Author(s): Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Ella L.J. Edmondson Bell
                          Stella M. Nkomo
Publisher: Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Harvard Business School Press
Year: Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â 2001
Price: Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â $ 29.95
Diversity training has been recognized as a crucial factor for ensuring that your organization has the advantage in an ever competitive market. With the growing number of women and minorities entering the labor market, it makes sense to be aware of the struggles and needs of this significant group. Our Separate Ways offers insights into the personal and professional lives of both White and Black women. The material presented in this book has been acquired through a comprehensive empirical study and can prove highly beneficial in improved understanding of and ability to develop this segment of your human resources.
Target Audience:
This book is for diverse audience and not only for black women. The information contained in this book may prove beneficial for "practicing managers, HR executives, and organization leaders concerned with grooming women managers and enhancing cross-race and cross-gender relationships; academics studying race and gender in organizations, career development, and the sociology of work; and black and white women executives seeking to become more effective in their careers and to resolve the conflicts in their relationships".
Content and Structure of the Book:
Introduction
Part I-Flashbacks: Lost Childhoods; Their Father´s Daughters; Comfortable Families, Uncomfortable Times; Executives in Training
Part II-Flashpoints: Breaking In; Fitting In; Barriers to Advancement; Climbing over the Barriers; Making Change; Work Isn´t Everything
Part III-The Self and the Other: The Racialized Self; Images of Other
Epilogue
Appendix A: The Women
Appendix B: Life History Interviews
Appendix C: National Survey
Notes
Bibliography
Index
About the Authors
Questions Addressed by this book:
What are the career needs of black women managers?
How do these women understand and work with their racial and gender identity?
How can corporate leaders advance the career of black women and rid their companies of debilitating cross-race and cross-gender dynamics?
Does gender connect women or is race the commonality in human relationships?
Summary:
The book is based on a comparative study of Black and White women in the workplace undertaken. The content highlights and interprets the results of the study involving 120 professional women (80 Black women and 40 who are White) and their experiences and struggles in attaining their high positions in large corporations. For the sake of availability of space, only the stories of 14 of these women (7 white and 7 black) that encompass the major themes found in the study are included in the book. All of these women are considered ´trail blazer´ in the area as they represent the first group of women to hold the high-profile management positions. The reader is presented the stories of these women through three different ´lenses´: race, gender and social class. The authors suggest that "by juxtaposing the career and life experiences of black and white women, we demonstrate how the combined effects of race and gender create not only different organizational identities and career experiences, but also very different paths to the doors of corporate America".
The questions that guided the research are listed below:
1. Â Â Â Â Â What are the women´s early life stories?
2. Â Â Â Â Â How did race, gender, and social class affect key developmental aspects of their lives?
3. Â Â Â Â Â What are the effects of gender, race, and social class over the course of their lives?
4. Â Â Â Â Â What role conflicts do the African-American women experience as a result of their bicultural life structures?
5. Â Â Â Â Â How do gender, race, and social class affect the women´s work experiences, upward mobility, and career satisfaction?
6. Â Â Â Â Â How do women managers negotiate their work, family, and community roles and the interrelationships among them?
The structure of the book is such that it is divided into three parts: Flashbacks, Flashpoints, and The Self and the Other. The Flashbacks section introduces the reader to fourteen women interviewed for the study. This section relays childhood and family stories as well as the psychological and educational training of these women.
In the Flashpoints section, the common denominators among black and white women are addressed. There are six different ´flashpoints´ that emerge: breaking into a management career, adjusting to the corporate environment, encountering barriers to advancement, climbing over the barriers, making change in the work environment, and coming to terms with personal life choices.
The third section involving "the Self and the Other" examines the way white and black women managers view themselves and their female colleagues.
Some of the prevalent issues of the book include: role of women as ´tokens´, role of black women as ´double tokens´, biculturality, systems of oppression versus privilege, differences in perceptions of white and black women, forced self-reliance at a young age, high academic performance and guidance or lack thereof in choosing career paths.
The findings of this study shatter stereotypes about successful women´s background - namely that they must come from middle-class backgrounds, with nurturing families and that their careers followed a straightforward path. One of the interesting points made by the authors includes the idea that white men subordinate white women through seduction and black women through rejection and exclusion. The effects of sexism taking on a racial overtone seems to come into play for many of the black women. This means that black women are left to dealing with sexism and racism separately as well as in combination.
The authors offer practical guidance in better understanding black female managers:
·        Black women do not neatly fit into either of the two groups in which they are usually placed: women professionals or black professionals
·        White colleagues should sponsor and support black women.
·        Black women want deeply to be themselves and be able to express their cultural identity.
·        Companies must support black and white women´s networks.
·        Companies must build upon black women´s talents and institute policies and practices that incorporate their concerns and special challenges.
·        One way to attract and retain black women managers is to show them that you are prepared to assist their communities and the causes important to them.
The aim of the authors is to shed stereotypes about women and about black women in the workplace so to bind black and white women together. The authors suggest that although black and white women´s professional experiences vary, they are also related in systematic ways. The stories of the individual women are said to tell a collective narrative. The goal of the book is to counter the "parachute approach" to explaining how women attained their high-status positions in the corporate world. That is, these women did not just fall out of the sky dressed in pinstripe suits and with briefcases in their hands. There is actually a lot more to their journey up the corporate ladder that has to be recognized in order to understand these women.
HR.COMmentary
Throughout the book, it is emphasized that black women are not understood - especially in the work world and that it is in the best interest of the organization to overcome this lack of understanding. The study conducted by the authors is quite extensive and could be somewhat difficult to understand. However, the authors are able to explain their findings in a clear manner. This book will prove to be a great resource for anyone interested in understanding diversity and using the talents of capable and talented Black women.
The stories shared by the women are interesting and insightful. There tends to be a bit of repetition in the general themes. However, this is probably the message - that, despite the ´separate´ paths of the women, some of their experiences are the same. Â Nonetheless, it can be difficult to persevere and continue to read when the question "what am I going to get out of this?" keeps popping up. A major shortcoming of the study and thus, the book is that the major investigators involved were three black women. This may have proved to be a confounding variable and as such have influenced the results of the study. In addition, the study involved women who are considered ´trailblazers´. So one has to wonder how the experiences of these women apply now that the number of black women in corporate America has likely increased and they are probably more accepted.
Our Separate Ways is a really impressive undertaking in investigating and divulging the secret struggles and triumphs of professional women - mainly Black women. Being a young South Asian woman, I wonder how and if this book applies to me or if I will have to wait for someone to make a similar effort at uncovering the struggles of South Asian professional women.