UnderCover

Spotlight: What Women Really Want: How American Women are Quietly Erasing Political, Racial, Class and Religious Lines to Change the Way We Live
By Celinda Lake and Kellyanne Conway with Catherine Whitney

Notes provided by the book's publisher.

"WHAT WOMEN REALLY WANT insightfully examines the varied and complex views of American women today—women who know their power and are using it to shatter glass ceilings and cultural stereotypes. Women are demanding an America that better meets their needs and aspirations when it comes to work, health care, economic security, and national security. This book reminds us of the sacred duty of the Congress to heed these powerful voices."

"This book is better than a crystal ball-it shows how women are, and will be, the economic and political force of the new millennium. Lake and Conway lay out cultural trends that are that unusual combination of convincing and surprising. Forget Dr. Laura and The Surrendered Wife—in a country where women earn 57% of college degrees, What Women Really Want showcases the real facts about social trends for women. If you want to understand where the country is going, read this book." Jean M. Twenge, M.D., Ph.D, author of Generation ME

In WHAT WOMEN REALLY WANT: How American Women Are Quietly Erasing Political, Racial, Class, and Religious Lines to Change the Way We Live (Free Press; October 12, 2005; $26.00), two of America’s hottest pollsters—Celinda Lake and Kellyanne Conway—reveal how and why women are the most powerful force reshaping the future of America. Beyond the politics of left and right, women are quietly exerting a unified power to make changes in our culture and in commerce, meeting in the middle to achieve their goals. And they are not using traditional means to get there. Rejecting outdated traditions and expectations that no longer fit their reality, they are breaking the old rules about when and whether to marry and have children, living fully and equally as singles, and creating flexible, inclusive workplaces that don’t sacrifice family or sanity. They are taking charge of the marketplace, controlling $5 trillion annually as the primary purchasers of homes, cars, appliances, and electronics. They are making their mark at ages twenty, forty, sixty, and beyond, drawing strength, inspiration, and intellectual stimulation from other women. And that’s just the beginning.

Using the eye-opening results of interviews, focus groups and polls (3 of three of which were created especially for this book), WHAT WOMEN REALLY WANT explores:

"ALTARED" STATES - The ever-evolving role of marriage and family for modern women, and what these seismic changes augur for marriage and society at large.

• Today, one-third of American women are unmarried - a huge number that reflects a significant trend. For the first time in history, unmarried women as a group have a significant influence on the culture and politics.
• More than 22 million American women live alone - an 87% increase in the past two decades.
• Unmarried women aren’t on hold; they aren’t in waiting. They feel a strong sense of personal identity and entitlement. They are fully living their lives in the present.
• In a 1965 survey, three out of four college women said they would marry a man they didn’t love if he fit their criteria in every other way. Today 80% of women say they’d rather have a partner who can communicate his feelings than one who makes a good living.
• Today, 66% of divorces are initiated by women, and the numbers are even higher among women in their fifties and sixties.
• While 45% of men named their spouse or significant other as their most important relationship, only 34% of women did.

BABY FLUX - The newly emerging role of motherhood, and our ever-evolving national obsession with children.

• 26% of the nation’s mothers are single women.
• Single-mother-led households have traditionally been economically marginal - 21% currently live in poverty, but the emerging population of single mothers-by-choice tends to be more financially secure.
• 44% of all women of childbearing age (defined as 15­44) are childless.
• The Working Mom vs. Stay-at-Home Mom war has been overplayed in the media. The authors’ survey found that the two groups of women exist in cooperative coexistence, not tension. They share the most important value in common—putting kids first, regardless of their social, professional, or economic circumstances. And most women who are at home today expect to be in the workforce when their children are older though still at home.
• The terms íworkingì and ístay-at-homeì are deceptive, as 25% of working mothers work fewer hours than the traditional 40 hour week, while 25% of stay-at-home moms currently do some work for pay.
• One in four mothers age 25­44 is out of the work force.
• In the first big decline since 1976, more moms are staying home with the kids, and 7 in 10 working women tell pollsters they would stay home with their kids if they could.

OPEN-COLLAR WORKPLACES - How women are forsaking male models of business, and revolutionizing new and more satisfying ways to work.

