Double Bind: Women on Ambition

by Robin Romm (Editor)

Even as toweringly successful women from Gloria Steinem to Beyoncé embrace the word "feminism," the word "ambition," for many, remains loaded with ambivalence. Women who are naturally driven and goal-oriented shy away from it. They’re loath to see themselves—or be seen by others—as aggressive or, worst of all, as a bitch. Double Bind could not come at a more urgent time, a necessary collection that explodes this conflict, examining the concept of female ambition from every angle in essays full of insight, wisdom, humor, and rage.

Perceptively identifying a paradox at the very heart of feminism, editor Robin Romm has marshaled a stunning constellation of thinkers to examine their relationships with ambition with candor, intimacy, and wit. Roxane Gay discusses how race informs and feeds her ambition. Theresa Rebeck takes on Hollywood and confronts her own unquenchable thirst to overcome its sexism. Francine Prose considers the origins of the stigma; Nadia Manzoor discusses its cultural weight. Women who work in fields long-dominated by men—from butchery to tech to dogsledding—weigh in on what it takes to crack that ever-present glass ceiling, and the sometimes unexpected costs of shattering it. The eternally complex questions of aspiration and identity can be made even more treacherous at the dawn of motherhood; Allison Barrett Carter attempts leaning in at home, while Sarah Ruhl tries to uphold her feminist vision within motherhood’s infinite daily compromises.

Taken together, these essays show women from a range of backgrounds and at all stages of their lives and careers grappling with aspiration, failure, achievement, guilt, and, yes, success. Forthright and empowering, Double Bind breaks a long silence, reclaiming "ambition" from the roster of dirty words at last.

Genres: Nonfiction, Feminism, Essays, Self Help, Short Stories, Womens, Memoir

320 pages, Hardcover

First published April 11, 2017

About the author

Robin Romm is the author of two books, The Mother Garden (stories) and The Mercy Papers (a memoir). The Mercy Papers received the cover review of the New York Times Book Review ("a furious blaze of a book") in January 2009. The Mother Garden was a finalist for the PEN USA prize and the Northern California Independent Bookseller Book of the Year Award. She teaches in the MFA program at New Mexico State.

Reviews

[Summer Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Female ambition is an enormous topic and this collection is a wonderful mix of studies on the subject. The collection really hits its stride about midway through and at its best when the essays are thoughtful explorations of ambition, and not personal/life-of-a-writer stories. If so many of these enormously talented women, tasked with writing about ambition, can't bring themselves to admit they have it, we still have a long way to go.

I loved Blair Braverman's piece on dogsled racing, Roxane Gay & Cristina Henriquez's thoughts on being both ambitious and women of color. Julie Holland's essay on women's natural hormonal make-up is fascinating, and Elisa Albert is so goddam brilliant, I could read her snarl on any subject.

It certainly made me ponder my own ambition (not to mention my mother's...mothers are a central theme in nearly all of the essays), and not thinking of ambition as something to recoil from. It may actually be the writers who shrunk from admitting they possess ambition that made me want to double down on owning mine.

[B · Rating 1 out of 5]

I normally don't give stars to books I didn't finish, but this one is an exception.

This book is false advertising. It is not women on ambition. It's the author's writer friends talking about their successes. I tried to read this book chronologically, but the first essay was a person shitting on her friends for having different ambitions than climbing to the top of their profession. What? Why are we shaming people for making their lives full in different ways? Disgusting. The second essay was a long, drawn out complaint about the television industry. Also apparently every single person in the world wants to run their own TV show? Guess I'm not a person of the world. The third essay was mostly someone gushing about talking to Oprah.

At this point I flipped to the essayist who drew me to this collection in the first place: Blair Braverman. Her contribution was great. She spoke about dog sledding and how it's a male dominated sport but is also one of the more even playing grounds . It was balanced and interesting and well-written.

So I flipped to the back of the book, where the contributor bios lived, to see if there were any other non-writers in this collection. There were 3: a psychiatrist, a psychologist, and someone "from the tech world." I skimmed the psychiatrist's entry. It rambled on about estrogen for several pages. It was then I decided I'd had enough and put this book on the pile to go back to the library.

I'm so, so sorry, Blair Braverman. You didn't deserve this.

[Hannah Garden · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was excellent, so many sharp and funny and heartstring-tugging takes on what it means to want and be a woman, what it means to assert and hazard and believe.

