This week I read The Power, which won the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction in 2017, and was listed as one of Barack Obama’s favorite books of 2017. I found it while sorting my bookshelf and was thoroughly puzzled as to how it got there. I don’t remember buying it, and once I read it I was sorry it took me so long to find it.

This is a gender-bending dystopia (but a utopia, too?) where women develop a power so great it allows them to rule the world. My only complaint about this novel is that it isn’t real and I don’t have this power with which to completely destroy the patriarchy. A gal can dream, and I am still dreaming about it. Last night I dreamt I was in an Amazing Race-type situation and only the women could solve all the complex problems. The men were there for moving heavy things and just doing what they’re told. I loved it, although I fell way behind in the race because I didn’t feel as smart as the other women. Self-esteem issues coming through.
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Back to the Power. I highly recommend this book if you enjoy anthropology, femininity, science, dystopias, and wildly intriguing world-building. I still don’t know where I got my copy from, but I’m glad I found it on my shelf. 

World leaders sing from the rooftops. Turn on any news broadcast and you can hear a new one every day:

"It's probably fair to say most of the world is moving beyond the emergency phase of the pandemic response." ~ Dr Michael Head, Southampton University.

"We're still doing a lot of work on it. But the pandemic is over.” ~ US President Joe Biden

“Today we are truly near the end of this thing. We're leaving the darkest days of the pandemic behind and walking into the warm light of summer," ~ Alberta Premier Jason Kenney

A collective sigh from millions of North Americans--as they tossed out masks and cancelled automatic monthly hand sanitizer delivery--began as a murmur in the Spring, and by Fall of 2022 was a clatter. According to many politicians, doctors, the World Health Organization and more, the end of the pandemic is in sight! It’s just endemic now, like the common cold!

But there is one group for whom the pandemic will never end – women. Not in any of our lifetimes, anyway.

We all saw how the childcare and education crisis--when millions of students were immediately sent home to study remotely—disproportionately affected women much worse than it did men. By November of 2021, roughly 3.5 million American women had left the workforce, either quitting altogether, taking a short leave of absence to care for school-age children, or because they lost their jobs. This represents a nearly 4% drop in the number of employed women versus the previous year. Compared to only a 1% difference for men, it was clear women suffered more due to Covid.

But that was then, and this is now! Aren’t things getting back to normal? Unfortunately, no. The decline in women’s employment has only become worse. While the US employment rate as a whole is now back to its pre-pandemic level, the number of women who are employed is not. A study done by the labor department in August 2022 showed that the unemployment rate for women still lags behind pre-pandemic levels by over half a million workers.

But what is happening, exactly? Kids are–for the most part–back in school. The labor market as a whole has rebounded. Why aren’t women back at work? Why is it taking so long for them to recover?

The answer is multi-faceted. While most public and private schools did eventually return to fully in-person, the daycare industry did not. Struggling to find a reliable workforce, many daycares have cut availability or have even closed their doors entirely. Waiting lists are twice as long as they once were. If a parent (usually a mother) requires the services of a daycare in order to return to work, she is out of luck.

Another problem is that women’s work tends to be the public-facing, “essential” type. Which means when the wee little Covid bug hits, they are most likely to be sent back home. Whether endemic or not, this disproportionately stops women from getting promoted, finding more stable jobs that can weather a mild illness, or—again—finding care for their children who might now stay home sick as well. If they do manage to find jobs again, women are more likely to be underemployed – where the conditions of employment (such as flexibility, remote work, and flex days) are more important than career growth.

Pre-pandemic, things weren’t all roses for the ladies, anyway. In 2019--well before the Sars-CoV-2 was but a twinkle in a bat’s eye--the World Economic Forum estimated that it would take nearly 100 years to reach gender equality. I don’t know about your specific family history, but the average mortality rate says I won’t live that long. By 2021, that same study showed the gap had widened by an additional 36 ½ years. That represents more than an entire extra generation of young women who may never achieve what their male peers will.

