It's time for another book response. (I do not like the tern "review" - sounds too much like a school assignment.) I just finished reading "Necessary Dreams, Ambition in Women's Changing Lives" written by Anna Fels, published by Pantheon Books, New York. The author writes about how women perceive and cope with ambition and accomplishment. She works carefully first to establish a definition of ambition and then takes a good, hard look at the popular supposition that it "goes against the very nature of women". Then she does what for many will sound her credibility's death knell. She challenges current theories about the mind-set and needs of men.All 14 chapters seem to be a rewording of the same message; the message that she endlessly pounds home; the message that she relentlessly hammers into the reader's brain. Unless a woman is willing to risk the opprobrium society will heap on her should she dare to go against the prescribed norms, at some point in her life, she will be expected, for the sake of some other, to put her plans and dreams on hold, and thereby risk losing them entirely. Why should such a thing be expected of her? As a married couple's life progresses, for instance, there are several scenarios that could play themselves out to this conclusion. If the husband is offered a job in another city, the usual expectation is that the couple will move, for him to follow up on this great opportunity.She is generally expected to defer to him, no matter what her current state of affairs might be. "It has been suggested, for example, that women have a greater capacity for empathy than men, making it more painful for them not to gratify (italics my own) the wishes of others..." Fels cites studies and quotes research to prove that women actually have less difficulty pursuing their own goals and gratification when "they believe that their actions will not be known by male peers." This, of course, makes it nearly impossible for many a female not to place herself and her needs second to her husband, and for that matter, to damn near every male they encounter through life. She talks about the upsurge in the "wedding industry" , in spite of how many unions end in divorce, and suggests that this is so especially because it is the one day when a woman is entitled to expect that she will come first. After that, it is a downhill slide.What to do about affecting change in this state of affairs? Says Fels, many of the gains made by women in the last century have entailed losses for men, and these "commodities have not been relinquished without a bitter fight." Women's roles cannot be changed without having impact on the lives of men, but changed they must be. We can not turn back the clock on the gains made already, nor ignore the further work that needs to be done. Fels makes the point that if this change is to come about, a society-wide shift in values must take place. The "mandates of femininity" assume that a woman will subordinate her needs to those of others, particularly her husband. Despite the increasingly necessary participation of women in the workforce, no-one from the government to those husbands has been willing to assume the various costs involved in providing the labour-intensive housework and child-care that women traditionally did for "free". "Most men (and our government is run largely by men) believe that the work women do in the home is one of men's entitlements." Men would like to believe, says Fels that such work is "neither their problem nor their responsibility." Obviously, therefore, if such work has to be done, it falls to the women. The question is how to climb the ladder of success with a baby on your hip? After spending 255 pages convincing you it is damn near hopeless, she gives all of tow paragraphs - that's all, just two - to suggesting there is any light at the end of the tunnel. She tells women to look to the example of "Grey Power" and how seniors organizing themselves into a political lobby group with some clout should be their model and their hope for change.This is not a book that can be read lightly, not if you are a woman, or a man who genuinely cares about any woman. Our mothers, our daughters, our sisters and aunts, all are struggling under a yoke that might even seem not to be there at first glance. Here in our rich country, why should we believe anyone struggles under such a burden? There are so many women's stories to hear. Where should you start to listen? Why not start with the successful looking woman, the one dressed in Wall Street attire, holding an ice pack to her head? She'll be holding it against the bruise she got from banging her head on the glass ceiling.