[Basmaish · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book discuses the meaning of ambition to each of the women who participated in this collection. They question whether they're ambitious and how ambition is viewed in regards to gender, race, and age. It discuses what makes you ambitious and whether ambition is a key ingredient to making you seem more interesting or more successful. Each women in this collection had a different story to share about their experiences with ambition, about their jobs and their lives.

I started this book not knowing a lot about it. I thought it might be one of those self-help books that are very motivational telling you what to do to be ambitious or how to be more ambitious if you already are. But it turned out different than expected. Reading each of the stories shared and their struggle with being who they are and reaching to where they are in life was interesting, and it was motivational especially with the current state that I was in but it didn't come off as trying too hard or shoving it in your face like a lot of the motivational books I've read previously.

Most of the essays shared were of women who knew from a very young age that they are ambitious women who are ready to conquer the world (their dreams), and as someone who isn't very ambitious or tries to hide/brush off her ambitions as silly, I was waiting for an essay about someone who was in or started in a similar situation, and I'm glad there was a couple about that. I don't think everyone is born with that trait nor that everyone becomes ambitious at an early age. Being ambitious and having goals is very heavily stressed upon from the moment you become aware of the world, and it's incredibly annoying. People seem to always wait for you to say what the next big step you're taking in your life or your career, how you should always want more whether in terms of position or money, how you should try to be the leader or reach to the top and how being an introvert is not the "right" way to be when it comes to all of that. And all of the aforementioned is an admirable trait if you're striving for that, however when it becomes the main thing people are concerned about, when it becomes the main topic that is being discussed and when people are trying to shove it in your face every time it becomes irritating and very limiting. Being interesting or leading an interesting life -to me- is not based on those. Nor on how much money you make, or what position you're in, or how famous/well connected you are. Ambition comes in very different forms and not everything has to be career driven. Or maybe I am biased because I don't seem to have all the traditional career ambitions that everyone has? I don't know.

But something that I found very weird in these essay collections, that most of the women seem to have read the book "Lean In" and most of them quoted the book or mentioned something related to the book. It's as if it was mandatory to read that book before submitting an essay, and I am unsure whether that was the case or not but... yeah. This is just an observation.

[Sarah Barr · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a collection of women writing their thoughts on ambition. It's a very personal thing from each of them all written about the same time so many topics are repeated and may sound similar. Don't let that deter you from letting each of these women walk you through different experiences and POVs from your own.

I really appreciate how each of these essays gave me a new perspective in what ambition can mean. Whether I agreed with each author's interpretation or not, at the end of each there was more to think about what I should do to forge my own definition and where my ambitions lie.

Guess that means I'll write my own next.

[Jill · Rating 2 out of 5]

Overall, found this collection of essays disappointing. Nearly every author complains about the word 'ambition' and having to write an essay about it. What gives? Also, most of the essays are meandering and weirdly apologetic. More questions than answers.
Essay about dogsled racing was my favorite.

"Women are expected to get ahead by some mysterious combination of femininity and intelligence while simultaneously getting things done and disguising drive."

[Jessica · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was largely depressing but a few essays stood out as being exceptional.

-Roxane Gay’s “The Price of Black Ambition” where she contextualizes herself among other great black writers - Ta-Nehisi Coates and W.E.B. DuBois - and how, even after her own literary success she still questions her worthiness. She delves into her academic life and how she needed to be twice as good as her white classmates. And how ambition, for her, is to never feel satisfied and to never stop working.

-Nadia Manzoor’s “Astronauts” in which she describes the difference between how she and her twin brother were raised in a Pakistani-American household. Her parents attempt to thwart her ambitions only fueled her fire. After her mother’s untimely death she is simultaneously freed and lost, and she finally regains her ambition and goes on to become a successful playwright. I like how she concludes this essay: “my ambition wasn’t to become something [...]. My biggest desire was to become myself.”

-Elisa Alberts’s “Snarling Girl: Notes on Ambition” was all over the place; sprawling and random. BUT I really liked the section where she talks about how ambition is usually very conventional and standardized goals. “I don’t buy the idea that acting like the oppressor is a liberation.” She goes on to advise not to confuse your own self worth with other people’s idea of success, with which I fully agree.

-Sarah Ruhl’s closing essay, or rather “Letter to my Mother and Daughters on Ambition” was a very thoughtful analysis of ambition and mission.

