the fact that the sector is so often glamorized
and portrayed as 'the future of work' makes it highly relevant for sociological research
(Banks & Milestone, 2011, pp. 73-75; McRobbie, 2016, pp. 60-70). The fieldwork for this
thesis took place in the Dutch cities of Amsterdam, The Hague and Utrecht.
The general research question I will be answering in this research is:
RQ: How do employers working in the Dutch cultural sector evaluate male and female job
applicants?
The research question is divided in the following sub questions:
RSQ What sort of competencies and personality traits are expected from male and female
employees?
RSQ To what extend do gender stereotypes play a role in the expectations employers have
from male and female job applicants?
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A video elicitation study was undertaken to illuminate the evaluation criteria employers in
the cultural sector deploy. In the following sections, the theories of which the above
research questions are derived shall be discussed in greater detail, as well as the case
selection.
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Theoretical Framework
The Evaluation of Job Applicants
"Basically, my job consists of putting the right man in the right place" (Vera).
Lamont (2012) and Lamont et al. (2014) have written extensively on the sociological
relevance of evaluation processes. They view evaluation processes as one of the many
cultural processes that influence social stratification and (possible) social inequalities. In
their 2014 article on cultural processes and social inequality, Lamont et al. connect cognitive
micro-processes to their macro-social outcomes by focusing on cultural processes, or as they
state: 'the inter-subjective frameworks of cultural structures' (p. 574). These frameworks
contain shared categories and classifications which individuals use to make sense of the
world around them and 'contribute to the production and reproduction of inequality in
routine ways' (Ibid.). Lamont et al. (2014) describe evaluations as cultural processes that
serve to 'negotiate, define and stabilize value in social life' (p. 593). Thus, individuals will
draw from cultural frameworks to determine who is competent and of worth (pp. 573-574).
Cultural processes usually take place unintentionally and unconsciously, which means they
are not solely performed or practiced by dominant actors who (re)affirm their advantageous
positions by doing so (pp. 583-585). An important characteristic of these cultural processes is
that they do not directly involve a struggle for (material) resources, rather, cultural
processes take place in the realm of meaning-making; the processes help us sort people out
and make sense of a given social interaction or situation (p. 583). Cultural processes are thus
indirectly connected to the distribution of resources and processes of stratification (Lamont,
2012, p. 205; Lamont et al., 2014, p. 583).
In recent years, Lamont (2012) and Lamont et al. (2014) have written extensively on the
relevance of evaluation processes in relation to socioeconomic inequality (Lamont, 2012, pp.
202-203; 2014, pp. 593). According to them, a crucial factor in the reproduction of
inequality, is the notion that individuals belonging to different groups are evaluated by
differently (Lamont, 2012, pp. 206-207; Lamont et al. 2014, pp. 293-295). The ways people
are evaluated is influenced by the ways they are being classified and categorized. This
mechanism makes that evaluation processes can have unequal outcomes. Additionally,
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Lamont (2012) stretches that even in modern day 'economistic' Western society, evaluation
processes entail more than quantified criteria (such as monetary worth), evaluative practice
often consist of more intangible and cultural forms of knowledge, such as expertise and
connoisseurship (pp. 204-205).
Lamont et al. (2014) have stated that processes of evaluation are especially apparent in the
spheres of employment and education, since both realms are regularly concerned with
questions regarding who is competent and of worth (p. 594). Employers are important
gatekeepers in the labor market. They play a significant role in producing, reproducing
and/or tackling labor market inequalities (Rivera, 2012, p. 1000). As Rivera (2012) stated:
‘hiring is a powerful way in which employers shape labor market outcomes’ (p. 1000). Their
individual hiring practices and their interactions with job applicants influence larger scale
labor market stratification. The evaluations of an employer greatly influences an applicants'
chances to employment and thus access to paid work.
As portrayed by Vera's quote at the beginning of this chapter, employers evaluate job
applicants to assess their competencies and to match the right person to the right job,
making Lamont’s (2012) and Lamont et al.'s (2014) work very relevant for this research. Job
applications are interpersonal processes, in which employers use all sorts of criteria to assess
an applicants’ competency and worth to the company or organization (Rivera, 2012, pp.
1000-1001). Recent sociological work by De Keere (2014), Koppman (2016) and Rivera (2012)
illustrates how this selection of new employees, or 'putting the right man in the right place',
is not just based on the matching of so-called 'hard skills' (Rivera, 2012, p. 1000). For
example, De Keere (2014) has discussed how in the labor market, there is a growing
importance for (potential) employees to show their 'true personality' in a job application or
during a job interview (pp. 316-320).
Additionally,
Rivera has researched the importance of
cultural similarities in hiring decisions made by recruiters working at an elite professional
service firm. Her research shows that hiring decisions cannot solely be explained by the
relevant characteristics of applicants, such as the matching of skills and job demands.
Rather, recruiters would in their evaluations also look for a 'cultural match', an 'affective
spark' and/or commonalities with the applicant in question (2012, pp. 999-1000; pp.
1008-1012; pp. 1014-1015). Rivera thus demonstrates how hiring practice is complicated and
layered, involving much more mechanisms than are often thought of. In her 2016 article
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‘different like me’ Koppman describes how this process of cultural matching plays out in
creative employment. According to her, hiring in the cultural sector also concerns a process
of cultural match-making, in which high class cultural omnivores stand the highest chance of
being hired, simply because they have bigger chance of finding cultural resemblances with
the recruiter they encounter. Thus, De Keere's (2014), Koppman's (2016) and Rivera's (2012)
work illustrate how evaluation processes often involve social and cultural knowledge, rather
than a pure matching of hard skills.
