“In Search of Token Women in Academia”: Some Definitions and Clarifications zy Carlotta Joyner Young zyxw Institute for Program Evaluation US. General Accounting Office Doris Layton MacKenzie and Carolyn Wood Sherif zyx The Pennsylvania State University This article makes an important distinction between two definitions of “token woman.” In the first definition, a token woman is one of few women in a predominantly male setting. The second meaning of “Token Woman” identifies that subset of such women who have made the distinctive psychological adapta- tion described by Laws (1975). The methodological decisions in Young, Mac- Kenzie, and Sherif‘s (1980) research are justified as based on that definitional distinction. Constantinople’s critique is shown to be appropriate as an alternative to Laws’ theory, but not as a criticism of our research. Alternative generational explanations for previous findings about Token Women are not supported by existing data. Constantinople (1 982) has suggested that the most serious problem with our research lies in definition of the concept “token woman.” We agree that clarification is needed regarding how we (Young, MacKenzie, z & Sherif, 1980), Laws (1975), and Constantinople have used the term. The term “token woman” was used in two different ways in both Laws’s analysis and our own. The first definition of token woman in- volves considering only the relative frequency of men and women in Requests for reprints should be sent to Carlotta J. Young, Institute far Program Evaluation, US. General Accounting Office, 441 G Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20548. At the time that this article was written, the late Carolyn Wood Sherif was at The Pennsylvania State University. 166 Psychology zyxwv of Women Quarterly, Vol. zyxw 7(2) Winter I982 0361-6843/82/1600-0166/$02.75 zyxw 0 1982 Human Sciences Press