AGEDA blog

Do women ask and negotiate  less than men? In their book Linda Babcock and Sara Laschever document the gender gap in negotiation and the consequences this has on perpetuating gender inequalities throughout lifetime. The authors explore how institutions, culture, family norms and implicit assumptions have created different expectations and gender norms on what is acceptable for men and women. The authors explain that fear of social consequences and backlash may be one of the reasons why women don’t ask. This book provides practical tips that can be widely applied and should be read by anyone who wants to learn how to negotiate and by anyone who wants to increase their awareness of how gender plays a role in negotiating and career advancements gaps.  

A significant number of college-educated American women began in the early twenty-first century to leave paid work to become stay-at-home mothers. Glass Ceilings and 100-Hour Couple investigates what really inspired women to opt-out, and the phenomenon’s repercussions. The authors also examine the different pressures that influence a woman’s decision to resign, reduce, or reorient her career, such as for example the mismatch between child-care options and workplace demands and the professionalization of stay-at-home. 

The role of women in society and in the workplace is one of the most debated themes of modern times. The pandemic has highlighted critical aspects of female employment and the work-family equilibrium. This highly interesting book brings together a series of contributions on the condition of women’s work and highlights a setback on the path towards full gender equality. Indeed, during the pandemic many women have lost their jobs or have had their working hours and wages reduced. In this framework, the book offers a contribution to the debate by proposing concrete evidence and insights for possible solutions. 

Caroline Criado-Perez investigates the gender gap in data and its influence on our everyday life. She points out how underrepresentation of women in big data has an impact at home, the workplace, public life, medicine, healthcare and more. This book has won the prestigious Royal Society Insight Investment science book prize in 2019 and is a clear recommendation for everyone interesting in finding out how biased data analysis comes close to making half of the population invisible.  

This book is a set of advice and examples of how men and women react differently to the same situations. These differences are partially based on the ways women and men were brought up. It also provides the reader with “a set of rules” on how to behave, as a woman, in the workplace. The author is a career woman who took several years off to raise three children and went on to become an executive vice president at CNN. 

Rena Seltzer is a life trainer who has worked as a coach for Yale faculty leaders. This book is your personal coach and a practical guide offering insights into how to achieve a better work-life balance and overcome the challenges that women face in academia. The book has an intersectional lens and elaborates on how multiple identities such as race or ethnicity, in addition to gender, can play out to shape women’s experiences in academic settings.  

The ten book chapters address a wide variety of important topics including time management, establishing a productive writing practice, teaching, work-life balance, networking and social support, tenure promotion and the academic job market, authority, voice, and influence, negotiation, life after tenure, and leadership.  The book offers practical advice and concrete strategies. This includes advice on how to phrase effective emails or how to say “no” to tasks that may add additional burden. This guide is invaluable for graduate students, post-docs, and even for senior professors.