Recent research has shown that gender discrimination and inequality are still apparent in
the cultural and creative labor market. Koppman mentions how in advertisement, men are
more likely to be hired for a creative job than women are (2016, p. 317). Gill (2002)
describes how women working in new-media were less often offered commercial contracts,
and when they did manage to get a contract, they were often paid less than their male
counterparts (p. 82). The women often blamed ‘unclear criteria for evaluating work’ for the
persistence of these inequalities (Ibid.). Thus indicating a connection between employers'
evaluations and gender inequalities in the (cultural sector's) labor market.
Summarizing, Lamont's (2012) and Lamont et al.'s (2014) work on evaluation processes and
its link to larger scale social inequalities, provides us a helpful tool to examine hiring practice.
The evaluation of applicants by (potential) employers greatly influences individual and
macro-level employment outcomes, and can be considered an important gate-keeping
moment in the light of labor market inequalities. Although I will follow Koppman's (2016)
and Rivera's (2012) logics on evaluations in hiring practice, this research will shift its focus
from the realm of cultural similarities to the realm of gender differences.
In the following
section, I shall argue why I expect gender to be an important factor in the evaluation of job
applicants, mostly drawing from the work of Collins (1992), McRobbie (2007;2016) and
Ridgeway (2011).
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Sex-Categorization and Gender Stereotypes
"The only thing photo's on resumes are good for, is that it helps me find out whether I am
dealing with a man or a woman. I just look at the picture and I think: okay, that is a man and
that is a woman. "(Julie).
In her 2012 article on evaluation processes, Lamont describes categorization as an essential
part of evaluation practice. She states: "at a minimum, (e)valuation requires categorization,
i.e., determining in which group the entity (e.g. object or person) under consideration
belongs" (2012, p. 206). Thus, once a person is categorized it becomes apparent from which
cultural frameworks and by which standards he or she will be evaluated (Ibid.). In her book
Framed by Gender (2011), Ridgeway argues that gender serves as a primary category for
organizing and coordinating social interactions. Ridgeway describes gender as an
ever-present background identity.
By assessing a person’s sex, we know how to position them and
ourselves in a given situation, it tells us from which cultural frameworks we should draw to
interpret the behavior of the people we encounter. According to Ridgeway,
sex-categorization
1precedes every social interaction and the gender stereotypes deriving from
this sex-categorization influence the course and outcomes of the interaction (2011, pp. 7-8;
pp. 32-36).
Ridgeway thus states that sex-categorization influences the way we interpret and evaluate
the behavior of the people we encounter. This is only possible because we all share
common, cultural knowledge on gender roles, based on traditional gender stereotypes and
biases (2011, pp. 38-43). These gender stereotypes are more far reaching and influential
than is often recognized, and are often used unconsciously (Ibid., p. 57). They are both
descriptive and prescriptive: gender stereotypes serve as 'cultural instructions to express
gender' (Ibid., pp. 57-59).
In the introduction of her book, Ridgeway explicitly states that she is mostly preoccupied
with researching how gender inequalities persist, rather than why they persist (2011, p. 4).
Though, differences in stereotypes do not explain persisting gender inequality per se (Ibid.,
1Ridgeway distinguishes between the concept of sex ('the physical status of being male and female') and the
concept of gender ('shared cultural expectations associated with being male or female')(2011, p.7). Thus, sex-categorization precedes and determines the gender stereotypes people will be associated with.
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pp.43-44). In order to do so, Ridgeway turns to the concept of 'status beliefs' e.g. the shared
cultural understanding that one group is more competent than another (Ibid., pp. 46-49).
Ridgeway argues that in the case of gender, the competitive in-group favoritism both men
and women would naturally have, has changed into status beliefs, because the two groups
have been mutually dependent over longer periods of time. She states that in order to
coordinate social life, with its struggle for resources, one group has to overcome in-group
favoritism so that different groups can come to agree that one group is more 'respected,
status worthy and presumed to be more competent' (Ibid., p. 45). When people work
together on a shared goal, hierarchies tend to develop, which leads to certain people or
groups becoming more influential than others (Ibid., pp. 46-47). According to Ridgeway, in
Western society, this mechanism basically entails that both men and women have come to
‘agree’ or believe that one group is more competent than the other. In our society, men are
considered more respectable and competent than women (Ibid., pp. 34-36; pp. 44-51).
When discussing status beliefs, Ridgeway makes a distinction between specific and diffuse
status beliefs. Specific status beliefs entail the idea that members of one group are better at
performing a specific range of tasks than members of another group. An example of this is
the persisting idea that women are better at performing care tasks, such as caring for
children, while men are more likely considered being good at performing manual labor or
being in a leader (Ibid., pp. 50-51; p. 137). Diffuse status beliefs on the other hand entail the
idea that members of a certain group are more competent overall, rather than in a specific
range of tasks. Thus, Ridgeway argues that the implications of diffuse status beliefs are much
broader. She states that when diffuse status beliefs persist, members of the group that is
considered more competent overall will experience advantages over an 'unlimited range of
situations' (Ibid., pp. 50-51).
Ridgeway also explicitly discusses gender stereotypes and status beliefs in the sphere of
work and occupational relations. She argues that if ‘gender serves as a primary cultural
frame for coordinating social relations among individuals, then it is easy to see it would be
pulled into the organization of social relations in the workplace as well’ (Ibid., p. 93). Every
day relations in the workplace create ‘the job matching processes that allocate men and
women to positions in employment […] and shape the power and rewards they have access
to’(Ibid.). We use primary categories in uncertain situations, of which job applications are a
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prime example. A person's character and skills have to be estimated from just one or two
short meetings and a resume, making it very likely that both employer and employee will use
primary categories, and thus gender, to efficiently make sense of the context and the person
they are dealing with.
