Draws from the authors' own experiences as well as from the disciplines of sociology, psychology, and anthropology to examine the forces in women's lives that shape their ability to deal independently with the modern world

Mary Springer, an up-and-coming White House reporter, finds that her personal and professional lives converge when she becomes involved in a crisis when city planners want to raze a mostly black neighborhood and build luxury apartments

Relates the story of a Catholic girl from Baltimore and a Jewish boy from Boston, who survive marriage, children, and careers with wit, humor, and affection

The story of three different women, Peg Morrison, her best friend Constance Masters, and their new friend Kitty Cohen, who live and work in Washington, a town where men organize the games

When murder strikes a small-time hood in Boston, street-smart reporter Sally Ellenberg and blue-blooded Jack Aiken plunge into a deadly world of conspiracy and behavior-control technology that may reach as high as the White House

Jessie McGrath, the provost of Kinsolving College and a one-time antiwar activist, and Mark Claymore, a Vietnam vet and the head of ROTC, make an unlikely couple when they fall in love

Examines factors that affect a woman's happiness, ranging from marriage and children to individual activities and goals, and offers guidelines for decision making

The author recalls the joys and restrictions of her sheltered youth and the trials and tribulations of growing up Catholic in suburban Maryland

Examining some of the myths about gender difference, the authors explain why it is important to move beyond biological determinism and sexual stereotypes to see how behavior and thinking really occurs in individuals.

A strange duality affects the news media today. The more that women advance in the worlds of business, academia, medicine, and law, the gloomier news about women and their achievements becomes. As statistics report the rise in the number of women obtaining college and advanced degrees, the media increasingly tells them that this is a terrible mistake and that only by returning to traditional roles of wife and mother can women find true happiness. The message is that if women do achieve, they will make themselves and their families miserable. This message, often based on specious "scientific" studies and reports, gets played over and over again in televised newscasts, print newspapers, the internet, and other media outlets purporting to be objective. Rivers, a journalist who has written extensively in the behavioral sciences, exposes the many ways news media distort stories about women. According to Rivers, these stories "sell" because they play to the fears of affluent women, one of the most desirable consumer markets. Rivers' topics, literally "pulled from the headlines," include negative representations of working mothers and "latch-key" kids, stories that exaggerate the perils of childcare and divorce, media treatment of powerful political figures like Elizabeth Dole, Teresa Heinz, and Hillary Clinton, and news as "poli-porn" (sex and death-obsessed tales of pretty, white girls and women like Jon-Benet Ramsay, Chandra Levy, and Natalee Holloway). Rivers also revisits ongoing debates about male and female brainpower and the claim that the attention paid to girls in schools is ruining boys' chances for achievement and success. She examines how the media has collaborated with George W. Bush and the political right to wage war on birth control and abortion. Her conclusion suggests what can and must be done to halt the news media's assault on women.

Argues that the new reality of working families can strengthen family life

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Seniors at Immaculate Heart High, Peggy Morrison and Constance Marie Wepplener set out to defy the conventions and strictures of 'Nice Catholic Ladyhood,' in a bittersweet story of the coming of age