Vol. 13 No. 6 (June 2003)
THE DIFFERENCE “DIFFERENCE” MAKES: WOMEN AND LEADERSHIP edited by Deborah L. Rhode. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2003. 232 pp. Cloth $45.00. ISBN 0-8047-4635- 6; Paper. $17.95. ISBN 0-8047-4635-4.
Reviewed by James C. Foster, Oregon State University—Cascades. James.foster@osucascades.edu
Just over twenty years ago, Carol Gilligan published the book that launched a thousand works (at least), and many more debates. IN A DIFFERENT VOICE has been the catalyst for much fruitful development in feminist legal theory. Gilligan’s argument also became a lightening rod for attacks on “difference theory” (or “relational theory” or “cultural feminism”), as one voice among many in polyphonic feminist legal theory. Despite occasionally degenerating into so much silly rhetorical finger pointing between antagonistic camps shouting “essentialists!” and “marginalists!” at one another, discussions of Gilligan’s provocative thesis—and its implications for legal relations and legal policy—have been carried on by thoughtful academics in modulated voices.
Among the most influential voices analyzing difference in legal circles has been Deborah L. Rhode’s. As early as 1988, Rhode published articles in which she interrogated difference theory, assessing its promising and its problematic aspects (Rhode 1988a; 1988b). Throughout her feminist scholarship, Rhode has kept her eyes focused squarely on the prize: “the importance of multiple frameworks that avoid universal or essentialist claims and that yield concrete strategies for social change” (Rhode 1990, 619). In the 1990 article just cited, she identified what she termed the “difference dilemma.” On the one hand: “efforts to claim an authentic female voice illustrate the difficulty of theorizing from experience without essentializing or homogenizing it. There is no ‘generic woman,’ or any uniform ‘condition of women.’” On the other hand: “Affirmations of similarity between the sexes may inadvertently institutionalize dominant social practices and erode efforts to build group solidarity” (Rhode 1990, 625, 626). For Rhode, the way out of this dilemma “is to challenge the framework in which these issues are typically debated. The crucial issue becomes not difference, but the difference difference makes” (Rhode 1990, 626).
THE DIFFERENCE “DIFFERENCE” MAKES—the book under review—continues Rhode’s scholarship in this vein. It is useful to think of this work, a collection of essays growing out of an April 2001 Women’s Leadership Summit, as a companion piece to three other Rhode projects. THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES ON SEXUAL DIFFERENCE, also a collection of essays she edited, is written by scholars from a number of fields who explore diverse aspects of the reciprocal relationship between gender and theory. Second, SPEAKING OF SEX: THE DENIAL OF GENDER INEQUALITY, is Rhode’s eminently teachable (I have used this book successfully in class since its publication) analysis of the “no problem problem”: “. . . all the ways we resist acknowledging gender inequalities, as well as our capacity to address them” (Rhode 1997, 2).
Rhode’s specific focus on women in the professions traces to her 1988 article, “Perspectives on Professional Women,” in which she offers “[a] fuller understanding of gender-related problems in professional settings” (Rhode 1988b, 1164). Major concerns of this essay foreshadow two of the three major sections of Rhode’s Part I “Introduction” to THE DIFFERENCE “DIFFERENCE” MAKES. In “Perspectives on Professional Women,” Rhode examined the historical backdrop to occupational inequality and eventual challenges to such discrimination, assessed limitations of conventional legal responses to gender disparities (emphasizing the legal profession), and posed a crucial question that remains open: “whether more changes will occur in these [professional] cultures, or in the women who enter them” (Rhode 1988b, 1202). In her Introduction to THE DIFFERENCE “DIFFERENCE” MAKES (which served as a background paper for the Summit), Rhode summarizes literature pertinent to leadership and gender difference published over the past twenty-five years. Oversimplifying just a bit, one can say that she organizes her introductory presentation around glass ceilings and different voices—plus an agenda for breaking through the former and facilitating the latter via institutional and individual strategies. (Rhode’s Introduction should be read in conjunction with “The Unfinished Agenda,” the 2001 Report of the ABA Commission on Women in the Profession, which she authored.)
The bulk of this short book is made up of nineteen fairly brief—some very brief—essays by twenty participants in the Summit, that was co-sponsored by the President’s Office of the American Bar Association (ABA), the ABA’s Commission on Women in the Profession (Chaired by Rhode at the time), and the Center for Public Leadership at the John F. Kennedy School of Government. The essays are divided into six parts. Part I is Rhode’s “Introduction.”
Part II is titled “What Difference Does Difference Make?” The four contributions here are framed explicitly as responses to aspects of Rhode’s “Introduction.” In this section, two political scientists (Barbara Kellerman, Ruth B. Mandel), a sociologist (Barbara Reskin), and a psychologist who is currently a management consultant (Jacob H. Herring), raise tough, instructive questions ranging from whether difference should matter, to whether obstacles to employment opportunity for women can be removed, to just what “leadership” means to different women, differently situated, at different times. For Kellerman and Mandel, who respectively pose the last of these queries, asking the question “What Do Women Want?” is far from rhetorical.
