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A review by megansmith
How Women Rise: Break the 12 Habits Holding You Back from Your Next Raise, Promotion, or Job by Marshall Goldsmith, Sally Helgesen
challenging
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
1.5
If you know me from work and see this review, no you didn't!!
I did not pick this book for my work book club, but it was chosen in my women's mentor pod and man...I wouldn't touch this book again with a ten foot pole. I know I'm kind of in a crap work situation and don't really have any more opportunities to move up anymore, so I'm coming at this with a cynical lens, but this was just not what we need to be preaching right now?
I think elements of the book could be useful here and there, but it felt A) too generalized and B) too focused on fixing women to become men rather than fixing the system. There was about one or two acknowledgements at most about working against an unfair system and then the rest of the book dived into "if you just fix all these behaviors and do none of these wrong, you'll be set! But only worry about one at a time!" I think a lot of the feedback felt geared towards men, IE "men are concise and women like providing context, so be more concise." and there were two habits about providing too much context and also minimizing what you're talking about. There were some moments that offered solutions for keeping your inherent traits as a woman still in tact but just reframing how you're using them, but not enough to justify this book and it's choices.
I also just really feel like there's sooo much generalization that doesn't really allow for any nuance. And maybe that's me bean-souping (taking that from one of my favorite creators, Tell The Bees). One book in under 230 pages isn't going to solve the structural inequities of the workplace. BUT I think the angle of this book, especially having it be a rewrite of what seems like a very male-centric book written by one of the authors, just got too broad. Hell, half the time I felt like I identified more with the male counterparts / generalities than what women do. IE I do mostly reflect my anger outward rather than judge myself. What do I do then? I think this book could've offered more up but just went for the rewrite of the original book with the word women sprinkled in more often than not.
Last note, I was also really quickly turned off at the beginning by the multiple mentions of some eating habit being a "bad" habit. Yeah, maybe that's also me bean-souping, but it's such a turn off diving into a women's empowerment book and one of the first negatives is about having snacks. It shocked me a bit this book was written in 2018 with that kind of nuance but I'm also not THAT surprised given where we're at today.
Overall I wouldn't recommend this. It didn't feel like an intersectional lens, some of the feedback could be useful and I will have to ruminate on what I take from this (maybe the end with more concrete solutions, like peer coaching or "feedforward") but I ended up rushing through this book half-assedly after starting with full focus because it was bothering me so much.
I did not pick this book for my work book club, but it was chosen in my women's mentor pod and man...I wouldn't touch this book again with a ten foot pole. I know I'm kind of in a crap work situation and don't really have any more opportunities to move up anymore, so I'm coming at this with a cynical lens, but this was just not what we need to be preaching right now?
I think elements of the book could be useful here and there, but it felt A) too generalized and B) too focused on fixing women to become men rather than fixing the system. There was about one or two acknowledgements at most about working against an unfair system and then the rest of the book dived into "if you just fix all these behaviors and do none of these wrong, you'll be set! But only worry about one at a time!" I think a lot of the feedback felt geared towards men, IE "men are concise and women like providing context, so be more concise." and there were two habits about providing too much context and also minimizing what you're talking about. There were some moments that offered solutions for keeping your inherent traits as a woman still in tact but just reframing how you're using them, but not enough to justify this book and it's choices.
I also just really feel like there's sooo much generalization that doesn't really allow for any nuance. And maybe that's me bean-souping (taking that from one of my favorite creators, Tell The Bees). One book in under 230 pages isn't going to solve the structural inequities of the workplace. BUT I think the angle of this book, especially having it be a rewrite of what seems like a very male-centric book written by one of the authors, just got too broad. Hell, half the time I felt like I identified more with the male counterparts / generalities than what women do. IE I do mostly reflect my anger outward rather than judge myself. What do I do then? I think this book could've offered more up but just went for the rewrite of the original book with the word women sprinkled in more often than not.
Last note, I was also really quickly turned off at the beginning by the multiple mentions of some eating habit being a "bad" habit. Yeah, maybe that's also me bean-souping, but it's such a turn off diving into a women's empowerment book and one of the first negatives is about having snacks. It shocked me a bit this book was written in 2018 with that kind of nuance but I'm also not THAT surprised given where we're at today.
Overall I wouldn't recommend this. It didn't feel like an intersectional lens, some of the feedback could be useful and I will have to ruminate on what I take from this (maybe the end with more concrete solutions, like peer coaching or "feedforward") but I ended up rushing through this book half-assedly after starting with full focus because it was bothering me so much.