{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,23]],"date-time":"2026-09-23T05:07:01Z","timestamp":1790140021235,"version":"4.0.1"},"reference-count":13,"publisher":"Frontiers Media SA","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,23]],"date-time":"2026-09-23T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1790121600000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":["frontiersin.org"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Front. Sociol."],"abstract":"<jats:p>Gender visibility days aim to mark and correct the underrepresentation of women in specific institutions and fields. This article argues that the empowerment-versus-ritual debate in gender visibility scholarship is missing a conceptual distinction already present in the sociology of tokenism and institutional diversity work: the difference between being recognized and being granted authority. Drawing on sociological theories of tokenism, institutional non-performativity, and intersectionality, this article proposes \u201crecognition without authority\u201d as an analytic category for evaluating gender-focused observances. It illustrates the category through a single case: Cormac McCarthy\u2019s novel Stella Maris (2022), whose protagonist is watched, examined, and discussed at length within institutions dominated by men, yet whose testimony is never treated as credible on its own terms. The case serves as a practical example of a dynamic that future sociological research on visibility days can test more systematically across different institutional settings.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3389\/fsoc.2026.1956261","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,23]],"date-time":"2026-09-23T04:44:54Z","timestamp":1790138694000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3389\/crossmark-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Recognition without authority: Cormac McCarthy\u2019s Stella Maris and the gender visibility debate"],"prefix":"10.3389","volume":"11","author":[{"given":"Madina","family":"Radjabova","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of English Literature and Translation Studies, Bukhara State University","place":["Bukhara, Uzbekistan"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1965","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,23]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref1","article-title":"The non-performativity of anti-racism","volume":"5","author":"Ahmed","year":"2006","journal-title":"Borderlands"},{"key":"ref2","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","DOI":"10.1215\/9781478002772","volume-title":"Empowered: Popular Feminism and Popular Misogyny","author":"Banet-Weiser","year":"2018"},{"key":"ref3","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"144","DOI":"10.5465\/amj.2017.0440","article-title":"Diversity thresholds: how social norms, visibility, and scrutiny relate to group composition","volume":"62","author":"Chang","year":"2019","journal-title":"Acad. 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Polit."},{"key":"ref7","article-title":"An unknown tongue: god, complexity, and the limits of secular epistemology in Cormac McCarthy's the passenger and Stella Maris","volume":"23","author":"Frye","year":"2025","journal-title":"Cormac McCarthy J."},{"key":"ref8","volume-title":"Men and Women of the Corporation","author":"Kanter","year":"1977"},{"key":"ref9001","volume-title":"Stella Maris","author":"McCarthy","year":"2022"},{"key":"ref9","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"325","DOI":"10.1177\/030631293023002004","article-title":"The Matthew Matilda effect in science","volume":"23","author":"Rossiter","year":"1993","journal-title":"Soc. Stud. Sci."},{"key":"ref10","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"1577","DOI":"10.1080\/09692290.2021.1935295","article-title":"Varieties of gender wash: towards a framework for critiquing corporate social responsibility in feminist IPE","volume":"29","author":"Walters","year":"2022","journal-title":"Rev. Int. Polit. 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