I was hoping for more positivity and inspiration from this book but these four essays did fit that bill.

[Jane · Rating 5 out of 5]

A recent Scientific America article on the "gender gap" in the highest-level geniuses surmised that because of the all-out focus required to become an Einstein or Paganini, many women make trade-offs between elite accomplishment and parenting. The years during which they "balance" these callings means they often achieve less than they might otherwise. No matter what advances women make, this basic dilemma will remain.

In this collection of essays from women highly successful in many, many fields, are many insights and words of wisdom from women who have come to terms with balancing "ambition" and how others view them and what it takes to get ahead and their other goals in life. I would suggest it for
--Young women wondering how to plan for work and personal life
--Women in the midst of negotiating career and family and wondering if they're doing it "right"
--Women who are sure they're doing it right
--Women who are sure they're doing it wrong
--Women who think there shouldn't be conflicts between work and family
--Men, whatever their beliefs about women who work, don't work, become mothers, aim for the corner office, can beat them at dogsled racing...

No, this isn't research. It's personal. And perhaps the takeaway is understanding why you are making the choices you are making so that you can be contented with the life they produce.

Thanks, Netgalley, for an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

*I won an ARC of this book from Goodreads*

Overall, I was very pleased with and moved by this timely collection of essays about female ambition. The vast majority of the contributors speak to their own experiences with ambition and how they define it. The essays are written by women from such an amazing variety of fields, ages, and cultures, and capture a beautiful tapestry of female experience. I also read this while pregnant, and it gave me a lot to think about in terms of raising my own children and how I want to talk to them about ambition, and how I hope the world will change for the better as they figure out ambition for themselves. I wholeheartedly recommend this book and hope it will inspire and move others the way it did me.

[MargaretDH · Rating 4 out of 5]

As with any essay collection, some of these will stand out more than others. My favourites were probably the ones by Evany Thomas (who worked at Facebook, Friendster, Pinterest, etc) and Blair Braverman (dogsled racer), Roxane Gay (author) and Claire Vaye Watkins (author). All of these women found themselves out of their comfort zones, and their essays explore how they strove for excellence.

There were also some thoughtful meditations on whether or not traditional conceptions of femininity can allow for ambition and how ambition relates to careers and having/raising/staying home with children. Lean In got mentioned a lot.

Really, this collection was probably 3 stars overall, but the really excellent essays bumped it up for me to 4 stars.

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

So much goodness here with a cast of writers who include: playwright Sarah Ruhl, journalist Roxane Gay, author Francine Prose, and so many others with wonderful essays although perhaps not as much name recognition. I loved: "Snarling Girl" "Impractical Urges" and "Letters to my Mother."
I might need to read it again; I kind of want to marinate in parts of it. It's so refreshing to be in the company of women thinking deeply, even if only through the pages of the book.
"Whatever impresses you illuminates your ambition."
"Is a woman who refuses to admit her own ambition nothing more than the woman who historically could not admit her own desire."
"maybe it's not enough to tell our daughters to be ambitious. We need to redefine ambition to include love. Love for the world, love for work, love for our sisters, love for others. Then ambition can become mission."

[Abbey · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a really interesting collection from a diverse group of women on the ever present yet “shall not be named” term, ambition. I didn’t know what to expect going into this, and while I struggled at the beginning because the first third has mostly essays about motherhood, I connected a lot more with the second half of essays.

This isn’t necessarily an advice book; it’s more personal reflections. But seeing how other women have tackled career pressures and personal goals helped provide perspective we aren’t often vulnerable enough to share.

Thanks to Felicia for the recommendation!

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

I received an advanced-reading copy of this book.

These are lovely essays. Sometimes I could only read one at a time; sometimes it's hard to read about how hard it is to be a woman and a mother and a person at the same time.

The best essay of the bunch, according to me, is Elisa Albert's; I hadn't read her before, but every other sentence had me shouting, "Yes! I know you! You speak the truth! You speak MY truth!"

Others left me less excited, but will likely excite other readers. The joy of this collection is that each reader can find her own sentences and essays that feel true and useful and beautiful.

[Genevieve Brassard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Didn't read all the essays but the ones I read were aces, especially Romm, Albert, Watkins, Rebeck, Prose, and Ruhl.

