Kanter’s article looks at the division of power between minorities in a work place. It looks at how a person in a minority doesn’t represent themselves, but they represent all of the people that are in a certain minority. Kanter uses women that work at the Industrial Supply Company as an example of a minority. Kanter goes on to explain the hardships that a minority group faces in the work place.

The women at the company are considered “tokens” that is that they are a group that is different from the dominant group. This happens when there is a ratio that is about 85:15. The women in this case are considered “tokens” because there are less of them. This presents problems for the “tokens” because they stand out in every aspect of the job. This is a double edged sword, because anything good they do reflects on female employees good, but anything bad makes all the women look bad. Kanter uses a great example: XXxxXXxXOXxX In this model the X’s represent the men. There are uppercase and lowercase X’s to show the different level of male employees. The O represents the women that work at the company. They stick out and are noticed because they are different.
Because “tokens” stick out they respond to the pressure by over achieving or they try to hide themselves and not draw attention. Women went as far as trying to conceal their feminine features and attributes to blend into the all male work force. They would do low visibility jobs and let the men be the public representatives for the company. The overachievers would do everything they could to get to the top. This put them in a place of power over some men, but mainly over the other women. The problem with this is that the women that became higher-ups started doing something that I found interesting. They would not allow other members of their minority or other “tokens” to achieve the same level. The women in power saw other women as a threat to their power that they had worked hard to achieve. They would literally try and stop their minority form getting to the same level that they had achieved.
To have to operate as a token puts a lot of pressure on minorities. Tokens either choose to hide their success and play it off to not stick out and remain part of the group or they will take advantage of the publicity that they cause by being in a position of power. The latter can cause problems for the token though and they may be seen a “troublemaker” if that is the case they reflect poorly on the other tokens.