Part III is titled “When Does Difference Make A Difference?” Here are collected essays by three politicians (one “recovering,” one retired, one active: Patricia Scott Schroeder, Kim Campbell, Eleanor Holmes Norton), the President of Catalyst, Inc. (http://www.catalystwomen.org ) (Sheila Wellington), and two lawyers (Muzette Hill, Charisse R. Lillie). Of these six offerings, four pieces stand out. Wellington’s contribution is a summary of “Women in Law: Making the Case,” a publication only available at a steep price from the Catalyst Inc. web site. The Hill, Lillie, and Norton pieces respectively address promoting diversity and change in the legal profession and in public life. All three papers offer a similar answer to the question organizing Part III. As Hills articulates it, “When every ‘first’ makes it her business to guarantee that there will be a second. . . .that’s when difference makes a difference” (Rhode 2003, 101).
Part IV is titled “Changing the Context and Changing the Cast: Breaking the Barriers to Gender Equality.” There are five essays here. They are contributed by professors of organization and management (co-authors Debra E, Meyerson and Robin J. Ely), a business professor and business consultant (Linda A. Hill), a lawyer and current head of the NAACP “Inc. Fund” (Elaine R. Jones), corporate lawyer and current board chair of the NOW “Inc. Fund” (Michele Coleman Mayes), and a major law firm chair (Mary B. Cranston). This part consists of one research-based article, the Meyerson and Ely piece, and various personal stories and reflections relating to work. The former builds on Rhode’s finding in her “Introduction” that the difference women leaders make in the private sector is minimal. Meyerson and Ely suggest that narrowly framed goals have rendered the effects of women’s leadership in business negligible, and they suggest setting in motion “an ongoing process of incremental organizational change anchored in a vision of productive work and social interaction unconstrained by oppressive roles, images, and relations” (Rhode 2003, 139). The personal accounts related or told by the other authors in this part underscore the crucial role that mentoring—by colleagues, friends, relatives, and oneself (as per Sheila Wellington’s well known book)—play in women’s career success.
Part V is titled “What about Men?” What indeed, one may well ask. The two slight pieces in this section do little to advance dialogue about a provocative question. In an exercise in stating the obvious, lawyer Teveia R. Barnes devotes three pages to the astounding observation that “the real untapped champions of women are white men” (Rhode 2003, 181). Yep. Former ABA President Jerome J. Shestack offers a collection of bromides, leading up to his Norman-Vincent-Peale conclusion: “Will women make a beneficial difference in our profession and society? The answer to this question can only be yes” (Rhode 2003, 188). (Applause.)
Part VI is titled “Meeting the Challenges.” The two contributions here nicely illustrate the combination of personal reflection and scholarly analysis that characterizes THE DIFFERENCE “DIFFERENCE” MAKES. Former NOW President Patricia Ireland’s savvy look back—“Progress Versus Equality: Are We There Yet?—is juxtaposed to Yale Law professor Judith Resnick’s thoughtful reflections on lessons about mechanisms of inequality and of change that can be drawn from the 1840 World Anti-Slavery Congress. Ireland’s common sense counsel rings with the authority of a seasoned and battle-scarred veteran. The sobering lessons she draws from war stories complement the encouraging lessons Resnick derives from the continuity of women’s organizing efforts. For instance, Ireland, noting that progress is not inevitable, points out that even Abolitionist Henry Stanton left town that July day in 1848 when his wife and other Suffragists proposed that women should have the right to vote during the Seneca Falls Conference, so as to disassociate himself from that radical idea. Resnick has a different take on Seneca Falls. For her, the connection between Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s and Lucretia Mott’s exclusion from the World Anti-Slavery Conference and their organizing Seneca Falls is part of a “pattern of interaction . . . reiterated in hundreds of other settings and about a diverse set of problems over many decades and on many continents” (Rhode 2003, 205).
The folks who contributed to THE DIFFERENCE “DIFFERENCE” MAKES are clearly heavy–hitters. Just as clearly, not all their particular contributions are as substantial as their author’s reputations. Although the individual contributions vary widely in weight and utility, collectively this set of papers is an instructive balance between practical advice and theoretical sophistication. Taken together, the contributions to this collection exemplify a central strength of feminist scholarship, speaking in a practical voice informed by theory. As such, I suspect that THE DIFFERENCE “DIFFERENCE” MAKES likely would be as effective for career advising, especially pre-law advising, as for classroom use.
REFERENCES:
America Bar Association Commission on Women in the Profession. 2001. “The Unfinished Agenda: Women and the Legal Profession.” http://womenlaw.stanford.edu/aba.unfinished.agenda.pdf
Gilligan, Carol. 1982. IN A DIFFERENCE VOICE: PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORY AND WOMEN’S DEVELOPMENT. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Rhode, Deborah L. 1988a. “The ‘Women’s Point of View.’” 38 J. LEGAL EDUCATION 39.
Rhode, Deborah L. 1988b. “Perspectives on Professional Women.” 40 STANFORD LAW REVIEW 1163.
Rhode, Deborah L. 1990. “Feminist Critical Theories.” 42 STANFORD LAW REVIEW 617.
Rhode, Deborah L., ed. 1990. THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES ON SEXUAL DIFFERENCE. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Rhode, Deborah L. 1997. SPEAKING OF SEX: THE DENIAL OF GENDER INEQUALITY. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Wellington, Sheila, et al. 2001. BE YOUR OWN MENTOR: STRATEGIES FROM TOP WOMEN ON THE SECRETS OF SUCCESS. New York, NY: Random House.
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Copyright 2003 by the author, James C. Foster.