Customer Reviews

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

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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.

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.

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.

"Rumors of our Progress have been Greatly Exaggerated" by Congresswoman Carolyn B. Maloney is a call-to-arms for women, and men who care, to begin the real process of creating equality of the sexes. This excellently researched book hits to the very heart of the problem of hidden prejudice that most people tend to, or perhaps, want to ignore. Maloney is superbly well-versed in the inequities that exist in the marketplace. Through her own personal story and the emotional stories of other women, she points out the subtle obstacles that face women who want both career and family life. Maloney also documents the double standards that apply to women (but not to men) with a careful hand that is both intelligent and feeling. And Maloney stresses that now is time to take real action and push for concrete results so that women are no longer second rate citizens. In fact the book is a guide on how to achieve this. I applaud this book and this visionary woman. Thank you.

As a student in the South during the 1950s and 60s, Carolyn B. Maloney learned "girls were taught the virtues of modesty and modest ambitions. The only economics we studied was home economics." This is ironic because seven term Congresswoman Carolyn B. Maloney is now a major player in the economy of the United States. She currently Chairs the powerful Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit and next year will make history becoming the first woman in either House of Congress to Chair the prestigious Joint Economic Committee.

This is significant because Maloney who possesses a lengthy record of accomplishment is on the threshold of achieving more influence than any East Side legislator since the great Senator Robert F. Wagner, who authored Social Security, the first Housing Act, and legislation guaranteeing workers the right to unionize. Maloney's ascension to power could be of considerable value not only for the East Side but also New York City as a whole and the entire United States. In this regard it is useful to point out that prominent economist the late Robert Heilbroner told friends that Maloney had an excellent grasp of economics.

Maloney also serves on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and its Subcommittee on Government Management, Organization and Procurement. On April 22, the US House of Representatives passed the "Contractors and Federal Spending Accountability Act" (H.R.3033) a Maloney bill creating a comprehensive, centralized database that would more efficiently monitor the federal procurement system.

Exposing and making difficult fraud and waste in government has been a cornerstone of Maloney's government service since she served in the New York City Council. There she uncovered a fraudulent sludge removal contract where New York City was paying $140 million for the same work that other municipal governments had paid an average of $40 million. In addition, Maloney drafted and passed Vendex, legislation to prevent contracting fraud. This so impressed Michael Bloomberg when he became Mayor that he sought to have it included in the City Charter.

Maloney continued this work of exposing and finding solutions to wrongdoing in the House of Representatives after upsetting incumbent GOP Congressman Sedgwick "Bill" Green in 1992 despite being outspent five to one. On August 2, 2007, three highly respected Washington organizations, Project on Government Oversight (POGO), Taxpayers for Common Sense (TCS) and Friends of the Earth (FOE) praised her for "legislation to commission research that would determine whether the federal government is using best practices in the collection of oil and gas royalties from companies drilling on federal and Native American lands."

All during these accomplishments, Carolyn Maloney has encountered the difficulties that women normally encounter when trying to take advantage of their natural ability to play leadership roles in society. Consequently, without ignoring her duties as a congresswoman, not to mention those of a wife and mother of two daughters, she has written an excellent book "Rumors of Our Progress Have Been Greatly Exaggerated," subtitled "Why Women's Lives Aren't Getting Any Easier and How We Can Make Real Progress for Ourselves and Our Daughters."

The book has a unique format. It is divided into eight chapters each posing and describing a specific problem familiar to women and then at the end of the chapter there is a "Take-Action Guide." For example, in Chapter 1, Maloney calls for "A Workplace That Works for Families." Maloney sardonically observes: "We watch television shows and see an equal balance of male and female detectives, surgeons, and lawyers. We take comfort in the thought that life must be imitating art-maybe not in our community, but surely somewhere close by." But then, the congresswoman reminds: "every now and then, though, each of us get a stark, jolting glimpse of discrimination against women in all its raw ugliness" and though "glossy magazines turned out cheerful stories about flexible family-friendly workplaces, anecdotally, I wasn't seeing it. Women kept telling me that their employers were demanding more and more. Working mothers seem to be having the hardest time. They were passed over for promotion, marginalized if they asked for flexible or part-time schedules, and fired first in the growing number of downsizings."

