Book Review: Diversity Regimes: Why Talk is Not Enough to Fix Racial Inequality at Universities

Abstract

the firm, especially those with clients, either stymied or buttressed these new frameworks. Lastly, Chapter 5 reveals how external supports (e.g. paid staff and grandmothers) helped to ease the pressures of caregiving and further bolstered women’s performance at work. Accidental Feminism has three broad implications for research on social change, work, organizations, globalization, and feminism. First, Ballakrishnen reveals the interplay between local and global forces in a changing profession. The emergence of transnational ideals, like meritocracy, shaped local practices. A novel case of Indian professional firms with more equal outcomes than their counterparts in the United States reveals the importance of thinking globally. The focus also challenges the typical Western lens in U.S. academia. Ballakrishnen calls attention to the tendency in Western scholarship to assume that prosocial change only occurs in the majority White countries. This is especially clear in research on topics like diversity, inclusion, and equity. Second, the accidental nature of this gender-egalitarian change allows for fresh empirical and theoretical insights that have much to inform existing research on workplace inequality. Ballakrishnen reveals how organizational change with advantageous outcomes for workers, in this case women, can be unintentional, rather than the result of deliberate interventions, feminist or otherwise. Unfortunately, much like intentional feminist interventions at work (e.g. “Lean In” and D&I trainings), accidental forms of gender “equality” may build off of and exacerbate other forms of inequality. This brings us to the book’s third broad implication. By combining multiple levels of analysis, Ballakrishnen identifies how new forms of equality may rest on or reproduce other forms of inequality. In law in India, gender, class, and capital interact in the reproduction of inequality. The book thus poses the important question of whether gender parity is feminist: Are the outcomes “feminist” if other forms of intersecting inequalities are not alleviated? Ballakrishnen concludes by considering how the accidental can queer what it means to craft feminist change. Accidental Feminism will appeal to audiences interested in inequality, gender, feminism, class, diversity, inclusion, work, professional services, globalization, and organizational and institutional change. Ballakrishnen has crafted a well-designed study with meticulous analysis, keen insights, and a compelling argument that will inform academic, policy, and practitioner audiences alike.