Katty Kay is a BBC correspondent & tv talkinghead who's written a book (with another news correspondant/talkinghead) titled "Womenomics." It looks like she blogs at the Daily Beast, and they've got a Womenomics blog at True/Slant (and, it looks like, an assortment of other places).
I found the expected collection of 'lookit! a book!' articles and mentions, complete with excerpt. Publisher's Weekly has this:
This collaboration between broadcasting powerhouses Shipman and Kay gives career women explicit permission to demand the balance that’s been missing in their lives. The authors assert that after decades of trying to outdo men or fighting the "Mommy Wars" in the office trenches of the 1980s and 1990s, women have gained enough corporate clout to start changing the workplace to suit their needs. Shipman and Kay review the depth of women’s influence as consumers and earners, maintaining that their power gives them the right and the ability to ask for flexibility in their work lives, to negotiate assertively and effectively, to say no and to give up the guilt associated with getting their needs met. Through Shipman and Kay’s own stories of struggling with demanding work and home lives and anecdotes from other working mothers, the authors make a convincing argument that with some mental and emotional effort, women can create their ideal work and home lives. Filled with pragmatic and optimistic steps, this book will inspire readers to set in motion a flexibility-driven business revolution that can benefit all women and men, families and workforces.
I didn't find much actual analysis, even in blogworld (although Instapundit has apparently received a copy for review), but Salon has this in introduction to an interview with both authors:
...In their book, the news veterans call for women to say no to 60-plus-hour work weeks and overly demanding jobs that yank them away from their families. Instead, they urge working women to use their clout in the workplace to demand fewer hours at the office, turn down non-family-friendly assignments, and take control of their time by working from home more, checking e-mail less and avoiding meetings whenever possible.
They call the lifestyle that they themselves have pulled off the "New All" -- defined as "enough professional success, balanced by time and freedom." In impassioned prose, Shipman and Kay lay out their advice for downshifting our careers, which they contend is what an increasing number of us desire deep down but are afraid to ask for. "Women don't usually want that promotion," they write...Not because they weren't up to the job -- but because the sacrifices they would have to make in their personal lives were just too great."
Of course, that could be because, as sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild pointed out in her 1990 book "The Second Shift," which is as apt today as when it was published, the vast majority of the women in dual-career families are still saddled with most of the work at home, and because America's social support system is woefully lacking. But Shipman and Kay, both of whom have high-powered, presumably well-paid husbands, barely acknowledge these issues in their book, and then do so only to dismiss them. "We know the solution isn't longer hours at daycare or hiring more babysitters or asking our husbands to stay home," they write. "Because we're the ones who want more time -- for our children, our parents, our communities, ourselves."
Womenomics" aims its message at professional, educated women and includes work-life-balance success stories from women in mid-to-upper ranks of corporate America, finance, academia and law as well as study citations, statistics and Shipman and Kay's own tips and anecdotes. But the authors don't seem to recognize that the privileges and power enjoyed by, say, high-profile on-air TV talent may not really extend to your basic workaday accountant or bank manager.
...It may not be realistic, especially in this dismal economy, to advise workers to waltz into their bosses' offices and ask to spend less time at their desks, or to skip meetings they deem "unproductive," or to check e-mail only twice a day. But how great would it be if we really could do that without losing our jobs?...
I was more interested in these two other places I found the term. I'm a bit disappointed, actually. This looks like the same sort of upper class/literary elite "Yay Women!" stuff that turns up from time to time. Frequently produced by upper-tier TV types, the sort who for whatever reason have cut back their on-the-air time to, oh, write a book (raise a family, keep those dreadful no-longer-20 wrinkles off the delicate American TV screens, whatever), now that I think of it.
But whatever. Conan's got Tom Hanks and Green Day. I bet the music'll turn up after midnight. It looks like it'll show up online tomorrow, in any case. |