Diversity at work, looking at it inside out

My law firm has recently begun affinity groups. These groups are aimed at minority lawyers, minority for gender or race or sexual orientation, and seek to link members of these groups who agree to identify. But even before this initiative, groups met for lunch along typical "otherness" lines. And I think that this is good. For you, because you make a friend, and for the job. Because it helps people feel more connected at work. And because finding someone "like you" helps you be more productive at work.

Everyone has something unique about themselves that can help them find a group to identify with. Even when they don't realize it. In college, around my sophomore year it became a problem that people would segregate in the lunch room. There was one table, however, that alleged not to do this because their group looked like the rainbow. However, after sitting at this table a couple of times I realized just what made them so alike: everyone was from Canada! Students from the same area of the country also tended to segregate, as I regularly sat at the "Ohio table". And in the end, as the balance changed and groups began to segregate along different lines, it was no longer a "race" problem. People segregate along many different lines, and there is nothing necessarily wrong with it unless it is exclusive. It's natural, and unavoidable, and it is a good way to get to know someone you naturally have something in common with.

About a year before the initiative at work, all the minority women decided, and it was informal, to meet for lunch at least once a month and commiserate. Oddly enough, the discussion is rarely really about work. We exchange gossip, talk about interesting lunches we have, and discuss politics. We talk about the men in our lives, or lack thereof, and our families. We talk about trips we have taken, new clothes, sales at the mall, our cars, and other generalities about our lives.

Sometimes I wonder if other "affinity" group lunches are just like ours. And why we chose to associate along the lines that we did. We don't find it problematic. But more than once, someone in the groups has wondered aloud if, considering where I work, someone notices that all the black female attorneys in my class at the firm leave together for lunch on a regular basis, or sit together in the lawyer's dining room. And if people feel excluded.

Now we could never, and would never exclude. But I wonder sometimes how it is perceived when, for example, we have women's lunches, informally named, and very popular. How do the men feel about this?

Now, I don't always go to lunch with the hand full of associates who look like me. In fact, I mostly go to lunch with whomever is going to lunch when I am. But I do enjoy our ladies lunches. And I do think that having a group of people at work with whom you can talk about your life, and who you can make friends with, makes work much more enjoyable. And it another plug for work diversity.