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Attitudes Towards Women’s Work Roles and Women Managers in a Sport Organisation: a case of Turkey – Makale

“Attitudes Towards Women’s Work Roles and Women Managers in a Sport Organisation: a case of Turkey” adlı makalem Gender, Work & Organization, isimli Uluslararası Hakemli Dergi, 16 Kasım 2009 (Social Science Citation Index, SSCI)

AN EXAMINATION OF ATTITUDES TOWARDS WOMEN’S WORK ROLES AND WOMEN MANAGERS REGARDING GENDER ROLES IN TURKISH SPORT ORGANISATION

Abstract

The purpose of this study was twofold: (1) to determine the attitudes towards women?s work roles and attitudes towards women managers of female and male who work in the General Directorate of Youth and Sport (GSGM) with regard to gender and (2) to investigate the relative contribution of gender role orientations to attitudes towards women?s work roles and attitudes towards women managers. Male workers had higher scores on attitudes toward women?s work roles than female workers. On the other hand, male workers scored lower than female workers on Gender Role Stereotypes and Attitudes toward Women Career Advancement subscales of WAMS. Results of Stepwise Multiple Regression Analyses indicated that femininity score was positively correlated with Attitudes toward Women Career Advancement for both female and male workers. Based on these findings we can argue that the present study has a possibility to extend earlier researches about attitudes towards women?s work roles and women managers within different historical and cultural context of non-western society and in a different working organisation.

Key Words: Gender, Women, Sport and Organisation

Introduction

Gender equality in employment has long been an issue in the field of economics, management, sociology and political sciences, with a growing body of research pointing towards the continued prevalence of gender inequality in employment. Although there have been a several researches about attitudes towards women?s employment and women managers in many western countries (Grove & Montgomery, 2000; Mihail, 2006; Morrison, White & Van Velsor, 1992), there has been limited number of studies, which investigated this issue in sport organisations that are considered as masculine world both in western and eastern countries.

In recent years, there is a growing body of literature examining the gendered aspects of employment and management within many sectors in Turkey. On the other hand, the need to apply gender equity principles to all sectors of Turkish society is widely acknowledged and has become an increasingly important issue over the past few years because of the modernisation and recent Europeanization project of Turkey. While the previous studies regarding attitudes towards women?s employment and women managers have provided valuable information regarding the importance of gender roles (Ansal, 1996; Aycan, 2004; Ilkkaracan, 1998; Tor, 1997),there has been no enough consideration of the importance of sports organisation which are accepted as a traditionally men territory in explaining attitude towards women?s employment and women managers in Turkey as a non-western country. Therefore, the first purpose of this study is to determine the attitudes towards women?s employment and women managers of the people who work in the biggest sport organisation in Turkey. The impact of gender role orientation of people on these attitudes was also examined in this study. In that case the present study has a possibility to extend earlier researches about attitudes towards women?s employment within different historical and cultural context of non-western society and in a different working organisation.

The social and cultural environment of Turkey forming the basis for this study will be introduced in more detail later, but first there will be a brief introduction to some of the key issues regarding attitudes towards women?s employment and women managers.

Attitudes Towards Women’s Employment

There is a significant literature on women and employment in both Western (Grove & Montgomery, 2000; Morrison, White & Van Velsor, 1992) and Eastern countries (Adler & Izraeli, 1994; Cinar, 2001; Mostafa, 2003). Besides, in this literature on women and employment, attitudes toward women?s work roles and women managers seem to have an important research subject. Several studies indicated that women have more positive attitudes toward women managers than do men (Adeyemi-Bello & Tomkiewicz, 1996; Beydoğan, 2001; Heilman, Block, Martell & Simon, 1989; Owen & Todor, 1993). For example, in a recent study, Mihail (2006) found those male university students hold relatively negative stereotypic attitudes compared to their female counterparts. These and many other studies indicated that there are a limited number of women managers who are working in a traditionally accepted male jobs benefited from gender equity policies (Ansal, 1998; Grove & Montgomery, 2000; Morison, White & Velsor, 1992).

