Blair-Loy's comparison of the two groups [of work-committed and family-committed] women is an imaginative and beautifully constructed study that bristles with insight...Rather than serving up the standard menu of neat public policy fixes to achieve work-family 'balance,' Competing Devotions offers a compelling explanation as to why even such long overdue reforms as paid family leave legislation and the proliferation of ... Read more'family friendly' corporate benefits are not likely to do much to resolve the work-family conundrum without a far more fundamental set of social changes. Both corporate elite careers and motherhood, Blair-Loy argues, have deep moral and cultural underpinnings. Both are governed by what she calls 'schemas of devotion' that demand total commitment to one's 'calling,' whether it be to the corporation or the child(ren)...These morally laden schemas are so powerful that they often trump economic rationality.
Ruth Milkman Women's Review of Books 20041201 The work-devotion and family-devotion schemas are not simply used as rationalizations; they are gendered frameworks that others use to interpret behavior. As cultural models, they serve to define 'economic rationality'...Blair-Loy skillfully illustrates the patterns that emerge when we view individual lives in the context of their historical moment and social location. Competing Devotions is an insightful examination of work and family among elite executive women.
Anita Ilta Garey American Journal of Sociology This book will be of significant interest to students of work and organizations, those who are concerned with work-family conflict and accommodation, and those students of cultural sociology who wish to read a testimonial on how important cultural schemas are in constructing social lives. Here the schemas are work and family. But the findings may potentially generalize to other cultural schemas that can have a powerful grip on us as we negotiate our lives, regardless of whether we innovate at the boundaries of competing devotions or not.
Toby L. Parcel Administrative Science Quarterly This work is a welcome addition to the growing body of sociological studies of working women. A significant contribution of this book is that it lends a qualitative consideration to a topic too often evaluated by quantitative measures.
Susan R. Cody NWSA Journal 20070401 Show Less