Women are less specialized than men, and long 
accustomed to adapting to a variety of roles. In our 
new instant-information environment, most men 
who have been accustomed to specialist jobs and 
functions must now switch from role to role in the 
course of a day. In the big hierarchies this creates 
extreme discomfort and dismay, and it is 
increasingly obvious that women could perform 
many of these functions better than men. However, 
when a woman is compelled to assume the role of a 
customs or immigration official, she becomes the 
specialist monster, the very antithesis of role-
playing. Yet we consider it natural for men to 
perform these specialist functions.