Customer Reviews

Mothers on the Fast Track: How a New Generation Can Balance Family and Careers

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Don't let the unpretentious, down-to-earth tone or breezy writing style of authors Mason and Ekman fool you -- this is among the most serious books on the topic to appear yet.

Professor Mary Ann Mason is nationally known for analyses that (unlike some 'mommy-track' pundits) arise from solid data. Her extensive social science research documents the life-course points at which too many highly educated women drop out of the pipeline that leads men (and some women who sacrifice family life) to the top echelons of academia, law, business, etc. The implications of this feminized brain drain are as profound for the welfare of our nation as they are for the welfare of women and children. Mason argues that meaningful measures of gender equity must include not only women's equal representation in corporate boardrooms and at university podiums but also women's (and men's) ability to sustain satisfactory family lives without being relegated to second-class status -- without the either/or proposition too many fast-track women face.

Mason's research findings have sparked initiatives to reform the workplace from traditional high-pressured male models to more humane and family-friendly environments where women can be better supported so that our nation need not lose a vast pool of intellectual and creative talent. Mason's advocacy campaigns have already made tangible differences at campuses across the country, benefiting graduate students as well as faculty seeking to combine careers with family. If future generations of professors, scientists, inventors, attorneys, CEOs, and media moguls are not to replicate the old limited boys-club models, Mason's prescriptions for transforming the workplace -- especially the influential fast-track professions -- deserve careful consideration everywhere.

We may think American society encourages equality between the sexes, but it's still true that marriage and children are good for men's careers and troublesome for women's careers. Mason and Ekman amply demonstrate that in a book that should be required reading for every CEO, college president, and manager of professionals. There are some real WOW moments in the statistics they present and the stories they tell, and they use these well to define an agenda for the next generation of changes that can make the workplace family-friendly. Opportunities for meaningful work and opportunities for healthy family life don't have to collide. Read this brief book and find out what each of us can and should do next.

This book has many strengths, and three stand out. One is that the book really shows the data relating to women's success and longevity in the workforce, as affected by children. (The data are very easy to understand as presented.) Second, the "hard data" are backed up by and given voice with insights drawn from interviews with many women who have tried, in one way or another and in various settings, to continue a career and have children. Third, the book addresses not just this topic in general, but how women with children fare in several types of professions; for instance, it is very interesting to learn that female doctors remain in their profession with a lower dropout rate.

And the book is full of insight from which any given employer--or any group of interested women in a worksite--could work to make real change happen, so that women have the chance to choose.

This isn't a cheesy "you can have it all" book, nor does it try to whip up or take sides in "mommy wars." It is not about blaming people or trying to prescribe which way is best to raise our children. Rather, it helps us see what we can do to broaden the opportunities and quality of life for mothers and their children.

This succinct, impeccably researched and engagingly written book is a wake-up call to young women considering meaningful careers. It presents practical guidelines and pitfalls for forging a life-long profession in academics, medicine, law or business and also having a marriage and children. I wish this book had existed when I was making those hard choices. I'm glad it's here for my daughter.
Lynne Kaufman, author and educator

I was recommended this book by a fellow female colleague. Despite (or maybe because of?) having a 2 week old and 2 year old at the time, I read this book in one day. The book is well written and I enjoyed the bi-generational aspect from the two authors (the two forewards and afterwards were really interesting).
I'm glad I have the book (having access to the statistics is going to be useful for future conversations), but honestly, my one overriding thought associated with this book is how depressing it all is. How little progress has been made by women, how much harder we have to work to succeed at all.
The general advice they give to help you succeed is good, but too general.
I would say that the biggest thing you could do is get a mentor, someone who can give you advice that is more specific to your situation.

I found this book quite interesting and easy to read. There is a good deal of research behind the facts and claims made and it is brought together thoughtfully to formulate a way of moving forward for women contemplating life outside of the home after children.

This is not really a criticism, just a comment, but the book may not relate to some women as well as others. This is because there is a leaning towards women in the academic field (studying, lecturing) or women in high ranking, high paying jobs (hence "fast track" in the title"). I still found it interesting, and certainly insightful in the identification of the created "second tier" for women with families.

This is a book every man should read.
Even for those of us who have lived through and heartily supported the equality revolution, the book is full of stunning facts, both statistical and personal, that are a wake up call to a job not yet done. A male culture still dominates practices in business, the professions and the academy and does not fully address the implications of biology for the role of women in society and their struggle for a level playing field

The book is also a great read. Mary Ann Mason writes clearly, forcefully and personally. The stories of many women collected by Eve Mason Ekman are compelling and very well told. The book combines the best of social science and personal narrative, to make a convincing argument that our sisters, daughters and wives still have great challenges as women and mothers in the working world.
While we are living in times when more women are achieving high status position, this book reminds us of the costs to these women and tells us of the many powerful and talented women who choose, because of circumstance, to not go there. I have no doubt that this would be a better world if there were more women who running it. This book calls for a change that will benefit us all.