The significance of the attitudes towards women managers might be attributed to its influence on women?s career. Negative attitudes towards women managers have been found to influence women?s career advancement (Eagly & Carli, 2003). The literature on women?s career advancement highlights the importance of individual and situational factors (Tharenou & Conroy, 1994). One of the categories of situational factors is the work situation (e.g. organisational culture and practices). Adler (1993) noted that a male-dominated organisational culture is an obstacle to women?s success. This is partly because women find it very difficult to enter the ?old boys? network? (Davidson & Cooper, 1992). On the other hand, it is suggested that sociocultural context determines work- and family-related values and societal norms regarding gender roles, and attitudes towards women in management (e.g. De Leon & Ho, 1994). Gender roles within these societal norms gained lots of interest within the subject of attitudes towards women?s work roles. For example, Sevim (2006) found that feminine and androgynous gender roles significantly predicted attitudes toward women?s work roles and women who adapt to feminine gender role had positive attitudes toward women?s work roles.

The following section of this paper outlines the importance of sport organisations for women?s employment as a situational factor and previous research undertaken in relation to women?s employment status in these organisations.

Women employment in sport organisations

Gender relations in the field of sport have been well documented by researchers (Messner, 1994; Theberge, 1993). According to Theberge (1993), the centrality of body and physical performance to athletic experience makes sport a particularly powerfully setting for the construction and confirmation of gender ideologies. Further, organised sport is clearly a potentially powerful cultural arena for the perpetuation of the ideology of male superiority and dominance (Messner, 1994). The male dominated aspect of the field of sport has also been noted and this clearly has a bearing on women?s career progression. Sports organisations therefore can be seen as one of the most traditionally male accepted organisations.

Such levels of gender inequity in management are exaggerated within sport and leisure services in which the legacy of male-dominated provision relative to other service sectors is more pronounced (Aitchison, 2005). For example, literature shows that there are still far fewer women than men in senior positions in sport organisations (Acosta & Carpenter, 2000; Hall, Cullen & Slack, 1990; Hovden, 2000; Inglis, Danylchuk & Pastore, 2000). For example, in a study of almost seventy Canadian national sports organisations, it is revealed that nearly half of the entry-level positions are held by women, whereas they comprise only 28 % of the executive directors, 23 % of the technical directors and less than 10 % of the national coaches (Hall, Cullen & Slack, 1990). In addition, there are a significant literature on women and the coaching profession and the underrepresentation of women in athletic management positions as well and they indicated that there a gender differences in the coaching profession (Cunningham & Sagas, 2003; Inglis, Danylchuk & Pastore, 1996; Sagas & Cunningham, 2004; Sagas, Cunningham & Ashley, 2000). McKay (1997) claimed the major reason for this underrepresentation of women in sport management is that, women applicants for administrative positions will be seen as less qualified than men applicants because men have negative stereotypes towards women as managers in sport organisations.

Studies on the place of women and sports and leisure organisations in many western countries (Aitchison, 2000; 2005; Aitchison, & Brackenridge, & Jordan, 1999; Henderson & Bialeschki, 1995; Hovden, 2000; İnglis, Danylchuk & Pastore, 2001; Shaw & Hoeber, 2003) showed that women?s experience of sport and leisure management is shaped by both structural and cultural factors. For example, in their research project titled Gender Equity in Leisure Management, Aitchison and her colleagues (1999) and in the other study of Aitchison (2005), the authors suggest the importance of both structural (organisational structures, procedures and policies) and cultural (attitudes and discourses) constraints are important in determining progress towards gender equity in sport and leisure management.

Gender role stereotypes which can be considered one of the important cultural constraints determining progress towards gender equity in sport and leisure management are responsible for workplace discrimination and for negative attitudes toward women as managers (Eagly & Mladinic, 1994; Heilman, 1995). Besides, gender role stereotyping is defined as one of the most important barriers to women?s career advancement (Schein, 2001). Therefore, we can argue that women employment in sport organisations and the shape of these organisations are partly determined by the definitions of what men and women ought to be in that society. Gender role attitudes are often based on negative stereotypes and broad assumptions about people?s characteristics (Conway & Vartanian, 2000). For example, research indicates that gender roles commonly lead to the discouragement of women?s employment outside of the home in nontraditional jobs (Galambos, Petersen, Richards & Gitelson, 1985; Heilman, 1997; Schreiber, 1998).

