Publication Date: 9 February 2021
Publisher: Greenleaf Audiobooks
Narrator: Nan McNamara
ISBN: 9781626348516
Genre: Nonfiction, Business
Strong Point: All the stats the reader is provided with to learn about women in the working field.
Weak Point: I did not feel neither connected with any of the women nor inspired by them.
Books on Tour Rating: 
(2/5)
Goodreads Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️ (3.81/5)
“RETHINK: SMASHING THE MYTHS OF WOMEN IN BUSINESS”
That women are equal to men is something that still in 2021 causes perplexity to a lot of men. And if we take into consideration the Business field, then that perplexity reaches incredible and shameful levels…
PhD Andi Simon is a corporate anthropologist who has written “Rethink” to debunk some of the myths about women in the working sphere.
The book is divided in 11 chapters, each one centred in a specific myth about working women. The author presents the woman she has chosen as an example of how that particular myth can be tackled and she reaches a sort of conclusion at the end of the chapter.
THE ROLE MODELS
Until here everything is ok. However (and this is the big “BUT” of the book) I failed to connect to any of the stories I heard. So forget about feeling inspired by them!
Most women portrayed in the book (except one, I think) started their career during the 70s or 80s. I think the biggest cause for my disconnection comes from this fact. The business field has changed so much only in the last 10 years (let alone 30 years), that the paths followed by these women and their professional possibilities are simply not working nowadays.
The technologies were quite limited then. The work environments and the companies strategies were totally different to what they are now.
Furthermore, I may recall that only one of them is said to have a humble background. The rest come from upper class families and have access to advantages or possibilities that simply not everyone (including me) has at hand.
In addition, it felt overall as if for every woman role model, the author was just writing a list of these women’s accomplishments: “And she did this, and then this, and then this, etc…”. There was not a complete (nor partial) explanation on how they achieved their success…
FINAL THOUGHTS ABOUT “RETHINK”
It has been MY mistake to have listened to this book. I felt intrigued by the title and the story plot that I read in the description.
I did not realize that all the women included in the book as role models would be all a lot older than me and all of them Americans. These two facts made me feel very unconnected to them and they did not motivate me at all. Of course they deserve to be known and their stories heard but the purpose of the book, in my case, has not been reached.
What is interesting, is when the author talks about statistics related to women in the working field. They are horrendous. Of course I knew that the disparity between men and women at work is huge, but to listen to this in every possible professional field and aspect made me feel furious at times.
Furthermore, the chapter about Black women workers made me reach levels of angriness about their unjust situation that I didn’t know I could reach…
So, would I recommend this book? Perhaps if you are an anthropologist like the author you can find it useful. If you don’t live in the States and have a certain age, I would probably skip it.
One last point: I have to recognize the tremendous effort of the author to collect every single possible statistics about women’ careers. I cannot more than applaud this.
In addition, it has also served me to learn what a corporate anthropologist is. I have never heard of this career and I found it quite interesting. I am happy to have learnt about it and what these professionals do in companies.
Thanks to the publisher, Greenleaf Audiobooks, the author PhD Andi Simon and NetGalley for providing me with a free audiobook of “Rethink” in exchange for an honest review.
