Joann S. Lublin shares her trials and tribulations as a woman working to achieve her career goals. She is honest in describing not just her personal journey up the corporate ladder but also the stories of about 50 or more other women working at the CEO level in a number of fields. The copyright on this book is 2016, I had to check that date because so many of the stories involve women in corporate America who are still being treated as underlings. While I realize there is still a glass ceiling to a large degree (yes girls there honestly is still an old boys network out there), I was surprised that women are still being ogled, pawed, asked to get coffee, and asked to step out of photos of their male colleagues because the wives aren’t in this shot. People, this is 2017 not 1964! Whaaaaat? Truly, I was surprised. Women CEOs are not new they have held the helm of major corporations for a long time now so how anyone can think such unconscionable behavior could be ignored or accepted is beyond belief. Oh, there will always be someone who has questionable ethics regardless the field, and now and then some “player” who feels he is the office Cassanova who might see how far he can push the boundaries but, when a woman who has earned her position through diligence in pursuing her education and/or working her way up the levels to achieve the top spot running an organization is treated with such a dismissive attitude on the parts of the males in the room I have to ask, “How can that be in this day and age?” While there is still somewhat of an equality imbalance and the stereotypical “suits rule” remains imbedded in the social psyche (think “Mad Men”) isn’t there at least a crack in the glass ceiling by now? Not shattered, not gone, but a definite crack should be felt. Women still have to prove themselves capable and work harder, put up with more b.s. and no matter how good they do their job are still made to feel less than their male counterparts. The book ends with the hope that by the time the daughters of the current female CEOs come of age the stories they tell them of what they had to endure will sound like something so foreign they just might not believe them. Very well written. This book gives you insight into just how difficult and how much of an uphill battle women still struggle as suffragettes in the board rooms across the world.
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