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31 of 35 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
I will do this for my daughter, May 30, 2008
This review is from: Rumors of Our Progress Have Been Greatly Exaggerated: Why Women's Lives Aren't Getting Any Easier--And How We Can Make Real Progress For Ourselves and Our Daughters (Hardcover)
I'm not exactly Alan Alda, But I have tried to be sensitive to women's issues over the years. After all, I say things like "spokesperson", and "Congressperson". I was doing my bit for equality. But after reading this book, I realize I hadn't a clue about some of the barriers and obstacles that my mother, my sister, my wife and my daughter had to deal with - that I -a happy oblivious carefree successful white guy - would simply never encounter. And It all just makes my blood boil. I think about how my mom struggled so to make ends meet after my dad died - and I read in the book that the single most powerful predictor of poverty in old age - is motherhood. I think about how my wife learned to use her initials when she first started sending in applications for better jobs because she had learned that if the prospective employer leaped to the assumption that she was a guy - she was more likely to get an interview. More likely to get a job. And I read about issues in the book that she faced that I never even gave a thought to - after all - I was not likely to get fired because I was pregnant - or because I needed some flex time to take care of a sick child - or an ailing parent. I think about my sister - trying unsuccessfully to get that promotion at the Kennedy Space Center - and then I read in the book about how at Walmart 66% of all the workers are female and only 33% of the managers are women. Like what? Women managers would not be likely to understand the finer points of shopping? Puleez. And when it comes to good jobs for women in science, math, technology, fuhgehtaboutit. And darn it my daughter is gifted in math. I read about the issues of sexual harassment in the work place - and I don't even want to think about my incredible, talented, and funny daughter - heading out into a work place that is like - well - the ones I was part of when I was her age. But at least there is hope - because I also read in the book that there are realistic things we can do - steps we can take - to make it fairer - make it better - even make the economy stronger overall at the same time. I will give my copy of the book to my daughter with the dog eared pages about how to get information about comparable wages - so she is less likely to be a victim of the Gender Wage Bias effect when she graduates and heads to those first jobs. She is going to be a writer by the way - a great writer. I will buy another copy for my wife for her birthday - outside of the fact that it will earn me some major points - it will be a useful resource when she applies again for a promotion at the University - she can turn to the resources outlined in the book - maybe this time things will go a little better. Be a little fairer. i will get a copy to my sister. Who somehow managed it all back when she was a single mom for a while. I am too busy to get everything done on days when I don't even have to go into an office. For the life of me - I just don't see how single working parents hold it together. If I had had to squeeze finding affordable quality day care on to my plate - I believe I would have had my full blown Alan Alda moment and cried. The book outlines how tax deductions for day care would make it easier for parents like my sister - to take better care of both family and career responsibilities. After all - as the book points out - guys like me can take business tax deductions for taking our colleagues out to a strip club - we would talk about business after all. Right. it would seem only right that my sister could deduct the expenses of day care as a cost of taking care of her business responsibilities. i will buy those extra copies - I will give them to the women in my life that I cherish so. And I will support Congresswoman Maloney in her efforts to create an economic policy and work place environment that values these women just the way I do - it is after all - what Alan Alda would do.
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19 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great New Book About the Lack of Progress for Women, May 21, 2008
This review is from: Rumors of Our Progress Have Been Greatly Exaggerated: Why Women's Lives Aren't Getting Any Easier--And How We Can Make Real Progress For Ourselves and Our Daughters (Hardcover)
As a first time reviewer on Amazon, I felt it was important to write about this one book. My wife encouraged me to read this, and was completely astounded by some of the facts in the book: The wage gap - in 7 of 10 industries that employ more than 70 percent of women workers and managers, the wage gap between men and women managers actually GREW between 1995 and 2000! Women managers made 79.7 cents to a man's dollar in 2000, .7 percent less than they made in 1983! Glass ceiling - The US Census reported that the percentage of women in executive management positions actually fell from 32 % in 1990 to 19 % in 2000. Discrimination - If you drive your Mitsubishi to the airport after filling its tank at Sunoco, board a Boeing built plane for a United Airlines flight, use your Verizon cell phone to call your spouse before take off, then bit into a Krispy Kreme doughtnut, you've just enriched six household-name companies that have settled or lost sex discrimiation cases ans lawsuits in recnet years. The American Dream - Even though women start small businesses at 4x the rate of men, and women owned businesses employ 19 million workers and generate 2.5 trillion in sales, the government thorough the Small Business Administration does nto support female owned businesses as they should. A law passed in 2000 requires that the government give at least 5% of government contracts to women owned businesses, but under the Bush Admin, they aren't even doing that! The US Women's Chamber of Commerce filed a claim against the SBA for failure to implement the program and won and unbelievably, they still haven't implemented the program! I encourage you to read this book, it truly is sobering.
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11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Timely, Surprising and Amazing!, May 22, 2008
This review is from: Rumors of Our Progress Have Been Greatly Exaggerated: Why Women's Lives Aren't Getting Any Easier--And How We Can Make Real Progress For Ourselves and Our Daughters (Hardcover)
As many women have experienced, the workplace glass ceiling is a trickier concept than one might expect. As Congresswoman Maloney so aptly points out, bias has gone underground and is harder to pinpoint, but it is there all the same. Hilarious (and sad) stories of bizarre situations like the female state troopers who had to "prove" they were able to continue working during their pregnancies. The "tests" were 1) roping a cow and 2) mowing a lawn. You literally cannot make this stuff up. I'd like to see their male counterparts being asked to rope a cow. Is this why Hillary is facing so much subtle and not so subtle gender bias? She hasn't proven she can rope a cow. I'll bet she could if we REALLY believe that's the metric by which we should judge women's worth. This is a fantastic book that could not be more timely. It should be given to every member of the House and the Senate. Thank you Congresswoman, for bringing this dialogue into public debate.
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