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Redefining women's work
REVIEWS BY FAYE JONES Three new books offer interesting perspectives on women in the workplace, with topics ranging from what women earn to how they contribute to company management. All give women (and men) good tips for job and personal success. Money talks
By Dr. Warren Farrell AMACOM, $23 288 pages, ISBN 0814472109
Strong, invincible
Germer also provides practical suggestions for workplace success. Some seem self-evident, such as asking for what you want. Unfortunately, many women are still afraid of being labeled overly aggressive, an example of the lingering societal battles Gerner stresses in the book.
By Fawn Germer Perigee, $22.95 240 pages, ISBN 0399530215
Full-time moms
While arguing that mothers, through nature and nurture, are more likely to have these skills than men or unmarried women, she stresses that all can improve their leadership abilities. Two lessons seem especially important. First, workaholism subtracts from leadership ability. "Real leaders have real lives," as Grzelakowski puts it. Second, some of the most important feedback comes from loved ones: a child's criticism can strike deeper and effect more change than any negative evaluation at work. Grzelakowski asserts that people with the best human relations skills will be the best leaders. While there are certainly those among the childless and/or male segments of the population who meet that criteria, it's hard to deny that raising children provides constant training in those areas.
By Moe Grzelakowski Dearborn, $22 256 pages, ISBN 0793195187
Faye Jones is Dean of Learning Resources at Nashville State Technical Community College. Her doctoral dissertation was on Victorian working women.
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In Why Men Earn More: The Startling Truth Behind the Pay Gap—and What Women
Can Do About It, Dr. Warren Farrell argues that wage discrimination against women is mostly myth. Farrell identifies 25 choices that increase earning ability and says women earn less due to their commitment to a well-balanced life. Women are more likely to choose careers in the arts or social sciences, which pay less than those in the hard sciences or technology. Women are reluctant to travel, commute long distances or relocate for a job, Farrell claims. Men routinely do all of these things to get ahead in business, he says. He argues that these choices must be considered when comparing men and women's salaries. The author of several books, including the 2001 bestseller The Myth of Male Power, Farrell has served on the National Organization of Women board of directors, so his current thesis will certainly be controversial. If nothing else, Why Men Earn More is an important reminder for men and women to consider the trade-offs one makes when choosing a job.
Support your 
Fawn Germer celebrates women's accomplishments in
Mustang Sallies: Success Secrets of Women Who Refuse to Run
with the Herd. While she finds that sex discrimination still exists in today's workplace, she emphasizes the individualistic streak in certain women that enables them to succeed. An investigative reporter, Germer interviewed more than 50 women, including Hillary Rodham Clinton, Susan Sarandon and Martina Navratilova, for this book. The women's stories are truly inspiring. In high school, Consuelo Castillo Kickbusch was asked to leave a meeting for the college-bound and told she should be grateful the school provided secretarial training. Kickbusch later became a lieutenant colonel in the Army. Nancy Hopkins started her fight for equality when, as a full professor at MIT, she had less lab space than recently hired male assistant professors.
Moe Grzelakowski believes mothers should not only be in the workplace but should also lead it. According to
other Leads Best: 50 Women Who Are Changing the Way Organizations
Define Leadership, leaders need the characteristics women develop in their roles as mothers. Interviewing female executives from companies such as IBM, Xerox and VISA, Grzelakowski—a mother of two and former top executive—delineates the leadership skills learned at each stage of motherhood, from pregnancy through raising teenagers. For example, Grzelakowski claims that mothers of new babies learn the traits of empathy, sensitivity, compassion, warmth and patience. She quotes Maria Martinez, a Microsoft vice president, as saying: "[my daughter] ushered me into a lifestyle that triggers my compassionate and nurturing side more regularly. She brought me a whole new dimension to my life, which created a whole new balance to the way I work."