In 137 years I will most definitely be long dead. My granddaughter, were I to have one, will probably be long dead as well (I might be the only mom of adult children who insists ‘no rush on those grandkids, kids!’)
Now you might be shouting, “okay! So all the world leaders are wrong! The pandemic will never end for women and we are destined to be underemployed and broke for fourteen more decades – so what? What do we do about it?

I don’t know, stop shouting at me. I’m an underemployed woman, too. I also left the workforce to drag my kids through remote school, and now I’m struggling to get my foot back in the door anywhere, let alone save four billion ladies from generations of gender inequity.

But what I do know is this: Until more employers, public services, and legislators start to recognize the intense sacrifices made by women during the last few years, and that these sacrifices are still ongoing, maybe we shouldn’t be jumping the gun to declare the worst of the scourge over. Maybe we ought to admit that the world has been irrevocably altered, that women helped get us through the worst of it, and that they deserve to be commensurately rewarded now and not 137 years from now.

In other words, someone hook me up with a job before Covid knocks me down again, pretty please.

My review of Zeroes & Ones by Sadie Plant

Finally got around to reading this brain-bender from 1997, and yowza. I consider myself a fairly smart person, but the verbiage in this book is so dense it seems like it's written for a post-post-post graduate reading level. That's not a bad thing, it's just... be prepared to read and re-read sentences over and over again if your brain is in goblin mode (now your 2022 word of the year, according to Oxford dictionary!)

Plant, a professor and cultural philosopher, takes us on a tour of women's impact on technology throughout history. Beginning with Ada Lovelace's analytical difference engine, we start to see how women in society were not just responsible for the invention of computing, but how they were related to each other. From Lovelace, we quickly move to Anna Freud, daughter of Sigmund Freud, who was a little bit creepy about her thoughtfulness as she wove tapestries with her loom. Which, by the way, were impeccable, beautiful, and awesome. 

From there we take a tour through the early twentieth century, all the way up to the late 90s when this book was written, and we can see that if a male ever considered themselves to be the technologically more advanced sex, they have another think coming. Plant proves that the technological revolution was a sexual and feminist revolution. Now, in 2022, our mission is to keep that momentum going. If only. What the book fails to do, only because it was written in the 90s and not today, is show the dwindling numbers of women joining tech and STEM fields in the 2000s and beyond. 

I guess it's my turn to take up that mantle and carry on the storytelling. I shall do so with pride!

Definitely read this book if you need a reminder that women invented computing [and that men like Charles Babbage and Freud either thought too small, or only thought about penises (seriously, creepy)]. Plant's detailed weaving of technological history is so fine-tuned and intelligent, the book was originally a bit hard to start, but as it became more poignant, thorough, and important, I couldn't put it down.

How does one write a story about someone else’s project, and then get in trouble for doing so? Be Rosemary Sullivan, that’s how! In The Betrayal of Anne Frank, Sullivan follows documentarian Thijs Bayens, and FBI agent Vince Pankoke, as they seek to figure out who gave up the location of the hidden Frank family in 1944.

Along their journey, there were several curious and suspicious dead ends, but why they ultimately became Sullivan’s (and her publisher’s[i]) problem is anyone’s guess. She was one writer, documenting the cold case team as they went from city to city trying to understand how Otto Frank and his family, plus others, were turned in at the next to last moment before the end of WWII.

One of the first roadblocks faced by Sullivan occurred early on, before she’d even met with Bayens and Pankoke. The two cold case investigators requested simple access to information and permission to use Anne Frank’s name. They received neither. Later, the team requested permission to use quotes from Otto Frank, and were denied. The only quotes from Otto Frank in The Betrayal of Anne Frank are those that can be found in other, public texts.[ii]

More suspicious leads followed by dead ends occur throughout, including when the investigators tried to uncover who really knew about the Annex, but are shut down very quickly with zero answers. 

Bit of a SPOILER:
At the end of The Betrayal of Anne Frank, we learn that the Cold Case team did manage to narrow down the betrayer to what they are sure is near 95% accuracy[iv], but without being able to break through some of the stumbling blocks they encountered, it is impossible to get their confidence level to one hundred percent. You'll just have to come up with your own opinion.