Ridgeway (2011) specifically addresses the ways in which she believes gender inequality
persists in hiring trajectories. Just like Rivera (2012), Ridgeway argues that hiring trajectories
do not solely consist of matching an applicants' hard skills with the skills needed to perform
a certain job (2011, pp. 99-100). Ridgeway states that in the process of attracting and hiring
new employees, employers develop a gendered image of their 'preferred worker'; an image
that often is not explicitly communicated in the job description. Though, this image sets a
standard to which applicants are evaluated (Ibid., pp. 100-101). The (stereotypical) gendered
nature of this image of the preferred worker becomes salient in divergent ways. Ridgeway
for example mentions that it depends on gender stereotypical tasks that are part of the job,
such as doing care work or manual labor. Whenever the employer perceives the vacancy as
consisting of mostly 'feminine skills', such as care-giving, the chance that a woman is hired
for the job increases, and vice versa (Ibid., pp. 101-103). Another factor Ridgeway includes is
the social status of the job. Ridgeway argues that the higher the status of a given profession,
the more likely it is that the employers' preferred worker is a man, which coincides with her
stating that men are overall considered more worthy and competent (Ibid., pp. 101-103).
Ridgeway stresses that although the bias gender stereotypes produce are often
unintentionally and implicit, they can be considered a type of discrimination and influence
people's likelihood of being hired and promoted (Ibid., pp. 103-105).
Concluding, I would argue that Ridgeway's work shows how evaluation processes and
sex-categorization go hand-in-hand (Ibid., p.93). Gender is present in every interaction. The use
of gender as a primary category to organize social interactions constantly reifies gender
stereotypes and reproduces the biased expectations we have of men and women (Ibid., pp.
33-35; pp. 40-43; p. 93). Employers draw from the same gender stereotypes and status
beliefs we all draw from. Thus, based on Lamont's (2012) remarks about the importance of
categorization and Ridgeway's (2011) work on sex-categorization and gender stereotypes in
social interactions, I would argue it is likely that gender stereotypes play a role in evaluation
processes and could lead to men and women being evaluated by different standards.
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Gender Stereotypes and Status Beliefs at Work
Ridgeway's (2011) work naturally leads us to the question what then some of the gender
stereotypes and status beliefs are that are being used to make sense of the people we
encounter and evaluate in the workplace. In the following section, I shall discuss literature
that covers stereotypical expectations and gender-related differences that occur in the labor
market. Before discussing these stereotypes in more detail, it is important to make clear
what stereotypes mean in this research. As briefly mentioned in the previous section,
stereotypes are more far reaching and salient in interactions than is often assumed
(Ridgeway, 2009, p. 148; 2011, p. 57). In a 2009 article on the role of gender in social
interactions, Ridgeway states that gender stereotypes are beliefs about 'how "most people"
view the typical man or woman' (2009, p. 148). Ridgeway states that we all know and
(unconsciously) anticipate this shared stereotypical knowledge, regardless if we agree (Ibid,
pp. 148-149). Thus, the stereotypes described in this section will give us a sense of the
cultural frameworks through which men and women are likely viewed; it discusses some of
the cultural knowledge employers might draw from while evaluating male and female
applicants.
Agency and Communality
In his work on consumer culture, Baudrillard (1998) has elaborated on some of the most
persistent gender stereotypes in Western culture (pp. 88-90; pp. 96-98). According to him,
men are often portrayed as particular and demanding, displaying professionalism and a
strong work ethic and strongly emphasizing a preference for competitiveness and challenge
(1998, pp. 96-97). This relationship between sports and (hegemonic) masculinity has also
been emphasized by Colleen English (2017), who stated that the image of the ideal man is
produced in the arena of sports and athletics (p. 186). Furthermore, the man's particularity
demonstrates the man as having power, since he is in the position to chose and be
demanding (Baudrillard, 1998, pp. 96-97). The 'feminine model' on the other hand, portrays
women as vain and pleasure-seeking. According to Baudrillard, women are mostly portrayed
as being preoccupied with their own well-being and appearance (Ibid.). Women are not
expected to take part in competition and they are not expected to be demanding. Rather,
they are portrayed as decorative, aesthetic objects and the consumers of culture, not
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carrying any responsibilities (pp. 97-98). Women are in 'the force of prestige', while men are
'the force of production' (p. 97). According to Baudrillard 'men are still being invited to play
soldiers, and women to play dolls with themselves' (Ibid., p. 97).
In a text discussing women's place in the stratification system and labor market, Collins
(1992) makes a point similar to Baudrillard (1998). Collins (1992) argues that in their work,
women are more likely to work in front-stage jobs and perform so-called ‘Goffmanian Labor’
(1992, pp. 213-214): they are expected to take the front-stage and do
impression-management on behalf of the company, and carry out the company culture. Thus, they are
playing 'dolls' on behalf of the company (Baudrillard, 1998, p. 97; Collins, 1992, pp. 213-215).
According to Collins, women are more likely to do work that focuses on order-taking,
respectability and the production of status and prestige (1992, p. 214).
In line with
Baudrillard, he states that women's (paid) employment 'tends to be concentrated in the
culture production sector' (1992, pp. 223-224). This entails a wide range of activities, such as
the production and consumption of beauty products, being a teacher and most importantly
for this research: working in the cultural and creative sector (Ibid., p. 224).
