Management scholars have long separated the study of work and diversity, based on the assumption that the nature of work itself is not affected by race or gender. Research on occupational segregation invalidates this assumption, confirming that we judge the nature of work by the social identities aligned with it. Management theory has yet to digest this evidence due to our unilateral view of the work-practitioner relation (i.e., people derive identity from work), which suppresses a reciprocal relation (i.e., work derives identity from associated people). This paper builds a bilateral view by theorizing a new glass metaphor -- the glass slipper -- to capture occupational identity by association as it yields systematic forms of advantage and disadvantage. The glass slipper elucidates how occupations come to appear 'naturally' possessed of features that fit certain people yet are improbable for others. The paper thus contributes to management knowledge by (a) redefining the current division of scholarly labor as a theoretical problem and (b) developing the requisite theoretical tools to redress that problem. Through the glass slipper, the paper theorizes collective occupational identity and its relation to other social identities in a way that fosters the integration of work and diversity studies.