I read this book because I needed solutions, and I didn't really find them.

I did come away with a better understanding of how my current situation - a new mother struggling to stay on the fast track without feeling like I'm cheating my family - into a larger, historical and societal context. For example, I had not understood prior to reading this book the extent to which the situation for mothers working in academia / law / medicine / business has changed since the 70's. Knowing this has helped me to better interpret how I can apply the strategies my role models have used, helping me to pick out which are likely to still apply to me versus which are likely to be less adapted to the current work environment.

The authors' answers for how to "make it", however, felt simplistic and unsatisfying. For the most part, they boiled down to "the women who make it are the women who don't quit" (you don't say!). There was also much, much more of an emphasis on making sure your role as a parent didn't detract from your career, and far less on making sure your career didn't detract from your role as a parent. Although plenty of data was trotted to demonstrate that some mothers do "make it" in the sense that they don't drop out of their careers, the question of how this impacted their family life and whether they feel like the trade offs were acceptable just isn't really addressed.

Finally, I was somewhat concerned about the picture painted of my own field of medicine. Medicine is in this work depicted as almost a bit of the promised land - more women do have children than in the other fields discussed, and for the most part the field was discussed in the context of trying to figure out what makes this field better than many others. Having seen the life of a resident and a physician up close, however, I was uncomfortable with the relatively rosy picture painted of the situation - as well as with the accuracy of some of the descriptions. For example, the book tended to make sweeping generalizations about "high status" and "low status, primary care focused" fields, arguing that the former - with surgery as the prime example - have far fewer women, while the latter - using family medicine and ob/gyn as examples - tend to have many more women and better hours but be less competitive. Ob/gyn, however, is actually a relatively competitive and long-hours residency, and I don't think of surgery as actually a particular higher-status field so much as just known as having much longer hours. In addition, although the claim that the hours are better in the "lower status" specialties was made with reference to many fields, it stood out to me that essentially every quote or statistic supporting this claim was taken from the field of psychiatry, which has far fewer hours and more flexibility than any of the other specialties - low or high status - being discussed. None of this is terribly important to the point of the book... but feeling like the one area I did know well was not well represented did make me somewhat less willing to assume that the other areas were more accurately depicted.

Overall, this is a relatively fast, easy read and I don't feel like it was a waste of my time - but when it comes down to it, it really didn't have the answers I wanted.

I don't normally write reviews, but I do recommend this book to any mother (or father, I suppose) who knows they are committed to their career for the long haul. It is written somewhat like a textbook, but I actually liked that style for this particular book. I wanted concrete examples of women who have been through the child rearing years while also effectively climbing the corporate ladder, and their thoughts on how they made it all work. If anything, it was just nice to read about other women who faced some of the same struggles I am going through right now and that they came out of it all for the better and achieved the successes they wanted both in the office and at home.

While I don't consider myself to be on a "fast track" career in law or medicine, I do have a successful and promising business career. Because I make much more than my husband, I'll also need to juggle being the breadwinner with the responsibilities (and joys) of motherhood. As we are getting serious about planning our family in the very near-term, I wanted to educate myself as best as possible how to prepare for and navigate through pregnancy and the different phases of child-rearing.

I found this book to be extremely well-researched and the findings very well communicated, without the typical nurturing "mommy" voice I've found the other pregnancy books to have. This is a serious topic and I appreciated that the authors treated it as such. The quotes and anecdotes from real women were appropriate and meaningful.

I love that the authors also bring partners into the picture as support systems and co-parents from everything to the household chores, to carpooling to maternity and paternity leave. It's true that by forfeiting or not using their paternity leaves or pushing daycare issues etc, that men are perpetuating society's tendency to wrongly translate parents' rights & needs as only women's rights & needs. I also liked that the mother-daughter author combo brought two different perspectives spanning two generations. For me, it afforded me the realization that I'd never once felt jipped or letdown that my own mother worked. In fact, I always felt loved and cared for.. and was even proud of my own mother's accomplishments.

After reading it through in a single reading, I feel encouraged by my decision to work throughout raising a family. I think any woman considering starting a family should give this book a read, regardless of where she is on her career-path. And while I'll have to share the key take-aways to my own husband who definitely wouldn't sit down and read it, it really is a great resource for men to gain perspective and support for their wives and mothers of their children.