Men on the other
hand are more likely to work at the organizational back-stage, which according to Collins
often entails 'material production and its power relations', rather than cultural production
and first-line impression-management (Collins, 1992, pp. 213-214). Related to Baudrillard's
statement that men are more likely associated with professionalism, Collins states that men
are more likely thought of as money earners and order-givers; men also more likely to hold a
position higher up in the company hierarchy (Baudrillard, 1998, pp. 96-97; Collins, 1992, pp.
227-229).
Additionally, Ridgeway argues that in situations in which a group of people has to achieve a
shared goal, women are more likely and more expected to engage in what she calls 'positive
socio-emotional behavior' or 'communality' (2011, pp. 86-87). Ridgeway describes
communality as being 'supportive, friendly and emotionally expressive', which translates into
behaviors such as being agreeable, smiling, and providing emotional support in relationships
(2011, pp. 86-87). Although communality is behavior that is task directed, it is also aimed at
increasing the well-being of the group and caring for others (Ibid., p. 86). Ridgeway argues
that this is due to the fact that women often have a subordinate position in social
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women are more likely expected to be 'emotionally expressive' and to engage in emotional
labor (pp.377-378). The concept of "emotional labor' was originally coined by Hochschild
(1983) and refers to 'the work employees perform to manage their own and others'
emotions in an effort to align them with situational expectations" (Cottingham et al., 2014,
p. 378). Angela McRobbie stated that in the current economy, 'the management of female
affect', a concept she refers to as 'affective labor', is becoming an increasingly important
component of paid employment (McRobbie, 2016, pp. 103-105). According to McRobbie, it
is mostly women that are trained and encouraged to display and manage affection during
their work, as a result of an economy that more and more shifts its focus to the production
of experiences and a promise of well-being. This development is especially salient in what
she refers to as the 'creative industries', a sector that is more likely to offer its customers
immaterial products and experiences (Ibid., pp. 103-104).
Whereas women are more likely to be associated with communal and emotional behavior,
Ridgeway argues that men are more likely to be associated with agency and power (2011,
pp. 58-59). Personality traits such as being aggressive or assertive are considered more
desirable and appropriate for men (Ibid.). Gender status beliefs have led to men being
considered more 'natural' and easily accepted leaders and figures of authority, which gives
them an advantageous labor market position compared to women (Ridgeway, 2011, pp.
80-81). Men's perceived authority and higher status also 'protects' them from having to engage
in (all too much) emotional labor, nor are they ought to be emotionally expressive
(Cottingham et al., 2015, p. 379).
Ridgeway even states that men who do display their
emotions are likely to be frowned upon, since it deviates from stereotypical expectations
about masculine behavior (2011, p. 59).
According to Ridgeway, because of their perceived authority, men are considered more
competent leaders than women. In mixed-sex contexts, men will be more likely to perform a
task higher up in the hierarchy that entails the direction of group activities and giving orders
to subordinates (Ibid.). She later states that the tying together of leadership and masculinity,
makes it more difficult for women to be accepted as leaders, since authority seems less
'legitimate and proper' for them (Ibid., p. 80). Women who succesfully seek authority are
likely to be evaluated more harshly and negatively than their male counterparts, especially in
mixed-sex contexts (Ibid., pp. 81-83).
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Concluding, we can state that men traditionally are associated with ‘order giving’ and
agency, while women are considered communal ‘order takers’. This is partly due to the types
of work men and women are linked to. Women are associated with the ‘displaying’ of a
certain company culture and to engage in friendly, supportive behavior, while men are
expected to operate in the realm of decision-making, again associating them with power and
agency (Collins, 1992, pp. 214-215; pp. 228-229). This association with power makes that
men can afford to display particularity (Baudrillard, 1998, pp. 96-97). Thus, Collins
summarizes that men are typically occupied with earning money, while women are
'specialized' in converting money into status and culture (1992, pp. 227-229).
Working Girls
Adkins (2008) and McRobbie (2007; 2016) have recently argued that gender relations on the
labor market are changing in Western societies. McRobbie argues that as part of a new,
post-feminist sexual contract, young women are now no longer encouraged to find their
happiness in the domestic sphere. Rather, their governments increasingly stimulate them to
participate and succeed in the labor market (2007, pp. 719-720; 2016, pp. 87-93). McRobbie
(2007) states that: 'from being assumed to be headed towards marriage, motherhood and
limited economic participation, the girl is now a social category understood primarily as
being endowed with economic capacity' (p. 722).
Women on the labor market are nowadays
expected to be 'active, willing, motivated and aspiring' workers (McRobbie, 2007
paraphrased by Adkins 2008, p. 192).
Although these developments are presented as feminist politics, according to McRobbie they
are part of far reaching neoliberal changes in 'advanced' Western economies (2007, p. 721).
As discussed in the introduction, Dutch government has recently implemented emancipation
policies that encourage women to enter the labor market and become economically
independent (Van Engelshoven, 2018, pp. 2-8). In her analysis of similar policies
implemented by the UK government, McRobbie states that
young women entering the labor
market are nowadays ‘attributed with capacity’, they are ‘working girls’ for whom the sky is
the limit (2007, pp. 726-727). Drawing from McRobbie's (2007) work, Adkins has stated that
in this new sexual contract, womanhood is no longer solely defined in terms of restrictions;
opportunities and freedom are increasing (2008, p. 191).
