The Corporate Closet: The Professional Lives of Gay Men in America

One of the best business books of the year to date, this work focuses on the professional lives of more than 100 gay men. Woods, an assistant professor of communications at City University of New York, and Lucas, a partner in an organizational development firm, are appalled by the dichotomy between the cherished American belief in ``fair play'' and the country's history of discrimination against various groups. Using a critique of these ``traditions'' as their methodological framework, the authors study corporations that spotlight marriage and family--``Gay careers are . . . shaped and diverted by the subtle, persistent tug of heterosexism.'' Their observations on the suffocating ``corporate closet,'' on ``playing it straight'' and on ``maintaining boundaries'' are insightful, as is their call for creating gay employee groups and for dismantling the closet. ``When they defend conventional definitions of privacy and professionalism, gay men support the very ideologies that compel their invisibility.'' This book, with an impressive bibliography and extensive notes, should generate vigorous trade and academic sales. (Sept.)