Unfortunately, Sullivan's book is heavily critiqued and contested today, and many people out there don't want it on the shelves. But that's what makes books like this so important. 

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[i] Corder, Mike, “Dutch Publisher pulls Anne Frank betrayal book amid criticism”, The Washington Post, Mar 23, 2022. https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/03/23/betrayal-anne-frank-dutch-publisher/
[ii] Rosemary Sullivan, The Betrayal of Anne Frank, (Toronto: HarperCollins, 2022), p. 28.
[iv] Lederman, Marsha, “Criticism of The Betrayal of Anne Frank Puts Ppotlight on Rosemary Sullivan.” The Globe and Mail, Feb 5, 2022  https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/books/article-criticism-of-the-betrayal-of-anne-frank-puts-spotlight-on-rosemary/

My review of: Without a Net: The Female Experience of Growing Up Working Class 2nd edition -  Edited by Michelle Tea
 
Without a Net is a collection of personal essays written by both notable and average women, about their childhood experiences living below the poverty line. Most of these women went on to rise out of their class and achieve some higher level of success – either financial, or celebrity, or both, and in their personal essay for Without a Net, many remark on the disconnect between the two experiences they have lived.  

Michelle Tea was inspired to compile this book after writing her own memoir, The Chelsea Whistle, about her working-class experience in Massachusetts.

Touching upon the experience of being among the working poor, as well as the misogyny women face in industry and social class, Without a Net is a cultural critique of the sexism that pervades society, and also an education in survival strategies. I chose this book as I am writing a cultural critique and informative narrative as well. My project is about, and targeted to, women working in the tech industry, rather than living in poverty.

The appeal of Without a Net comes from how personal and relatable these authors’ stories are, but also how different they are from each other. A handful of the contributors are authors today, but for those who are not skilled writers, Michelle Tea has edited their essays just enough to make the grammar clear but keep their voices intact. By leaving the essays in the contributors’ own voices, the book avoids becoming voyeuristic or sensationalist, and instead brings the reader into each writer’s unique experience.

For those readers who grew up in similar circumstances, Without a Net becomes a supportive read, where one might feel that they are not alone. For readers who have never experienced the gritty underbelly of poverty, it is informative, enlightening, and eye-opening as well.

The stories span from young women who had to steal, strip, or otherwise break the law to survive, to others who may have scraped by without illegitimate means, but barely did so. They capture the raw, pervasive trauma that poverty causes even when it is no longer a worry. Acclaimed author Ijeoma Oluo’s essay, The Burden of Enough, is an example which paints an informative picture about the systemic effects of childhood poverty:

My review of Pressing On as a Tech Mom: How Tech Industry Mothers Set Goals, Define Boundaries & Raise the Bar for Success by Emilia M. DAnzica & Sabina M. Pons

D’Anzica and Pons are tech executives with years of experience. They have both served on a variety of tech advisory committees, and have successfully navigated the tech industry while also being full-time parents. In Pressing On as a Tech Mom, their first nonfiction book both individually and together, D’Anzica and Pons conduct interviews with other tech leaders who are mothers, and in a question-and-answer format they distill valuable information for both women and men about how to navigate an industry that is quite often hostile to parents. At the end of each chapter, they have a section aimed at thought leaders about what we can learn from the stories of each of the women interviewed.

Repeated studies show that the number of women working in tech continues to drop, which is not great for the industry nor society in general, as women who work are less likely to have impoverished families and children.[i] So, in a time where the tech industry wants to—and needs—to appeal to more women, the research D’Anzica and Pons conducted can be invaluable to attracting women to (or back to) the tech industry.  

Pressing On cites very recent articles about women in tech, such as the Wall Street Journal’s How Women Can Ditch the Guilt When Juggling Careers and Family by Joann Lubin (Feb 2021), and I’m Not Returning to Google After Maternity Leave and Here is Why, a scathing internal memo published by an unidentified female former Googler (2019). The authors cite studies like this to show the ups and downs of the industry. They also conduct personal interviews with a number of female managers and leaders who are still working in tech and doing well.

