Wonder Woman: The Myth of Having It All

by Virginia Haussegger

Addressing the hot-button topic of women balancing their potentially dualing desires for professional success and children, this polemic weighs the conscious and unconscious choices women make in their 20s and 30s about career, love, and sex, and how those decisions shape the rest of their lives. Questions such as Has feminism failed women? and Can women really have it all? are asked and pointedly answered. In this passionate, well-researched, and often intimate exploration of these issues, the author reflects on her own life as a successful, though childless, career woman, and invites others to examine the major, life-altering decisions young women make every day.

Genres: Nonfiction, Feminism

280 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 2005

About the author

Virginia Haussegger AM is an award-winning journalist and gender equity advocate. She lives and writes within cooee of Parliament House, on Ngunnawal and Ngambri country. In 2019 Virginia was named ACT Australian of The Year. Her book Unfinished Revolution: The feminist fightback is out October 2025 with NewSouth.

Reviews

[Yuko · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was published in 2005. It's been 7 years since then and I first wondered whether the writer would have different views on the issue now. I am certainly one who is right within the generation of women that she describes here in her book. After 10 years of working part-time in the same industry that I always worked in with now 3 children, I also wanted to know, whether it was possible to have it all for other women - because for me, it wasn't. After finishing the book, my conclusion is that the world has become such a selfish place - and that is the root cause of the low marriage rate, high divorce rate and the rapid growth in the number of people who are successful but lonely. The problem wasn't with Feminism. The problem was with the fact that for some reason we were led to believe that one's own success and happiness was all that mattered. And this belief was never going to mix too well with having a family, having children, having to look after others and make sacrifices. On the matter of equal opportunity for women and the divide between the mothers and non-mothers at work place - I now work in an office where the male colleagues are putting family first and would happily take time off to watch their kid's school performances. Maybe this is the change that is happening now. The male workforce is also realising that work is not everything. It provides for the family but that is all that is. People should have work/life balance - if it isn't family, it could be a hobby. And that is what "career" has changed into for me as well. It is a job, it is a means by which I support my family. But it isn't what I put before everything else. Because, at least for me, it is not possible to be managing everything satisfactorily if I am not able to give 120% on each thing, and with only 24 hours a day it is simply not possible.

[Emmylou · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this book but I found it incredibly unhelpful. Also, she managed to be condescending to pretty much everyone who isn't exactly like herself, I.e. 'child free by choice' people, thereby perpetuating stereotypes she was trying to dispel! There was no discussion around how the men folk in these women's lives could change things, eg be the primary caregiver. All in all, this book was a bunch of memoirs by an affluent presumably white Australian women that failed to resonate. I wonder if she were to write it again today whether it would be quite so vacuous.

[Arwen]

I picked this book up on a whim at the library, but found myself relating to many parts of the story. While I am not a childless woman, I did struggle a little with the decision to give up what was a promising career in order to start a family and I ended up going back to work part time as I struggled with simply being a stay at home mum. While it is written from a certain point of view this book certainly raises important issues and much of it resonated with me.

[Anh · Rating 2 out of 5]

I liked that this book began as a personal reflection, but then I feel it became very confused. Also felt that a lot of the women interviewed came across as one-dimensional, or caricatures, or really just dislikeable.