We tell girls that they can be anything, so why do 90 percent of Americans believe that geniuses are almost always men? New York Times bestselling journalist and creator and host of the podcast The Gratitude Diaries Janice Kaplan explores the powerful forces that have rigged the system—and celebrates the women geniuses, past and present, who have triumphed anyway. Even in this time of …
Even in this time of rethinking women’s roles, we define genius almost exclusively through male achievement. When asked to name a genius, people mention Albert Einstein, Leonardo da Vinci, and Steve Jobs. As for great women? In one survey, the only female genius anyone listed was Marie Curie.
Janice Kaplan, the New York Times bestselling author of The Gratitude Diaries, set out to determine why the extraordinary work of so many women has been brushed aside. Using her unique mix of memoir, narrative, and inspiration, she makes surprising discoveries about women geniuses now and throughout history, in fields from music to robotics. Through interviews with neuroscientists, psychologists, and dozens of women geniuses at work in the world today—including Nobel Prize winner Frances Arnold and AI expert Fei-Fei Li—she proves that genius isn’t just about talent. It’s about having that talent recognized, nurtured, and celebrated.
Across the generations, even when they face less-than-perfect circumstances, women geniuses have created brilliant and original work. In The Genius of Women, you’ll learn how they ignored obstacles and broke down seemingly unshakable barriers. The geniuses in this moving, powerful, and very entertaining book provide more than inspiration—they offer a clear blueprint to everyone who wants to find her own path and move forward with passion.
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The title was recommended to me by the publisher and I am so glad it was! I thoroughly enjoyed it and found the tales of genius women to be interesting, inspiring, and depressing in equal measure – the latter because of the way these women were overlooked for so long…
The writing is a mix of stories and arguments about the rationale behind the way society ignores genius women. As a result, the style is a mixture of engaging narrative descriptions of the individual women, and argumentative and pointed political conversation when it comes to the author’s position on the whys and wherefores behind the biases these women face(d) in their lives. It was at times a jarring blend, but I think both styles worked for the type of writing they incorporated.
Frankly I would have enjoyed more women’s stories and slightly less of the political arguments, as after a while those did start to feel somewhat repetitive. Still the need for such repetition on a general level is not lost on me – the behaviors that lead to the deliberate as well as unintentional slights these (and similarly situated) women face(d) continues to the present day, unfortunately, so I understand the author’s interest in driving her points home. Perhaps one day such repetition won’t be necessary, but I fear that day is still some ways off in the future…
This was, on the whole, a fascinating look into the lives of a group of amazing women – and an excellent exegesis on the importance of ensuring that future generations don’t face the same types of challenges in promoting their own genius. It is definitely worth the read.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for my obligation-free review copy.
Half History – Half Opinion
This begins as a wonderful history of the hiding of the intelligence of women. From being invisible to the world in spite of their genius to being celebrated for their genius and everything in-between. The author explores everything! I love the depth of her research. One of her points is the systemic sexism of Western Society. much like the systemic racism, we are exploring. There may be quite a bit of truth in that. Indeed, the status of women and minorities in the US has been hand in hand since the Civil War. From voting rights, acceptance in schools of higher learning, ability to achieve high rank in the military, it is all somewhat comparable. In today’s world, we are still seeing ‘the first woman to do this and that’ because there are fewer instances of the ‘the first man of color to achieve this or that’. As she gets to the modern world, more of her talking points are her opinions without supporting facts. She begins then to frequently stand on her soapbox making claims that are just her personal and political bias. I found myself yelling at my e-reader about so many of her unfounded points in the second half of her book. Her liberal bias really stood out when she called out Laurel Thatcher Ulrich as ‘ an unlikely feminist heroine’ because the chaired professor at Harvard was a Mormon mother of five and originally from Utah. She then praises Senator Elizabeth Warren for not yielding the floor when her allotted time was up – violating the Senate Rules of Order- something somewhat commonplace, but the author rates her highly for it because of Warren’s ‘I Persisted’ buzz phrase. The author’s Liberal bias took over and second half of the book truly went downhill from there. Read it, enjoy it, but see through the pitfalls that hide opinion as researched fact. I received this ARC book for free from Net Galley and this is my honest review.