Customer Reviews

If Women Ruled the World: How to Create the World We Want to Live In

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I was truly honored to be a part of this piece of work. While my essay (A Room of Our Own) and some others within the book are based in humor and meant to lighten the mood, there are many more meant to make you pause, reflect, then ask (and answer) the questions, 'what IF?' 'why not?' and 'what can I do?'.

Some essays will break your heart or bring a tear to your eye, others will call you to act now in hopes of truly changing the world we live in for the better. Share it with a mother, a sister, a friend and then imagine the possibilities if we really did rule the world.

This book is an impressive compilation of essays by a multitude of women on topics as varied as our individual histories. As a contributor, I was excited to be a part of this amazing project, but the end result surpassed even my expectations. The essays are engrossing and thought-provoking, backed up by facts and resources for the reader to continue her or his own research on the subject. This is a must-read for anyone, especially in such a deciding election year.

I have heard some people get defensive when I tell them about the book, saying that the title and subject overlooks bigger problems with government and the way things are run. However, they are missing the main point -- that women's voices need to be heard, our concerns addressed, and our governments equally represented by women as they are by men. This book does not assert that women are superior to men, or that we SHOULD run the world, but that perhaps if women were given an equal voice and representation, things might be different.

This book is an excellent representation of what is important to women right now. I want women to read this book and find themselves here, men to read it and take it to heart, and politicians to read it and think about who they are representing. Oh, and don't forget to VOTE!

This book initiates a dialogue that everyone needs to take part in. What would happen if more women were at the table when decisions were being made about how much money we should allocate to education or whether we should go to war or not? If there were more women CEO's, how would that affect policies on maternity leave? This book is not about how women would do things better. In a nation that has 88% of the government run by men, it's about righting the imbalance and getting the essential perspective from women. And how new ideas and solutions can come from it. Bravo to Sheila Ellision for putting together all these women to make that simple point known.

The topics in this book are a great way to open up conversation with your group of women friends. The stories are thought-provoking and inspirational, and provide a starting point for change. Share these ideas with your friends and see how it would be for you "If Women Ruled."

This spirited, passionate, and wonderful book (celebration!?) perfectly captures *why* it's so important that women's voices are heard--and how we need to start ruling our own worlds so that we can go out into communities to co-lead and influence the world at-large. Personal stories from women from all walks of life punctuate issues as diverse as body image, animosity between girls, fundamentalism, and health care; the stories are both tear jerkers and laugh-out-loud funny.

For those women who feel apathetic or believe their voice doesn't matter or that they don't "know enough about politics" to have an opinion, this book will gently challenge you and hold the mirror up to show you all you know. I'm ready to step up and be counted!

Though the title can be a little dismaying, I kind of like the contrary style. It softens a bit when you get past the cover, and what you're left with is a solid compilation of essays about humane values. It's not overtly religious, or abstract. I have a compilation myself, and I know what work it can be to succeed. I think Mrs. Ellison has. Also look into the late Katherine Martin's books "Women of..." for example, the solid book "Women of Courage."

Not only was I compelled to buy this book because of the luring title, I was totally captured by the few stories I allowed myself to read still in the bookstore. When I realized I'd been standing in the middle of the aisle for about twenty minutes, book in hand, I knew I had to bring it home! I saw my thoughts in so many others' opinions, and expanded my thoughts through new opinions presented as well. It is an excellent forum for giving many great women a platform for (hypothetical)ultimate power! More importantly, it's not anti-men, but pro-women, and pro-empowerment of women. It was so fun to see what women would do if they ruled the world. A great read, share this book with every woman you know!

Naturally, the title drew me in. I voted for Hillary! I'd love to give a woman a shot and place all new cards on the table. Books that introduce you to possibilities and are fodder to make you, "Hmmm! Why not?" intrigue me. After all, how many conversations have actually started with the very title of this book? I enjoyed every essay, every thought and possibility behind them. This is a wonderful gift to a woman of any age, profession, or background and is a perfect conversation piece! Keep it on your coffe table!

Creation and destruction are two sides of the same coin, and isolating destruction and trying to understand it alone is like trying to understand the world by studying it only by night and not by day, or trying to understand electricity by only looking at the negative charges. This book is incredibly simplistic in its understanding of this principle, and I expect mainly attractive to people with hidden, or not-so-hidden prejudices like the author's. Destruction is a necessary forerunner to creation, and history clearly shows that it is the destructive who are ultimately creative. Imagine the planet had only been populated by women in the kind of misty, feminine utopia envisaged by the author. The number of wars would have been far less in their history, but it would have been a long, peaceful existence in the stone age. No creation or destruction to disturb the status quo, no wars, but rather worryingly, a life expectancy of around 30 that eliminated far more than if wars had continued non-stop but creativity in medical technology had been imported from somewhere else (like the planet where all the men were living).

The wars that have taken place on earth have taken around 100 million lives, a figure which when analysed alone is shocking at showing man's destructivity. But when we consider that man's creative genius in medicine and food technology alone has resulted in a population double what it would have been, we see that man's creativity has saved the lives of around 3 BILLION, an enormous figure that doesn't even come into discussion here, but which is in fact a vital issue. It is awful to discuss human lives so simply in terms of figures, but it's a fact worth keeping in mind for those who see the world through feminist-coloured spectacles, and refuse to consider that destruction is all men are capable of. The mistake in this book is that the author takes all the marvelous products of men's creativity as just having naturally sprung out of nothing, having naturally evolved, and now women can make use of these wonders. Well, eliminate every man-made or man-invented wonder from the author's life, and ask her if man's destructivity has had more of an effect on her comfortable life, or man's creativity. Kill half of her friends and family, tell her she has just a few years to live, and see how she would have liked life in such a feminist utopia, bereft of male creativity. If she would still hold the same views, and so would the positive reviewers of this book, if we removed half of all the people they love from their lives, then I fully respect her and their positions. Those who would miss these people, however, should consider that the world consists of both light and dark, and those who concentrate on one side only will remain in the dark as far as understanding goes, much like the author and her fans.

DON'T become one of the multitude currently trying to offload their mistaken purchase for a single cent. Few of them are succeeding, and then only to suckers more stupid than themselves. This book is only suitable for use as toilet paper.

A couple of essays are humorous, but most are either obvious (accept your body), or truly defy biology (men are not going to grow the brain wires needed to raise children the way women do, no matter how much we wish they would). Instead of teaching our daughters to wish evolution would speed up, we should be teaching them that if they don't want to raise children, DON'T GET PREGNANT. There are plenty of people in the world, we don't need anyone in particular to give birth, so don't if you don't want to spend time with your kids! Women have a hard time accepting reality-let's start there!