Accidental Feminism: Gender Parity and Selective Mobility among India’s Professional Elite

"This is an extraordinarily eloquent analysis of an understudied dynamic: what accounts for progress on pervasive gender inequalities. Ballakrishnen explains why Indian female lawyers in elite firms have achieved more professional success than peers in other fields and countries, including the United States, and offers invaluable insights into the structural conditions that promote gender equity for professional women."—Deborah L. Rhode, Stanford Law School

"Accidental Feminism brilliantly analyzes a remarkable case of how an egalitarian work setting emerged from an improbable alchemy of factors, revealing how inherited advantage and the global legal profession are intertwined. Scholars of gender, globalization, and the professions must contend with Ballakrishnen’s provocative new questions about merit and equality."—Woody Powell, Stanford University

"This meticulously researched book challenges us to consider a simple but unsettling question: If structural forces produce inequality in the absence of intentional discrimination, why can’t these forces ‘accidentally’ produce meaningful, if contingent, equality as well? Rendering visible the determinants of women’s success in India’s corporate law firms, Ballakrishnen rethinks the practice of globalization, feminism, and inequality in ways that will impact our understanding for years to come."—David B. Wilkins, Harvard Law School

"Innovatively and persuasively combining theory and methodology, Accidental Feminism makes a major contribution to the study of gender in the legal profession. The book’s comparative case study method is brilliantly executed and offers a model for scholarship in other domains."—Susan Sturm, Columbia Law School

"Accidental Feminism provides a fascinating, in-depth, and beautifully written lens into gender dynamics among elites in the context of India’s newly liberalizing and globalizing economy. Elite professional women, let alone India’s elite professional women, have received far too little attention, and this unique book fills an important gap in the comparative literature on gender and development."—Rina Agarwala, Johns Hopkins University