Abstract
Reviewed by: Yasemin Besen-Cassino, Montclair State University, USA DOI: 10.1177/0730888417735663
Susan Durbin’s Women Who Succeed: Strangers in Paradise starts with Rosabeth Moss Kanter’s (1977) landmark observation that women populate organizations but they rarely run them. Despite vast changes in gender relations, not much has changed about the lives of women in management positions today. Even after decades, women are still massively underrepresented in management positions. Durbin argues, Globally, women comprise 24 percent of senior management roles, although this does vary by country. They are most likely to hold the senior management positions in finance, human resources, corporate affairs, finance, human resources, corporate affairs, marketing and sales, in that order (pp.1–2).
The data for this book come from 46 in-depth, qualitative interviews with senior female managers in the United Kingdom recruited through snowball sampling. As Durbin acknowledges, the sample is predominantly White and middle aged, lacking in racial and ethnic diversity. As she argues, it could be a result of snowball sampling but also reflective of the lack of existing diversity among senior managers. However, it would be interesting to add interviews with non-White managers as case studies.
The book is organized in seven chapters including a substantive introduction and conclusion. Chapter 1 sets the tone for the book and introduces the research focus: the few women who have broken the glass ceiling and have made it into senior management. This book has a unique focus on women who are employed in high-paying and high-prestige jobs.
The second chapter is a review of the existing literature on women, work, and management. Durbin provides a historical background as well as an overview of prior research in this chapter, including liberal and radical feminist perspectives of gender equality. She also introduces the readers to some of the central debates in gender equality in management providing background on a wide range of issues including the effectiveness of quotas and targets, the debate on critical mass, and effects of domestic duties as well as concepts such as the glass ceiling and business care. This is a large and comprehensive chapter, offering historical background as well as review of the literature. It also introduces readers to ongoing debates on the topic, making it an excellent fit for classroom use as well.
Chapter 3 introduces the original data and brings to light the lived experiences of senior management from the perspectives of the 46 women interviewed. In this chapter, the author shows the varied experiences of senior women in management, their life stories, career trajectories, and overall job satisfaction as well as corporate culture. This chapter is packed with insightful observations from women in management and the rich qualitative data come through. Overall, these personal accounts stress high levels of satisfaction with professional success, but the author finds a more complicated picture. She observes, Chapter 3 highlighted the relatively high levels of satisfaction amongst interviewees with their careers to date, but from further analysis, it became clear that while these women have achieved “success,” becoming a senior manager brings with it a price, often personal, and there is no sense that this is likely to change anytime soon (p. 168).
In light of her findings, Durbin concludes: “Reaching the end of this journey, I am now more convinced than ever that the introduction quotas is the way to go” (p. 169).
Overall, with its unique focus on women who have “made it,” this book is a welcome addition to the literature on gender and work. It is written in accessible and jargon-free prose. It is suitable for both professors and graduate students specialized in gender and work. It can also be utilized in the classroom for work, gender, and women’s studies courses for both graduate and upper division undergraduate students.