Despite centuries of campaigning, women still earn less and have less power than men. Equality remains a goal not yet reached. In this incisive account of why this is the case, Mary Evans argues that optimistic narratives of progress and emancipation have served to obscure long-term structural inequalities between women and men, structural inequalities which are not only about gender but also about general social inequality. In widening the lenses on the persistence of gender inequality, Evans shows how in contemporary debates about social inequality gender is often ignored, implicitly side-lining critical aspects of relations between women and men. This engaging short book attempts to join up some of the dots in the ways that we think about both social and gender inequality, and offers a new perspective on a problem that still demands society’s full attention.

It is widely accepted that the conflict women experience between family obligations and professional jobs long hours lies at the heart of their stalled advancement. Yet research suggests that this “work-family narrative” is partial at best: men, too, experience work-family conflict and nevertheless advance; moreover, mitigating the conflict through flexible work policies has done little to improve women s advancement prospects and often hurts them. Drawing on an in-depth case study of a professional service firm, we offer two connected explanations for the work-family narrative s persistence. We first present data suggesting that this belief has become a “hegemonic narrative” a pervasive, status-quo-preserving story that is uncontested, even in the face of countervailing evidence. We then take a systems psychodynamic perspective to show how organizations use this narrative and attendant policies and practices as an unconscious “social defense” to help employees fend off anxieties raised by a 24/7 work culture. Due to the social defense, two beliefs remain unchallenged the necessity of long work hours and the inescapability of women s stalled advancement. The result is that women s thin representation at senior levels remains in place.

Despite centuries of campaigning, women still earn less and have less power than men. Equality remains a goal not yet reached. In this incisive account of why this is the case, Mary Evans argues that optimistic narratives of progress and emancipation have served to obscure long-term structural inequalities between women and men, structural inequalities which are not only about gender but also about general social inequality. In widening the lenses on the persistence of gender inequality, Evans shows how in contemporary debates about social inequality gender is often ignored, implicitly side-lining critical aspects of relations between women and men. This engaging short book attempts to join up some of the dots in the ways that we think about both social and gender inequality, and offers a new perspective on a problem that still demands society’s full attention.

In an advanced society like the U.S., where an array of processes work against gender inequality, how does this inequality persist? Integrating research from sociology, social cognition and psychology, and organizational behavior, Framed by Gender identifies the general processes through which gender as a principle of inequality rewrites itself into new forms of social and economic organization. Cecilia Ridgeway argues that people confront uncertain circumstances with gender beliefs that are more traditional than those circumstances. They implicitly draw on the too-convenient cultural frame of gender to help organize new ways of doing things, thereby re-inscribing trailing gender stereotypes into the new activities, procedures, and forms of organization. This dynamic does not make equality unattainable, but suggests a constant struggle with uneven results. Demonstrating how personal interactions translate into larger structures of inequality, Framed by Gender is a powerful and original take on the troubling endurance of gender inequality.

Rocked by a flurry of high-profile sex discrimination lawsuits in the 1990s, Wall Street was supposed to have cleaned up its act. It hasn't. Selling Women Short is a powerful new indictment of how America's financial capital has swept enduring discriminatory practices under the rug. Wall Street is supposed to be a citadel of pure economics, paying for performance and evaluating performance objectively. People with similar qualifications and performance should receive similar pay, regardless of gender. They don't. Comparing the experiences of men and women who began their careers on Wall Street in the late 1990s, Louise Roth finds not only that women earn an average of 29 percent less but also that they are shunted into less lucrative career paths, are not promoted, and are denied the best clients. Selling Women Short reveals the subtle structural discrimination that occurs when the unconscious biases of managers, coworkers, and clients influence performance evaluations, work distribution, and pay. In their own words, Wall Street workers describe how factors such as the preference to associate with those of the same gender contribute to systematic inequality. Revealing how the very systems that Wall Street established ostensibly to combat discrimination promote inequality, Selling Women Short closes with Roth's frank advice on how to tackle the problem, from introducing more tangible performance criteria to curbing gender-stereotypical client entertaining activities. Above all, firms could stop pretending that market forces lead to fair and unbiased outcomes. They don't.

In an advanced society like the U.S., where an array of processes work against gender inequality, how does this inequality persist? Integrating research from sociology, social cognition and psychology, and organizational behavior, Framed by Gender identifies the general processes through which gender as a principle of inequality rewrites itself into new forms of social and economic organization. Cecilia Ridgeway argues that people confront uncertain circumstances with gender beliefs that are more traditional than those circumstances. They implicitly draw on the too-convenient cultural frame of gender to help organize new ways of doing things, thereby re-inscribing trailing gender stereotypes into the new activities, procedures, and forms of organization. This dynamic does not make equality unattainable, but suggests a constant struggle with uneven results. Demonstrating how personal interactions translate into larger structures of inequality, Framed by Gender is a powerful and original take on the troubling endurance of gender inequality.