Scan barcode
ellenchisa's review
Disclaimer: This might be a little more about how I've been approaching gender issues than it is about the book. BUT this line of thinking was prompted by the book, so I think it's relevant.
I've been following Whitney's articles / Twitter for a while, so when she mentioned the book was on sale for Kindle, I decided it was a good time to pick up a copy. I was expecting a book that was typical-HBS press - studies saying "well, if you focus on high level aspirational goals in your organization, etc," some practical advice, and some surprise twist.
This book is not that.
I was not the intended audience. I spent a good first half of the book seething about how the book felt patronizing and regressive. It seemed to start from the assumption that women want to have families, and are convinced they can't be fulfilled as individuals while doing that. This felt irrelevant to me, as all other choices aside, I've never felt as though self actualization is impossible.
Given that was the main conclusion, nothing in the book felt radical. In fact, it frequently felt like a compromise to me - rather than discussing how to help change the system to allow women to have careers, it was more about "fitting in." There were many many anecdotes about how to stay home with children and then manage to fit back in after. For me, it was scary to read something that seemed to rationalize and justify staying home, and then went as far as to make it sound like it would be a career asset, rather than a cost. (As an aside, I do believe there are lots of things people learn from parenting, and especially from parenting full time. But right now the statistics seem to show that on the whole, it's a detriment for most people).
I got so angry about all of this rationalization that I almost stopped reading. I kept going because I decided if something was going to make me that uncomfortable, there was something I needed to get out of it. On the upside, I was right about that. Eventually, my perspective started to shift. It was around then that it dawned on me that "this book isn't for really for me, but it is for a huge set of people who think this way."
This next part will sound naive, but I'd unconsciously held the belief that people who wanted to stay home with kids just didn't care about the other parts of life. It hadn't occurred to me that they probably did want to do other things too, but didn't feel like they could achieve them without compromising their family. Reading the stories showed me that for many, the limitation being faced isn't laziness or complacency - it's fear or anxiety of all the things that could go wrong when trying to add other things to having a family.
Given that, I realized I've been approaching some gender issues incorrectly because I've been addressing the wrong issues all together. I knew my usual approach of getting frustrated and saying "noooo, but people SHOULD work, so they have an individual identity" was far from ideal, but in reality it’s worse than useless. It turns out yelling "be self actualized, dammit!" really won't convince anyone.
I'm pretty sure what I should actually do is be more conscious of helping people to take realistic steps towards pursuing their passions and goals, in ways that fit with their circumstances (instead of seeing those steps as "not enough.") Then, as future generations see more self actualized women (fulfilling many paths), they'll have a better idea of what they want, too.
Anyway, it's entirely possible that other people don't hold the same biases I did, at which point the book wouldn't be helpful for you. But given the state of arguments about gender in the media, I think at least some other people feel the way I do. So... if you're generally the type of person who gets frustrated / confused when women want to stay home with kids full time, you might want to read this book. It's not really targeted at you, but it might help you to better understand some of the things your peers are thinking/feeling, and how you could be more helpful.
I've been following Whitney's articles / Twitter for a while, so when she mentioned the book was on sale for Kindle, I decided it was a good time to pick up a copy. I was expecting a book that was typical-HBS press - studies saying "well, if you focus on high level aspirational goals in your organization, etc," some practical advice, and some surprise twist.
This book is not that.
I was not the intended audience. I spent a good first half of the book seething about how the book felt patronizing and regressive. It seemed to start from the assumption that women want to have families, and are convinced they can't be fulfilled as individuals while doing that. This felt irrelevant to me, as all other choices aside, I've never felt as though self actualization is impossible.
Given that was the main conclusion, nothing in the book felt radical. In fact, it frequently felt like a compromise to me - rather than discussing how to help change the system to allow women to have careers, it was more about "fitting in." There were many many anecdotes about how to stay home with children and then manage to fit back in after. For me, it was scary to read something that seemed to rationalize and justify staying home, and then went as far as to make it sound like it would be a career asset, rather than a cost. (As an aside, I do believe there are lots of things people learn from parenting, and especially from parenting full time. But right now the statistics seem to show that on the whole, it's a detriment for most people).
I got so angry about all of this rationalization that I almost stopped reading. I kept going because I decided if something was going to make me that uncomfortable, there was something I needed to get out of it. On the upside, I was right about that. Eventually, my perspective started to shift. It was around then that it dawned on me that "this book isn't for really for me, but it is for a huge set of people who think this way."
This next part will sound naive, but I'd unconsciously held the belief that people who wanted to stay home with kids just didn't care about the other parts of life. It hadn't occurred to me that they probably did want to do other things too, but didn't feel like they could achieve them without compromising their family. Reading the stories showed me that for many, the limitation being faced isn't laziness or complacency - it's fear or anxiety of all the things that could go wrong when trying to add other things to having a family.
Given that, I realized I've been approaching some gender issues incorrectly because I've been addressing the wrong issues all together. I knew my usual approach of getting frustrated and saying "noooo, but people SHOULD work, so they have an individual identity" was far from ideal, but in reality it’s worse than useless. It turns out yelling "be self actualized, dammit!" really won't convince anyone.
I'm pretty sure what I should actually do is be more conscious of helping people to take realistic steps towards pursuing their passions and goals, in ways that fit with their circumstances (instead of seeing those steps as "not enough.") Then, as future generations see more self actualized women (fulfilling many paths), they'll have a better idea of what they want, too.
Anyway, it's entirely possible that other people don't hold the same biases I did, at which point the book wouldn't be helpful for you. But given the state of arguments about gender in the media, I think at least some other people feel the way I do. So... if you're generally the type of person who gets frustrated / confused when women want to stay home with kids full time, you might want to read this book. It's not really targeted at you, but it might help you to better understand some of the things your peers are thinking/feeling, and how you could be more helpful.
More...