Workplace Barriers Give Women Something To Laugh About

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. - Information technology doesn’t seem that funny, but three University of Arkansas researchers noticed a lot of laughter when they sat down with about 40 women in IT careers. They found that women use laughter to create a sense of solidarity with their female coworkers, exert their superiority and to deal with incongruities in their work environment.

Associate professors Myria Allen, Margaret Reid and Cynthia Riemenschneider published the results of their study, "The Role of Laughter When Discussing Workplace Barriers: Women in Information Technology Jobs," in the February issue of "Sex Roles: A Journal of Research."

The team gathered 39 women in IT positions at a large company and put them into six focus groups. In their groups, the women discussed their professional experiences, barriers they faced and reasons women leave their IT jobs. Some of the obstacles the women talked about included discrimination, promotion obstacles, being overlooked by clients and problems juggling career and family.

The three researchers recorded the discussions and transcribed them afterward. When they listened to the recordings later, they noticed a pattern in group laughter. They wondered what triggered the group’s laughter.

"Women laugh to facilitate interaction; keep conversation going; keep it light and lively," Allen said. "But if these were the only reasons, the laughter would’ve been throughout the transcript — but it wasn’t."

Very little research has been done on laughter and why people laugh, but the researchers gathered what little information they could from previous studies. They sought to answer two main questions: First, why do women laugh at certain things? Second, what function does laughter serve for women when they get together and talk about problems they face in the workplace?

"These were all highly-educated women, all professionals, but they still were facing barriers at work and needed some way to cope with them," Allen said.

The result is an intriguing study that includes interesting, often funny remarks made by the women in their focus groups.

The researchers found that women laugh for a variety of reasons when it comes to discussing their careers. They sometimes laugh to build a sense of solidarity amongst other women in their group. Other times they laugh to minimize the force of discussing taboo subjects.

The following example from the study illustrates women laughing to exert superiority over others, including those creating the workplace barriers they must deal with. The woman speaking is telling about her experience with a group of users outside her department who wouldn’t look at her or answer her questions, but would instead respond to her male coworker.

"I’d ask a question and they’d look at my male companion (laughter) and answer my question to him. This went on all day long and it was ridiculous how. I mean literally like looking above my head and around at the floor and stuff (much laughter)."

In the example, the researchers claim the women are laughing at the perceived stupidity of the users.

Sometimes women laugh because, "what else can we do when we compare actual workplace conditions to our expectations for what is fair or ideally expected in a professional setting?" Allen said.

Examples of laughter used this way are seen in the study when the women laugh at comments about not receiving downtime after large time-sensitive projects, because there is incongruity between what is logical and expected and what the women experience.

Allen, Reid and Riemenschneider brought their different areas of expertise together approximately three years ago to start their series of studies on women in IT jobs. Allen is a communication professor, Reid is a professor of public administration and Riemenschneider is an information systems professor. The laughter study is the first of the team’s studies to be published.

Through the study of women in IT, the trio hopes to make employers aware of barriers specific to women and possible remedies to the situations.

"Hopefully this will continually feed back into companies and organizations, so they can learn from these insights and be more sensitive to women’s issues, and maybe make changes," Reid said.

As she observed the women in the focus groups, Reid noticed they spoke of similar obstacles to those experienced by women in IT positions in the public sector.

"As long as these barriers are not removed and women cannot claim a larger share of executive positions, organizational cultures may not change quickly enough to prevent some of these professionals from leaving their organizations or even the profession," she said.

Riemenschneider is focused on problems in the IT industry, such as job retention and temporary layoffs. She wonders how an upturn in the economy will change the industry as people gain confidence in the job market.

"Many people are not mobile right now, or they’re not ready to take the risk to be mobile," Riemenschneider said. "When the economy turns around, we’ll see some new issues, because people will be more confident to change jobs. How will the companies keep their employees?"

She has a study in progress to determine the needs of female IT workers. She also has a paper in progress that looks at whether comments made by women in the focus groups were explicit or implicit.

Reid recently wrapped up five years of collaborative research with the publication of "Glass Walls and Glass Ceilings: Women’s Representation in State and Municipal Bureaucracies," through Greenwood Publishing Group. She worked with UA professors Brinck Kerr and Will Miller on the studies.

Allen has been researching and writing about issues related to employees’ trust and commitment to their employers for more than 10 years. She is currently investigating employee reactions to technological surveillance in the workplace.