Read Excerpt: 'Womenomics'

June 2, 2009— -- Now that women have more influence in the workplace and the marketplace, they must take control of balancing work with family, according to the new book "Womenomics: Write Your Own Rules for Success."

High-powered broadcasters Claire Shipman of ABC News' "Good Morning America" and Katty Kay of the BBC share their own stories and those of other working women who have struggled but found a way to make time for both. By negotiating with confidence and learning to say no, women can achieve their ideal work and family lives, the two authors say. They give readers practical steps to achieve more flexibility on the job.

Read an excerpt of the book below and click here to check out their blog.

Click here to visit www.womenomics.com and click here to read a searchable excerpt from "Womenomics."

Erin clicks send on her last e-mail of the day, stretches her legs, and checks her watch. Relief and anticipation flood through her. She's right on schedule— half an hour to pack up, grab a Diet Coke, and reach her son's baseball practice at four o'clock. She relishes these afternoons with him, and arrives at seven in the morning on Thursdays, just to be sure she'll be out the door on time. And then she often finishes up any remaining work she has left in the evenings—from home. A trade well worth the extra hours, Erin shrugs, as she gets her papers together. Her boss says he doesn't mind, as long as it's only once a week. She rubs her head. Did he seem put out last week when she reminded him she'd miss an afternoon meeting? She must be imagining that. Her work is stellar, after all. She's a rising star. Of course, she will have to endure the gauntlet of raised eyebrows from colleagues as she heads out, briefcase in hand, clearly leaving for the day. Her shoulders tense a bit as she grabs her keys.

A shadow crosses her desk. Her boss, Michael, a friendly but exacting fifty-two-year-old, a top performer at the company, has something in his hand. Dread invades her stomach as the blue binder hits her desk. "Erin," he says, his voice urgent, excited even. "We've just been offered a shot at the Clearwater deal. Could you take a quick look, let me know your thoughts?" Erin stares up at him, frozen in frustration, as her mind plunges into that exquisite form of maternal torture: imagining the agony of a disappointed child. Can she say no? And then her ego kicks in. The Clearwater deal—she knows that project cold. It's the sort of work that gives her an adrenaline rush and would really burnish her reputation. Why does it feel that there are no good choices? It would be easy enough to go through the report a few hours from now, and e-mail her thoughts to Michael, but how will that look? Uninterested? Uncommitted? She begins to feel physically ill, as those familiar stress hormones kick in. Why does she feel so guilty, so powerless, so trapped?

Erin could be Mary, she could be Andrea, she could be Karen. She could be a sales rep, or a doctor, or an accountant. She could be in Houston, Minneapolis, New York. And that commitment to her son could be a visit with an elderly father, a marathon training session, or even a long-planned outing with friends.

Erin was us. She's probably you. But she doesn't have to be. Not anymore.For years the two of us would often swap our own personal versions of the Erin experience—furtively at first—until it became clear we had a similar sensibility. We worried that anything that smacked of lack of ambition, of working but not always aiming for the pinnacle, just wouldn't be professionally correct. And so in an ironic twist on the old-boys network, we'd offer each other private advice on turning down plum jobs and avoiding tantalizing promotions that might upend the hard-won balance of our daily lives.

The more we talked, and then read, and then reported, the more we realized we were on to something much bigger than our own experiences. What we've uncovered is nothing short of a brewing workplace revolution. And it's a revolution, luckily for all of us, well-suited for any economy. Indeed tough economic times are ushering in the change even more quickly.

A few facts: the overwhelming majority of women are longing to kick down that dreaded corporate ladder, flee the 8 a.m.- to-day-care-closing dash, but at the same time hang on to some real status. We have had enough of the fifty- or sixty-hour workweeks, holidays that never get taken, the juggling and spinning and rushing. We know the solution isn't longer hours at day care or hiring more babysitters or asking our husbands to stay home. Because we're the ones who want more time—for our children, our parents, our communities, ourselves.

Most educated women don't want to quit work altogether, even if they could. We want to use our brains and be productive professionally, but we don't want to keep tearing at the fabric of our families or our lives outside of the workplace. We need to slow down. We want to slow down—to take a moment to thank the cashier at the grocery store, to indulge in banter with our neighbor, to occasionally handle ballet drop-off or make it to our book club. We want to be in our lives.

And frankly, we have the same desire for our work existence. We'd like to spend our time at work engaged in meaningful and fulfilling pursuits and grown-up interactions with colleagues— focused on results. We've had enough of worrying about punching a clock or ringing some macho bell to the tune of he-whostays- in-the-office-longest slays the biggest mammoth.

The situation is so dire that a majority of us will opt, when asked, for less responsibility. We will trade duties, a title—even salary increases—for more time, freedom, and harmony. We don't want to quit—far from it—but time has become our new currency. Eighty-seven percent of the women in a recent study say they'd like a "better balance," or as we put it, more sanity, at work. (And are the other 13 percent being honest?)

It's an issue that now even has a champion in the White House. "It's always guilt-filled," Michelle Obama told Claire in an interview on the campaign trail. "Constant guilt surrounds working women and mothers no matter what you decide to do." The First Lady wants to put a national spotlight on the frustrating balancing act that so many women face, and which she herself had to master.

The pride of their working-class family, both she and her brother excelled at Princeton, and then she went on to Harvard Law School. Before her husband became president, Mrs. Obama had a thriving career, but since the birth of her daughters, she's made it plain she considers raising them her top priority. And she backed that up in her job choices—opting for flexibility over promotions. "No matter what decision you make at any point in time," she concluded, with an understanding shake of her head, "you feel like you should be doing more on the other end."

It's great to know we're not alone in our angst, but you'll feel even better when you learn that this uniquely female torture doesn't have to be yours, or any woman's. Not anymore. Why? The scale of transformation roiling beneath the surface is immense. This is a moment in history when outside forces have aligned to create a profound upheaval in the world of work.