There were a few points in Pressing On where I took issue with their rampant positivity. For one, D’Anzica and Pons take some very disturbing studies, but they spin them in such a way so as to appear like one-offs, or even the fault of the women themselves, at one point writing, “we have also learned that the greatest challenge to potential mothers can often be their own mindset.”[ii] This attitude disturbed me a little, as the fact remains that tech is a harsh environment for women to work in whether they have a positive mindset or not. 

D'Anzica and Pons were both fortunate to get their starts in the tech industry fairly early on, so while reading this book I questioned if they were providing the full picture to younger tech hopefuls who may be in a pre-parenthood stage of life. I worried a bit that their uplifting and positive messaging throughout might give the wrong impression of this cutthroat industry.

However, in part nine, Why Mothers Belong in Tech[iii], the authors carried out a survey -possibly the first of its kind— of over three hundred tech mothers, and the results were hard to ignore. This chapter, with survey results right in the center of the book, was a great spot for what the literary world might consider a dramatic mid-point reversal.  While the rest of the book is uplifting interviews with specific women who succeeded in both motherhood and tech, this section is more honest and forthright with the facts.

In their survey, they found that nearly one third of the mothers interviewed wanted to drop out of tech at some point, due to its aggressive and hectic environment.[iv] Sixteen percent of the women they interviewed left their jobs and had no intention to return, most saying the environment is not friendly to those who have chosen parenthood.[v]

This mirrors reality, which is that a career in tech is not an easy one to pursue as a parent.  A study from the University of California San Diego shows that nearly half of new moms, and a quarter of new dads, leave tech careers after having or adopting a child, and do not return by the time the child starts full-time school.[vi]

It wasn’t until this chapter in Pressing On as a Tech Mom, that I felt the authors were being forthright with this reality. Even then, they glazed over a lot of these harsher facts in order to paint a rosier picture. In reading further, I opted to give D’Anzica & Pons the benefit of the doubt and assume they did this strategically, perhaps hoping that their more uplifting and positive messaging would inspire parents to join and stay in the tech industry. If that was their intent, then they did a great job. Their interviewees acknowledged the struggle but talked about how they overcame it, and the authors added notes for industry thought leaders about how to take the survey data and make their work environments more welcoming to parents.

I hope their positivity works, but as a realist –and a tech mom who was often faced with choosing between work and my kid – I know working in tech is harder than the book makes it sound.

Despite this somewhat wary review, I do recommend this book for young mothers and other parents. Since nearly ninety percent of people will eventually have children during their working lives,i and the tech industry continues to grow, it’s critical that we encourage young people to take up these STEM roles, whether or not having children will eventually make it difficult to stay there. Pressing On as a Tech Mom shares that little bit of reality mixed with a lot of hope.

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[i] Sawhill, Isabel V. and Katherine Guyot “ Women’s work boosts middle class incomes but creates a family time squeeze that needs to be eased,” Brookings, May 2020,  (https://www.brookings.edu/essay/womens-work-boosts-middle-class-incomes-but-creates-a-family-time-squeeze-that-needs-to-be-eased/)
[ii]  D’Anzica & Pons 64
[iii] D’Anzica & Pons, 119
[iv] D’Anzica & Pons, 123
[v] D’Anzica & Pons, 125
[vi] Cech, Erin A. & Mary Blair-Loy “The Changing Career Trajectories of New Parents in STEM,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Newsletter, Feb 19, 2019, (https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1810862116)

My review of Secrets of the Sprakkar: Iceland’s Extraordinary Women and How They Are Changing the World, by Eliza Reid

​There is currently no country, city, nor region in the world that has attained gender equity or equality. However, there is one nation that has come close, in many regards, and continues to tighten the gender gap faster than anywhere else in the world – Iceland.

In Secrets of the Sprakkar, author (and First Lady of Iceland) Eliza Reid chronicles the island nation’s successes and failures in supporting gender equality. From advancements like their guaranteed parental leave of 12 months combined, to the numbers of women leading traditionally male executive roles in industries such as farming and search and rescue, Iceland is consistently ranked number one in the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap report.

