by Julia Gillard & Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 2, 2021
Much-needed, frank talk from exceptional female leaders about how they’ve dealt with sexism in the line of duty.
Eight of the world’s most influential women talk about political double standards with Gillard, the former prime minister of Australia, and Okonjo-Iweala, the first female finance minister of Nigeria.
The authors begin this sobering look at female leaders’ progress—or lack thereof—by noting that only 57 of the 193 members of the United Nations have had a woman in their highest executive office, such as president or prime minister. Curious about gender biases, they interviewed an impressive all-star cast of power players who overcame sexism and sometimes other long odds: Michelle Bachelet was tortured by the Pinochet regime before becoming the first female president of Chile, and Joyce Banda and Ellen Johnson Sirleaf left abusive spouses en route to the presidencies of Malawi and Liberia. Drawing on academic studies as well as their interviews, the authors look beyond glass ceilings and explore hazards such as the “glass cliff,” the tendency of organizations to “embrace women’s leadership when they are in trouble,” as Britain’s Conservative Party did when it reached out after the Brexit vote to Theresa May, who looks back on the event here. Other women discuss a “glass labyrinth” of barriers, including that a woman must come across “as ‘man’ enough to do the job but feminine enough not to be viewed as unlikeable, or even held in contempt.” Hillary Clinton and Christine Lagarde, head of the European Central Bank, recall comments about their hair while prime ministers Erna Solberg of Norway and Jacinda Ardern of New Zealand acknowledge the vital roles of a partner and relatives in helping with family responsibilities. In an especially strong argument, the authors encourage candidates not to reinforce the stereotype that high-ranking women will necessarily create a gentler world. Throughout, each contributor is refreshingly open and candid about their experiences. The case for female leadership, they rightly note, is a moral one: People should see in leaders “a reflection of the full diversity of society.”
Much-needed, frank talk from exceptional female leaders about how they’ve dealt with sexism in the line of duty.Pub Date: Feb. 2, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-262-04574-2
Page Count: 336
Publisher: MIT Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 17, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2020
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by Abhijit V. Banerjee & Esther Duflo ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 12, 2019
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.
“Quality of life means more than just consumption”: Two MIT economists urge that a smarter, more politically aware economics be brought to bear on social issues.
It’s no secret, write Banerjee and Duflo (co-authors: Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way To Fight Global Poverty, 2011), that “we seem to have fallen on hard times.” Immigration, trade, inequality, and taxation problems present themselves daily, and they seem to be intractable. Economics can be put to use in figuring out these big-issue questions. Data can be adduced, for example, to answer the question of whether immigration tends to suppress wages. The answer: “There is no evidence low-skilled migration to rich countries drives wage and employment down for the natives.” In fact, it opens up opportunities for those natives by freeing them to look for better work. The problem becomes thornier when it comes to the matter of free trade; as the authors observe, “left-behind people live in left-behind places,” which explains why regional poverty descended on Appalachia when so many manufacturing jobs left for China in the age of globalism, leaving behind not just left-behind people but also people ripe for exploitation by nationalist politicians. The authors add, interestingly, that the same thing occurred in parts of Germany, Spain, and Norway that fell victim to the “China shock.” In what they call a “slightly technical aside,” they build a case for addressing trade issues not with trade wars but with consumption taxes: “It makes no sense to ask agricultural workers to lose their jobs just so steelworkers can keep theirs, which is what tariffs accomplish.” Policymakers might want to consider such counsel, especially when it is coupled with the observation that free trade benefits workers in poor countries but punishes workers in rich ones.
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-61039-950-0
Page Count: 432
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: Aug. 28, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
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SEEN & HEARD
by Fern Brady ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 6, 2023
An unflinching self-portrait.
The tumultuous life of a bisexual, autistic comic.
In her debut memoir, Scottish comedian Brady recounts the emotional turmoil of living with undiagnosed autism. “The public perception of autistics is so heavily based on the stereotype of men who love trains or science,” she writes, “that many women miss out on diagnosis and are thought of as studious instead.” She was nothing if not studious, obsessively focused on foreign languages, but she found it difficult to converse in her own language. From novels, she tried to gain “knowledge about people, about how they spoke to each other, learning turns of phrase and metaphor” that others found so familiar. Often frustrated and overwhelmed by sensory overload, she erupted in violent meltdowns. Her parents, dealing with behavior they didn’t understand—including self-cutting—sent her to “a high-security mental hospital” as a day patient. Even there, a diagnosis eluded her; she was not accurately diagnosed until she was 34. Although intimate friendships were difficult, she depicts her uninhibited sexuality and sometimes raucous affairs with both men and women. “I grew up confident about my queerness,” she writes, partly because of “autism’s lack of regard for social norms.” While at the University of Edinburgh, she supported herself as a stripper. “I liked that in a strip club men’s contempt of you was out in the open,” she admits. “In the outside world, misogyny was always hovering in your peripheral vision.” When she worked as a reporter for the university newspaper, she was assigned to try a stint as a stand-up comic and write about it; she found it was work she loved. After “about a thousand gigs in grim little pubs across England,” she landed an agent and embarked on a successful career. Although Brady hopes her memoir will “make things feel better for the next autistic or misfit girl,” her anger is as evident as her compassion.
An unflinching self-portrait.Pub Date: June 6, 2023
ISBN: 9780593582503
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Harmony
Review Posted Online: March 10, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2023
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