Friday Feature: W-O-M-A-N

For my Friday features, I usually focus on something that’s a quick read. As a busy person, I assume that everyone else is busy, too, and so I choose articles that don’t require a huge time commitment.

But yesterday, on my way to an appointment, I stumbled onto an NPR interview with author Ada Calhoun. I identified so fully with her topic that I could feel myself getting emotional. Her book, Why We Can’t Sleep, its written for Gen X women. Technically, I’m not a Gen X woman, but I am a product of the same “women can have it all” cultural upbringing that she describes, using an Enjoli perfume ad from 1978 to illustrate the mindset.

In retrospect, I wonder why any of us thought that bringing home the bacon, frying it up in a pan, and being a 24-hour woman (W-O-M-A-N!) sounded anything but exhausting and impossible. More important, why did it take us two or more decades to come to that conclusion?

I didn’t get to hear very much of the interview because I arrived at my appointment shortly after I caught it on the radio, but I wasted no time downloading her (bestselling) book. I intentionally bought it on Audible because not only did I want to know more I wanted to hear her tell me about it.

This is a book that will rise to the top of my TBLT* pile, busy schedule or not. In fact, it already has.

*to be listened to