Eliza Reid tells the stories of the Sprakkar (an Icelandic word meaning “extraordinary women”) from an outsider’s perspective. Born and raised in the Ottawa Valley, Canada, Reid was first introduced to Iceland when she visited her soon-to-be husband there in the early 2000s. While learning the unique Norse Germanic language has been a challenge for her, adjusting to her new life was made easier by the supports Icelandic women are provided. Government-sponsored daycare, free peer support groups, and normalized public breastfeeding are just a few of the rights Icelandic women have that women in other industrialized nations do not.

In the book, Reid includes small interlude-like chapters, where she shares the rich history of Icelandic mythology and the power of female role models throughout time. One of the most famous Icelandic heroines is Ơlöf “The Rich” Loftsdóttir, who avenged her husband’s death by capturing several of England’s battleships. She is rumored to have been responsible for a five-year war between Denmark and England in the Middle Ages. Reid adds these interim chapters to point out that is ancient heroines like Ơlöf, and others, which help Icelandic people more easily view women as equals.  
However, it is not all unicorns and rainbows for Iceland’s women. There is still a very long way to go. There is still a pay gap, often of nearly 30%, which the country is continually trying to address. There is also a high rate of sexual violence and underreported rape cases.

Reid’s husband, Gudni Jóhannesson, became president of Iceland in 2016. Although the First Lady title is made-up, and Reid insists there are no specific roles for her, she used her new recognition to continue the plight[SK3]  for gender equality in Iceland – and to write this book. She traveled around the nation learning what women needed most and how she could help. At the same time, she continued her previous work as a journalist and writing conference lead, now focusing her craft on the plight of women in Iceland and around the world.

As extraordinary and advanced as Iceland’s women are, however, there are some important notes to consider when comparing the country to other developed nations. Iceland’s population is less than 400,000-- that’s smaller than Halifax, Nova Scotia. Most Icelandic people are distantly related to each other--so much so that they have a national database you can search to make sure you’re not within an unhealthy or incestuous range if you happen to meet a potential new love interest. It’s probably fairly easy to pass new laws and revisit outdated traditions when you’re the second cousin of someone in parliament. It is much harder to change outdated beliefs in even the next most gender-equal developed country, Finland[i], at over 5.5 million people, let alone a country like Canada at nearly 40 million.

I enjoyed Secrets of the Sprakkar. Throughout the read I learned a lot more about what it takes to close the gender gap in a harsh landscape (Iceland is harsh patriarchally  and environmentally!) and I learned a bit of the Icelandic language, too. The Icelandic people are very proud of their language, and although it is based on an otherwise extinct Norse Germanic language, Icelanders frequently update their lexicon to add brand new Icelandic words, such as loftslagskvíði (anxiety about climate change) and smitskömm (shame at being infected with Covid-19.)

Reid does a good job of reminding us about how far Iceland still has to go, as well. She dedicates an entire section to Transgender rights which in Iceland, as in most developed countries, are still quite slow to progress enough for Trans individuals to feel safe. She interviews Ugla Stefanía Kristjönudóttir Jónsdóttir, aka Owl Fisher, a nonbinary trans rights activist who is one of Iceland’s more famous social media celebrities. Ugla talks about changes made for LGBTQ people over recent history, and how much more there is to do.

For example, in Icelandic language there is now a word, hán which can be used as a nonbinary pronoun instead of hún “she” or hann “he,” but as of yet it is only used within the LGBTQ+ community itself and has not been accepted into the more heteronormative lexicon.  On the flip side, many trans laws have been passed in recently years, such as one declaring that from the age of fifteen, an Icelander can legally change their name and gender marker on their identification. Altering gender on ID is a right not granted in most other nations.

I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in advocating for women’s rights in their own country. While it is not instructional and therefore won’t teach you how to change national opinion, it does give an uplifting and educational viewpoint of what closing the gender gap can start to look like for both men and women around the world.
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I don’t think I can change four hundred million American and Canadian minds myself, but at the very least I could go out and start my own kvenfélög—an officially-recognized women’s association.

[i] Whiting, Kate, “Gender gap: These are the world’s most gender-equal countries,” World Economic Forum, Jul 13, 2022, World Economic Forum