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  • We Are the Leaders We've Been Waiting For: Women and Leadership Development in College by Julie E. Owen
  • Alana Anderson
We Are the Leaders We've Been Waiting For: Women and Leadership Development in College Julie E. Owen Sterling, VA: Stylus, 2020, 252 pages, $33 (softcover or ePub) $125 (hardcover)

College offers opportunities for women to lead in every aspect of campus life. Women students face gendered stereotypes about their leadership potential while lacking mentors of their gender and examples of women who practice a range of leadership styles. Examining leadership development through the framework and lens constructed by Julie E. Owen is important. Owen reminds educators that leadership is not solely defined as positional. She reinforces that leading requires rich developmental understanding of leadership that includes the acknowledgment of the intersections of power with racial identity. Although women can be seen flourishing in higher education, many of these students fail to self-identify as leaders in college, which can reflect the support and mentorship provided to them by higher education professionals. Owen examines how we understand the construction of power and how to challenge dominant approaches when we analyze women and leadership.

Chapters 1 and 2 provide an overview of the canon of women's leadership studies and feminism and their critiques. Owens argues that the discipline of leadership studies must continually evolve in order to respond, shift, and include global, national, and local concerns. This can be done by challenging dominant ideologies, thinking critically, acknowledging and listening to counter narratives of those who resist the traditional male-identified expressions of leadership as the measuring stick. Chapters 3 and 4 address the role of identity, intersectionality, and efficacy in leadership and in gender socialization. Owen showcases research on the developmental understanding of gender and leadership for children in elementary school, reminding us of the power of messaging and formative experiences in our understanding of leadership capabilities. Furthermore, Owen highlights the diverse array of leadership models and styles and introduces the reader to the concept of intersectionality. She provokes an examination of what it means for educators to link intersectionality to feminist liberation in the development of self-efficacious leadership.

The history of women in higher education as well as the issues currently facing women on campuses across the country are discussed in chapter 5. According to Owen, higher education institutions must address the systemic issues facing women, including pervasive inequalities based on sex and gender, while also creating spaces for women to build their skills and confidence around leadership that extends into their roles in the workplace. Chapter 6 highlights some of the very traditional and well-known issues facing women in the workforce. Whether a glass ceiling, glass escalator, a sticky floor, or a leaky pipeline, there are many structural barriers to leadership growth and acceleration for women. Owen argues in chapter 7 that organizational leaders must understand the climate and the experiences faced by women, then work to dismantle sexist systems and practices as a part of their commitment to gender equity. Chapter 8 makes the case that the recognition of intersectionality in the experiences of specifically BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of [End Page 134] Color) women will provide space for conversations on navigating leadership that is neither centered around whiteness nor structured from a patriarchal perspective. In general, Owen argues that we must interrogate the "one size fits all" model of leadership that has traditionally been taught. Ultimately, she seeks to subvert the traditional hierarchical and authoritarian conceptualizations of leadership, and in chapter 9 she invites the reader to reimagine a new leadership that is inclusive and expansive.

Owen concludes each chapter with "Narratives and Counter-Narratives," stories that exemplify and reinforce her conception of an intersectional leadership lens. She takes the opportunity to share the authentic and lived experiences of college women. These stories that describe challenges that coincide with the themes presented in each chapter become one of the strengths of this work, as they give voice to the complexities faced by college women leaders. By demonstration, these stories acknowledge the complexities of identity and experience that are wrapped up in a way she hopes the reader can understand leadership for...

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