22
Though, Adkins (2008) and McRobbie (2007; 2016) emphasize that these developments do
not quite advance gender equality in the workplace. McRobbie states that, within this new
sexual contract, women remain aesthetic objects, expected to display femininity and a
'girlish enthusiasm', something McRobbie refers to as the 'post-feminist
masquerade'(McRobbie, 2007, pp. 722-726; McRobbie, 2016, p. 110). This display of
femininity now serves to compensate for their newly acquired unlimited access to the labor
market; showing men that there is no reason to feel intimidated (McRobbie, 2007, pp.
722-725). The post-feminist masquerade serves to reaffirm women's subordinate positions even
with an increase in opportunities. Nowadays, young women, operating in a neoliberal and
competitive society, are encouraged to move away from feminist politics and to work
towards individual perfection (2007, p. 723; 2007, p. 726). Thus, McRobbie states that
so-called emancipation policies and an increasing presence of women in the labor market have
not led to a decrease in gender differences. If any, it has made the display of femininity and
enthusiasm even more crucial. Adkins adds to this that, with women's newly obtained
capacities and freedoms, men have 'moved on' to dominate ever expanding and increasingly
important parts of the economy, such as information technologies (IT), which again provides
them an advantageous position over women (2008, pp. 193-195). Thus, according to Adkins
(2008) and McRobbie (2007;2016) recent 'investments' in women's labor market
23
Case Selection: Dutch Cultural Sector
As stated in the introduction, this research will zoom in on the Dutch cultural sector. The
research follows the definition of the cultural sector the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture
and Science has formulated. This broad definition includes all organizations working on the
production of arts and the preservation of cultural heritage, organizations providing creative
business services and the media- and entertainment industry (Ministerie OCW, 2011, p. 11).
The Dutch cultural sector contributes 2.25 per cent to the Dutch GNP (Cultuur in Beeld,
2016, p. 15). The majority of the cultural organizations in the Netherlands works on a
commercial basis, generating their income without state funding. For the organizations that
do receive state subsidies, generating other sources of income has become increasingly
important in the past several years due to policy changes and budget cuts (Ministerie OCW,
2011, p. 8; Ministerie OCW, 2017, p. 16; Rijksoverheid a, no date).
Most of the cultural activities in the Netherlands take place in the city of Amsterdam and its
surroundings, the city even claims to be the 'cultural capital' of the Netherlands (Cultuur in
Beeld, 2016, p.51; Gemeente Amsterdam, no date ). The cultural sector makes up 2.5
percent of the city's total income, but the sector also indirectly contributes to the ever
growing tourist industry (Gemeente Amsterdam, no date; Jonkers, 2017, p. 4). The fast
majority of the interviews I conducted included employers working for an Amsterdam based
cultural organization. Only three interviews took place outside of Amsterdam, in the cities of
The Hague and Utrecht.
As mentioned before, relatively many women work in the cultural sector, but the sector
simultaneously shows a gender wage gap that is above average. Official statistics point out a
gender wage gap of 19.9 percent in the Dutch cultural sector, which is even higher than the
national average of 16.1 percent. Interestingly enough, the sector scores third highest when
it comes to the amount of female employees working in the sector, right after the health
care sector and the educational sector (CBS, 2014, p. 14).
According to Collins, the cultural sector has always been relatively welcoming to the
entrance of women, although men would continue to dominate the sector (1992, pp.
225-226). And as discussed earlier, in her 2016 study on advertisement agencies, Koppman found
evidence that men are more likely to be hired for high status creative jobs (p. 317).
24
Nowadays, with its flexibility and informality, the cultural sector is often presented as the
fun and glamorous 'future of work' (Banks & Milestone, 2011, pp. 73-75). Attracting many
aspiring employees, not only men, but also capable young women who are encouraged to
follow their passions and do the work they love (McRobbie, 2016, p. 87-93). Both Gill (2002)
and McRobbie (2016) have criticized the 'cool and egalitarian' image of the cultural sector,
especially in its relation to the position of women. Gill (2002) has described how an informal
club mentality easily slips into an 'old boys' network' kind of atmosphere (p. 82). McRobbie
(2016) has stated that the turn to 'affective labor' e.g. the idealization of 'passionate work'
and 'doing what you love', has led to even more women working under precarious
conditions, leaving them unable to unionize or address atrocities, especially in what she calls
the creative industries (2016, pp. 103-107). The informal club sphere that causes the sectors'
popularity, also leads to opaque hiring practices and evaluation criteria (Gill, 2002,
McRobbie, 2016, pp. 17-32).
Concluding, I would argue that the Dutch cultural sector provides and interesting and
relevant case to assess the micro-level processes of evaluation and its relation to gender
(stereotypes) in job applications. However, it is important to note that Gill (2002) and
McRobbie's (2016)
work on inequality in the cultural sector was written in the context of the
United Kingdom (and to a smaller extent, Berlin), rather than a Dutch context. Thus, this
research aims to examine if, and to what extend, some of the above described stereotypes
and mechanisms can be identified in the Dutch cultural sector.
25
Research Methods and Analysis
Design
To assess how employers evaluate male and female job applicants, sixteen semi-structured
video elicitation interviews were conducted. Participants were shown eight video resumes in
which an applicant would introduce him- or herself. The most important aim of this research
is to examine how participants would make sense of the video resumes and what evaluation
criteria would come up. Using a qualitative research method, focusing on how people
interpret and construct their social world, therefore seemed most suited to examine what
meaning employers would attach to the (scarce) information provided to them in the video
resumes (Bryman, 2012, pp. 399-401).
