Publisher's Weekly Review
Law professor Williams (Unbending Gender) and her daughter, Dempsey, a student at Yale Law School, share social psychology resources as well as insights from 127 members of the New Girls' Network, a group of female executives, in order to elucidate four systemic trends that affect women in the workplace. "Prove-It-Again!" means that women must continually demonstrate their competence. "The Tightrope" is the challenge of being perceived as too masculine or too feminine, both of which can engage negative stereotypes. The "Maternal Wall" reflects the competing social roles of employee and mother. The "Tug of War" is the real or perceived hindrance of women in the workplace by one another. The authors effectively explore how gender bias affects women in different generations. Overall, the authors offer a two-pronged message to readers: 1) these issues are not your fault; 2) here's what you can do to counteract the problem. In addition, an NSF-funded study allowed Williams to interview 60 female scientists of color to explore the intersection of gender and racial stereotype and bias. The book offers an accessible and sound model of problems faced by women climbing the corporate ladder, and presents clear strategies to take while waiting for business culture to catch up. Agent: Roger S. Williams, New England Publishing Assoc. (Feb.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* This title is many steps beyond Lean In (2013), Sheryl Sandberg's prescription for getting ahead in business. What Works for Women at Work is filled with street-smart advice and plain old savvy about the way life works in corporate America. Law professor Williams teams up with her daughter to pen an insightful guide for women who want to break through the glass ceiling. It starts by identifying the four behavioral patterns of working women. One, called the Tug of War, describes feminine-versus-tomboy instincts. Another, Prove It Again, provides no recourse other than being smarter, sharper, and more successful more often than male counterparts. Culled from 127 in-depth interviews, the four behavioral patterns are described in detail and buttressed by anecdotes and examples as well as action plans that are pragmatic and frequently laced with humor. Sidebars like How to Be a Great Boss and notes on Michelle Obama's transformation make for an entertaining must-read. Our favorite quote, from the late Bella Abzug: Our struggle today is not to have a female Einstein get promoted as an assistant professor. It is for a woman schlemiel to get as quickly promoted as a male schlemiel. --Jacobs, Barbara Copyright 2014 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
JOAN C. WILLIAMS has been a longtime laborer in the trenches of women's work. The founding director of the Center for WorkLife Law at the University of California's Hastings College of the Law, she boldly attacked the male-dominated workplace in "Unbending Gender" and, with her co-author, Cynthia Thomas Calvert, provided a blueprint for increased labor flexibility in law firms in "Solving the Part-Time Puzzle." Now, in collaboration with her daughter, Rachel Dempsey, Williams has turned to a different kind of book. Deftly combining sociological research with a more casual narrative style, "What Works for Women at Work" offers unabashedly straightforward advice in a how-to primer for ambitious women. At the core of the book are four patterns, clusters of problems the authors identify as obstacles to success: "ProveIt-Again!," a descriptive bias that requires women to constantly demonstrate their competence; "The Tightrope," a prescriptive bias that forces women to find a balance between the competing poles of masculinity and femininity; "The Maternal Wall," which pushes working mothers to be at home rather than in the workplace; and "The Tug of War," which compels women to defend their own coping strategies and condemn those of others. Using a blend of academic research, interviews with a group of successful women Williams calls the New Girls' Network and personal anecdotes, the authors describe how these patterns apply to working women's lives and how individual women can best combat them. It's an appealing format, one that often works quite well. The authors plow nimbly through decades of research, transforming what could have been dry and impenetrable statistics into attention-grabbing revelations. (Women with children, for instance, are 79 percent less likely to be hired than are similarly qualified women without children. Men with children are more likely to be given a promotion or pay increase.) Williams and Dempsey's four patterns, despite some inevitable reductionism and duplication, are sensible and easy to discern. After all, what working woman hasn't had the demoralizing experience of proving herself again (and again and again) or watching a male colleague get credit for her idea, her comment, her suggestion? What woman - working or not, mother or not - hasn't felt the sting of an emotional tug of war, subtly shamed or overtly slammed by other women for making choices that seemed right to her? What women need, and what Williams and Dempsey neatly provide, are strategies for maneuvering through the complex patterns of the workplace - practical advice on what to say or do to increase their odds of success. Try paying attention to what your voice sounds like in different contexts, they suggest. Don't agree to perform "office housework" like taking notes and "serving on four billion committees." And my favorite: "Act like a duck. Glide on the surface and paddle like hell underneath." Between their patterns and prescriptions, the authors also offer some quiet but powerful insights into less-examined aspects of workplace dynamics. They offer, for example, a ringing endorsement of paternity leave, arguing that the best way to achieve flexible policies for working mothers is to expand their use among working fathers. They approach the issue of childless women head-on, noting - as few commentators in this field do - that women without children face workplace biases that can be just as invidious as those confronted by working mothers. Williams and Dempsey are particularly persuasive in examining the "bitchy woman" myth, showing the extent to which female competition is still driven by the sheer paucity of opportunity: If there are only one or two spots at the top, it's not surprising that the women in contention for those spots will fight. Finally, "What Works for Women at Work" tackles the double-whammy issue of women and race, exploring how African-American, Latina and Asian women deal with the additional, and often conflicting, expectations that surround them. At other times, however, the language and stylistic devices of Williams and Dempsey's book feel a bit labored and even, heaven forbid, cute. The sidebar boxes of helpful hints, while straightforward, come with such frequency that they tend to interrupt the flow of the main text. Similarly, while the references to "Joan" and "Rachel" are probably necessary in a jointly written work, they also add oddly personal distractions to the authors' broader, more general points. Even odder is the realization that, despite the appearances of Williams and Dempsey throughout the text, and despite their explicit family ties, we don't get a distinct sense of either woman's personality, or of the mother-daughter stresses they, like any other pair, must have experienced. Instead, we get a safely sanitized version of the hard-working mom, the grateful daughter and the jointly Yale-educated writing team. Where are the teenage rebellion, the guilt, the smothering expectations that befall most successful women and their daughters? Of course, none of this is necessary in a book that focuses on helping women to navigate the workplace, but then why include the first-person references and the suggestions of motherdaughter bonhomie? In the end, "What Works for Women at Work" is a book that works, mostly. Smart and well researched, it won't steer anyone wrong. Even if Williams and Dempsey's advice isn't earth-shattering, it's bound to be helpful, especially to women just embarking on their careers or those plotting the next step. After all, who among us doesn't need to be reminded that the worst question to ask a working mother is, "How do you manage it all?" DEBORA L. SPAR is the president of Barnard College. Her most recent book is "Wonder Women: Sex, Power and the Quest for Perfection."
Choice Review
The number of women in professional careers is increasing. Statistics show more women than men currently attend college. According to some theorists, there are even signs that the modern economy is more welcoming to women. While these recent trends make it appear the gender gap has been conquered, the stories of women at various levels in their professional lives point to a very different reality. In this book, Williams (Univ. of California Hastings College of Law) and daughter Dempsey (Yale Univ. School of Law) present a well-researched, starkly honest appraisal of current realities for women in professional careers. Blending personal research with current studies on gender issues, the authors present four patterns that Williams, in her work at The Center for WorkLife Law, discovered over years of listening to young and mature women as they navigated their professional careers. Drawn from interviews with over 125 women of various ages and racial makeup from a variety of professional fields, the book provides both a critical analysis of the salient issues professional women face and realistic options for achieving work-life balance. As in real life, there is no magic bullet in this text. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduates and above; general readers. T. M. Mckenzie Gonzaga University