Maloney cites a 2004 Harvard study on how the US ranks among the world's nations in providing programs and policies benefiting children and parents and grades this country F+. She provides some horrific examples: With regard to Paid Leave for Childbearing and Child Rearing, "One Hundred Sixty-Three countries guaranteed paid leave to women or childbirth and related events; like Lesotho, Swaziland, Papua New Guinea, we (the US) don't." As for early childhood education and care, United States is "tie with Surinam and Ecuador for 39th," comments Maloney. The congresswoman makes a number of recommendations in the Take-Action Guide at the end of the Chapter. They include working to end wage discrimination, helping create workplaces at work for families so parents have the flexibility they need to balance work and child care, advocating a more woman-friendly workplace, and helping give every mother in the workplace the rights and resources she needs to encourage her to breast-feed

Chapter 6 deals with "The Pretty Women Myth." Maloney learned about what she calls correctly "the truly evil world of sexual slavery" when a human rights organization "Equality Now" contacted her about Big Apple Oriental Tours an alleged travel company in her own district. Maloney found that Big Apple's "clients didn't turn to it for its expertise on restaurants or cultural landmarks" but just one attraction women" and the clients "all could have gone by the same euphemistic name: John." Big Apple arranged tours of seedy nightclubs in Thailand and the Philippines that were "thinly veiled brothels." Furthermore, Maloney indignantly writes "Big Apple even advertised access to virgins." Maloney pursued the owners of Big Apple with a vengeance forcing indictments of them in 2004, 2005 and 2006 which were unfortunately dismissed "underscoring the need for stronger laws," In Chapter 6's Take-Action Guide, Maloney repeats the need for stronger legislation and urges an all out "Fight to Eradicate Sex Trafficking at Home and Abroad."

Violence against women is not limited to one chapter. Chapter 5 deals with "Freedom from Fear of Violence". In this section, Maloney praises the growing number of prominent man joining the fight against would be perpetrators of sexual assault and domestic violence. "As a New Yorker, I'm proud that one of those men is Joe Torre. In 1997, when he was manager of the New York Yankees (he now manages the Los Angeles Dodgers), Torre did something more important than any World Series victory, according to Maloney. "He revealed that he grew up in an abusive household where his father beat his mother. Torre later started the Safe at Home Foundation to Combat Domestic Violence."

Maloney continues to press for the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). Alice Paul, president of the National Women's Suffrage Association in 1920, drafted ERA in 1923 and it finally passed Congress in 1972, but fell short of passage because it only obtained 35 of the necessary 38 states. Maloney's supportive husband Cliff is a cousin of Alice Paul and her older daughter Christina's middle name is Paul in honor of Alice Paul.

"Rumors of our Progress" is a must read for the women of all generations. Congresswoman Maloney does a fabulous job of presenting the issues that face women each day and the ways we can fight them. Her experience in Congress, personal stories about herself and other women, and the research behind the book paint a real picture about the modern world and the misconceptions about the gender gap. Maloney's book is captivating and inspiring to every woman, man and child of our nation. Keep up the good work Congresswoman! and Five Stars!

I haven't read the book yet, however, I just listened to Congresswoman Maloney on a live teleconference today, sponsored by the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce. Maloney's record of service to our country is immense and, she continues to work to make this a more 'just' and strong nation. I can't wait to read her book.

I already know the challenges of being a female professional in today's world. I live and grow my business within it each and every day. Thanks to Maloney for articulating what needs to happen for equality to advance.

If you'd like to read my blog post about today's talk go here - [..]

I have just finished reading this book, and have already found myself repeating the title (no easy feat :) to countless people in recommendation. It is a quick read (but I think that's only because I couldn't put it down), and so inspiring. I have never been inspired by a book to the point of taking action. Sure, I've read books and thought to myself, I will do something about this one day. But within a week of finishing this book, I made an appointment at the Public Policy Department with Planned Parenthood to be a volunteer for Women's Rights and Healthcare. Congresswoman Maloney is a lovely and inspiring voice for all the lucky people who sit down to read her book.

This is a must read for anyone interested in what progress (if any) the US Congress is engaged in to promote the rights of women in the US and around the world. Rep. Maloney writes in clear and unapolgetic prose about what works and what still needs to be done to ensure that women around in the US and around the world can have equal access to health care, education, economic opportunity, etc...

Congresswoman Maloney's, "Rumours of our Progress have been Greatly Exaggerated," is not only an interesting read but it can also serve as a manual that readers can use to take that first step to become involved in positive change. In each chapter, Congresswoman Maloney details what she sees as the hurdles that women still face in gaining full equality. She then adds all that she has done in her career to further the advancement of women in those categories. But the most impressive thing is that she finishes each chapter with a "Take Action Guide." This guide provides readers with ideas for simple behavior changes that they can make in their daily lives, as well as provides the contact information for various pro-women organziations so that readers can put the book down and begin to help women achieve full equality. I would recommend this book to everyone who believes in women's equality but especially to young women in high school and college who can use this book to help them create lives that they derserve and that they can then pass on to their daughters.