The Only Woman In The Room

"Eileen Pollack had grown up in the 1960s and 70s dreaming of a career as a theoretical astrophysicist. Denied the chanc... (more)

"Eileen Pollack had grown up in the 1960s and 70s dreaming of a career as a theoretical astrophysicist. Denied the chance to take advanced courses in science and math, she nonetheless made her way to Yale, where, despite finding herself far behind the men in her classes, she went on to graduate, summa cum laude, with honors, as one of the university's first two women to earn a Bachelor of Science degree in physics. And yet, isolated, lacking in confidence, starved for encouragement, she abandoned her ambition to become a physicist. Years later, Pollack revisited her reasons for walking away from the career she once had coveted. She spent six years interviewing her former teachers and classmates and dozens of other women who had dropped out before completing their degrees in science. In addition, Pollack talked to experts in the field of gender studies and reviewed the most up-to-date research that seeks to document why women and minorities underperform in STEM fields. Girls who study science and math are still belittled and teased by their male peers and teachers, even by other girls. They are led to think that any interest or achievement in science or math will diminish their popularity. They are still being steered away from advanced courses in technical fields, while deeply entrenched stereotypes lead them to see themselves as less talented than their male classmates, a condition that causes them to fulfill such expectations and perform more poorly than the boys sitting beside them. "--Provided by publisher. (less)

Hedy Kiesler is lucky. Her beauty leads to a starring role in a controversial film and marriage to a powerful Austrian a... (more)

Hedy Kiesler is lucky. Her beauty leads to a starring role in a controversial film and marriage to a powerful Austrian arms dealer, allowing her to evade Nazi persecution despite her Jewish heritage. But Hedy is also intelligent. At lavish Vienna dinner parties, she overhears the Third Reich's plans. One night in 1937, desperate to escape her controlling husband and the rise of the Nazis, she disguises herself and flees her husband's castle. She lands in Hollywood, where she becomes Hedy Lamarr, screen star. But Hedy is keeping a secret even more shocking than her Jewish heritage: she is a scientist. She has an idea that might help the country and that might ease her guilt for escaping alone -- if anyone will listen to her. A powerful novel based on the incredible true story of the glamour icon and scientist whose groundbreaking invention revolutionized modern communication. (less)

Hedy Kiesler is lucky. Her beauty leads to a starring role in a controversial film and marriage to a powerful Austrian a... (more)

Hedy Kiesler is lucky. Her beauty leads to a starring role in a controversial film and marriage to a powerful Austrian arms dealer, allowing her to evade Nazi persecution despite her Jewish heritage. But Hedy is also intelligent. At lavish Vienna dinner parties, she overhears the Third Reich's plans. One night in 1937, desperate to escape her controlling husband and the rise of the Nazis, she disguises herself and flees her husband's castle. She lands in Hollywood, where she becomes Hedy Lamarr, screen star. But Hedy is keeping a secret even more shocking than her Jewish heritage: she is a scientist. She has an idea that might help the country and that might ease her guilt for escaping alone -- if anyone will listen to her. (less)

"One of the founders of the state of Israel, Golda Meir (1898-1978) was Israel's ambassador to the USSR in 1948-49, subs... (more)

"One of the founders of the state of Israel, Golda Meir (1898-1978) was Israel's ambassador to the USSR in 1948-49, subsequently served as Israel's Minister of Labor and Foreign Minister, and in 1969 became Israel's fourth Prime Minister. Born to poor and uneducated parents in Kiev as Golda Mabovitz and raised in Milwaukee, she settled in the British Mandate of Palestine in 1917. American Jews of an older generation cherish memories of her as an affable, grandmotherly head of state, a mesmerizing speech maker, a tough negotiator with the likes of Nixon and Kissinger, and as a sort of mother of the Jewish people. However, public memory of her is much more equivocal in Israel, partly due to misogynistic strains in Israeli political culture and to her perceived failures as Prime Minister during the 1973 Yom Kippur War, the conflict that arguably led to her resignation and withdrawal from politics. This biography of Golda Meir explores the evolution of her political persona from her teenage years until her death, focusing in particular on her ever-recurring role as the only woman in a room full of male political actors. Pnina Lahav reexamines the story of Golda Meir's early passion for socialist Zionism, her decision to marry early, her separation from husband Morris Meyerson, her decision to leave her children in the care of others in order to pursue her political ambitions, and her conduct first in the Israeli cabinet and then as the country's Prime Minister. Often derided and humiliated by the men with whom she had to work, Golda Meir had her own complicated issues with gender and showed clear signs of having internalized the masculine ideals of the twentieth-century Zionist leadership (as when, for example, she derided her colleague and fellow cabinet minister Abba Eban, a cultivated, highly-educated man, as "effeminate"). And like another notable twentieth-century female political leader, Margaret Thatcher, she was less than supportive of younger women who wanted to follow in her footsteps. While Golda Meir has been the subject of several biographies, Lahav's is unique in its exploration of Golda's complicated and evolving relationship to her identity as a woman, particularly one who ascended to the apex of a patriarchal power structure"-- (less)

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