cover image Women and the Work/Family Dilemma: How Today's Professional Women Are Finding Solutions

Women and the Work/Family Dilemma: How Today's Professional Women Are Finding Solutions

Deborah J. Swiss. John Wiley & Sons, $24.95 (255pp) ISBN 978-0-471-53318-4

This summary of the child-rearing experience of 902 female Harvard professional school graduates eloquently, if glumly, demonstrates that even prestigious positions and high salaries do not protect working mothers from job discrimination. Doctors, lawyers and business executives report on their survival tactics, frustrations and humiliations as they cope with overwork, glass ceilings and hostility--for example, one doctor was denied leave to recover from a round-the-clock vigil with her sick son (her boss told her to put a cot in her office if she got tired). Swiss, a former assistant dean at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, and Walker, a senior consultant for childcare at Harvard University, suggest that women modify their notions of success, consider part-time rather than full-time work and investigate the childcare policies of prospective employers. Only fleeting reference is made to the need for legislative reform. (May)