Occupational segregation has a major effect on the gender pay gap in the UK and deprives employers of potential recruits, a fact of particular importance in areas of skills shortages. The Committee's report examines occupational segregation and the associated tendancies for predominantly female occupations to be lower paid and undervalued. It focuses on four key aspects: the lack of knowledge about career options as a barrier to young people choosing non-traditional occupations; problems in accessing training in atypical areas; difficulties with alien or sometimes even hostile business culture; and the lack of availability of part-time or flexible working in the higher-paid occupations and at senior levels in all occupations. The Committee expresses its support for the work of the Sector Skills Councils in addressing this problem and in disseminating good practice, and argues that other organisations, such as trade associations and Regional Development Agencies, should become more active in this area. The Committee also calls on the Government to review equal pay legislation to try and make the principle of 'equal pay for work of equal value' more effective.

Despite thirty years of equal pay legislation, the gender pay gap remains, although it is narrowing. It is hard to eliminate, because men and women tend to work in different occupations and traditional female occupations tend to be lower paid and lower valued than men's. But such occupational segregation limits the pool of recruits available to employers. In its 2005 report, the Women and Work Commission (http://www.womenandequalityunit.gov.uk/publications/women_work_5threp.pdf) made 40 recommendations to tackle job segregation and the gender pay gap and this report seeks to examine what action has been taken to implement those recommendations and to identify any further steps needed. The report finds: there are insufficient training opportunities for women in non-traditional occupations and, until recently, little advice available for older women who want to change their work direction or who return after a break; the announced extension in apprenticeships is welcome but must not just follow traditional occupational breakdowns; it is important to address the undervaluation of 'traditional' women's jobs; the dearth of quality part-time jobs is a waste of the experience and skills of many older women and one of the main reasons for the persistence of the gender pay gap. The extension to the private sector of the gender equality duty imposed on the public sector from April 2007 could encourage greater transparency and positive action, but it is too still early to judge the success of this duty. It is clearly the case that the gender pay gap remains worryingly stubborn. The Committee recommends that if the pay gap continues to decline only slowly, the Government should look at further measures such as the extension of the gender equality duty and consider making pay audits mandatory.

A unique take on women's history from the bestselling author of British Summer Time Begins 'Witty, clever and warm-hearted' The Times 'Maxtone Graham [has a] unique blend of high comedy and shrewd social observation' Spectator 'Terrific' Daily Telegraph Drawn from real life, from interviews with women from all sections of society who have ever had a job, this book is a portrait of British women's working lives from 1950, through cardigans and pearls, via mini-skirts and bottom-pinching, to shoulder pads and the ping of the first emails (early 1990s), never forgetting overalls, aprons and uniforms. Graham conveys the full range of experience: to convey the flavour and atmosphere of workplaces in all their character: the jollities as well as the drudgeries, the good men as well as the vile ones, the nasty women as well as the heroines, the office crushes and romances, the daily drudgery, the lunch hours, the parties, the great piles of paper all over the place, the family-feel of workplaces, the daily burden of trying to run a household and family as well: in short, to look at all facets of this rich slice of British life.

Girls are now out-performing boys at GCSE level, giving rise to a debate in the media on boys' underachievement. However, often such work has been a 'knee-jerk' response, led by media, not based on solid research. Boys, Girls and Achievement - Addressing the Classroom Issues fills that gap and: *provides a critical overview of the current debate on achievement; *Focuses on interviews with young people and classroom observations to examine how boys and girls see themselves as learners; *analyses the strategies teachers can use to improve the educational achievements of both boys and girls. Becky Francis provides teachers with a thorough analysis of the various ways in which secondary school pupils construct their gender identities in the classroom. The book also discusses methods teachers might use challenge these gender constructions in the classroom and thereby address the 'gender-gap' in achievement.

The hit 1992 film A League of Their Own made the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League famous. But the players' stories remain largely untold. The 600 women who played for the AAGPBL through the 1940s and 1950s enjoyed a rare opportunity to lead independent lives as well-paid professional athletes. Their experiences in the league led many to education and careers they never imagined. As teachers, coaches and role models, they strove to broaden the horizons of girls and young women. Many continued to be involved in athletics, supporting the efforts leading to Title IX and the women's sports revolution. Today, they are dedicated to preserving the history of women in baseball and creating opportunities for girls to play.

As African American women left the plantation economy behind, many entered domestic service in southern cities and towns. Cooking was one of the primary jobs they performed, feeding generations of white families and, in the process, profoundly shaping southern foodways and culture. In Cooking in Other Women's Kitchens: Domestic Workers in the South, 1865-1960, Rebecca Sharpless argues that, in the face of discrimination, long workdays, and low wages, African American cooks worked to assert measures of control over their own lives. As employment opportunities expanded in the twentieth century, most African American women chose to leave cooking for more lucrative and less oppressive manufacturing, clerical, or professional positions. Through letters, autobiography, and oral history, Sharpless evokes African American women's voices from slavery to the open economy, examining their lives at work and at home. The enhanced electronic version of the book includes twenty letters, photographs, first-person narratives, and other documents, each embedded in the text where it will be most meaningful. Featuring nearly 100 pages of new material, the enhanced e-book offers readers an intimate view into the lives of domestic workers, while also illuminating the journey a historian takes in uncovering these stories.

The essays in this collection look at some of the images and categories which have shaped Western women's sense of themselves in the twentieth century. The approach of the collection is interdisciplinary, bringing together the perspectives of literary criticism, social history and linguistics. Its focus is international, with contributions on Britain, France, Germany, the United States and Canada. The collection shows both the similarity and the diversity of women's experience in a world determined by patriarchal assumptions, where women's only hope of change lies in developing a determination of their own.