[.ca] Women Don't Ask: Negotiation and the Gender Divide (ISBN 069108940X)

From Amazon.com:
Men ask for what they want twice as often as women do and initiate negotiation four times more, report economist Linda Babcock and writer Sara Laschever in the footnoted but engaging Women Don't Ask. With vivid research examples drawn from cradle, classroom and playground, the authors detail culture as the culprit in discouraging women from negotiating on their own behalf. Men, socialized in a "scrappier paradigm," learn to pursue and energize their goals at work and home. The two key elements are control and recognizing opportunity. For example, girls, rewarded for hard work, learn to see control as outside of themselves while boys are urged to take charge. Boys are schooled to recognize opportunity and girls to choose safe targets. Several chapters are focused on prescription; how women can decrease anxiety, anticipate roadblocks, plan counter-moves and resist conceding too much or too soon. The authors shine in their examination of culture and gender--and their optimism about how women can counter the culture. They falter whenever they adopt the "sexes-from-a-different-planet" fallacy. Most notably, in a chapter that details a "female approach" to negotiating. Overall, the authors have created a smart summary of research and used it to affirm every woman's urgent right to ask. --Barbara Mackoff

Powerful!!:
I read this book in almost one sitting. It has compelling factual data and riveting anecdotes. But, unlike Backlash, by Susan Faludi, which was almost totally negative, the authors also look at women's strengths in negotiation, and give some ideas for how to put their ideas into action. It's not a how-to-negotiate book; I've spent the last 23 years practicing corporate law, negotiating sophisticated legal transactions and running an in-house department. This book goes beyond "how to" into "why". Essential reading for any woman!

Women have come a long way but...:
In recent comments about a novel featuring a women who was number 1 in her class--ahead of 262 men--former U.C. Berkeley, Boalt Hall Law School Dean Herma Hill Kay said: "Women in the law have come a long way since the l960s, making up 60 percent of this year's freshman class of Boalt, but, as in Poswall's book \oTHE LAWYERS: Class of '69\c, women are still treated differently in the classroom and in the courtroom." How can it be that even as a majority, women are not accorded the status this would imply? Babcock and Laschever explain why. It is not enough to outnumber men; it is to value one's own worth. And, I might add, as a trial lawyer, I am often confronted with the fear of leaving a women on a jury to judge another women. As this book demonstrates, women can do it to other women as much as they do it to themselves. Courageous women, like the real Herma Hill Kay, first women dean of Boalt Hall Law School, as well as the fictional character, Rose Contreras, in the above novel, have led the way, against hostility and prejudice in the 60s. Now, as Babcock and Laschever show, it is up to women in this generation to go the extra step to full equality, first in how they see themselves, and then in the workplace and in their personal lives. It should be comforting to realize that, finally, women are close to having control over their own lives. This book shows how.

Highly recommended:
This book is incredibly well-researched and thoughtfully laid out. It builds its case beautifully with interesting examples, then backs it up with empirical research. And credit to the authors' writing styles, for they do not point fingers or whine about the way things are. And they never fall into a dry style of writing. The book flows nicely, and is easy to read. Most importantly, they shine a light on issues women have in asking for what they deserve and by laying out their case in such a well-articulated fashion, they help provide answers that we can all act upon and move forward with. The issues that the book explores impact women across all facets of their life -- from negotiating child care responsibilites to getting the recognition and compensation they deserve on the job. As a co-author of the business book "The Old Girls' Network", I see these issues in evidence in how women buiness owners also negotiate -- for contracts, for customers, in how they price their products and reticence about charging appropriately. So, I would say this book has broad appeal to stay at home moms, women in corporate life and for the large contingent of female entrepreneurs. It is a must-have addition to all of our reading lists, and one that should bring positive results.

Highly Recommended!:
The debate on gender equity often emphasizes that women earn less than men with similar experience. Authors Linda Babcock and Sara Laschever say that while women may indeed be the victims of external forces, they also to some extent may suffer from their own inability, unwillingness or aversion to negotiate or make demands. In fact, men negotiate four times as frequently as women, and get better results. Men are much more apt to make demands and ask for benefits, pay increases and so forth. Men make more money not necessarily because the system is overtly discriminatory - though it well may be - but because men demand more. The book tends to belabor its point, and sometimes the evidence does not seem as well-presented as it might have been, but we find that it sheds useful light on a knotty social problem. Perhaps it will spur more women to fight - or to continue to fight - on their own behalf.

Highly Recommended!:
The debate on gender equity often emphasizes that women earn less than men with similar experience. Authors Linda Babcock and Sara Laschever say that while women may indeed be the victims of external forces, they also to some extent may suffer from their own inability, unwillingness or aversion to negotiate or make demands. In fact, men negotiate four times as frequently as women, and get better results. Men are much more apt to make demands and ask for benefits, pay increases and so forth. Men make more money not necessarily because the system is overtly discriminatory - though it well may be - but because men demand more. The book tends to belabor its point, and sometimes the evidence does not seem as well-presented as it might have been, but We found that it sheds useful light on a knotty social problem. Perhaps it will spur more women to fight - or to continue to fight - on their own behalf.