Masculinity refers to socially desirable characteristics that are typically exhibited by men, which include the willingness to make sacrifies, the tendency to think logically and analytically, and the ability to manage stress; whereas femininity rerefs to socially desirable traits and behaviors that are typically held by women, and these include sensitivity, concern for others, and the display of emontion (Spence & Helmreich, 1978). Shaw and Hoeber (2003) explored how the creation and employment roles are influenced by discourses of masculinity and femininity and how these discourses may undermine most women?s access to power in English national governing bodies of sport. They found that senior management roles were heavily dominated by discourses of masculinity hate are linked to men and are highly valued in sport organisations. In contrast, women and discourses of femininity are associated with empolyment roles that are undervalued within organisations. In another study, Shaw and Slack (2002) found that language, practices and policies are all used within the settings of sport organizations to create gender relations that favour masculinities over femininities

There are two main sports organisations in Turkey. One of them is the General Directorate of Youth and Sport (GSGM, Gençlik ve Spor Genel Müdürlüğü) which have the great power to make all arrangements and take important decisions about sport-related events. According to the law of the General Directory of Youth and Sport (No: 3289), GSGM has a responsibility of all sporting event in Turkey and it has 81 provinces. GSGM is responsible for planning, programming, implementing, and monitoring youth services out of school, construction of youth centres, hostels, camps and sports fields, and organising courses for improving the abilities and knowledge of the youth. Besides, there are a total of 58 sport federations, which includes 51 autonomous and 7 non-autonomous sport federations, which are placed under the GSGM in Turkey (www.gsgm.gov.tr).

Turkey National Olympic Committee (TNOC) which is the other sport organisation in Turkey has the control of Olympic sports in individual nation-states. TNOC?s top-level administrative positions were totally held by men. GSGM has also been traditionally seen as favouring male employees. At the management level, men dominate all positions. On the other hand, there are very few examples of female coaches in most of the sports and very limited number of women is involved in the management of the sport at the highest level in Turkey. Besides, there is no awareness of this issue in sport governing bodies. Therefore, there are no any gender policies and relevant action plans in sport governing bodies in Turkey.

Social and Cultural Context of Turkey

By developing the industrialisation process in the year of 1950, the ratio of working women has been increased in Turkey (Kırkpınar, 1998). By 1999, 29.7 percent of women over 12 years of age participated in the labor force, whereas 68.3 percent of men did (State Institute of Statistics-SIS, Household Labor Force Survey Results, 2000). However, the number of women in some specific jobs (especially for management) is still low and women generally prefer traditional jobs with low income, limited appointment and which are compatible with the conditions of housewife (Kuzgun, 2000). According to the General Department of Women?s Status and Problems (UNDP, 1996), the percentages of middle to top management positions, respectively, held by women were 80 % for a chief position, 15 % for a division director position, 3.7 % for a department head, and 0.12 % for a general director position. Kabasakal, Bocacıgiller and Erden (1994) studied women?s representation ratio in middle and top management level in 64 organisations in Turkey. They found that ratio of women employees in these organisations was 43 %, the ratio of women at the middle management was 26 % and the ratio of women was only 3 % in the top management level.

Although many researches indicated that there are positive attitudes towards women?s work in Turkey (Ansal, 1996; Ilkkaracan, 1998; Tor, 1997), many women are still facing with the barrier of their family members such as husband, father and brother. For example, Tor (1997) investigated the employment of urban women and he found that % 54.40 percent of men had a positive approach to their wife?s employment and % 44.68 percent of men had a negative approach to their wife?s employment. She also concluded that the most significant factors for inhibiting women?s employment are not giving permission for working by their husband and childcare. On the other hand, woman?s lower representation in managerial positions in Turkey has resulted from the definition of work based on gender, and the organisational culture that has created a barrier for women?s advancement in their career (Atabek, 1994), patriarchal stereotypes (Aycan, 2004; Berberoğlu & Mavis, 1990, cited in UNDP, 1996; Çelikten, 2005), and childcare and house works (Kuzgun & Sevim, 2004). In spite of these negative conditions, many attempts for EU entrance, new laws for increasing women status in Turkish society, many attempts to increase educational level for girls are influencing the social and cultural structures of Turkish society. By the way, many recent researches indicated that there is an increase in positive attitudes towards women?s working with the increase in educational level (Kuzgun & Sevim, 2004).

