Product Description
Peggy Orenstein’s bestselling Schoolgirls is the classic study of teenage girls and self-esteem. Now Orenstein uses the same interviewing and reporting skills to examine the lives of women in their 20s, 30s and … More >>
Flux: Women on Sex, Work, Love, Kids, and Life in a Half-Changed World
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Peggy Orenstein put a lot of interviewing time into this book; it reflects diverse life patterns. It also reflects her own anxiety and sorrow; as a woman in her mid-to-late 30s, she’s been unable to conceive. Here also we find the typical less-than-broad sample of educated, motivated women in the upper-middle-class. Judging from books on women’s issues in recent years, a foreign visitor would think that’s the only bracket in US society. Once again, the hard-pressed working-class women do not appear. I realize that Orenstein’s interviewees are from the group that purchases and reads books like hers; others have not the time, money, or inclination. Still, it’s disconcerting not to have ALL working women represented.
I have one burning question which I’ve yet to see satisfactorily answered by Orenstein and her ilk. Are these concerned, educated, articulate women familiar with socio-biology? There are well documented and striking differences between the sexes. Women yearn for children as men yearn for women/sex. This is not just folk-knowledge, or some mythic “wisdom of the ages.” This is fact.
When my children were infants, La Leche League leaders used to talk about “cultural” v. “biological” femininity, to differentiate between societal expectations and physical fact. For many years, “culture” dictated that some women could not breast-feed; this is biologically incorrect. Today, “culture” sometimes seems to dictate that women should postpone childbearing, postpone marriage even, until they have “succeeded” in a demanding work environment. It also assumes that men can nurture in the same way as women. Biology dictates otherwise. It would be eye-opening for Orenstein and other writers like her to read the research on gender differences. They might be surprised to see how quickly their agonizing over decisions and roles, could disappear.
Rating: 4 / 5
A very self-indulgent look at a slice of the spoilt American female middle class who seem, in this book, to be completely out of touch with what real life is like for most women – those millions who struggle every day with low income, low self-esteem, exploitative employers, debts, disability etc. The book was an eye-opener in that respect in that these women in the book will be, or are by now, shapers of policies ‘for the rest of us’ – God help us.
Rating: 2 / 5
I am not much of a non-fiction reader, but this book, recommended by my bookclub, is a page-turner. I’m not saying every page was easy to turn, though. Some of the interviews and stories hit so close to home for me, they made me weep. Others brought back memories of friends, abandoned relationships and lost ideals of my youth. I can’t help but identify with most of the women in the book. If nothing else, I felt some relief in my soul to know that there are others with the same life-choice struggles I have.
Rating: 5 / 5
Normally I don’t like feminaz-type books, but a friend thought I might enjoy this one. I have to say it was a good effort and I found many of my own thoughts being echoed by many of the women. My only criticism is that it focused (perhaps inadvertently) on women of high socioeconomic class. Almost all were college educated and in high-paying positions. The dilemas of marriage and motherhood may seem magnified in this group of women, however it is not exclusive to them (I, myself am one). I am also African-American, however and would have liked to see more women from different ethnic backgrounds (many of of which are also college-educated, etc).
Rating: 3 / 5
I liked it. A lot even. Although I’m an Israeli and this book is most about American women… I “found” myself in it
Rating: 4 / 5