[Justine Feron · Rating 4 out of 5]

Double Bind is an essay collection about female ambition, edited by Robin Romm with contributions from two dozen women ranging from Roxane Gay to Molly Ringwald. I hoped it would serve as a shot of ‘go out and conquer the world’ adrenaline – that I’d be inspired by accounts of thriving in male-dominated industries, discussions about what it means to “have it all,” and stories about knowing yourself. But while I did get inspiration from Double Bind, I also got a big dose of depressive introspection. This book is both an incredible body of work and an incredible body blow: the former because it humanizes women of astounding talent and tenacity, the latter because it highlights how many female success stories are shot through with angst, injustice, and sacrifice.

While the essays in this collection vary wildly, several themes course through them all: the ways women are discouraged from openly declaring their drive and desires, the Lean-In-ification of female striving, and the eternal competition between the professional and personal. Like many of this book's contributors, I feel a tug-of-war between my work and home selves. In my case, it’s between the contemplative introversion I was born with and the sharp-tongued extroversion I’ve learned to perform at the office. And, surprise surprise, this fracture apparently worsens when you have kids. In “No Happy Harmony,” Elizabeth Corey argues that the pursuit of excellence and the delivery of care are two fundamentally different activities, and that it can be hard, maybe impossible, to truly do both simultaneously.

Above all else, the predominant theme of Double Bind is the reluctance – even among accomplished, feminist women – to identify as ambitious. Just about every contributor had something to say about the word and its connotations:

“It was only a word, but I kept dancing around it. If someone had asked, I might have said I was tenacious, or that I worked hard, or that I was diligent, or determined, but I never would have said I was ambitious. I had wanted things out of life, but simple desire doesn’t necessarily mean a person is ambitious. Ambition, it seemed, was something that other people possessed – men, mostly, or Hillary Clinton – but it wasn’t something that felt quite like me. But why not?”
— CRISTINA HENRIQUEZ

“I have always been terrified of the word ambition. I find it distasteful, menacing, as though it was always pursued by its invisible compound partner “blind” – blind ambition. If someone asks me “Do you like him or her?” and I answer, “He or she is – ‘ambitious.’” I am making a polite backhanded insult.”
— SARAH RUHL

“The word ambition is built to cover some pretty wide territory, from insidious social climbing to nose-to-the-grindstone dedication to flights of artistic, or even capitalistic, vision.”
— PAM HOUSTON

And, beyond being difficult, ambition is highly personal. In my favorite essay of the entire collection, “The Snarling Girl,” Elisa Albert writes:

“Trying to generalize about ambition is like comparing apples and oranges and bananas and flowers and weeds and dirt. Wanting to be first in your class is and is not like wanting a Ferrari is and is not like being the first in your family to go to college is and is not like wanting to get into Harvard/Iowa/Yaddo is and is not like wanting to summer on Martha’s Vineyard is and is not like wanting to run elbows with fancy folk is and is not like wanting to shatter a glass ceiling is and is not like wanting to write a lasting work of genius with which no one can quibble. Our contexts are not the same, our struggles are not the same, and so our rebellions and complacencies and conformities and compromises cannot be compared. But the fact remains: Whatever impresses you illuminates your ambition.”

Just as Little Fires Everywhere awakened me to the richness behind every suburban door, Double Bind has left me more attuned to the inner lives of women all around me. This collection made tangible what I suppose I’ve always known to be true – that every woman is clamoring, compromising, and charging forward in her own way (cue the mawkish metaphors about onion layers and Walt Whitman quotes about containing multitudes!). In terms of tenor, this book was more Joni Mitchell than the pump-up jam I was seeking, but it did deepen my determination to keep pushing. As Ayana Mathis puts it:

“How one’s life might turn out, even after heroic effort, is anyone’s guess. It’s like this: A door opens, perhaps just a fraction of an inch. There’s no telling if the door will open at all, or for whom, but if it does, you push push push until it is wide enough for you to squeeze through.”

[Joanna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Book 3 in my feminist reading series, guess it's time to read a few MRA books now.
What I liked about this was the real diversity in the voices: the editor had clearly made a concerted effort to avoid favouring one particular worldview when choosing the contributors. This made the book a lot more interesting, if a little less coherent.
The downside is that not all the contributors are experienced writers. Some of the pieces could have used a tighter edit.