Understanding the working status of women within cultural, social and historical context of Turkey, we need to see the context of modernisation process of New Turkish Republic. Prior to the establishment of the Turkish Republic in 1923, the Ottoman Empire was ruled by Islamic law that institutionalised sex segregation and the unequal legal treatment of men and women (Rankin & Aytaç, 2006). The dissolution of the Ottoman Empire and the establishment of a new nation state in 1923 provided ideological and legal bases for modernisation process. One of the key dynamics of modernisation process of new nation state is secularism. To achieve that, reforms included replacing the Islamic laws with secular legal and civil codes based on Western models. Therefore, the foundation of the new Turkish Republic in the early 1920s led to a series of social reforms aiming to rationalise and secularise the state and society as well. Republican gender ideology in general expected women to follow a particular form of education and act as visible ambassadors to challenge the backward image of Muslim women in the world as well as in Turkey (Kandiyoti, 1989). Therefore, we can easily argue that an important symbol of modernisation in Turkey has been advocacy of women?s greater participation in public sphere. Many writers from non-western countries highlighted the importance of women?s place in modernisation process by emphasising the western impact of modernisation (Abu-Lughod, 1998; Kandiyoti, 1989).

Nowadays, the primary or the sole engine of the Turkish modernisation project has been Europeanization (Dulupçu, 2005). Given the candidacy status of Turkey at the end of 2004, the most powerful trend in Turkey is the importance of the national project of modernisation and europeanization. So we can easily argue that the rise of women employment should also be considered within the context of gender equity in the europeanization project of Turkey. Turkey is a very diverse country which has been largely transformed since the 1950s as a result of mass migration from the countryside to large cities, from the undeveloped eastern Turkey to the developed west, which now bears various combinations of traditional and modern elements (Erman, 2001). According to Kara (2006), although the modernisation process is still continuing and the status of women has been improving in Turkey, women?s status and employment has been influenced by the polarisation between Islamic culture and traditions and secular Ataturk?s philosophy, which prevented the genuine equality of women in the country.

It can be seen that these transformation influences gender stereotypes and values of Turkish people toward women?s working and women managers. In their study, Sakallı-Uğurlu and Beydoğan (2002) examined how patriarchy, sexism and gender influence Turkish college students? attitudes toward women managers and they found that male participants exhibited less positive attitudes toward women managers than did female participants. In her recent study, Aycan (2004) has also explored gender role stereotypes and attitudes towards women?s career advancement in Turkish society. She examined the attitudes towards women managers of members of a business organisation in the finance sector and found that females held more positive attitudes towards women in management than males. These findings indicated that in spite of impressive presence of women in university education in Turkey and many modernisation reforms in society, sex role stereotyping of women as workers and managers persist in Turkish males.

The previous literature of working women in Turkey that have been publishes were related to women in business (Aycan, 2004), education (Akkaş, 2001; Çelikten, 2005), and banking (Kabasakal, Boyacıgiller, & Erden, 1994; Burke, Koyuncu, & Fiksenbaum, 2006; Woodward & Özbilgin, 1999). However, there is so limited number of studies on women and sport organisation in Turkey. The lack of attention to attitudes towards women who work in sports organisations in Turkey might be attributed to the prevailing assumption that sport is mainly men?s territory. On the other although several studies investigated the women?s employment in sport organisations in many western countries, attitudes towards women?s work roles and women managers in sport organisations has been ignored. Therefore current study aimed to fill these gaps.

The purpose of this study was twofold: (1) to determine the attitudes towards women?s work roles and attitudes towards women managers of female and male who work in the General Directorate of Youth and Sport with regard to gender and (2) to investigate the relative contribution of gender role orientations to attitudes towards women?s work roles and attitudes towards women managers.

METHOD

Participants

The participants of this study consists of 83 females (M_age= 38.27, SD= 7.39) and 138 males (M_age= 42.86, SD= 8.81) who work in the General Directorate of Youth and Sport (GSGM) which have the great power to make all arrangements and take important decisions about sport-related events. Although there are so many female workers in many departments of GSGM, most of them are in non-professional positions and no women in any managerial positions.

Measures

Personal demographics and working situation: Age, marital and parental status, number of children, level of education, organisational and job tenure and organisational position of participants were collected by using demographic questionnaire.

