White Men, Women & Minorities in the Changing Work Force
Editorial Reviews
Book Description
For many years much attention has been focused on the changing roles of women and minorities. Here is one of the first accounts of the status and power of American white men in a diverse and democratic society--their contributions, their failures, their future in the 21st Century. This book takes a wealth of information, organizes, synthesizes and makes it understandable with practical answers to racism and oppression, economic opportunity and success, power and privelege in America.
From the Author
The Denver Post August 31 1997 The painting hanging on Anthony Ipsaro's office wall depicts three early 19th century white guys dressed in buckskins and gathered around a campfire.
At the end of the 20th century, Ipsaro says, white guys might as well be relegated to the wilderness because they are being left out of the greatest transformation of the American workplace in all the nearly 200 years that have passed between the time of that scene and now.
When he describes white men as engaged in their "last stand," Ipsaro is no raving political reactionary trying to stave off an inevitable loss of power.
White and male, he's also a rather mild, dapper, double Ph.D., whose book, "White Men, Women & Minorities in the Changing Work Force," states simply, "White men are the missing link in the corporate plan to successfully diversify the workplace."
Why? Because "the power positions are held by predominantly white males," he said in an interview in his Cherry Creek office. "They're trying to change the workplace without inlcuding the power structure."
So Ipsaro argues for inclusion, inclusion of white men in the change.
White males need to be convinced that changing the complexion and gender of both the workplace and the executive suite will boost the bottom line and themselves personally, he said. Right now, white men are confused and suffering for it.
"Their anxiety comes not because white men think they are the bad guys, but because others are treating them as though they are the bad guys: their partners, their children, women and minority co-workers, and younger men," Ipsaro writes in his book.
Forced out of their traditional role as producer, protector and director of the nation's resources, in Ipsaro's words.
But, he also says men should welcome the new role.
If women and minorities are allowed to assume more power, men will have less responsibility for wielding it, Ipsaro says.
The expanded workforce will include more talent, more new ideas and renewed corporate creativity, helping the bottom line. White men will learn to spend more time - and enjoy more of it - at home, with their families, enriching their lives with relationships, not professional affiliations.
Sounds like a counselor? Ipsaro is one. His first Ph.D., in organizational administration, came from the Catholic University of America in Washington D.C., and his second, in clinical psychology, comes from the University of Denver where he applied as a 50-year-old, and where he made it clear he wanted to study men's issues just as feminists were studying women's psychology.
His book, which he self published at a cost of about $100,000 so far, is a favorite of Dick McCormick, chairman of US West, said May Snowden, the company's executive director of diversity programs. McCormick has bought several copies and handed the down the corporate ladder to other "leaders," said US West spokesman David Beigie.
And last June, Ipsaro was the primary presenter for Motorola's White Male Cultural Awareness Month, a series of nine sessions at which about 1,800 employees of Motorola's Phoenix-based Semi-conductor Products Sector learned why white men are who they are, what to expect from them, and how it translates to a workplace that is more and more diverse.
Snowden said she sat through a similar session several years ago when Ipsaro held a seminar for US West's women of color.
"It was like new information," she said. "We kind of had forgotten what white men were like, and we left saying, 'Oh, that's why these things happen.'"
White Men, Women & Minorities in the Changing Work Force
White Men, Women & Minorities in the Changing Work Force,Anthony J. Ipsaro,Meridian Associates,0964572338,Business & Economics,Business & Economics / Human Resources & Personnel Management,Business Ethics,Business/Economics,Diversity in the workplace,Employment,Men, White,Minorities,Women,Affirmative Action,Cross-cultural studies,Human Resources & Personnel Management,White men
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