In his book Originals: How Non-Conformist Move the World, Adam Grant says: As double minorities, black women defy categories. Because people don’t know which stereotypes to apply to them, they have greater flexibility to act “black” or “female” without violating stereotypes.
I found this to be an interesting insight from my own experience of being brown and female in the American workplace. Some racial stereotypes do apply but in a limited way. There are way too many smart, articulate, independent, confident sisters out there for the archetype of the docile push-over doing a man's bidding to last.
Though truth be told, those docile looking ones often have a ton of hidden strength and can easily come out ahead in the end. Notwithstanding, people are able to classify a brown woman one way or the other and they make peace with it. At that point, rules no longer apply and indeed a brown female may fare better than a white one in many situations.
The book overall is a bit of a yawn considering the expectations I had for it. The Sheryl Sandberg introduction was too saccharine for my taste. I am not at all a fan of the whole Lean In business. Find it to be an elitist slap on the face of women who have real struggles in life and yet go on to accomplish remarkable things. If ever I needed wisdom on how to persevere against all odds as a woman, I would love to learn from one of them.
Grant proposes his thesis in the first couple of dozen pages of the book. There is no way to prove or disprove his ideas using any scientific method. For every example he cites, there may be many counter-examples too. For instance, he states:
And in the long run, research shows that the mistakes we regret are not errors of commission, but errors of omission. If we could do things over, most of us would censor ourselves less and express our ideas more.
You have to ask yourself what kind of research that may have been; indeed if Grant had plumbed the depths of the human soul for a sample size good enough to represent all of humanity. Such lazy references to "research" abound in the book.
So we have to take him at his word and his selective recitation of facts that support his case. It got to be too predictable and boring after a point. In summary, Grant says it's okay to be risk-averse because that does not preclude you from being original. It's a reasonable premise but it is not clear why it required writing a whole entire book.
I found this to be an interesting insight from my own experience of being brown and female in the American workplace. Some racial stereotypes do apply but in a limited way. There are way too many smart, articulate, independent, confident sisters out there for the archetype of the docile push-over doing a man's bidding to last.
Though truth be told, those docile looking ones often have a ton of hidden strength and can easily come out ahead in the end. Notwithstanding, people are able to classify a brown woman one way or the other and they make peace with it. At that point, rules no longer apply and indeed a brown female may fare better than a white one in many situations.
The book overall is a bit of a yawn considering the expectations I had for it. The Sheryl Sandberg introduction was too saccharine for my taste. I am not at all a fan of the whole Lean In business. Find it to be an elitist slap on the face of women who have real struggles in life and yet go on to accomplish remarkable things. If ever I needed wisdom on how to persevere against all odds as a woman, I would love to learn from one of them.
Grant proposes his thesis in the first couple of dozen pages of the book. There is no way to prove or disprove his ideas using any scientific method. For every example he cites, there may be many counter-examples too. For instance, he states:
And in the long run, research shows that the mistakes we regret are not errors of commission, but errors of omission. If we could do things over, most of us would censor ourselves less and express our ideas more.
You have to ask yourself what kind of research that may have been; indeed if Grant had plumbed the depths of the human soul for a sample size good enough to represent all of humanity. Such lazy references to "research" abound in the book.
So we have to take him at his word and his selective recitation of facts that support his case. It got to be too predictable and boring after a point. In summary, Grant says it's okay to be risk-averse because that does not preclude you from being original. It's a reasonable premise but it is not clear why it required writing a whole entire book.
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