About this item
A big idea self-help book about the decisions that shape women's lives, in the vein of Designing Your LifeWhat happens to women's ambition in the years after college? The essays which were the catalyst for this book began as a series for the Atlantic, a project between two friends who had attended Northwestern University together in the early 1990s. What became of all the brilliant, hardworking women from their college days, they wondered as they shared work and family woes and triumphs over a glass of wine one evening. What did life look like for other midcareer, midlife women? The data Schank and Wallace culled from the group of women they interviewed--over forty of them in all--revealed a surprisingly clear road map, with consistencies and pitfalls the authors hadn't expected to find. The women fell into one of three categories: high achievers, those who were scaling back, and those who'd opted out. But, most important, no one woman stuck to a single track in the twenty-five years since graduation. Our culture and the popular media might seek to pin women into boxes, but real life is in fact more fluid. Those common moments of transition, crisis, and achievement reaped rich insights and strategies. Tackling topics like the changing meaning of ambition, the near-lethal combination of modern parenting and a 24/7 work culture, and what sexism in the workplace does and doesn't look like, the issues here are perennially topical. A love letter to a new generation of working women or anyone at a crossroads, from women who set out to rule the world and stumbled into various permutations of their best lives, The Ambition Decisions pinpoints the variables that push women toward making big decisions, and make those decisions easier.
About the Author
I am a writer and a technologist/public problem solver. Because why have one career when you can have two? Currently, I am the Director of Strategy for the Public Interest Technology program at New America, where I work on changing how government and non-profits think about problem solving. This means that I run projects in the public sector, contribute research and scholarship to the field, tell stories about the good work governments across the country are capable of, and also call out government when it fails to serve the American people the way it is supposed to.I am also the author of a bunch of books, and I write frequently for a lot of publications. I started out as a personal essayist, so for those who want to delve deep into my oeuvre you'll find a lot out about me in my 20s and 30s. Personal essay is still my first love, and I put a bit of it into everything I write, even though my books have gravitated more toward social criticism and wonky government topics.Just as my career is split, so is my locale. My job is based in DC but I live in Brooklyn, NY, which means that I am constantly being misunderstood. I've got a DC in job in a place where everyone writes or mounts plays or banks. (I don't know anyone who banks, but I hear banking is a big industry in New York.) So when I tell people in NYC what I do they think it's weird, and they just want to know if I've read that piece in the New Yorker. When I'm in DC people think my job is normal, but want to know which badges I have.I don't care about badges, though it's hard not to get into that competitive proximity to power game that DC loves. Yes, I have read that piece in the New Yorker.
