Venus to the Hoop

Women - not computers, not pop culture, not the end of the Cold War - are the driving force in the transformation of America. As Sally Helgesen, author of the classic The Female Advantage, shows in this compelling study of the lives of women in Naperville, Illinois, working women are the most important, dominant social group in contemporary America. Their life choices are radically changing how we work, how we live, how we worship, and how we consume. Based on hundreds of interviews with women in this Chicago suburb and backed up by years of research, Everyday Revolutionaries shows clearly that the "organization man" made famous by William Whyte is no longer the typical American. As the women in these pages talk about the difficult choices they've had to make regarding career, marriage, children, and their struggles to define themselves professionally and in their community, a portrait coalesces of people constantly improvising, and improving, their lives - changing careers, recovering from divorces, starting new businesses, organizing their neighborhoods - and thereby exerting a profound effect on the society in which they live.