Necessary Dreams: Ambition in Women's Changing Lives

Despite the huge advances women have made in recent decades, their ambitions are still undermined in subtle ways. Parents, teachers, bosses, and institutions all give less encouragement to women than men, and women still grow up believing that they must defer to men in order be seen as feminine. If their ambition does survive into adulthood, too often those ambitions must be downsized or abandoned to accommodate "wifely" duties of household chores and child care. As a result, women--unlike men-continually have to re-shape their goals and expectations.

Yet expressing ambition, pursuing it, and getting recognition for one's accomplishments is critical to identity and happiness. In this groundbreaking work, Anna Fels draws on extensive research and years of her psychiatriac practice to offer an original and deeply useful examination of ambition in women's lives. In the process, she illuminates just what is necessary for women to articulate--and fulfill--their dreams.

Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 02/08/2005
ISBN: 9780679758884
Pages: 297
Weight: 0.70lbs
Size: 8.00h x 5.20w x 0.80d

Review Citations: New York Review of Books 11/01/2004 pg. 4
New York Times Book Review 03/30/2008 pg. 31