Beyond the Double Bind: Women and Leadership Book

"I can remember," says lawyer Flo Kennedy, "going to court in pants and the judge remarking that I wasn't properly dressed, that the next time I came to court I should be dressed like a lawyer." It was a moment painfully familiar to countless women: a demand that she conform to a stereotype of feminine dress and behavior--which would also mark her as an intruder, rising above her assigned station. Kennedy took one look at the judge's robe--essentially "a long black dress gathered at the yoke"--and said, "Judge, if you won't talk about what I'm wearing, I won't talk about what you're wearing." In Beyond the Double Bind, Kathleen Hall Jamieson takes her cue from Kennedy's comeback to argue that the catch-22 that often blocks women from success can be overcome. Sparking her narrative with potent accounts of the many ways women have beaten the double bind that would seem to damn them no matter what they choose to do, Jamieson provides a rousing and emphatic denouncement of victim feminism and the acceptance of inevitable failure. As she explores society's interlaced traps and restrictions, she draws on hundreds of interviews with women from all walks of life to show the ways they cut through them. Unlike other breakthrough feminist writers, she finds grounds for optimism in areas ranging from slow improvements in women's earnings to newly effective legal remedies, from growing social awareness to the determination and skill of individual women who are fighting the double bind. With intensive research and incisive analysis, Jamieson provides a landmark account of the binds that ensnare women's lives--and the ways they can overcome them.Read More