Perhaps you're reading this book because, like me, you're puzzled, frustrated, or downright angry about experiences of inequality or disrespect you've had, whether they're recent or buried deep in the recesses of your memory. I mean, don't they always bring in the women to clean up the mess? Despite all the gains, every institution within society seems to replicate the same imbalanced gender dynamics- one where men predominate in leadership and ownership roles, and women struggle for equal representation at the top ranks of power-and right now they all beg for the skills and talents women bring. And women's reproductive rights are continuously under assault. With all that good news, why is there still a deep canyon between the promise and the reality? Why are women the majority of voters but only 17 percent of Congress the majority of journalism school graduates but only 3 percent of top media clout positions and why do we spend 80 percent of consumer dollars but control just 15 percent of the corporate boardrooms that determine what products we'll be allowed to spend our money on? Women earn 78 cents to every dollar men earn, in part because we still bear most of the burden for caregiving of both young and old.

No Excuses is a timely and invaluable book to help women equalize gender power in politics, work, and love. These include: Know Your History and You Can Create the Future of Your Choice Define the Terms-First Embrace Controversy Employ Every Medium and other helpful ideas for using the tools and resources women already have to create the changes they want to see.

No Excuses is divided into nine chapters that organized around how women can change the way they think, and therefore the way they act. Feldt’s solution to all these places where women face inequality is the same: we need to shift the way we think to achieve true parity with our male counterparts. Women are still facing unequal pay, being passed over for promotions, entering public office at a much lesser rate than men, and oftentimes still struggling with traditional power dynamics in their interpersonal relationships. Feldt argues that there’s no excuse-whether it’s the way women are socialized, or pressure to conform, or work/life balance issues-for women today not to own their power.

From the boardroom to the bedroom, public office to personal relationships, she asserts that nobody is keeping women from parity-except themselves.įeldt puts women’s power into an historical context, showing the ways in which women have made huge leaps forward in the past, only to pull back right when they were at the threshold. Feminist icon Gloria Feldt pulls no punches in this new book, which argues that the most confounding problem facing women today isn’t that doors of opportunity aren’t open, but that not enough women are walking through them.

The War on Choice by Gloria Feldt