The Attitudes toward Women?s Work Roles: This scale which is developed by Kuzgun and Sevim (2004) is used to identify the attitudes towards women?s work roles and the difficulties that working women encounter in the family and workplace. It includes 15 items and is rated on a 5-point Likert-type scale which ranges from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (5). A higher score indicates a more positive attitude toward women?s work roles. The internal consistency for present sample was .65.

BEM Sex Role Inventory (BEM, 1981): The BSRI was developed to measure masculine, feminine, and androgynous personality styles among men and women. The original BSRI includes 60 items (20 masculine, 20 feminine, and 20 neutral). The scale reliability coefficients reported in the BSRI manual range from 0.75 to 0.90. In the present study, gender stereotypes were measured with the short-form of the BSRI (Bem, 1981). The masculine scale (10 items) includes characteristics that are perceived as men?s characteristics (e.g., assertive, strong personality, and dominant). The feminine scale (10 items) includes characteristics that are perceived as women?s characteristics (e.g., emotional, sympathetic, and understanding). The rest of the inventory (10 items) is composed of neutral items, which are perceived neither as men?s nor women?s characteristics (e.g., conscientious, unpredictable, and reliable). Participants assessed how well each of the 30 personality characteristics describes themselves by using a 7-point scale (1 = almost never true, 7 = almost always true). The Turkish version reported in Ozkan and Lajunen?s (2005) study was used. The internal consistency was .66 for masculinity and .84 for femininity subscales of the BSRI for the sample of the present study.

Attitudes towards Women as Managers Scale (WAMS; Peters, Terborg & Taylor, 1974): The Turkish version of the WAMS was used in this study to determine the attitudes toward women manager. WAMS consists of 20 items and respondents were asked to indicate the extent to which they agreed with each statement on five point Likert scales. High scores indicate positive attitudes towards women in management. The WAMS was first translated and validated for Turkish samples by Eker (1989). In Eker?s study using the WAMS in Turkey, the instrument was found adequate internal consistency (Cronbach?s alpha=.87). Furthermore, WAMS was validated by Aycan (2004). The Turkish version of Attitudes towards Women as Managers Scale has two subscales: The first subscale was labelled ?Gender-Role Stereotypes?, which included items related to perceptions of women as capable of handling work and family responsibilities. The second subscales, labelled ?Attitudes towards Women?s Career Advancement?, reflected the extent to which society accepts women as key decision-makers in business life (Aycan, 2004). The internal consistency estimate for present sample was .75 (Gender Role Stereotypes) and .89 (Attitudes towards Women?s Career Advancement).

Procedure

Prior to data collection, permission was requested and granted from the General Directorate of Youth and Sport. After the organisation granted permission to perform the study the consent forms were sent to participants. The informed consent forms briefly described the purposes, procedures and potential outcomes of the study.

Data Analysis:

Independent sample t-test was used to test gender differences in attitude toward women?s work roles, attitudes toward women manager and gender role orientation between female and male Turkish sport organisation staff.  In addition, Stepwise Multiple Regression Analysis was carried out to determine the relative contribution of gender role orientations to attitudes toward women?s work and women manager. Gender role orientation predictor variables (femininity and masculinity) were entered into multiple regression analysis to compare their strength for predicting attitudes toward women?s work roles and women managers. Dependent variables were attitudes toward women?s work roles and subscales of WAMS.

RESULTS

Descriptive statistics for the study variables with regard to gender are presented in Table I.

INSERT TABLE I

Independent sample t-test analysisindicated significant gender differences in attitudes toward women?s work and attitudes toward women managers (p <. 05).  As indicated in Table I, male workers had higher scores on attitudes toward women?s work roles than female workers (t= -4.08; p < 0.01). On the other hand, male workers scored lower than female workers on Gender Role Stereotypes (t=7.62; p < .01) and Attitudes toward Women Career Advancement (t= 7.86; p < .01) subscales of WAMS. This indicated that female workers held more positive attitudes toward women in management than males (Table I). T-test results also revealed significant difference in femininity scores between male and female workers (t= 2.06; p < 0.05) favouring females (Table I).