Doing a video elicitation interview enables the interviewer to move beyond vague and
socially desirable answers, and to go into depth during the interview. To speak with Pugh
(2013), the nature of this research enables the researcher to examine employers' more
visceral use of cultural frameworks concerning gender, rather than doing an interview that
would mostly (re)produce more superficial knowledge on how employers talk about these
cultural frameworks (pp. 43-47). Instead of having a conversation about the evaluation of
job applicants, the employers that took part in this research were asked to actually practice
evaluation (Ibid.). Another advantage of the research design, is that photo and video
elicitation helps both the participant and the interviewer to discuss topics that would have
otherwise been forgotten or that would have remained undisputed. Photo and video
elicitation helps avoiding any mismatches in understanding of the topic of conversation
between interviewer and informant (Bryman, 2012, p. 480; Harper, 1988, p. 65; Harper,
2002, pp. 18-20).
As mentioned above, participants viewed eight video resumes, which were used as a tool to
have a conversation about the evaluation of job applicants and thus to illuminate evaluation
criteria. Video resumes are short video clips in which job applicants introduce themselves to
a (potential) employer. The videos I have used for this research are part of a four year
Veni-research project on hiring practice and the role of cultural capital, called 'Hiring on taste'.
The research is conducted by dr. Kobe de Keere. Eight scenarios portraying fictional job
26
applicants were written and later filmed for this research. Four of the fictional applicants are
male and four are female.
Actors would either present themselves by using a professional style (e.g. discussing
concrete, applicable skills) or by using a more personal style (e.g. discussing personality traits
and personal development). While talking about their personal lives and characters the
actors either carry out a sportive or a more cultural lifestyle. The sportive scenario mentions
sports such as swimming or running as the hobbies of the job applicant; these scenarios
emphasize how much the applicant enjoys hard work and competition. When an actor had
to carry out a more culture oriented lifestyle, he or she mentioned having more artistic
activities, such as creative writing or playing the piano, as their hobbies. These taste
differences and presentation styles were designed as indications of class and lifestyle .
All videos followed a similar format
(for scenarios, see appendix
): the applicant starts with a
short introduction, in which he or she mentions they have studied social sciences at the
University of Amsterdam. The introduction is followed by a shot in which they work on their
laptop. Then, the applicant discusses his or her hobbies, which is followed by a shot of the
applicant answering their phone. The videos end with the applicant discussing the type of
employee he or she is and a more informal take in which the applicant is shown laughing. All
videos show the applicant standing in front of the same gray wall. Following the same
format was hoped to minimalize the chance that any differences in evaluation criteria are
the consequence of differences in the design or content of the videos. To reduce the chance
that the name of the applicant would signify a certain class or lifestyle, the applicants names
were based on the top ten most popular Dutch names in the 1992-1995 period, resulting in
the names Stan, Tom, Lars and Niels for the male job applicants and the names Anouk, Iris,
Sanne and Laura for the female job applicants.
Ultimately, sixteen video resumes were filmed, using eight different actors. Thus, all actors
have portrayed two different job applicants. Doing this made it possible to alternate actors
every other interview, and to assess whether a certain actor was (im)popular due to the
scenario he or she portrayed, or that this judgment solely depended on the actor (and vice
versa). The order in which the videos resumes were played was alternated in the final five
interviews, to find out if the popularity of certain scenarios had anything to do with the
27
video order. Table 1 in the appendix contains an overview of the job applicants and the style
of their scenario. The full texts of the scenarios too are included in the appendix.
The actors playing in the video resumes were selected based on a number of characteristics.
To start with, all of the selected actors were white, and in their twenties. All actors were
asked to wear a black t-shirt or a black blouse. Only algemeen Nederlands speaking actors
were selected. This selection was made to single out as many other sources of labor market
disadvantages as possible, such as being non-white, being old(er) and having an accent or
speaking a dialect (Rivera, 2012, p. 1001; Riach & Rich, 2010). The aim of the research is to
specify and elicit one specific mechanism that might determine the outcome of a job
application, rather than including all possible characteristics and mechanisms that can
influence the evaluation of a job applicant (Koppman, 2016, p. 297). Both ethnicity and age
have shown to be of significant influence on hiring practice. I believe that selecting actors
that enjoy white and age privilege
will help me find out what (possible) influence gender has
on job application outcomes. Though, I am aware of the fact that by doing this my study will
not provide a complete image of hiring practice and the evaluation processes that play a role
in it.
Researching Evaluations
Since the focus in this research is on the cultural process of evaluation, the interviews
contained two components that would help illuminate evaluation criteria. First of all,
participants were asked to give a short reaction right after each video resume they viewed.
After giving their first reactions, I would ask them what kind of person they thought the
applicant is, how he or she would do their job, and what kind of work would suit the
applicant (for interview guide, see appendix). Doing this enabled me to find out what kind of
criteria the participant applies to assess the competency of an applicant and what
participants expected of them.
Secondly, all participants were asked to rank the applicants presented to them in the videos,
by selecting a top-three of applicants they would most likely sent an invite for a job
interview. Additionally, twelve out of sixteen participants were asked to single out the
applicant they least favored. Including these rankings allowed me to ask participants to
explain which applicants they considered to be competent and how they justify these
28
decisions. Lamont (2010) has even stated that rankings are an essential part of evaluation
processes (p. 124-125). Ranking thus seemed a sufficient way to capture processes of
evaluation, the video resumes hereby served as a tool to probe what sort of evaluation
criteria employers apply.
