My Second "Politically Un-Correct" Entry in the Span of One Week

So, I started a new job this week. There’s all the excitement of setting up email, and meeting new colleagues, reorganizing your desk, and bringing a few things from home to make the desk your own. Of course, among my pictures and candles, I have to bring a few books to make the desk truly “Ginger.”
Included in these books, a bargain buy I had picked up from B & N a while back, called The Girl’s Guide to Power & Success by Susan Wilson Solovic. The cover was cute, and it seemed an appropriate title to sit on a working girl’s desk. I started to read it one day when I had left my lunch book in the car and the rain was coming down too hard for me to run out and retrieve it.
For the first time in a while, I broke my “stop reading after 50 pages, if you don’t like the book” rule. I made it just three chapters in (page 24), and couldn’t take anymore. Maybe Ms. Solovic’s talent lies somewhere else, other than writing, because she is obviously a successful woman. But when it comes to inspiring a “girl to power and success,” we’ve heard all that she has to say already. I guess that’s what I get for buying off the overstock table. She whines for the first chapter about how the playing field still isn’t equal. She tells fairly limited stories, based almost exclusively off of her own experiences, about people who done her wrong. Then, she proceeds to encourage us girls with tired advice like, “Go for it!” “Be prepared for anything.” “Stay upbeat!” “Be a superstar, not a superwoman.” And, my favorite, “Use your feminine charm, but your masculine smarts.” Advice you could get at any high school career day pep rally. One of her favorite refrains really burns me, as one who considers herself a successful woman. She is constantly encouraging women to free themselves from the “good girl” mentality. Her argument is that traditional breeding has given most females the image of being “nice” and this robs us of the ability to free the aggressive nature that it takes to succeed in business. Well, what ever went wrong with being good and nice? Most women I know have a fierce side. We can go to war when we need to, but we reserve these times only for the things that are really important. No need to pick a fight, when being “good” will get you just as far, if not further, if you ask me.
It seems this book is about 10 or 15 years behind its time. Women are beginning to recognize that you can’t have it all. We evaluate our priorities, and go for the important things in life to us. And we don’t need someone telling us anymore that “anything you can do, I can do better.” We know; we just don’t need to prove it to anyone.