[Andréa]

Note: I accessed a digital review copy of this book through Edelweiss; I received an ARC from the publisher at ALA Midwinter 2017.

[Teagan · Rating 4 out of 5]

*3.5 stars
*Essay anthology
Some of these essays were really very good, and even the ones I disliked had something for the mind to chew on ("Snarling Girl: Notes on Ambition"- I hated the overly individualistic tone, but the idea of needing to be freed from society's collective ambition is thought-provoking.). Not surprisingly, every author had a different take on what "ambition" meant; for some it was a necessary part of being human, and for others it was a human weakness we are meant to overcome. One of the more unique takes was written by a psychologist, who talked about ambition as it relates to women's hormonal cycles ("Ambitchin'").

There are a few big names in here, as well. Several authors mention Sheryl Sandberg, and another Anne Marie Slaughter, though they themselves didn't contribute to the anthology. Roxane Gay's essay addressed ambition as a black woman, one who grew up relatively well-off, and Molly Ringwald wrote that being "aged-out" of acting meant that she was free to do anything now. No longer stuck with the sole label of "actress," she can now sing and write as she did before she became famous. She also pointedly asks the question, "How long can this business get away with denying ageism on the singular back of Meryl Streep?" (237)

My favorite essays were by those less well-known, though. I particularly enjoyed Claire Vaye Watkins essay,"Escape Velocity," about returning to her home town and mentoring a young woman who was much like herself. Sorting ambitious people into "runner" and "gunner" seems an accurate way to depict those trying to dramatically change their lives. The story told by Theresa Rebeck, show runner of the TV show "Smash," was particularly impressive. She had been asked to write a show by Steven Spielberg, which then became an international hit, and then she was promptly fired without cause and replaced by a team of men. Her reputation took a hit. The show was cancelled due to poor ratings, but Rebeck is determined to write again.

I wouldn't read the whole book again, but some of the essays are definitely worth rereading again. I have a feeling that had I been in a different life stage, I would have enjoyed an entirely different set of essays

[Jackie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Why is ambition a dirty word?

I do not read a lot of essay collections because I tend to get bored or the essays are uneven. I chose this book as part of a reading challenge to read an essay collection. I was pleasantly surprised with this group of essays. The content was interesting and relevant and all of the essays were good!

Twenty four diverse women write about their feelings, often ambivalent, about ambition. The essayists are actors, writers, lawyers, scientists, and doctors. They come from various cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds. They discuss their experiences in school and at work, how they are perceived by their families and by men. How they are supported and how they are subtly (or not) held back. Mostly though, the essayists grapple with their own mixed feelings about being ambitious. Or about being considered ambitious. Can you still be ambitious if you want to be a wife and a mother? Can you have a successful career and a family at the same time? There are several references to the Sheryl Sandberg book Lean In. Should you lean in or is it better to lean out? Or as one essayist put it, just stand up straight!

These are thought provoking essays, as a good essay should be. Each writer had her own style and perspective, but the collection held together nicely. Each essay was consistently good. I read this collection in between reading another book, which worked well for me. Regardless of topic or writing skill, I would get bored reading an essay collection from start to finish. My one quibble with this book was that all of the writer biographies were grouped in a section at the end of the book. I would have preferred if the Appropriate biography followed each essay. Either you are moving back and forth to read the bio, or you read them at the end and forget which writer wrote which piece.

[Marisa Carpico · Rating 2 out of 5]

Actually a 2.5, but I wouldn't dare bump this up to a 3.

Have wanted to read this for years for the Rebeck essay and while her alternate reality recounting of what happened on Smash was worth the wait, I think I got my hands on the book too late for most of the other essays.

The collection is only 4 years old, but the discourse feels decades behind. I swear to God, I was going to lose my mind if one more essay mentioned Sheryl Sandberg's Lean In. So much of the collection feels like white women talking about how scared they are of using the word "ambition" and talking about motherhood. The few essays from POC writers or non-mothers are a welcome relief and actually dare to contend with the task at hand. Women grappling about balancing work and motherhood is a vital part of feminist discourse, but it's so much of the same here, to the point that you can feel how narrow and frequently privileged these perspectives are.

If you're compelled to pick this up, Houston, Gay, Sanchez, Watkins, Braverman, Manzoor and Leegant are the essays to read. Avoid Corey and Albert's at all costs.

