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Product Description
At thirty-four, Peggy Orenstein faced a series of dilemmas shared by many women of her generation: She was unsure whether she wanted children, unsure about the impact of motherhood on her career, her relationship, and her sense of self. Why, when women seemed to have so many choices, did she suddenly feel that she had none? After feminist liberation and its subsequent backlash, she realized that women's lives, including her own, were now in a state of flux.
In her latest book, Orenstein looks at womanhood and what it means to be a woman at the beginning of this century. After talking to over two hundred women between the ages of twenty-five and forty-five, she has blended their voices into a compelling narrative that allows the reader to "eavesdrop"--to get deep inside the lives and choices of other women--and share their thoughts on ambition and power, the experience of sex and love, the meaning of motherhood, what it means to remain single and childless, and how these things influence the way we assemble the pieces of our lives.
In Flux, Orenstein explores the half-changed aspect of today's world and the ways women still struggle to live full lives and to reach a true balance of the personal and professional. With richly textured narrative portraits and extraordinary depth of reporting, this book offers an opportunity to take part in a conversation with women across generations and lines of experience, an exchange that rarely happens these days.
For all women who are looking for insight into their lives and the forces that inform them, Flux has the power to inspire discussion and, through illuminating the key conflicts of real women, show how life might be changed. Only Peggy Orenstein, with her narrative gift and unique reportorial skills, could produce such a cutting-edge book, a true blueprint for how women comport themselves as the century turns, a bible for stressed-out women trying to make important decisions.
Amazon.com Review
After the release of her bestselling title, Schoolgirls: Young Women, Self-Esteem, and the Confidence Gap, Peggy Orenstein toured the country talking to groups of parents, teachers, and girls. It was after one of these teen town hall meetings that she decided to write about the crucible of postfeminist socialization at which today's women--not girls--find themselves: the reconciliation of motherhood and personal aspirations. It's a subject she's intimately familiar with. Orenstein began researching Flux when she was in her mid-30s and agonizing over whether to have a child: "I wanted the richness of motherhood in my life but worried over its costs. I could almost hear the traditionalist in me clucking, 'You can't have it all,' and it infuriated me. Why couldn't I? Why couldn't any of us?"
To help her answer these questions, she interviewed about 250 women between 1996 and 1999, and their varied responses serve as a kind of public consciousness-raising tool. She also interviewed their friends, lovers, and partners to get to the root of the expectations, joys, and frustrations of these women living in a "half-changed world." Though most of the women she interviewed come from similar backgrounds (college educated, white, middle class, and heterosexual), their combined experiences provide readers with plenty of different viewpoints to consider. A portrait of a generational Everywoman emerges from these snapshots in a way that furthers the stated purpose of the book: to inspire readers in "the search for a more satisfied life." -- J.R.
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