Additionally, an approximate of ten interviewees were asked which applicant they
considered most representative, professional, ambitious, humorous or precise (among other
things, depending on the topics the participants had brought up during the interview). This
was not as much an essential part of the interview, it served mostly as a way to keep the
interview going and to probe which evaluation criteria found most resonance (for example,
asking which job applicant came across as having good leadership skills did not really work
out). These kind of questions were not asked in all interviews, both due to time limits and/or
because the interview led another way.
Researching Gender Differences
The 50/50 gender balance among the scenarios provided me the opportunity to assess if any
of the presentation styles are evaluated and appreciated differently when executed by
actors of different genders. Furthermore, the division of having a more personal or
professional style and a more economic or cultural taste also taps into some of the gender
stereotypes discussed in the theory section: such as the woman being associated with
culture and the man with sports and competition (Baudrillard, 1998; McRobbie, 2007;
Collins, 1992). The fact that applicants of both genders all portray these different scenarios,
made that the evaluations of the videos could not solely be based on actors playing
stereotypical scenarios. Thus, I would argue that the video resumes, although designed as
part of a different research, were a valuable tool that helped illuminate gender-related
evaluation criteria during the interviews.
participants were not asked any gender-related questions until the end of the interview,
thereby following Koppman's (2016) study of hiring practice in advertising agencies and the
influence of taste and socialization on these practices (pp. 299-300). Though, just like
Koppman (2016), I would ask follow-up questions when participants mention any
gender-related issues during the interview (Ibid., pp. 299-300). Though, based on my theoretical
framework I mostly focused on implications of gender-related differences in evaluations,
29
such as the mentioning of leadership capacities, competitiveness, imagining an applicant as
order-giving or order-taking, doing front-stage or back-stage work, or a mentioning of
aesthetics or appearance.
Vacancies
It is important to note that I chose not to make use of any (fake) vacancies during the
interviews, neither were participants provided any paper resumes. It was decided to leave
out vacancies and paper resumes, because this research is preoccupied with the question
how different people are evaluated by recruiters; providing the recruiters a vacancy and
more specific resumes might lead to them solely matching participants to (relevant) job
skills, the so-called hard skills. It was expected this would only provide socially desirable
answers. If employers did ask for a vacancy or a more specific job description, I asked them
to imagine hiring the applicants for a middle-range management function or to imagine what
kind of work they thought would be a good fit for the applicant. Additionally, before the
viewing of the video resumes, participants were asked to imagine all applicants having
similar resumes and working experience.
Another advantage of not providing fixed vacancies is that it enabled me to find out what
sort of work participants thought would suit a given job applicant, a line of thinking inspired
by Ridgeway's (2011) concept of the 'preferred worker' as discussed in the theory section
(pp. 101-103). Asking participants what type of work they thought would suit the applicant,
enabled me to illuminate possible gendering of certain jobs (ibid.)
I would argue that not providing participants any paper resumes and vacancies to evaluate
the job applicants presented to them in the video resumes, is both a strength and a
weakness of this research. By reducing the odds of being provided a socially desirable
answer, the set-up of the interviews differs from a ‘normal’ hiring process, in the sense that
the participants were deprived of fairly crucial information about the job applicants. Though,
all participants seriously participated in the thought-experiment and the research design.
30
The Interviews
Ultimately, I have been able to conduct 16 interviews, in which I interviewed 12 women and
4 men. Interviews took an approximate 40 to 70 minutes, with an average of 50 minutes.
The participants worked for 11 different organizations. Before I undertook these interviews,
I conducted two trial interviews to test my interview design and topic list. 12 participants
indicated to take part in hiring trajectories for their company or on a very regular basis. 4
participants indicated that the number of times they take part in hiring trajectories varies, 2
of whom said to only take part in hiring trajectories 3 to 4 times a year. All participants work
in the Dutch cultural sector. 9 participants work in a museum, 4 participants work in a
theatre, and the other 3 participants work at a broadcasting organization, an arts education
centre and a music venue. These organizations are located in Amsterdam, Utrecht and The
Hague. 8 of these organization receive subsidies. 13 participants work for an
Amsterdam-based organization, 2 participants work in Utrecht and 1 participant works in The Hague.
The division of participants' functions is displayed below in figure 1.
The table shows the job
division among participants. All interviews took place at participants' offices, during office
hours. Since several participants are employed by the same organization, I believe that
linking more specific details such as job descriptions and date of the interview to aliases
would jeopardize participants' anonymity.
HR-employee
12
HR-trainee
1
Head of a Department
22
Director of Organization
1
Figure 1. Job descriptions of participants
It proved quite difficult to find male participants; as mentioned above, only 4 out of 16
people interviewed were male. This gender imbalance among participants has made it
impossible to draw any solid comparisons between male and female employers and the
ways they evaluated the applicants.
2 One respondent worked as the head of a customer service department, the other respondent works as the
31
The aim to conduct 20 interviews, sadly was not achieved due to a last-minute cancellation
of an organization that would have provided me five more participants. In order to meet my
deadlines and have proper time to analyze all my collected data, I decided to stick to the 16
participants that had agreed on doing an interview and not to continue my search for any
more participants.
Access to the field was obtained by directly approaching cultural organizations and by
approaching employment agencies that focus particularly on the cultural sector and creative
jobs, either by email or phone. Only once did I use my personal network to get in touch with
a participant. In total, an approximate 60 organizations were contacted, and it showed quite
difficult to find participants. The majority of organizations that declined my interview
request due to a lack of capacity and time, many organizations informed me that either
budget cuts or the fact that so-called 'tourist-season' was about to start led to a big
workload.
