by Malia Litman ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 2015
Plenty of valuable information but marred by too much scolding.
Litman (The Ignorance—Virtues of Sarah Palin, 2010, etc.) welcomes readers to her formulation of the so-called third wave of feminism.
Savvy and funny, Litman boasts an impressive resume: graduation as a registered nurse, top litigator and senior partner at a well-respected Dallas law firm, stay-at-home mom extraordinaire, and now blogger and author. As a writer, Litman is delightfully sarcastic. She enjoys turning storybook mythology on its head: why in the world would all those Disney damsels in distress wait to be saved by a Prince Charming? For those unfamiliar with the history of the women’s movement in the United States, Litman offers a useful recounting of the fight for women’s suffrage and the birth of “women’s liberation” in the 1960s. The new battle, it seems, is to help women understand that while they may be able to “have it all,” something’s got to give—and it better not be the well-being of the children. Today, she says, we are on the forefront of the final stage of equality: professional opportunities abound. But beware the cost. “Betty [Friedan] initiated the Second Wave, encouraging women to fight for the right to pursue a profession. I am fighting for the right of women not to pursue a profession,” Litman says. She argues forcefully that women need to support each other for the professional and personal choices they make. Yet she undermines her own thesis with constant admonitions to women about the dire consequences of waiting too long to have children (difficulty conceiving due to old age and the increased potential for birth defects are among her favorite warnings) as well as the psychological damage done to children whose mothers opt to spend their time in the office. She saves her sharpest barbs for Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook, whose advice to professional women is to “lean in.” Says Litman: “Remember that every time Ms. Sandberg appears to give a speech about women’s issues, her book, or the great balancing act, she is taking time away from her children.”
Plenty of valuable information but marred by too much scolding.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2015
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 951
Publisher: Amazon Digital Services
Review Posted Online: Sept. 4, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Chris Gardner with Quincy Troupe ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 2006
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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by Daniel Kahneman ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 2011
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our...
A psychologist and Nobel Prize winner summarizes and synthesizes the recent decades of research on intuition and systematic thinking.
The author of several scholarly texts, Kahneman (Emeritus Psychology and Public Affairs/Princeton Univ.) now offers general readers not just the findings of psychological research but also a better understanding of how research questions arise and how scholars systematically frame and answer them. He begins with the distinction between System 1 and System 2 mental operations, the former referring to quick, automatic thought, the latter to more effortful, overt thinking. We rely heavily, writes, on System 1, resorting to the higher-energy System 2 only when we need or want to. Kahneman continually refers to System 2 as “lazy”: We don’t want to think rigorously about something. The author then explores the nuances of our two-system minds, showing how they perform in various situations. Psychological experiments have repeatedly revealed that our intuitions are generally wrong, that our assessments are based on biases and that our System 1 hates doubt and despises ambiguity. Kahneman largely avoids jargon; when he does use some (“heuristics,” for example), he argues that such terms really ought to join our everyday vocabulary. He reviews many fundamental concepts in psychology and statistics (regression to the mean, the narrative fallacy, the optimistic bias), showing how they relate to his overall concerns about how we think and why we make the decisions that we do. Some of the later chapters (dealing with risk-taking and statistics and probabilities) are denser than others (some readers may resent such demands on System 2!), but the passages that deal with the economic and political implications of the research are gripping.
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our minds.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-27563-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
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