Bridging the Gender Gap (Working With Groups in the Workplace)

Cultural expectations and stereotypes regarding what it means to be male or female can create communication barriers and misunderstandings that can be detrimental in a workplace that expects both genders to work together cooperatively. Bridging the Gender Gap contains a wealth of exercises for trainers to use with men and women who work as colleagues. The activities will also be useful in gender role awareness groups, diversity training, couples workshops, college classes, and youth seminars.

We absorb what society considers appropriate behavior through the natural process of socialization, accepting and internalizing cultural ideals without questioning them. These societal norms become part of our unconscious gender role belief system attitudes, attributes, and behaviors we consider appropriate for women and men. Negative cultural stereotypes of women create problems such as discriminatory behavior in the workplace.

In Bridging the Gender Gap, Ms. Eberhardt provides tools to overcome these negative stereotypes. The two sections of the book: Gender Awareness and Women and Men as Colleagues provide exercises to help participants unlearn the traditional gender roles, to learn to communicate effectively, to understand equally valid but different points of view, and to discover new ways of relating to one another as partners, friends, and colleagues, as well as begin a new journey toward self-growth.

Louise Yolton Eberhardt has been involved with gender issues for the past twenty-five years. She is a consultant and trainer who works with many of America's Fortune 500 companies, government agencies, colleges, voluntary organizations, and school systems. Much of her consulting practice is aimed at helping organizations learn how to value diversity, develop high performing, pluralistic teams and organizations, and create multicultural understanding in the workplace as well as eliminate gender and racial bias, homophobia, and all forms of discrimination, including sexual harassment. Louise has founded the Columbia Women's Center and for many years was its director. She is a professor of women's studies and sociology at the university level and is currently president of Hart Performance Group in Baltimore. Louise is the author of three other books for trainers: Working with Women's Groups, volumes 1 and 2, and Confronting Sexual Harassment.