Managing Lives: Corporate Women and Social Change

Freeman's study of the psychology of women managers is unconvincing because it is dedicated more to praising and justifying these women than to examining them. The text integrates current scholarship on women and work with excerpts from 40 interviews conducted at a management training seminar; too often the interview quotes seem to serve as anecdotal illustrations of conclusions rather than as their source. Moreover, Freeman occasionally discounts comments that undercut her theories. For example, when arguing that new female employees are distrusted and tested by their male colleagues, Freeman offers supporting quotes. Banished to another chapter, however, is a report from a manager who first assumed she was on trial because she is a woman but later realized that men, too, face peer judgment. Equally disturbing are statements that merely reflect personal conviction, such as: ``Women cannot stay in a marriage that forbids them the freedom of their development.'' Freeman is a professor of education and child study at Smith College and a practicing psychologist. (May)