Why Does She Do It? (book review)
I wrote this book review over 20 years ago. I've made some minor changes and additions. The corporate culture I was writing about back then is in many ways the same culture we're fighting against now.
Everything in modern city life is calculated to keep man from entering into himself and thinking about spiritual things. Even with the best of intentions a spiritual man finds himself exhausted and deadened and debased by the constant noise of machines and loudspeakers, the dead air and the glaring lights of offices and shops, the everlasting suggestions of advertising and propaganda.1
— Thomas Merton
a review of
I Don’t Know How She Does It: The Life of Kate Reddy, Working Mother
by Allison Pearson
Alfred A. Knoph, 2002
$23.00 hardback 338 pages
“There’s nothing left to love, Rich, I’m all hollowed out. Kate doesn’t live here anymore.”
—Kate Reddy
What has corporate culture done to us? What has it done to women? What has it done to men? What has it done to children? Why have we let it do the things that it has with little or no resistance? It is possible that the next great power that the citizens of the world will have to battle against (and what many are already battling) will not be a political system or a tyrant, but the ascendance and proliferation of not simply corporations, but the customs and traditions intrinsic to corporate culture.
For those who still doubt that that culture is detrimental Allison Pearson’s novel, I Don’t Know How She Does It, offers strong and convincing reasons to admit that corporate culture damages employees. Pearson’s critique is satiric, dark, funny and true. Kate Reddy lives in London and is a hedge-fund manager who is very successful. This is her life, but it is also about the lives of her children, the life of her husband, the lives of her colleagues and the lives of her friends. It is about the ways in which corporate tentacles wind and weave their way into our living rooms, our kitchens, our bedrooms (and our beds) and worst of all into our minds.
One of the hideous things about corporate culture is that it has successfully invaded the psyche of working people so that so much of what they do for the corporation is done out of a false sense of necessity or out of guilt. It’s self-induced slavery. They administer their own poison without realizing what’s killing them. And that same culture pervades our governments and schools.
Remember when our fake president said this to those of us choosing not to get the Covid vax?
We’ve been patient but our patience is wearing thin. And your refusal has cost all of us.2
He could have been a cult leader. Who knows? Maybe he missed his calling. Silly me, he’s a politician. Cult leader….politician….cult leader….politician….take your pick.
Kate Reddy is a woman who is searching, who, at times, doesn’t realize she is searching, but she has a profound dissatisfaction with life. Who wouldn’t? She works like crazy traveling the globe trying to placate clients who are worried about their money while at the same time attempting to be a good mother or at least to present that appearance. In the opening scene of the novel she is “distressing mince pies” so that other mothers will not know that she purchased them at a grocery store. Kate Reddy misses her children, feels guilty for not being with them enough, but still wants her career and, understandably, wants to be a fulfilled person. In the process, however, she’s losing her children, her husband and herself. Will she achieve contentment? Can she in this environment?
This is an excellent novel. If you are a professional working woman with children this is a must read. If you don’t have children it’s a must read. It’s a must read for professional working men too. Hell, it’s just a must read for anyone who works. You will smile at the email exchanges. You will cringe at Kate Reddy’s honesty with herself. You will laugh and sigh at the dark humor. You might even cry. Obviously, I never teared up because I’m a man. There are also some really funny men jokes in this novel. For example, this one in an email message:
Q: Hw many men ds it tk to scrw in a lightbulb?
A: One. He just holds it & waits for the world to revolve arnd him.
I’m offended! I’m starting a new NGO: Men Against Men Jokes. We’ve suffered enough!
If you like The Asylum you will probably enjoy this novel. So, if you’re at work, get online and order it. If you’re not at work—that’s just silly—of course you’re at work—you’re an American or a Brit or a German or an Aussie or a Brazilian or a Rumanian or a…where else would you be?
The Asylum will be offering work robots powered by AIs in the near future. We’re calling them “The Second You” or YOU2 for short. Your YOU2 robot will take your place at work. It will be able to do everything you do, only better, faster and more efficiently. Your bosses will love YOU2 because it will never, ever say “No” to overtime or any other corporate demands. You can relax and enjoy life while your robot earns your living.
“Sir?”
“Yes?”
“Won’t an employer just buy their own robot so they don’t have to pay yours?”
“Who are you?”
“I’m your AI assistant.”
“Okay, scratch that.”
If you are an employer, The Asylum will be offering robots powered by AIs in the near future (We’re trying to think up a name). Replace your entire workforce with compliant, happy, hard-working AIs. We even have an AI that will lovingly and sympathetically handle firing all your current employees. It even cries. Contact The Asylum for details.