            Results of Stepwise Multiple Regression Analyses indicated that, femininity score was the only predictor of Attitudes toward Women Career Advancement scores of female (F (1,81) = 4.93; R=0.24; p < .05) and male workers (F (1,136) = 9.71; R=0.26; p < .01). For female and male workers, femininity score was accounted 6 % and 7 % of societal attitudes toward Women Career Advancement, respectively. Femininity score was positively correlated with Attitudes toward Women Career Advancement (p <. 05) for both female and male workers. On the other hand, either masculinity or femininity scores was not predictor of attitudes toward women?s work roles or Gender Role Stereotypes scores of WAMS (p >. 05).  

DISCUSSIONS

The first purpose of this study is to determine the attitudes towards women?s work roles and attitudes towards women managers of female and male who work in the General Directorate of Youth and Sport. The second purpose of this study is to investigate the role of gender role orientations in the attitudes towards women?s work roles and attitudes towards women managers of female and male workers.

Regarding the first purpose, this study has clearly highlighted the significant gender differences in attitudes toward women?s work and attitudes toward women managers. Male workers had higher scores on attitudes toward women?s work roles than female workers. This finding is an interesting and unexpected finding regarding the previous studies on this issue, particularly in Turkey. For example, in recent two studies (Kuzgun & Sevim, 2004; Sevim, 2006) it has been found that female university students had more positive attitudes toward women?s work roles than male students. However, it should be noted that, when we look at the differences in mean scores of participants? attitudes towards women?s work roles in the study of Kuzgun and Sevim (2004) and the present study, the scores of the participants in the present study is obviously lower than the other study. Regarding this difference and the lower attitude score of the participants of the present study, we can easily argued that both female and male workers in GSGM as a significant sport organisation held more negative attitudes toward women?s work roles. This finding is consistent with the patriarchal aspect of Turkish society and Turkish law which endorses a patriarchal family model in which the husband is named as the head of the family, has the first say concerning the family?s place of residence, and has primary responsibility for taking care of his wife and children (Hortaçsu, Kalaycıoğlu & Rittersberger-Tilic, 2003).

The another finding of this study showed that male workers scored lower than female workers on Gender Role Stereotypes and Attitudes toward Women Career Advancement subscales of WAMS. On the other hand female workers held more positive attitudes toward women in management than males. Firstly, male workers held more negative attitudes about gender role stereotypes, which included items, related to perceptions of women as capable of handling work and family responsibilities. We can explain this finding with that Turkish society is accepted as highly patriarchal with clear-cut gender role differences (Sakallı, 2001) and Turkish people still generally value patriarchy (Kandiyoti, 1995). In this patriarchal society, the primary roles that society deems the most appropriate for Turkish women are ?wife? and ?mother? (Minibaş, 1998) and the main occupation for women is working at home for free (Arın & Ergin, 1998). Although since the beginning of the 1980s, changes in Turkey?s macroenvironment have exerted considerable influence on the traditional roles of men and women in society and there has been an increase in the number of well-educated women, and their level of income has also risen, the level of support for women?s roles within the family did not see a similar increase. With consistent with the scores of Gender Role Stereotypes subscale of WAMS male workers held also more negative attitudes toward women career advancement, which reflected the extent to which society accepts women as key decision-makers in business life. It means those male workers in GSGM held more traditional/rigid gender role stereotypes and they did not support women?s career advancement.

Although it is not the purpose of this study to test the differences in the attitudes toward women managers in GSGM with in other sectors in Turkey statiscally, it should be helpful to compare the WAMS score of the participants from business sector in the study of Aycan (2004) with the WAMS score of workers in sport organisation. Both female and male workers in GSGM held higher scores in Gender Role Stereotypes than the workers in business sector. However, both female and male workers in GSGM held very low scores in Attitudes toward Women Career Advancement. Based on this comparison we argue that workers in GSGM held more rigid gender role stereotypes and negative attitudes toward women career advancement than workers in business sector.

This finding is consistent with the findings of several studies which indicated that women have more positive attitudes toward women managers than do men, in spite of participants coming from different age and different background (Adeyemi-Bello & Tomkiewicz, 1996; Beydoğan, 2001; Heilman, Block, Martell, & Simon, 1989; Mihail, 2006; Owen & Todor, 1993). For example, Mihal (2006) found that male business student hold relatively negative stereotypic attitudes compared to their female counterparts. Similar finding have been recorded in other studies which have been studied with different groups of people and in different sectors in Turkey. For example, in their study, Sakallı-Uğurlu and Beydoğan (2002) examined how patriarchy, sexism and gender influence Turkish college students? attitudes toward women managers and they found that male participants exhibited less positive attitudes toward women managers than did female participants. In her recent study, Aycan (2004) has also explored gender role stereotypes and attitudes towards women?s career advancement in Turkish society. She examined the attitudes towards women managers of members of a business organisation in the finance sector and found that females held more positive attitudes towards women in management than males.