[Christie · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are some wonderful essays in this book that spoke very eloquently about ambition, and what that means to women of different backgrounds. The ones I enjoyed the most were the ones by Blair Braverman, Nadia P. Manzoor, and Ayana Mathis, although Elisa Albert's spoke to me the most. Overall, however, I found that there were a lot of essays focused either on writing (I guess it makes sense, because these were writings) or motherhood, or both, which made the book a little bit repetitive and not as relevant to many women out there (myself included). Overall, though, there's some good writing to be found here!

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some of the essays are unremarkable, but it's worth wading through those to get to the impactful ones, and there is a steady sprinkling of insightful nuggets of wisdom throughout. Wish there was more diversity in the authors - the bulk of them come from writing backgrounds, so writing and publication was a common theme. I was more drawn to the essays from unexpected sources, like the butcher and dog sledder. The essays felt like they could have been ordered with more consideration, maybe giving them all a common thread woven throughout. Still, I'm giving it four stars because books like this should exist and because this book made me take a look at my own relationship with ambition.

[Ryan Mishap · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ambition is one of those concepts that are applied differently to the genders in the binary system of gender identification that has reigned for so long. For men, it is a desired trait. For women, it gets them labeled bitchy or scheming.

This double standard is the reason for the title but the women in this collection go way beyond those concepts in trying to understand their ambition, how they feel about it, and how it works in their lives. Really good essays from people like Roxanne Gay can contrast with less than enticing explorations--but, as I always say with anthologies, you will find something to connect with.

[The Tick · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had really high hopes for this, but it just didn't live up to my expectations. A lot of the essays felt too similar, and I think more career diversity (almost all the contributors seem to be writers, although I guess it's probably easier to get a bunch of writers to write an essay than a bunch of accountants) would have helped a lot with that. I also wish there had been fewer that dealt with ambition and parenting--I know lots of women have and/or want kids, but some of the essays almost felt like they were just about parenting rather than about ambition, and that's not what I wanted from this book.

[Anna Hawes · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved the variety of women included in this book. Obviously there were a lot of writers because it is a collection of essays but there were also women with careers in everything from dogsledding to acting. There were women from different socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds as well as women of color speaking of facing the extra burdens of racism on top of sexism. Having this variety allowed me to find the things that really spoke to me while also learning about what other women value and find to be true. This helped me clarify my own thoughts on ambition and balance in life, on how I want to spend my time and effort

[Lisa]

I received an ARC of this book from Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review.

I loved this book. I was curious about it both because the topic intrigued me and because Esme Weijun Wang was discussing it on her instagram and made it sound even more interesting. The essays were strong, and provided a varied collection of viewpoints on the topic. Some were personal and emotional, some were academic and withdrawn, and some were all over the space between. The book just flew by, because after each essay I was anxious to start the next one to find out what it said.

[Sarah Koppelkam · Rating 3 out of 5]

The idea to write about "women and ambition" reminds me of the prompt Virginia Woolf had when she was tasked with discussing women and fiction, the result of which became "A Room of One's Own." And as Woolf grappled with the complexity of that, so do the authors here.

I enjoyed many, I found others basic, and I skipped some. My favorites were "On Impractical Urges" by Ayana Mathis (which I had read previously on guernicamag.com), "Girl with Knife" by Camas Davis, and "The Snarling Girl: Notes on Ambition" by Elisa Albert (obviously the angriest essay was my fave).

[Kristy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an excellent collection of essays that span several professional fields and personal experiences. Some of the essays made me laugh, some of them made me seethe with second-hand anger and frustration, but all of them made me think about my own experiences with ambition. It's not a perfect book but it definitely is a good place to spark a discussion.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a e-ARC in exchange for a review.

[Faith · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this collection of essays. For me, it was simultaneously inspiring, depressing, informative and thought-provoking. Each author had something unique to contribute to the conversation, and while I was "Meh" about a few essays, overall, I though Robin Romm formed a solid narrative with them. As an ambitious woman myself, I sincerely appreciated being able to feel like a fly on the wall in this roundtable discussion of a book.

[Amanda Clarke · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent collection of essays on female ambition that embraces a wide range of ideas and approaches. It's mess and complicated and at times contradictory, which is exactly what it should be. It is rare to find a text that embraces the inherent diversity of a group of people, disagreements and all, something that Double Bind does extremely well. There are few answers here, but much food for thought.