Author of the week: Claire Shipman

last updated 8 January 2015

ABC News’ Claire Shipman has picked an odd moment to publish a book advising working women to put in fewer hours at the job, said Amy Reiter in Salon.com. Shipman and her co-author, BBC News anchor Katty Kay, claim in Womenomics that women are better served when they sometimes turn down promotions and the 60-hour workweeks that can go with them. Women value balance in their lives more than men do, Shipman says, and have gained the leverage to demand it, even during a recession. Women’s “focus on compromise and aversion to risk” are now seen as strengths, she wrote in ABCnews.com. “Companies with more senior female managers make more money.”

Shipman acknowledges that not every working woman can “storm into her CEO’s office and say, ‘I need to be home at 3 o’clock.’” The Good Morning America correspondent says the purpose of Womenomics is to inform women who want more time outside of the job that they’re not alone, and that some employers are learning to provide that balance. If you’re a woman whose boss isn’t so enlightened, Shipman says, there are steps you can take on your own—such as simply doing less. “High-achieving women tend to be perfectionists, and that’s one of the things that can hold us back,” she says. “Most of the time, good enough really is good enough.”