What Women Want Next

by Susan Maushart

In my twenties, I thought sex and career would solve everything. At thirty, I thought marriage would. Later I tried motherhood, therapy, and then divorce. At forty, I decided to renovate.

With all the choices available to today's women, why don't they more feel fulfilled? What Women Want Next is Susan Maushart's meditation―by turns profound and laugh-out-loud funny―on that central dilemma of postfeminist life. At one point she had it all, so why wasn't she happy? With What Women Want Next , Maushart combines research with personal history in a dynamic attempt to answer this question.

Feminism may have led women to life's banquet table, but the meal they make of it is up to them. How to balance life and work, sex and sleep, child care and self-care? And why has women's guilt―that glass ceiling of the soul―become the biggest barrier they face? What Women Want Next is the first book to look at the spectrum of a woman's life and attempt to demonstrate how she can shape her own destiny throughout all its stages.

Genres: Personal Development

272 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2005

About the author

Columnist, author and social commentator Dr. Susan Maushart is a mother of three teenagers. For over a decade, her weekly column has been part of a balanced breakfast for readers of the Weekend Australian Magazine. Maushart is heard regularly on ABC Radio's popular online series 'Multiple Choice', and is a Visiting Fellow at the Institute of Advanced Studies at the University of Western Australia. Her four books have been published in eight languages, and her essays and reviews have appeared in a host of international publications. She holds a PhD in Media Ecology from New York University. Maushart's first book was the award-winning Sort of a Place Like Home, a history of the Moore River Settlement (later depicted in Philip Noyce's 2002 film classic Rabbit-Proof Fence). The bestselling The Mask of Motherhood was hailed by the London Times as "a feminist classic," and Wifework: What Marriage Really Means for Women started arguments right around the globe. Her book, What Women Want Next, looks at the question of feminine fulfilment in a post-feminist world.
She moved to Perth, Western Australia from New York 19 years ago but insists she is only passing through.

Reviews

[Elyssa · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book because the author used her own struggles with seeking (and failing to find) fulfillment to explore what women want, what makes them happy, and what prevents them from finding contentment. She cites numerous research and studies to make her case. It was interesting to see the differences between genders and the challenges for women to create a meaningful life on their own terms rather than continually trying to adapt to the values of a dominant male culture.

In the final analysis the book did not deliver what I had hoped. I was seeking some clear cut solutions to the problems and issues that the author so expertly outlined. Maybe there are no easy answers, but I think greater focus (or more of an attempt) toward solutions might have helped. Also, like most contemporary books about feminism, the focus was mainly on middle and upper class women and not those women who really lack the luxury of so many choices.

[Frangipani · Rating 4 out of 5]

I just love Maushart's irreverent humourous style of writing.