This book is sexist, out-of-date, and relies on a worldview that I don't completely agree with.
Then again, so are all the physics books I ever read, and I still learned a lot of great things from them.
Subtitled "Corporate Gamesmanship for Women," this is a book for female execs about "how to get ahead" in the male-dominated world of business and money. It is not intellectual; it is cold-bloodedly calculating, and pretty offensive in some sections. It has nothing to do with making the obnoxious executive world better, and everything to do with twisting the age-old rules to your advantage, just as men have always done to get ahead. In other words, most of us won't really identify with this book.
But wait-- don't stop reading. This book is far more interesting now than when it was published, because now it has a historical dimension. It was written in 1977, which is pretty amazing to me. The 70's were not a time when feminist women aspired to climb the big-company corporate ladder and sit in the CEO's chair; that was the 80's! This book was ahead of its time, and indeed was something of a "Bible" in the decade that followed.
This book is a rare look at right-wing second-wave feminism. When we think of the 60's/70's women's movement, we imagine peace symbols and consciousness-raising, or maybe even male-bashing dykes, but the emphasis is undoubtedly liberal. The conservative feminist voice has been lost, probably because it was relatively weak at that time. This book embodies the 1970's version of "make it on your own by playing within the system"-- ie, conservative feminism.
I called this book sexist because it is by 90's standards. Harragan unabashedly declares that men and women are at war in the corporate setting, and we will triumph by beating the men at their own game--gathering arsenals, performing espionage, strategically moving around, and always keeping our friends close but our enemies closer.
Some sections are horribly (and hilariously!!) out-of-date. The section on "dressing for success" was amusing, and I won't even touch the chapter about using communications technology effectively (remember, this is pre-FAX, much less pre-Internet). In fact, you can pretty much skip the last third of the book.
(Aside: one chapter was out-of-date, but not hilariously so. That is the one on sexual relations in the workplace-- you know, butt-grabbing and tasteless jokes. If the world was really like what Harragan describes in 1977, I have newfound respect for 2nd wave feminists who wanted to kill all men).
But the general principles were actually sort of useful, I'm somewhat surprised to admit. Her frank assessment of how much of business is based on military and sports models is quite accurate, even in today's "horizontally-structured" small companies. Just because you don't have a direct chain of command and a drill-sergeant-like boss doesn't mean the basic principles have been totally abandoned. (In fact, assuming that they have been would probably be a big mistake).
I admit that I had a somewhat hazy concept of how executives advance, and now that I've tried to spot some of the patterns in my own company-- I was shocked to see that some of the principles apply. Not all, but some. I also learned a few things about salary negotiation and general professional behavior that help one to be fairly compensated in the world of work (an area where women persistently get the short end of the stick, partly because they don't know how these things work).
So overall, the book was broadly useful, but either useless or even offensive if you got down to the nitty-gritty details. It's something that women who work in industry (anywhere in industry, not just on the executive track) ought to read once for the general concepts. It's also of historical interest to third-wave feminists who ought to know what women were up against in the corporate world in 1977. (We've come a long way, baby, although we still haven't reached parity yet). The more I think about it, the more I think what an amazingly different it is now than even just 20 years ago. No wonder men are confused. (But if women can adapt, why can't men?).
Anyway, I'll give it a "0". Don't waste too much effort on it, but give it a browse if you have the opportunity.
Copyright © Kim Allen 2000
