Beyond the Double Bind: Women and Leadership - Hardcover

Jamieson, Kathleen Hall

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0195089405 ISBN 13: 9780195089400

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 1995

Synopsis

"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 (as the saying goes, she dared to "wear the pants" in the courtroom). 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. Kennedy, for example, faced the bind that insists that women cannot be both feminine and competent--and then demands that they be feminine first; she undermined that trap with wry wit. Ruth Bader Ginsberg attacked the same quandary head-on: when she heard that her law-school nickname was "bitch," she replied, "Better bitch than mouse." Jamieson explores the full range of such double binds (the uterus-brain bind, for example--"you can't conceive children and ideas at the same time"; or the assertion, "You are too special to be equal"), offering a roadmap for moving past these barricades to advancement. 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.

Jamieson is a widely sought-after authority on politics and communications; this book marks a dramatic new departure for her, one certain to win widespread attention. With intensive research and incisive analysis, she provides a landmark account of the binds that ensnare women's lives--and the ways they can overcome them.

About this title

About the Author

Kathleen Hall Jamieson is Dean of the Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania. She is the author of Dirty Politics, Packaging the Presidency (winner of the Winans-Wichelns Book Award), and Eloquence in an Electronic Age which won the Speech Communication Association's Golden Anniversary Award.

Reviews

Jamieson, dean of the Annenberg School of Communications, University of Pennsylvania, and author of several works (e.g., Dirty Politics: Deception, Distraction & Democracy, Oxford Univ. Pr., 1992), has written another thoroughly researched, well-crafted book. She identifies five double binds, or Catch-22s, for women; explains their origins; and examines their influence on women's lives and careers. For example, the femininity/competence bind posits, "Women who are considered feminine will be judged incompetent, and women who are competent, unfeminine." Jamieson takes the reader "beyond the double bind" by providing concrete examples of how notable women have overcome these barriers to success. She adroitly makes her points using humor as a tool. Focusing more attention on breaking the binds, rather than on the binds themselves, would have strengthened the book. Still, this substantive work makes a significant contribution to feminist literature. Essential for academic and large public libraries.
Nancy Myers, Univ. of South Dakota Lib., Vermillion
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 1995
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0195089405
• ISBN 13: 9780195089400
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 296