The hiring of women as guards in men's prisons represents a major breakthrough in women's efforts to achieve full sexual equality in the workplace. This dramatic social change has required great flexibility on the part of the women guards as well as substantial adjustments by their male counterparts, prison administrators, and the inmates themselves. In the first comprehensive study of this phenomenon, Lynn Zimmer examines the experiences of the women and men involved in the painful process of transition from a segregated to an integrated prison environment. Women Guarding Men is significant not only for its vivid depiction of their trials, but for its contribution to a general theory of women's occupational and organizational behavior.

Lynn Zimmer is assistant professor of sociology, State University of New York at Geneseo.