Womenomics: Write Your Own Rules for Success

My background is an essential component of this review, so I will begin with it. Two times when my daughter was under five I resigned from full-time jobs so that I could concentrate on her care. The first was when she was a few months old and the second was when she was four and had been in a serious car accident. After the second time when I was a single parent and worked as a free-lance educator and writer/editor I regularly took her with me to classes and business meetings when I negotiated my training contracts. On occasion, objections were raised about her attendance, but I always dismissed them with a curt, "Let's just get down to business." When I was a research scientist there were many times I told my supervisor that I had a child care issue and had to leave, and often brought my daughter to work with me. I was a head coach every season for four years of her involvement in soccer and an assistant coach for two seasons of softball. Therefore, in many ways I have been on what the authors describe as the "womenomics track." Therefore, I have experienced nearly all of the issues that Shipman and Kay list as the struggles that women face in the workplace and have been very aggressive in fighting the battles they describe. These struggles include the opportunity to include your children in your work location, perform your work at home and in libraries, the opportunity to leave work to attend to sporting and school events and to avoid the "slacker" label because you are not spending hours driving an impression of your backside into a chair. Many times I have said to a supervisor that raised an issue about my daughter with me at work, "You have never raised an objection about the quality or quantity of my work, so why complain about the presence of my daughter." Being a significant part of your young child's life is something that you only get one chance to do so you must be assertive in pursuing that chance. The main point of the book is that while some employers are as dumb as rocks on this issue, most are not but you must be able to prove that you will not take advantage of any slack and deliver the work. You must also be willing to accept the fact that the advantage you get in taking time away from the office is often compensated by you doing more work for that office. That is not as difficult as it may seem, it often amazes me how much I get done when I am not spending senseless time in meetings that seem to spring up like mushrooms in the Spring. The only point I will raise in objection to the tone of the book is the position that this is a female only issue, which it is not. Furthermore, there are occasional hints that women are superior in the job force due to innate female characteristics. In my experience, women demonstrate the same tendencies to incompetence and simple-minded thinking that afflicts the male gender.

This is no Barbara Ehrenreich or Studs. Help-I am unable to delete to two stars! I do not give it five stars! What about plain middle class, upper middle class, workaday women who lack the choices these women have. The problem is most writers write about what they know. These authors know other privileged women like themselves. That's all fine, but do not purport to be reporting on a world you don't know. More and more, "affirmative action" should embrace class differences and give a break to people who are trying to come up from limited backgrounds. There is an implicit bias that is insufferable among the privileged. I guess that is what privilege is about, not having to think about how others suffer.

Despite what many of the reviews say, this is not just for moms. I don't have any children, and I got a lot out of it. They point out many times that the flexibility that you negotiate could be for any reason, and mention yoga, doctor visits for aging parents, even a guy who wanted time to be with his dog! Of course, their personal examples are about kids - that was why THEY wanted more flexible schedules - but the principles work the same for whatever reasons you have. I never felt that they were elevating parents above those of us who don't have kids. I wish I had this book some months ago when I had a personal crisis at work. My need for flex time has nothing to do with needing time for anything except myself. I'm an introvert who needs a lot of "alone time". Upcoming expected long hours at work in the company of lots of people had turned me into a nervous wreck, and I finally broke down and told my boss that I thought I would suffer mentally and physically by having to deal with it. He and his bosses reassured me that I was too valuable to lose and they hadn't realized how much I it meant to me, and immediately re-arranged things to give me the time off that I needed. This was in the current economy in a male dominated electric power company. Also, to the person who felt like you getting a more flexible schedule means that someone else gets screwed by having to take up your slack - we're all different, and I know for a fact that, while no amount of money would make the extra hours worth it to me, there were other people in my department who would jump at the chance. By bowing out of the project, I gave those people the opportunity to do something that they wanted to do. The fact that you don't want something doesn't mean that other people feel the same way.

This book is great for women who want to be a success not only in the business world, but in their personal life as well. It was well-written and thought provoking, yet easy to read. I highly recommend it.

This book takes an interesting idea, with a different twist, but it makes sense. In hard economic times, it preaches, that it pays employers to make sure they not only have the top performers, but to be sure, they accommodate them as well. How better to accommodate them, than be flexible. It also says, Women are at a uniquely powerful point in today's society then they ever were. Women are now large enough in numbers as both employees and consumers, to be a major force to change how we work. Psychologically, women have a different approach to working as well. The book states, the way women work is considered as being more effective overall, than a typical male ego-centric approach. The book states this is supported by some independent studies and apparently some employers are starting to listen. This books 8 chapters, initially sells you on the idea that employees, not stretched between jobs and family, make better employees. This enables you to negotiate for the job you want: Hours, Part time, Flexibility, what-have-you. Having worked full time for over 30 years and having raised 2 children, this concept seems too good to be true. I recently told a friend of mine, a new mother debating work and child-raising simultaneously, that you can't be both a good Mom, and a good employee. These are mutually opposing goals. I truly hope I'm wrong. The book then goes on, to define how to use this new power and to be completely aware of what we really want. In chapter 2, 3 and 4, it helps you define, your wants, needs and goals. It prompts you to define success and helps you prioritize. In other words, you can't have it all, but if you figure out, what is truly important to you and fulfill those goals, you will have achieved something of greater value. Chapters 5 and 6 get a bit more into the work smarter not harder aspect and help you define key issues in your work, which get you where you want to go. Chapter 7 pulls it all together in a set of succinct rules. Chapter 8 sums it all up with a bow. Well, here is some of my commentary. I am a bit concerned by the "women"-dominated aspect of chapter 1 of this book though it does clearly state there are men out there that need flexibility too. I do agree, the bulk of child raising duties are generally on the back of most women. However we would (as a woman reading this) do well to learn about what it feels like to be a second-class citizen and not to try to force this role on men, to win our hard won place at the table. As an employee with a family, I do realize that employers have forced families as secondary (considering some single's only benefit's policies at many employers) and that much of the hardship of this ignorance of family needs, has been "by society" placed on women as they are considered the main family caretaker. But, there are 3 things at work here. 1. Family is #1. Without them, where would we be? Employers must learn to accommodate men and women's family life needs. It is the foundation