Rating: 
Summary: Much-needed research
Review: An invaluable reference took, the authors have delivered much-needed research to support their arguments. Rather than offer the usual gender-based diatribe, they detail important findings from the best sources and offer valid, pointed arguments while asking challenging questions. Readers will be rewarded with insights into the condition of gender relations in modern work environments as well as benefiting from the authors' well-supported views.
Rating: 
Summary: First Rate
Review: First RateLinda Babcock is the James Mellon Walton Professor of Economics at the H. John Heinz III School of Public Policy and Management of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She holds a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Wisconsin at Madison and is a well-published specialist in negotiation and dispute resolution. Sara Laschever is a prolific writer and editor with extensive experience in gender research. Ms. Laschever was a research associate and principal interviewer for Project Access, a Harvard University study of the effect of gender on the advancement of women in science. She holds a Master's degree from Boston University. Women Don't Ask is a work with multiple interwoven themes. At its core, it is an important study of gender differences in negotiations. It is also a handbook for women offering concrete advice on how to improve their performance in negotiations. Still further, it is a book about possibilities. Centering on traditional areas of women's strengths in sharing information and building and preserving relationships, it concludes that women are potentially in a position to use these qualities with great effect in collaborative negotiating environments. Gender differences, therefore, include both hurdles to be overcome and promises for enhanced performance for women in negotiations. Lastly, the reader will find the book presents a compelling case for the necessity of participation and skill in negotiations as an increasingly critical survival mechanism for both women and men in contemporary life. Although focusing primarily on women, the authors present an array of general statistics defining an environment in which all workers need to bargain repeatedly with a succession of employers for salaries and benefits. The central thesis of this book is that the enhancement of negotiating performance is essential to improving the quality of life for women. The corollary message for those many men who do not negotiate well is equally clear. Negotiation is a critical skill for both sexes. This work, of course, is focused on enhancing women's skills. Why don't women negotiate well, because they do not ask, the authors assert. Using multiple studies and over 100 interviews with women and men in the U.S., Britain and Europe, the authors draw a portrait of gender differences in negotiations. A study of starting salaries received by recently graduating students at Carnegie Mellon University is central to the authors' conclusions. Starting salaries reported by the students showed that women received starting salaries averaging $4,000 below their male peers. Why? Fifty-seven percent of the men negotiated their employment package vs. only seven percent of the women. This book explores the significant economic impacts of the decision by some graduates to negotiate vs. the decision of others not to negotiate at all. The results for those who negotiated, both women and men, produced an average gain of over $4,000 per year in starting salary, almost precisely the gender pay gap reported by the group itself. The conclusion, of course, is that the gender difference in rates of initiation of salary negotiations is directly correlated to the gap. A variety of other research studies back up this assumption. The authors cite a study showing that men are two to three times as likely to initiate negotiations as women (p.3). Another study reports that twenty percent of women executives stated that they never negotiate at all (p. 113). Clearly, as the authors point out, the most important negotiating tactic is "choosing to negotiate at all (p.6). Since this is a book about women and negotiating, the authors move forward to explore why the socialization of women leads to an avoidance of negotiations or poorer performance when they participate in negotiations. For those forty-three percent of male Carnegie Mellon graduates who also did not negotiate their starting salaries, there is a clear and equally important warning, but their answer is not the subject of this book. "Women set lower targets and settle for less in their negotiations because they lack confidence in their ability to negotiate effectively," the authors tell us (p.140). The reasons for this gender difference are clearly spelled out in the book. It will be a revelation for many men, perhaps most, but my own informal sample of women found that many of them know most of the reasons already. What they do not know is how to change it. Of particular interest, therefore, is the remedy Babcock and Laschever propose for this situation. The answer for improving the performance of women in negotiations, the authors assert, lies in self-management training. "... Increasing women's feelings of control over the negotiation process eliminated the gender gap in performance" (p.114). Readers will find an interesting and persuasive exploration of this research carefully linking to their earlier work. You will, of course, need to read the book to see why they believe this is so. The authors conclude with a statement of belief that, freed from anxiety and other social scriptures that are present barriers, women can achieve extraordinary success as negotiators by capitalizing on their other gender based qualities. Women are listeners, sharers and relationship builders and these gender-based factors, the authors assert, position them for leadership in the new collaborative negotiations thrust, the authors assert. There is much more here than this review can explore, including a chapter on negotiating at home as well as in the work place. It is a well-researched, carefully analyzed and interesting book that is certain to be widely read, discussed and debated throughout the organizational world and is, therefore, a "must read" both women and men. Highly recommended. John D. Baker, Ph.D.
