The Female Power Within: A Guide to Living a Gentler, More Meaningful Life

Rating:
Summary: I could have saved a lot of time and money...
Review: ...if I had found this book before I found and bought and read a whole bunch of other self-help books related to this topic. This is a wonderful synthesis of lots of ideas that had been dancing around in my head for a year or two. When I read what Marilyn and Maureen said about these issues, I thought "Yeah! That's what I've been trying to say but I didn't know quite how to say it!" Although 'the work' that they describe isn't easy work to do, it will be a lot easier if you follow their gentle encouraging approach instead of stumbling around like I did. Don't just buy this book...buy two or three, because somebody you love will love it as a holiday gift.

Rating:
Summary: A step-by-step process to release personal power
Review: Collaboratively written by Marilyn Graman and Maureen Walsh, and with the assistance of Hillary Welles, The Female Power Within: A Guide To Living A Gentler, More Meaningful Life is an insightful and highly recommended guide to developing inner strength, offers a step-by-step process to release personal power, and taking charge of one's own life. From identifying with our inner child, to visualizing the future and learning to enjoy life, The Female Power Within is an excellent and commended instructional to cultivating one's strengths and pursuing happiness.

Rating:
Summary: The key to women changing their lives and the planet
Review: I have to admit that the title is what originally piqued my interest in this book. "The Female Power Within" is not a male-bashing book or anything like that. It is a book on being true to yourself no matter where that takes you. In a world that defines power and success in terms like paycheck size, job title, number and size of deals closed and similar measures it is okay for you to define success and happiness by your terms. In fact, isn't your definition the only one that really matters to you?

"The Female Power Within: A Guide to Living a Gentler, More Meaningful Life" guides the reader in learning how to achieve peace and happiness by realizing that "power" does not necessarily mean "aggressive" but greater power can be achieved through cooperation and communication, two of the traits more commonly found in women. The very factors that others define as power, such as aggressiveness, can be the same factors that actually limit your power. Be yourself, seek your goals, follow your own destiny and realize your power by doing so. This is a well-reasoned exposition on how to make your life more meaningful by being your "authentic" self. A recommended read not only for women but also for men that are not caught up in the "macho" image and are free to be their "authentic" self.

Rating:
Summary: Change perspective, be true to your authentic self
Review: I have to admit that the title is what originally piqued my interest in this book. "The Female Power Within" is not a male-bashing book or anything like that. It is a book on being true to yourself no matter where that takes you. In a world that defines power and success in terms like paycheck size, job title, number and size of deals closed and similar measures it is okay for you to define success and happiness by your terms. In fact, isn't your definition the only one that really matters to you?

"The Female Power Within: A Guide to Living a Gentler, More Meaningful Life" guides the reader in learning how to achieve peace and happiness by realizing that "power" does not necessarily mean "aggressive" but greater power can be achieved through cooperation and communication, two of the traits more commonly found in women. The very factors that others define as power, such as aggressiveness, can be the same factors that actually limit your power. Be yourself, seek your goals, follow your own destiny and realize your power by doing so. This is a well-reasoned exposition on how to make your life more meaningful by being your "authentic" self. A recommended read not only for women but also for men that are not caught up in the "macho" image and are free to be their "authentic" self.

Rating:
Summary: The key to women changing their lives and the planet
Review: THIS BOOK IS THE KEY TO WOMEN COMING INTO OUR OWN--
Truly a must read for any woman who wants to have more of what she wants in her life--notice that I said 'have' and not 'get.' Having what you want is a much more female way of handling life, 'Getting' would be a more aggressive or male way. Neither are wrong, but one is definitely more suited energetically to us women, and this is just one of the many interesting and insightful points that Marilyn Graman and Maureen Walsh discuss in this groundbreaking book. I am reading it for the second time and seeing things that I didn't even pick up on the first time through! This would be a great book for younger women to learn from as well to help them on their journeys in life. I know that I would have appreciated hearing some of this wisdom sooner rather than later.

Rating:
Summary: Is my biology my destiny?
Review: This is probably an odd question to ask, primarily because the authors concern themselves with "female" psychology, and not with any real sociobiological arguments. However, after reading this oh-so-sexist tome, I'm forced to wonder if, somehow, after decades of feminist struggle, we've been forced yet again to equate our biological nature with the nature of our "selves."

I started to read this book to understand my mother-in-law better; she's very into chakras, and the circular nature of female time. She says things like, "A woman is tied to the Mother Earth by the very nature of her cycle." And I'm left confused, baffled, and as otherwise befuddled as a "masculine" "logical" and "driving" woman would be when faced with such topics of conversation. I am, in the implications of the authors, "stuck in the masculine world." And I like it there, because, fundamentally, it is me.