Two selection criteria were applied for selecting the organizations I would approach, the first
being that the organizations meet the definition of a cultural organization, as defined in my
theory section, the second selection criterion was that the participant regularly takes part in
either applicant recruitment and selection practices or job interviews, or both. Since it
turned out to be very difficult to find participants, I decided not to define 'regular' too
strictly in my emails. I felt that being a 'labor market gatekeeper' twice a year is just as
significant as being a gatekeeper over twenty times a year. Therefore, the amount of
recruitment trajectories and job interviews participants took part in was very divergent,
varying from 3 or 4 interviews a year to 12 a week. One of the participants was an
HR-trainee who was mostly involved in recruitment and selection trajectories, although she
occasionally attended and took part in job interviews. The type of work that participants
sought and hired new employees for also greatly differed: from more executive functions
(such as hiring box office staff) to heads of departments and hiring for their own
HR-department. Furthermore, participants were not told that my research focused on gender
differences beforehand, to avoid receiving mostly socially desirable answers to my
32
Ethics
All participants took part in this research on a voluntary basis and have given their consent
to record the interview on audio. A consent form was provided in 12 out of 16 interviews. In
the other four interviews, participants have verbally given their consent to record the
interview on tape before starting the interview. Participants were informed they could
refuse to answer questions or withdraw from the interview at any moment. The audio
recordings were kept on a secured device and deleted after the interviews were transcribed.
Since the interviews mostly evolved around questions concerning the participants' work, it
was of uttermost importance to warrant their anonymity. Especially since several
participants worked for the same organization. Great attention was paid to transcribing the
interviews anonymously. References that would make the participant and/or the
organization recognizable are not included in the transcriptions.
Data Analysis
All interviews were recorded on audio and transcribed the same week the interview took
place. In the coding process I have used Charmaz’ (2014) work on coding practice, in order to
stay organized and remain close to the data. I started my analysis with one or several rounds
of initial line-by-line coding, to get a good sense of what was actually being said by
participants and what themes had (unexpectedly) come up in the interview. After I had
conducted and coded all of the interviews, I started my rounds of focused coding to see if
any themes came up regularly in the data and to see what stood out (p. 116; pp. 124-128).
When it came to the content of my analysis, I have used Tavory & Timmermans' (2009)
concept of 'abductive analysis'; I constantly went back and forth between my collected data
and pre-existing theories (pp. 245-248). Thus, whereas the gender-related findings were
made sense of with my theoretical framework in mind, the more general findings in this
research emerged inductively from the data.
I started my first round of line-by line coding and taking notes simultaneously with the
conduction of the interviews, to see if any unexpected themes came up. This first round of
analysis led to the inclusion of questions concerning sense of humor and appearance in the
interview guide. It also led me to focus a little less on the topic 'leadership skills', since
questions concerning the topic did not find much resonance. Because of their age and vague
33
work experience, many participants mentioned that the applicants seemed too young and
inexperienced to have leadership skills. After I finished the open coding of an interview, I
would write one or several memos, covering themes and quotes that had caught my
attention or that seemed to either align or contradict some of the theories I had been
reading. I also compared memos covering different interviews. I have used these memos to
determine what topics I would focus on during my rounds of focused coding.
After a few rounds of initial coding, I noticed that participants' initial evaluations of
applicants right after watching a video resume, provided me the most valuable and thorough
information. Not only was the applicant still fresh in the participants' mind, which made
their initial evaluation the moment in the interview in which participants provided me most
elaborate and thorough evaluations of applicants, it was also all done without me having
mentioned any possible evaluation criteria or themes for the participants to focus on (such
as asking 'who do you think is most ambitious?'). Thus, since the research was mainly
concerned with untangling how employers would make sense of the applicants in the video
resumes, I decided that for the rest of my result section I would slightly move away from the
rankings and focus more on participants' initial evaluations of the applicants.
Furthermore, I assessed (possible) differences in the evaluations of applicants, by thoroughly
comparing all evaluations applied to female applicants, to all evaluations applied to male
applicants. I decided to do so, since discussing the differences between the scenarios mostly
illuminated class- and lifestyle related evaluation criteria and I felt this would
over-complicate both my analysis and findings. Therefore, in my result-section I shall mostly focus
on (seemingly) gender-related outcomes of the interviews and more general themes that
frequently came up. Thus, my result section is not a full coverage of my data, for the sake of
clarity and due to time limits, only the most salient themes are discussed.
34
Results of the Rankings
In the following chapters, I shall discuss the most salient findings of this research. This
chapter opens with a discussion of the rankings, followed by a chapter that discusses three
more general themes that came up during the interviews and a chapter that elaborates on
gender-related findings of this research.
As a part of the examination of evaluation processes, all informants were asked to formulate
a top-three that included the job applicants they would most favorably invite over for a job
interview. Interestingly, all top-three rankings included two men and one woman or two
women and one man. None of the participants composed a top-three that solely consisted
of candidates of the same gender, which might indicate a certain awareness of norms
concerning gender equality among HR-employees. One participant explicitly mentioned not
wanting to compose a top-three consisting only of male applicants. Thus, the even gender
division in the rankings does not indicate that employers thought of male candidates as
being more competent, as Ridgeway has argued (2011, pp. 50-51). The figures below display
the results of the rankings figures 2 and 3 below
(an overview of the rankings per interview
is to be found in the appendix).
Figure 2. Ranking results per actor
Actress 1 Actress 2 Actress 3 Actress 4
Number one
10
1
1
0
Top-three
11
5
5
2
Actor 1 Actor 2 Actor 3 Actor 4
Number one
1
1
2
0
35