Editor, The Negotiator Magazine
Rating:
Summary: EVERYONE SHOULD READ THIS BOOK!!
Review: HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
It's such an eye-opener. Society should realize that women's rights benefit both women and men as a whole.
Rating:
Summary: invaluable resource for women of all ages
Review: I bought this book after having heard an interview of the authors on KQED.org and have found it to be an invaluable well of knowledge and advice for conducting business as a woman. By providing examples from their research, Babcock and Laschever argue convincingly for women to finally step up to their monetary worth in society. This book has made me re-evaluate the way I conduct myself in the working world. I have recommended this book to not only career women of my peer, but younger women who are about to hit the work force (younger sisters), and I believe it will enable them to start the tiny ruptures that will result in larger societal impact.
Rating:
Summary: Must read for any woman
Review: I found this book incredibly inspiring and inciteful and it helped me to build up the courage and skills to fight for and get a badly deserved promotion.
The great part about this book is that it doesn't try to teach a woman to negotiate like a man. It explores and validates the ways that women negotiate and how that does and does not work in a male oriented environment. It explores WHY men and women negotiate (or not) the way they do.
I found it to be a great self esteem booster without being coddling. Full of facts and research results but easy to read and even rivetting. Highly recommended for ANY woman (and it would be pretty helpful for men as well)
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Summary: GIVE THIS BOOK TO EVERY WOMAN YOU KNOW
Review: I have read hundreds of books on business as well as on women's issues. If I was to present only one to a graduating female or any other woman I know it would be this one. I appreciate the strong academic and research foundation of the book and the accessible writing. At the end of the day, the world will only undergo profound change if women themselves demand a fair deal.
Rating:
Summary: Powerful!!
Review: I read this book in almost one sitting. It has compelling factual data and riveting anecdotes. But, unlike Backlash, by Susan Faludi, which was almost totally negative, the authors also look at women's strengths in negotiation, and give some ideas for how to put their ideas into action.
It's not a how-to-negotiate book; I've spent the last 23 years practicing corporate law, negotiating sophisticated legal transactions and running an in-house department. This book goes beyond "how to" into "why". Essential reading for any woman!
Rating:
Summary: Powerful!!
Review: I read this book in almost one sitting. It has compelling factual data and riveting anecdotes. But, unlike Backlash, by Susan Faludi, which was almost totally negative, the authors also look at women's strengths in negotiation, and give some ideas for how to put their ideas into action.
It's not a how-to-negotiate book; I've spent the last 23 years practicing corporate law, negotiating sophisticated legal transactions and running an in-house department. This book goes beyond "how to" into "why". Essential reading for any woman!
Rating:
Summary: Women have come a long way but...
Review: In recent comments about a novel featuring a women who was number 1 in her class--ahead of 262 men--former U.C. Berkeley, Boalt Hall Law School Dean Herma Hill Kay said: "Women in the law have come a long way since the l960s, making up 60 percent of this year's freshman class of Boalt, but, as in Poswall's book [THE LAWYERS: Class of '69], women are still treated differently in the classroom and in the courtroom." How can it be that even as a majority, women are not accorded the status this would imply? Babcock and Laschever explain why. It is not enough to outnumber men; it is to value one's own worth. And, I might add, as a trial lawyer, I am often confronted with the fear of leaving a women on a jury to judge another women. As this book demonstrates, women can do it to other women as much as they do it to themselves. Courageous women, like the real Herma Hill Kay, first women dean of Boalt Hall Law School, as well as the fictional character, Rose Contreras, in the above novel, have led the way, against hostility and prejudice in the 60s. Now, as Babcock and Laschever show, it is up to women in this generation to go the extra step to full equality, first in how they see themselves, and then in the workplace and in their personal lives. It should be comforting to realize that, finally, women are close to having control over their own lives. This book shows how.
Rating:
Summary: Highly Recommended!
Review: The debate on gender equity often emphasizes that women earn less than men with similar experience. Authors Linda Babcock and Sara Laschever say that while women may indeed be the victims of external forces, they also to some extent may suffer from their own inability, unwillingness or aversion to negotiate or make demands. In fact, men negotiate four times as frequently as women, and get better results. Men are much more apt to make demands and ask for benefits, pay increases and so forth. Men make more money not necessarily because the system is overtly discriminatory - though it well may be - but because men demand more. The book tends to belabor its point, and sometimes the evidence does not seem as well-presented as it might have been, but We found that it sheds useful light on a knotty social problem. Perhaps it will spur more women to fight - or to continue to fight - on their own behalf.
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