Paradox in the experiences of professional women

The recent surge of research on difficulties faced by professional women has not been complemented by the development of a synthetic framework which would facilitate conceptualization, analysis, and theory building. This article demonstrates the heuristic power of concepts of paradox, double‐bind and mystification as descriptive metaphors for understanding the experiences of professional women. These concepts are then used to analyze six empirically derived paradoxes faced by professional women and to critique alternative communication strategies by which women professionals may define and manage complex, potentially mystifying situations.

Notes

The authors wish to thank J. Robert Cox, Lawrence B. Rosenfeld, and Betty Webber Conrad for their responses to earlier drafts of this essay.