Get Smart!: A Woman's Guide to Equality on Campus

This handbook is specifically for women in college, but anyone with feminist sympathies will value its careful critique of education and campus life. Katz and Vieland, a freelance writer and biostatistician respectively, set and fulfill the task of making the reader aware of the ``hidden curriculum,'' that is, covert manifestations of sex discrimination. Organization is skillful and succinct summaries conclude each chapter; sensible observations are augmented by usually practical advice and by information about relevant legal principles and procedures. Fictitious case studies that illustrate instances of discrimination and their remedies are not always credible, however; the authors perhaps overestimate the seriousness of purpose of the average collegian, who may not wish to allocate time for strategy sessions with classmates designed to improve their participation in discussions. Occasionally, the argument trespasses beyond the reasonable, as in identifying as probably sexually discriminatory a help-wanted ad for a laboratory assistant specifying that ``applicants must have taken at least one year of college calculus.'' (Feb.)