These two findings about attitudes indicated that in spite of positive attitudes towards women?s work roles of male workers than female workers in the General Directorate of Youth and Sport in Turkey, male wokers did not have positive attitudes towards women managers than femaler workers. Besides, this finding indicated that in spite of impressive presence of female workers in the General Directorate of Youth and Sport in Turkey and many modernisation reforms in society, sex role stereotyping of women as managers persist in Turkish males. This differences between these two attributes might be explained by the percent of women managers as a part of  organisational context of GSGM.

Although many researches indicated that there are positive attitudes towards women?s work in Turkey (Ansal, 1996; Ilkkaracan, 1998; Tor, 1997), many women are still facing with the barrier to be in managerial positions. On the other hand, woman?s lower representation in managerial positions in Turkey has resulted from the definition of work based on gender, and the organisational culture that has created a barrier for women?s advancement in their career (Atabek, 1994), patriarchal stereotypes (Aycan, 2004; Berberoğlu & Mavis, 1990, cited in UNDP, 1996; Çelikten, 2005), and childcare and house works (Kuzgun & Sevim, 2004). Keeping mind the lack of women in managerial positions in many organisations in Turkey, we can easily argue that the organisational culture of GSGM as a sport organisation has created a barrier for women?s advancement in management.

The second purpose of this study is to compare the attitudes towards women?s work roles and attitudes towards women managers of men and women workers regarding the gender role orientations. The another finding of this study showed that femininity score was the only predictor of Attitudes toward Women Career Advancement scores of female and male workers. On the other hand, femininity score was positively correlated with Attitudes toward Women Career Advancement for both female and male workers. The similar finding was also obtained in the study of Sevim (2006) that feminine and androgynous gender roles significantly predicted attitudes toward women?s work roles and women who adapt to feminine gender role had positive attitudes toward women?s work roles.

Although investigating gender role differences between women and men is not the purpose of this study, we believe that it is important to highlight gender roles of women and men in the Turkish society to understand underlying reasons behind the prediction of femininity for Attitudes toward Women Career Advancement scores of female and male workers. In many studies about Turkish culture, the perspective of feminine/masculine cultures is used. For example, according to Agee and Kabasakal (1993) Turkish culture shows a preference for femininity compared with the more masculine US cultures. Gürbüz (1988) has also argued that expressiveness as an indication of a femininity is valued at both the individual and the cultural level in Turkish society. According to Kağıtçıbaşı and Sunar (1992), from expressivenes/instrumentality perspective, sex-role streotypes in the Turkish society differ in important and suprising respects from the sex-role stereotypes documented in Western societies. It should be noted that the preference of femininity in the Turkish culture does not mean that there is no clear cut gender role differences between women and men. Therefore, the finding about the prediction of femininity for Attitudes toward Women Career Advancement scores of female and male workers of the present study should be interpreted within this context.

The present study has some limitations. First, all data were collected using self-reported questionnaires raising the possibility that responses reflect a common method bias. Second, all respondents worked for the one Turkish sport organisation so it is not clear the extent to which results would generalise to other sectors in Turkey. Although our quantitative analysis serves mainly to describe the differences in attitudes toward women?s work roles and women managers, it does not provide an explanation of underlying reasons. Therefore, in further inquiries qualitative analysis should be used to explain underlying reasons within social and cultural context of the GSGM.

In conclusion, the result of this paper contribute to existing knowledge by providing an empirical account of attitudes towards women?s work roles and women managers within different historical and cultural context of non-western society and in a different working organisation. Based on the findings of the present study, we suggest that similar research should be conducted with participants from different departments (technical department, sport specialists department, sport federations, youth services department) and positions (managerial and non-managerial positions) in GSGM. Therefore it might be examined the effects of positions and departments on the attitudes toward women?s work roles and women managers.

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Table I. The Means and Standart Deviations of Attitudes towards Women?s Work Roles, Subscales of WAMS and BSRI For Female and Male Workers