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A UTERUS IS A FEATURE, NOT A BUG

THE WORKING WOMAN'S GUIDE TO OVERTHROWING THE PATRIARCHY

A fierce and persuasive call to action that demands women, especially millennials, rethink the relationship between...

An impassioned guide for working women, especially working mothers, to dismantling the patriarchal systems that hold them back at work and at home, as told by a woman who shattered the mold.

Like many young women, tech journalist and Pando.com founder Lacy (Brilliant, Crazy, Cocky: How the Top 1% of Entrepreneurs Profit from the Global Chaos, 2011, etc.) was lied to as a child when her mother told her she had two choices: being the perfect mother or having the perfect career. Believing it to be true, she spent the first decade of adulthood completely focused on her career before committing to the “risk” of motherhood. After seeing the incredible transformative power parenthood had on her home and professional life, Lacy began to question the narrative she’d been led to believe about motherhood and career. Drawing from personal anecdotes, academic research, statistical analysis, and the experiences of other successful women founders and executives, including Sheryl Sandberg, Sheila Marcelo, and Marissa Mayer, the author works to dispel the myth that women must choose between motherhood and a career by dismantling the misconceptions of women in the workplace. Once a sexism denier herself, Lacy clearly and precisely identifies the active negative role the patriarchy plays in the lives of working mothers, from the microaggressions of benevolent sexism from other women to the blatant misogynistic business practices that work to hold women back at work. Brick by brick, she breaks down the maternal bias to reveal that parenthood has been proven, both anecdotally and statistically, to benefit not only employees on the job, but also the companies they work for. Though written with a focus on working mothers, Lacy's feminist manifesto speaks to the universal experiences of sexism and misogyny all women face in the workplace and in society at large.

A fierce and persuasive call to action that demands women, especially millennials, rethink the relationship between maternity and career ambitions.

Pub Date: Nov. 14, 2017

ISBN: 978-0-06-264181-6

Page Count: 320

Publisher: Harper Business

Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2017

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2017

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THINKING, FAST AND SLOW

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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THE CULTURE MAP

BREAKING THROUGH THE INVISIBLE BOUNDARIES OF GLOBAL BUSINESS

These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.

A helpful guide to working effectively with people from other cultures.

“The sad truth is that the vast majority of managers who conduct business internationally have little understanding about how culture is impacting their work,” writes Meyer, a professor at INSEAD, an international business school. Yet they face a wider array of work styles than ever before in dealing with clients, suppliers and colleagues from around the world. When is it best to speak or stay quiet? What is the role of the leader in the room? When working with foreign business people, failing to take cultural differences into account can lead to frustration, misunderstanding or worse. Based on research and her experiences teaching cross-cultural behaviors to executive students, the author examines a handful of key areas. Among others, they include communicating (Anglo-Saxons are explicit; Asians communicate implicitly, requiring listeners to read between the lines), developing a sense of trust (Brazilians do it over long lunches), and decision-making (Germans rely on consensus, Americans on one decider). In each area, the author provides a “culture map scale” that positions behaviors in more than 20 countries along a continuum, allowing readers to anticipate the preferences of individuals from a particular country: Do they like direct or indirect negative feedback? Are they rigid or flexible regarding deadlines? Do they favor verbal or written commitments? And so on. Meyer discusses managers who have faced perplexing situations, such as knowledgeable team members who fail to speak up in meetings or Indians who offer a puzzling half-shake, half-nod of the head. Cultural differences—not personality quirks—are the motivating factors behind many behavioral styles. Depending on our cultures, we understand the world in a particular way, find certain arguments persuasive or lacking merit, and consider some ways of making decisions or measuring time natural and others quite strange.

These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.

Pub Date: May 27, 2014

ISBN: 978-1-61039-250-1

Page Count: 288

Publisher: PublicAffairs

Review Posted Online: April 15, 2014

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2014

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