The Overspent American by Juliet Schor

I saw this book on my co-worker's desk and asked to borrow it. The book explores our consumer culture and admonishes it. It instead advocates a de-emphasis on materialism and a focus on simple living. While I'm sure I don't always live up to it, the ideals and values espoused in this book are so thoroughly internalized in my way of thinking that I found the book a bit boring.

I do not highly value stuff and I never really have. I have always valued life experiences and financial security more than stuff. While I certainly splurge on occasion and buy myself nice things, it is pretty much always after months of consideration and research and the items receive a great deal of functional use after their purchase. When I moved up here, I sold/ gave away a ton of stuff and it reinforced to me how easy it is to accumulate more stuff than you need- even though I already felt I was pretty non materialistic. I think a good amount of the stuff was accumulated when I had my own apartment and to some extent wanted to "fill it". And while it was nice to have that stuff, I think in the future I'm less likely to buy new furniture/ decorations/ etc.

This year I'm trying to live off of a VISTA living stipend which comes out to below minimum wage. While I'm close to living off of it, I am subsidizing it a touch with savings. I think my lower threshold for a content, non-deprived feeling living experience involves spending about $12,000 to $15,000 a year. When I was making money, I did spend more than this. And when I go back to making money, I'm sure I'll let more expenditures come- exotic travel, maybe a new gadget, etc., but I'd like to make some of my lifestyle changes more permanent. After selling so many books when I moved, I don't think I'm likely to buy books anymore when I know that libraries are perfectly capable of ordering any book I might want. Right now, spending $10 at the movies sounds like a crazy waste of money when I know it will be rent-able on DVD for $1 in just a few months. I very rarely eat out right now- something I spent over $1,500 on last year!!! I've started really thinking about how much gas costs and calibrating that in to decisions about going places- something I never gave any thought to before. And these little things add up. I most certainly want to keep my basic living expenses as minimal as possible. I love the concept of not being owned by your life style and having the freedom to not have money concerns have a large voice in life choices.

If these concepts don't resonate with you, you might enjoy The Overspent American. Otherwise, I say skip it.

The Sexual Paradox: Men, Women and the Real Gender Gap by Susan Pinker

I ordered this through Inter Library Loan and unfortunately only read half of it before I had to return it in order to avoid $1 a day late fines. Since I only read half of it, I've debated whether or not to post an entry on it, but I've decided to go for it.

The book makes the claims that the biggest reason for the gender gap in pay has to do with women opting for more emotionally rewarding careers/ lifestyle choices than men. I found this argument to be quite salient. While there's no question in my mind that in some work environments sexism is probably alive and well, it seems to be pretty rare. In my experience, those women who are good at what they do and want to work 60+ hour a weeks seem to receive raises and get promotions just as easily as the men doing those things. But it does seem that there are fewer women willing to do that then men.

Pinker furthers her case by pointing to education statistics versus workplace statistics. More women are educated than men. On average, women do better in school, across the board, than men do. Many ivy league schools now have "reverse discrimination" in that while trying to keep an equal gender balance, the average male resume is less impressive than the average female resume. About half of all law school grads are female, but only about 1/4 of practicing lawyers are female. The academics clearly show that ability is far from the issue, and yet most women do not go after the most lucrative careers.

The book goes further to blame this difference on innate biology. It states that estrogen tends to create minds that are more empathic and social whereas testosterone tends to create minds that are better at single minded focus. She cites many studies that are pretty fascinating to support this. One study measured fetal testosterone levels in boys throughout pregnancy and found a direct inverse correlation between how much testosterone they had and their later verbal skills. Those with the most testosterone spoke later and with fewer words than those with less testosterone.

While I think she convincingly makes her case that men and women are biologically shaped to be a bit different, I do think she undersells the role that social and pragmatic concerns have on the gender wage gap. If a woman is socially considered to be more responsible for raising children than men, is it any surprise that she's less likely to work crazy hours and is more likely to value lower stress careers and more flexible work environments?

Overall, I recommend the book. I wish I'd read the second half and could more thoroughly expound on her ideas. But from what I did read, I enjoyed the way she meshed her ideas and case studies with genuine scientific studies and statistics. It certainly is an interesting angle from which to look at the issue.