• Women own more than 26% of the nation’s 20.8 million companies, generating nearly $2.3 trillion in revenue.
• Companies with a higher representation of women in senior management positions financially outperform companies with proportionally fewer women at the top.
• Both men and women would rather work for a woman if their firm were being downsized, believing that their interests would be better protected.
• Women are the largest and fastest growing group of small farm buyers, and they’re quickly becoming the majority of farm owners.
• Women are just as interested in achieving the top slot-CEO-as men. Furthermore, women with children in the home were just as likely to aspire to the top as those who had no children.
• A quarter of women believe the biggest reason for few women in top positions is the inflexibility that management roles provide for women with families.
• 40% of all business travelers are women.
• Women make up 51% of enrollment at Columbia and Yale law schools, and 46% of enrollment at Harvard Law. However, that equality doesn’t translate to the career success of making partner. Women account for only 16% of partners at American law firms.
• The majority of students at law schools, dental schools, and veterinary schools are now women, and by 2005 women will comprise the majority of the nation’s veterinarians. Women are enlisting in the military in higher numbers, currently comprising 15% of enlistment.
• From 1997 to 2002 the number of construction firms owned by women grew by 35.5%.
• An AARP survey found that 80% of baby boomers planned to work in retirement.

BEAUTY IN ACTION - The first-ever comprehensive look at how women want integrated lifestyles of health and beauty that help them feel better, look their best, sharpen their minds and feed their souls.

• Nearly one-half of the women (49%) reported feeling younger than their current age.
• Women are increasingly buying into lifestyles of health and inner growth, accepting the mind-body connection to search for emotional and spiritual ífitnessì in addition to the physical.
• 22% said they would change nothing about their appearance.

However:
• A majority of women (53%) reported they would rather look thinner than younger.
• In a survey of elementary school students, girls commented that they would prefer to live through a nuclear holocaust, lose both of their parents, or get sick with cancer rather than be fat.
• The number of women undergoing cosmetic surgery has increased dramatically-to the tune of nearly $10 billion a year and rising.

PURSE-STRING POWER - How women are changing the face of consumerism by controlling $5 trillion in consumer spending, and becoming the primary luxury buyers.

• Single women are the fastest growing group of mortgage holders. In 2003, 54% of single women owned their own homes. In 2003, twice as many single women as single men bought houses.
• Women have surpassed men in purchasing and using technology-including laptops, Palm pilots, cell phones, DVD players, digital cameras, and computers.
• Women have a disproportionate influence over big-ticket items like the family car. They do the bulk of the research, and they have already made the top three choices by the time the man in the family even gets involved.
• While women may love to browse in stores, they expect to find what they want quickly online.
• It is estimated that women will spend $123 billion online in the coming year.

JUST-IN-TIME POLITICS - In this eagerly awaited and most iconoclastic yet authoritative chapter, Lake and Conway reveal how traditional "women's" issues have been expanded, and if ever there is a critical issue, women are behind it, no matter what their party.

• While women are not a monolithic group, Lake and Conway found that on important issues and attitudes they share a remarkable agreement. The H.E.R.S. agenda—health, education, retirement, and security—is the primary agenda for both major parties, and the woman voter is the one to court.
• 72% of women cited retirement benefits that can be moved from job to job as one of the most important issues to them personally.
• Women outvoted men by 10 million in the 2004 election.
• 43% of women say a member of their family could be the victim of a terrorist attack, compared to only 18% of men.
• Only 7% of voters say they would vote against a qualified woman for president (as opposed to 64% fifty years ago).
• 57% of those surveyed stated that they would be íhopefulì or íenthusiasticì if a woman was elected President of the United States in their lifetime.
• More than 65% of women across party lines say the integrity of a candidate is more important than his or her intelligence or abilities.
• When asked if they agree or disagree with the statement, íThere has never been a better time to be a women in the U.S.,ì using a 1-10 scale an overwhelming majority of women (72%) agreed, giving the statement a 7 or higher. Nearly three-in-ten (29%) of them gave it a 10.

WHAT WOMEN REALLY WANT heralds some of the most significant changes in American culture in the past century. By delving beneath the radioactive, hot-button issues, Lake and Conway discover common causes with which women are inventing a new age of opportunity—doing it their way, and, in the process, improving life for all Americans.

WHAT WOMEN REALLY WANT:
How American Women Are Quietly Erasing Political, Racial, Class, and Religious Lines to Change the Way We Live
by Celinda Lake and Kellyanne Conway
Free Press
Publication date: October 12, 2005
Price: $26.00
Pages: 320
ISBN: 0-7432 7382-6