Book Recommendation: "Through the Labyrinth: The Truth About How Women Become Leaders"
"Through the Labyrinth: The Truth about How Women Become Leaders" by Alice Eagly and Linda Carli is an amazing read. I read it last semester for a class called Women & Leadership in the Global Environment. I wanted to know the kinds of institutional biases I would face in the workforce, and boy is that a lot to unpack.
I'm not going to lie, there are a lot of statistics in this book that might feel downright discouraging. However, I've always had the outlook that the best way to face a problem is to learn everything about it. When facing a workforce that won't see you as a leader, it's a good idea to learn some tricks so that you can do everything in your power to make people see you as one.
The stats and cold hard facts in this book helped me to seriously consider what my future is going to look like and how I can become the leader I want to be, despite any obstacles I may face just for being a woman in the workforce (plus any imposter syndrome I might have as a result of having internalized this idea of a male leader).
If you are an intersectional feminist who wants to learn more about the workforce and how gender plays a role in how you are perceived (and how it affects your career), this is a must-read. The one thing I'd say this book was missing was more content on how sexism disproportionately affects women who are LGBTQ and minorities. They touched on the issues relating race, but it just wasn't as much as I wanted, and I don't remember there being anything about LGBTQ women.
Here is a link to the preview of the book so you can start reading it and see if you think it's worth investing the time and $20 or so into. One thing I will say about the preview is that it starts with the core metaphors of the book that become motifs. After the beginning of the book, the rest is a LOT of studies, facts, statistics, graphs, and just straight up truths about everything you'd want to know about how gender affects your career. It's truly changed my outlook on what my life will look like after college, and has helped me plan out what I want to do in regards to "having it all"- raising a family and having an incredible career.
If you don't like reading but you do like feminism, I also have an awesome TED Talk from that class ready for you:
Let me know what all of you think about these issues in the comments!
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