Archive for the ‘Non-fiction’ Category
Judging a Book by Its Cover
I haven’t cracked the spine nor perused so much as a paragraph of The Girl’s Guide to Kicking Your Career Into Gear: Valuable Lessons, True Stories, And Tips For Using What You’ve Got (A Brain!) To Make Your Worklife Work For You by Caitlin Friedman and Kimberly Yorio, yet I loathe it.
Setting aside the general offense of assuming that an entire gender needs directed, specialized advice to be successful, we shall start with the word “girl” in the title. The book purports to be about empowering women to take charge of their careers; “If you want to be both passionate about what you do and successful,” the book description tells us, “then you must take control of your professional destiny.” And yet, in just the second word of the title, the authors reduce their target audience to the state of children. And yet I myself have often found myself referring to my gender by the somewhat condescending, yet not egregious term, so thus far I can count myself but mildly offended.
The subtitle, however, is what truly kindled my rage. The phrase “a brain” is patronizing merely by its very existence. Its inclusion implies that other, less flattering attributes of the career-oriented woman would more naturally spring to mind. The addition of the exclamation point connotes astonishment, as if the authors expect the intended reader to find the idea of her own intelligence a bewildering prospect.
Though the title deigns to encourage women to acknowledge their own brains, the cover photo sends quite a different message. It depicts a woman, from the waist down, frolicking across the page wearing a short skirt and carrying a stylish handbag. Is it any wonder that we are to be shocked by our own capacity for reason, when even these career cheerleaders reduce us to fashionable clothes and shapely legs?
Women on a sincere search for career advice may be better served to consult The Daring Book for Girls, where they will receive sensible guidance on writing letters, negotiating a salary and public speaking, without any of the demeaning condescension.
