Product Description
Two leading experts on gender issues in the workplace describe how indirect aggression among women undermines their professional and personal success, and explain how to change conflict into cooperation. Following the success of Queen Bees and Wannabes and Odd Girl Out, about aggression in girls, In the Company of Women explains how indirect, or "relational," aggression can hurt women and hinder them from achieving success and harmony in their adult lives. Gender studies have shown that when a goal is in sight, men generally use direct action to attain it. Women, on the other hand, have been socialized to express aggressive actions through indirect means-using behavior such as shunning, stigmatizing, and gossiping to emotionally cripple those standing in the way of the achievement they seek. With startling insights into the meaning of our everyday behavior, this book offers straightforward techniques to change conflict among women into cooperation by resolving discords peaceably, building relationships, and making the most of women's unique leadership and communication skills.

CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.5 based on 19 reviews)

for women who work with women by G. Smith

5 Stars
March 16, 2009
good book for helping women who work with women and are having a hard time at work.

in the company of women... by James Dougherty

5 Stars
January 20, 2009
In the Company of Women: Indirect Aggression Among Women: Why We Hurt Each Other and How to Stop very thought provoking...

Advocates appeasement to irrationality by raindrops

1 Stars
October 26, 2008
I am sorely disappointed by this book. Instead of addressing the root cause of women who traditionally cannot stand having other women succeed and get ahead, this book promotes appeasement to that irrationality. It is really a collection of tactics to maneuver around bad situations caused by women who get difficult around members of the same sex who are more powerful, more confident, or more successful. But that's not how it should be. If a woman gets a well-deserved promotion and her female coworkers immediately respond by tearing her down, the problem is with those doing the tearing. But this book does not see it that way. It talks about the "Power Dead Even rule" among women as if it's something that cannot be changed, and therefore must be adhered to. The book actually has an example of a very qualified woman getting promoted, causing fury and anger among her female peers, with the solution being the withdrawal of the promotion of the qualified woman. If holding women back from becoming successful and openly proud of their achievements is the way for women to stop hurting each other, I would not want to live in the world that this book promotes. Womankind deserves more credit than that. I had picked up this book after reading and being profoundly impressed by "Hard Ball for Women" by Pat Heim, one of the authors for this book. In "Hard Ball for Women", the cultural baggage that women have that hold themselves back is broken down chapter by chapter. Great examples and explanations shed light into the conventional roles of a woman and the changes in perspective she needs to take on to become competitive in her career. In some sense, "Hard Ball for Women" is almost a rebuttal to "In the Company of Women". I do not understand how the same author could have penned both. This book is a let down.

A mix of good advice and poor excuses by Solo Sister

3 Stars
May 26, 2008
This book did have some useful information about the sociocultural reasons behind women's sabotage of one another in the workplace. Much of this information could also be applied outside the workplace. However, I would have liked to see something about how an atypical woman -- one who hasn't been overly socialized to the feminine role -- can deal with those women who are more typically acculturated. I am thankfully now self-employed, but I had problems with other women in past workplaces that I didn't understand. I often experienced them acting cold toward me or getting mad "for nothing." One thing I found really strange was being accused of "not caring about my job" because I chose to keep a level head instead of take it personally when the content of my work was criticized. Now, to criticize the content of this book, I thought the authors cut inexcusable behavior way too much slack. Yes, there probably is an unwritten "power-dead-even" rule, but acting like a four-year-old and telling lies about someone to the boss, or having an "I'm not going to be your friend anymore!" type of attitude just because someone gets a promotion, is nothing more than immature. If I were managing employees, destructive gossip and bullying would definitely be grounds for discipline, if not termination. It's these kinds of conflicts that make me happy to be a freelance writer!

Interesting reading by Terri (Iowa)

4 Stars
September 18, 2007
This book was pretty good. The first part validated what I pretty much figured out for myself the hard way. At least with the knowledge you get from this book that this type of behavior and attitude is universal among women everywhere and is "normal," you can deal with it more constructively or let it go more easily instead of dwelling on it. I did enjoy reading the first part of the book - probably 3/4 of the book was helpful because it validates what you know or can sense about what is going on around you, and that is empowering and reassuring. The guidance given in this book for dealing with other women is somewhat like remembering difficult algorithms though. And, unless you can convince every other woman you ever deal with to read the book and follow precisely the "rules" you have to follow in order to have perfect harmony among the women in your life, you still have to just use your gut instinct on how to deal with each particular woman or...well, you already know what will happen or you wouldn't be interested in reading this type of book! To be honest, I started reading the last part of the book (which directly relates to being in a supervisory position) and just couldn't read any more.

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