Melville House Books

Claire Shipman and Katty Kay at the book party for Womenomics

In New York City, “The Womenomics rocket ship blasted through town recently, leaving a trail of you-go-girl in its wake,” observes Sheelah Kolhatkar in a New York Magazine report. She notes that the “slim little book, co-authored by Good Morning America correspondent Claire Shipman and BBC World News America anchor Katty Kay, promises on its cover to be a primer for ladies to ‘write your own rules for success’ and discover ‘How to Stop Juggling and Struggling and Finally Start Living and Working the Way You Really Want.’”

Key to helping it achieve its phenomenon status (it debuted at #10 on the New York Times Bestseller List for advice books) were blurbs from Diane Sawyer and Tina Brown, and “face time on all the talk shows (Charlie Rose described the authors as ‘these two friends of mine’) and a book party hosted by Diane Von Furstenberg.”

However “much of the advice on offer seems to be cloaked in a fog of unreality, one that might come from the vantage point of a television celebrity who can get away with what most of us can’t,” says Kolhatkar. ”Want to work four days a week so you can spend more time with your kids? Just march into your boss’s office and say so, as Kay did. Does a promotion scare you because of the increase in hours and responsibility? Just say no! It worked for Shipman.”

In short, says Kolhatkar, “Lesson one of Womenomics may be that for women trying to find empowerment in business, it really helps if you’re already empowered.”

Dennis Johnson is the founder of MobyLives, and the co-founder and co-publisher of Melville House.