Creating A Life: Amazon.ca: Books

Tag this product

Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organize and find favorite items.

Customer Reviews

63 Reviews

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(26)

Average Customer Review

3.0 out of 5 stars (63 customer reviews)

Share your thoughts with other customers:

Create your own review

Most helpful customer reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Highly Recommended!, July 23 2002

By

Rolf Dobelli "getAbstract" (Switzerland) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Creating a Life: Professional Women and the Quest For Children (Hardcover)

Women everywhere are talking about Creating A Life, which exploded into the U.S. media with a controversial and disturbing message: Career women are waiting too long to have children! Despite the uproar it has caused, Sylvia Ann Hewlett's analysis of the situation is actually quite evenhanded, even if she is prone to overgeneralization. Hewlett does not attack childless women - as many have accused - rather, she logically assesses the reasons that so many highly successful women do not have kids. Her prescriptions for the problem of high-achiever childlessness might not win her any friends in feminist camps, but nevertheless, we from getAbstract highly recommend that all professional women (and their husbands or potential husbands) read this book and decide for themselves.

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews

Was this review helpful to you? Yes No

Report abuse

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Every Working Woman Should Read This Book!, Jun 19 2002

By

Cynthia (CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Creating a Life: Professional Women and the Quest For Children (Hardcover)

If I had known then what I know now:
1. I wouldn't have felt so alone in my quest to have children while climbing the corporate ladder.
2. I probably would have tried to have my 2 kids a little earlier before the height of my career as opposed to during the height of my career.
3. I would have rejoiced more while pregnant over how lucky I was/am to have become a mom in my mid-thirties rather than feel bad that I was being passed over for promotions.
4. I would have encouraged girlfriends who are now too old to have kids to have had kids earlier, rather than encouraged them as much in their careers.
5. I would have set myself up more conservatively in my finances so that I could truly enjoy my young family better.

Overall, this book gives working women the TRUTH, not the "you can have it all" line that feminists and propaganda have been throwing at this generation of women for some thirty-plus years now. The truth is, having a family isn't the same for women as it is for men; and therefore, how can women expect that their careers can be equal or the same to a man's after having a family? Well, the cold-hard truth is, in today's corporate society women are not supported in their endeavors to have families. And whether Sylvia Ann Hewlett's book provides any real solutions to this or not, the most important achievement of this book is that it heightens awareness to this extremely important issue!

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews

Was this review helpful to you? Yes No

Report abuse

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Hewlett Rules, In Spite of Herself, May 25 2002

By

Steve Wunsch (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Creating a Life: Professional Women and the Quest For Children (Hardcover)

In a letter to the editor on May 25, 2002,(Women's Choices: The More the Better), Sylvia Ann Hewlett takes umbrage at the characterization in a NY Times front page story of the policy section in her book as "cursory and obligatory" ("The Talk of the Book World Still Can't Sell", 5/20/02). In her letter, she vigorously defends the seriousness of her policy prescriptions and her sincerely feminist intent in offering them, concluding, "At the center of this book is a profoundly feminist message: women deserve generous choices in their lives and should not be called upon to sacrifice either career or children." I'm glad she did. While her prescriptions are as impractical and socialist as only a Harvard-trained economist could dream up, they are indeed serious. Moreover, the reason this is such an important book is that Hewlett's feminist credentials are as impeccable as her research. It would have been dismissed out of hand if it had been written by, for example, Rush Limbaugh. But when Hewlett devotes 3 chapters to such recommendations as eliminating the lack of marginal compensation for long hours (such as occurs when salaried employees are not paid overtime), because it gives advantages to those who spend less time raising children -- ie, men -- she burnishes her bona fides as a solidly socialist feminist. Because of those bona fides we know for sure that she did, as she claims, start out to write a book celebrating the achievements of women, and was indeed surprised when her findings forced her to write one, instead, about their disappointments on the family front.
Perhaps if she rereads it again in a year or two, she will see why no-one is taking her policy prescriptions seriously. She may even see why it's not selling. It's not selling for the same reason that she can hardly stomach her own findings: working women and the whole egalitarian culture of corporate women and men that feminism has bred have locked themselves into choices that her book proves are wrong. Creating a Life proves -- even if its author can't yet admit it to herself -- that feminism and the Government-mandated workplace equality of women are entirely untenable and self-destructive ideas. It's a very good book, well researched, well written, and very important -- in spite of its author's intentions.

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews

Was this review helpful to you? Yes No

Report abuse

Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review

› See all 63 customer reviews on Amazon.ca

Want to see more reviews on this item?

› Go to Amazon.com to see all 70 reviews 3.1 out of 5 stars

Most recent customer reviews

1.0 out of 5 stars If you want baby, easy!
The world is over-populated. Please be open and learn from the Europeans: adopt desserted babies in South America, Asia, Africa and now one more source (caused by the American... Read more

Published on July 6 2004 by S. FAN

2.0 out of 5 stars Influential but flawed
This book has many biases and flaws. Other reviewers have already gone into detail on these points, so I won't belabor them. Read more

Published on Mar 9 2004 by Renaaah