A Little Light Reading

The other day fellow blogger (and one of my favorite reads) Savvy Working Gal asked me for suggestions for good reads (Photo credit creative commons). Specifically career related books. Well one thing that I started with that I really loved was Games Your Mother Never Taught You by Betty Lehan Harragan. You’ll notice it was originally written in 1978. Don’t let that slow you down from buying it. I gobbled it up. Is it crazy that workplace culture hasn’t changed much in 30+ years? Sure. But not surprising.

I talk about Harragan’s book here, here, here and here. I can’t say enough about it. In fact given how long it’s been I should go re-read it (it’s not a long book). The general idea is men (boys) are socialized early on in ways that prepare them for the corporate world and women are not. Now the book was being written in the early days of Title IX. So one might think that sort of thing would have helped change the game a little. And it probably has in many ways, but in many other ways not quite enough.

A second book I’ve been reading is It’s Always Personal: Emotion in the Workplace by Anne Kreamer. The author got pretty high up in the corporate world before coming up against a few surprising realizations about the way other people tried to emotionally manipulate one another and how, as a woman, she was less prepared to deal with this and also a more likely target. I haven’t blogged on this post yet (okay I haven’t actually finished the book either) but reading more is one of my 2012 goals. So hopefully I’ll get to it and get to write a little more about this book.

So what am I going to read in 2012? Not sure yet. Maybe that’ll be its own post. If anyone has any suggestions or inputs on these books feel free to post in the comments. Doesn’t have to be specifically about women in the workplace (despite that being a trend) as long as it is good. Happy reading!