I started to read it, and was put off by one of the authors' intial analogies. Like female sexuality, you should read this book by "just lying back and letting it all happen." Really. In this day and age, to argue that the nature of female sexuality, let alone "female nature," is for the woman to be biologically inclined to be "receptive" and "nurturing," is more than a little old-fashioned. Female sexuality runs in a continuum from the old joke, "I'm not sexually active, I just lie there" to hard-core domination of males. To force a single model onto all women, which is my main objection to this book, is just hearkening back to the 1950's, when women were supposed to be happy in their nurturing roles as housewives. Housewives who sat back and did nothing during sex, except to "receive," because it was "their female nature." Women who HAD to have children to be geniunely happy. And I'm not even beginning to address the marriage issue. Of course, a woman is happiest when she is paired up, because she is being "authentic."

I'm ranting, and I'm more than a little disturbed by this book. I tried to "sit back" and "receive it" without criticism, but as I read more and more, the "soothing" approach the authors attempted to use ticked me off, and nauseated me. Maybe it's my AUTHENTIC SELF speaking up, but I find that the model that the authors would have you believe fits you as a generic "woman" fits me as badly as an extra-large jockstrap.

I just felt like I'd been propelled back in a time machine to an era where women were expected to fit into a single "nurturing, gentle, and receptive" mold. Maybe it's that I'm not a typical woman, but I have to think that I'm not all that unusual in this world. It was against this sort of typecasting that feminists fought in the 50's and 60's, and to see it resurface in the new millenium is more than a little disturbing.

Just call me phallocentric. Or thought-dominated. But don't say that my own model of "female power" isn't anywhere nearly as valid as these two throwbacks to the mid-20th century! My heart does not rule my mind. My thoughts are not subordinate to my feelings. And that's the way it should be, at least for me. I'll be glad to accept anyone's way of living should they be my philosophical opposite, but for them to speak out and invalidate my ideal existence is more than a little absurd. The authors have done just that.

And it pisses me off, frankly, no matter how "soothing" and "nurturing" the approach.

Rating:
Summary: Is my biology my destiny?
Review: This is probably an odd question to ask, primarily because the authors concern themselves with "female" psychology, and not with any real sociobiological arguments. However, after reading this oh-so-sexist tome, I'm forced to wonder if, somehow, after decades of feminist struggle, we've been forced yet again to equate our biological nature with the nature of our "selves."

I started to read this book to understand my mother-in-law better; she's very into chakras, and the circular nature of female time. She says things like, "A woman is tied to the Mother Earth by the very nature of her cycle." And I'm left confused, baffled, and as otherwise befuddled as a "masculine" "logical" and "driving" woman would be when faced with such topics of conversation. I am, in the implications of the authors, "stuck in the masculine world." And I like it there, because, fundamentally, it is me.

I started to read it, and was put off by one of the authors' intial analogies. Like female sexuality, you should read this book by "just lying back and letting it all happen." Really. In this day and age, to argue that the nature of female sexuality, let alone "female nature," is for the woman to be biologically inclined to be "receptive" and "nurturing," is more than a little old-fashioned. Female sexuality runs in a continuum from the old joke, "I'm not sexually active, I just lie there" to hard-core domination of males. To force a single model onto all women, which is my main objection to this book, is just hearkening back to the 1950's, when women were supposed to be happy in their nurturing roles as housewives. Housewives who sat back and did nothing during sex, except to "receive," because it was "their female nature." Women who HAD to have children to be geniunely happy. And I'm not even beginning to address the marriage issue. Of course, a woman is happiest when she is paired up, because she is being "authentic."

I'm ranting, and I'm more than a little disturbed by this book. I tried to "sit back" and "receive it" without criticism, but as I read more and more, the "soothing" approach the authors attempted to use ticked me off, and nauseated me. Maybe it's my AUTHENTIC SELF speaking up, but I find that the model that the authors would have you believe fits you as a generic "woman" fits me as badly as an extra-large jockstrap.

I just felt like I'd been propelled back in a time machine to an era where women were expected to fit into a single "nurturing, gentle, and receptive" mold. Maybe it's that I'm not a typical woman, but I have to think that I'm not all that unusual in this world. It was against this sort of typecasting that feminists fought in the 50's and 60's, and to see it resurface in the new millenium is more than a little disturbing.

Just call me phallocentric. Or thought-dominated. But don't say that my own model of "female power" isn't anywhere nearly as valid as these two throwbacks to the mid-20th century! My heart does not rule my mind. My thoughts are not subordinate to my feelings. And that's the way it should be, at least for me. I'll be glad to accept anyone's way of living should they be my philosophical opposite, but for them to speak out and invalidate my ideal existence is more than a little absurd. The authors have done just that.

And it pisses me off, frankly, no matter how "soothing" and "nurturing" the approach.

Rating:
Summary: A Book Brimming With Wisdom, Nurturing, Healing & Love
Review: Though, being male, I am not the target audience for this book, reading it none-the-less changed my life. Nurturing is a quality the writers call a female power, and this book has nurtured me. It did so by suggesting that I accept and love who I am. The simplicity of this, when really taken in, is earth-shattering and profound. I have not been this moved or changed by a book since I read Marianne Williamson's wonderful work, A Return to Love. Brava to the guidesses who have put this loving book out into the world.