Anna Fels' book, Necessary Dreams: Ambition in Women's Changing Lives (Pantheon: 2004) explains a lot of things. It's a book that provides perspective and light around a picture you're having trouble putting into focus.

Dr. Fels is a practicing psychiatrist in New York City who has written for the New York Times Book Review, the Times Literary Supplement, The Nation, Self, and, most recently, the Science Times section of The New York Times. She is a member of the faculty of the Weill Medical College of Cornell University at New York Presbyterian Hospital and has written a Harvard Business Review article entitled, Do Women Lack Ambition?

Her work focuses on the question of why women feel anxiety or are evasive about having ambition. Why do women hesitate to admit they aspire to anything: power, position, influence, money, wealth, achievement, success? Why do women bang back the nail that tries to stick out - those women who do strive to be different and to succeed? Why do women NOT cheer each other on - slap each other on the back, encourage each other along their chosen paths?

Reviewers say that Fels "examines the mixed messages that women get about claiming recognition." In her own words, Fels says:

"Throughout their lives women are subtly discouraged from pursuing goals by a pervasive lack of recognition for their accomplishments. Parents, peers, teachers, professors, bosses and institutions all underrate work by females and therefore unwittingly withhold appropriate praise and support. All too often girls and young women incrementally lose their early convictions about their abilities and talents. A belief in the likelihood of achieving their goals slowly fades and is supplanted by aspiration for more socially available types of attention; particularly attention for sexual attractiveness."

How could this possibly be true? Let's just look at a recent response to Summers' musings at Harvard University.

Among all of the responses to Summers' comments, the one chosen for print by the leading business newspaper, The Wall Street Journal, was the tirade that damned the few female professors who walked out, in disgust at Summers' speech. That apparent authority on women's issues, a professor of Yiddish literature, wrote to the WSJ that the rebelling tenured professors were "feminists" and "liberals", practicing "sexual politics".

Well, if that doesn't put Hester in her place, I don't know what will.

Coming to Summers' defense apparently had to be accomplished by attacking women of conscience who took strong exception to his using his "bully pulpit" to re-iterate old wives' tales and, once again, blaming the victims -- women, themselves -- for their under-representation among his tenured top-level professorial ranks.

Fortunately, today, it takes a lot more than McCarthy-style intimidation tactics such as wielding the broad brush of innuendo, like "Commie" and "pinko", to silence divergent 1st Amendment-protected viewpoints.

Instead of trying to white-wash all independent thinkers with the same brush of sanctimonious contempt, why not simply listen and possibly learn something from viewpoints that are not the same as the homogenized, pasteurized, and politically correct mush we've heard from America media for the past decades?

In listening to a recent interview with Anna Fels talk on the Summers event, it sounded as if there was "more there, there." Her research resonates. She suggests that women search for the affirmation and recognition of their contributions just about as much as men do. Yet, they tend not to get either affirmation or recognition. Instead, they're more likely to get labeled "feminist", "liberal", "not a nice girl" or worse.

Does this describe what women have been trying to tell us as they "opt out" of corporate America? Were they too nice to tell us the truth -- that working inside the halls and gatherings of corporate top rungs was an unrewarding, unsatisfying, lonesome, frustrating, and discouraging experience? Did they conclude that changing a filthy diaper gave greater satisfaction? Whew!

Does this describe what women are experiencing when they tell us in survey after survey that "they felt left out of the key meetings and conversations" of the top corporate world? They felt excluded from real acknowledgement of their contributions. They felt "used" and "undervalued".

Fels suggests that women search for affirmation and recognition of their contributions just as much as men do, yet women tend not to get the positive feedback. Not from supervisors. Not from peers. Not from spouses. Not even from their emotional sisters.

In fact, most of these sources of potential "atta girls" end up delivering what Fels calls "a mixed message" -- how gentle of her. It's a message that says "don't outshine your boss", "don't upstage your husband", "don't make your peers look bad". And if a woman dares to aspire, she can expect to feel the subtle intimidation of innuendo that suggests she's probably not good in bed, not a good mother or wife, or otherwise just another "uppity broad".

Even among other women, an aspiring female will be viewed as "pushy" and "grabbing the limelight" away from the group. There is protection in a female crowd, a sorority clique, provided you -- as a women -- don't dare to be different from the other sisters.

Of course, though, everyone also believes that other wives' tale that this "problem" is only true for those who went through the 1960s' and 70s' feminist era. Of course, this isn't a problem faced by today's women. Of course, today, women are getting their due recognition, equal opportunity, and encouragement toward advancement. Yeah, right.

Dr. Fels, as a psychiatrist, offers some possible "treatments" for this disease.

• think carefully about your goals and your future
  
• know the enemy (cultural bias, a bad employer, a conniving friend or peer)
  
• get on the same page with your mate for balancing work-family life
  
• lobby Congress to pass more family-friendly laws
  
• seek out mentors
  
• seek out peers who acknowledge our accomplishments.

The first three recommendations are sound. First, dream your dream whatever it may be, and plan your future as if you own it, because you do. Second, trust your intuition when you confront those who would undervalue you for their own reasons -- be wary, be aware, and be not caught up in their assessment of you or your goals and dreams. The third is crucial -- your mate can provide the good counsel, encouragement, and the solace you may not find anywhere else. But, it is a negotiated settlement that must constantly be re-negotiated over time.

The ephemeral faith in legislative solutions is a source of many false hopes. Until the day that women attain a significantly greater share of the positions of power in our legislatures, this is not likely to be a source of change. Women are all too familiar with the reality that laws that were passed in one environment can too easily be repealed in another.

Seeking out mentors also is a worthy, but a weak, strategy. If there already were women in positions of authority that were inclined to give out kudos to those below, we would be hearing more from the women at the top. Not only are there few women at the top, but those that are there are not as generous as they could be with their encouragement and recognition of the women who helped them get there.

Finally, seeking out peers to give women the acknowledgement and recognition they deserve is equally tough. It simply does not happen as much as it could or should. A few writers, like Pat Heim and Susan Murphy, know the challenge and have written about it at length in their book, In the Company of Women: Indirect Aggression Among Women, Why We Hurt Each Other and How We Can Stop (Jeremy Tarcher: reprint 2003).

Instead of the last three recommendations, I would offer some alternatives. One, "to thine own self be true". Give yourself as much acknowledgement and recognition and celebration as you can possibly stand. As a woman, you will have a gigantic inner void that needs to be filled, so start filling it up yourself. And keep doing it.

Two, "give better than you get". Give those other women who deserve recognition and admiration all that you can spare. Celebrate the accomplishments and achievements of the women you know and admire. They, too, will have a gigantic inner void that needs to be filled, so start helping them fill it up as well. And keep doing it.

The third comes from a phrase in the poem Desiderata, (copyright 1927, written by Max Ehrmann, a poet and lawyer from Terre Haute, Indiana, who lived from 1872 to 1945).

"You are a child of the universe
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here."

Simply put, there is nothing that anyone can say to, or about, you or do to you, which can take away from the fact that you are a part of the greatest whole imaginable. No less than the mighty trees and the beautiful stars above, "you have a right to be here" and to be happy.