Work Left Undone: Choices and Compromises of Talented Women (Paperback)

Sally Reis is chiefly known today for her leadership in the National Association for Gifted Children, her professorial work at the University of Connecticut, and as a research fellow of the National Research Center on Gifted and Talented, but her career spans nearly three decades and includes many years as both a junior high school English teacher and as a teacher in programs for gifted and talented students. In 1976, she worked with a sixth-grade gifted girl, Heather, who designed and built a robot. Following publicity about the robot in the local press, many adults came to the school to meet Heather and see her product. After a time, Heather came to Reis and shared a disappointing conclusion she had reached. Women talked to her about how she designed the robot, the parts she used, and how it operated. Men invariably asked her if she had created the robot to do housework. Reis counseled Heather that she surely must be mistaken, to which the child responded, "You just didn't notice." In succeeding weeks Reis, aware of Heather's concern, became more observant and discovered to her dismay that the child was absolutely correct. This early passage inWork Left Undone: Choices & Compromises of Talented Females serves as a touchstone, revealing the essence of the book. Reis had deliberately chosen a women's college for her own college education and the incident described took place in 1976, at a time when the issue of women's rights was a dominant national media theme, and yet even she had not picked up on the subtle stereotyping that was occurring when visitors came to Heather's school to observe her engineering project. As the student charged: she just didn't notice. Reis writes of the lesson learned: "This experience caused me to consciously notice more and assume less." The failure of contemporary society and its institutions to notice stereotyping and the resulting prejudices that work against females in our society is one of the dominant themes of Work Left Undone. One cannot read this book and leave its pages unaware of the lack of equity for females, and especially gifted females, in America. In part one of the book, the author explores the specific issues and barriers that face gifted and talented women. She shares a massive amount of data from studies over the past three decades that make a convincing case that different and unequal conditions exist for males and females in our classrooms and work places. Males vocally dominate classrooms from kindergarten through graduate school and receive far more attention than do females. Gifted women may face even more discrimination in college, especially in science and math programs, where the faculty is predominantly male, and often foreign males, who may bring to the classroom cultural stereotypes about the supposed inferiority of women or the "inappropriateness" of women in traditional male roles and fields. Gifted females receive mixed, often confusing, messages even from loving parents. One of Reis' female graduate students complained: "My parents expected me to get good grades, but they expected my brother to be a doctor." Other gifted women noted that they were expected by their families to bring home straight A grades, but were simultaneously told by adults, including their parents, that they should not be competitive in class, talk too much, or argue with their teachers, all three behaviors which are positively associated with male students and importantly contribute to teachers' perception of superior male students. The work place is also not immune from stereotyping that leads to discrimination. Women are woefully absent from corporate leadership in this country, and a recent study of those women who have become executives indicate that "male stereotyping and preconceptions of women" and the exclusion of women from informal networks of communication in business settings are the chief barriers to the corporate advancement of women. The six chapters that comprise the greatest portion of Work Left Undone represent the heart of Reis' life work: twenty-five years of research of gifted and talented women across the lifespan. The section begins with an exploration of the particular factors affecting gifted girls in elementary and secondary schools. The case studies are richly textured and often provide poignant testimony such as a gifted young women's assessment of her K-12 school career: "I have been placed in many average classes, especially up until the junior high school level, in which I have been spit on, ostracized, and verbally abused for doing my homework on a regular basis, for raising my hand in class, and particularly for receiving outstanding grades. (p. 131). Reis supports the individual case studies with both research data and analyses that build page after page into an inescapable indictment of the status quo. Two vital chapters examine the particular issues that face gifted females in math and science and from culturally diverse and low socioeconomic circumstances. No one who works in education should miss these critical chapters which reveal information and conditions that beg for attention, for solutions, and for further research. For example, what educator does not need to know that the self-esteem of Hispanic girls may decrease more than any other cultural group from elementary school to high school? What gifted educator cannot benefit from learning that African American gifted girls may exhibit less a loss of confidence in their abilities than any other population of gifted girls? And, especially, do we not need to be aware that teachers continue to attribute success in math and science in males to ability but attribute similar success by females as the artifact of hard work? Chapters about gifted women across the lifespan speak to the particular conditions, problems and successes of women artists, women in conventional careers, and older American women who have achieved eminence after the age of of 55. Having amassed a compelling case about the obstacles to both worldly success and personal fulfillment of gifted women throughout the book, Reis turns to solutions and recommendations in the final chapters of Work Left Undone. She considers such critical issues as peer pressure and the internalized feelings females have about their accomplishments and the negative impact that concern with physical appearance can have on gifted females. She outlines and describes programs and resources that are available to gifted young women. She considers the merits of women's colleges and single-sex classes, and suggests ways of helping gifted girls recognize that most women work outside their homes in their lifetimes. The wisdom the author has achieved from her life's work is fully on display in the final conclusions, recommendations and suggestions. Reis' recommendations are ever thoughtful, well reasoned and insightful. In the final chapter, the author provides an annotated list of programs and resources of merit. The entries range from mentorship programs for gifted girls to books, including biographies, current fiction, personal development titles, to outstanding math and science web sites. Work Left Undone is compelling reading. The scale and depth of research Reis brings to bear on the subject of the development of gifted females is simply awesome. No one will leave the pages of this book without great respect for her accomplishments as a researcher. Much of the research was conducted by the author, working alone or in collaboration with others, across 25 years, but she also seamlessly integrates her own impressive research with mountains of important studies from the diverse worlds of business, the arts, and education. Reis' scholarship is impressive, but so too is her command of the language. Another virtue of this book is its pleasant readability. There is nothing pedantic about her writing. Once begun, I could not put the book down. I wanted to keep turning its pages, learning still new facts, hearing yet another fascinating personal story. The author's use of case studies is a particularly wise decision. The human stories cause the statistics to resonate with the reader and take on personal significance. Indeed, she writes so well and explains research so cogently that the reader experiences the feeling or sensation of having a fascinating, enjoyable personal conversation with a remarkably gifted person who just happens to love to share the passion of her life work wtih others. And, of course, that is what this fine book is all about. It is about gifted females, thousands of them, but it is also one woman's odyssey, one gifted female's life journey which is brilliantly shared in these pages. Sally Reis has long been recognized as one of the most important contemporary leaders in our field. She has certainly been one of the most frequent and respected contributors to our journals. But, with the publication of Work Left Undone, she joins the ranks of Leta Hollingworth, Lewis Terman,