Susan Estrich 's Sex and Power is Powerful

By most people's measures, Susan Estrich is successful, even powerful. She graduated from Wellesley College and Harvard Law School, where she was the first female editor of the Law Review. After her graduation from Harvard, she clerked for the prestigious D.C. Federal Court of Appeals and became a professor of law at Harvard. She even ran various Presidential campaigns and considers people like the Clintons and former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright her friends. Why then, did she write Sex and Power, with the theory that women are still not nearly as powerful as the nation and society would have them believe? Perhaps because, according to Estrich, 99.4% of all chief executive officers and 97.3% of the top earners in the United States are male.

With these statistics in mind, Estrich composes a narrative about how women are not powerful and issues a rallying cry to all women, stay at home mothers and professionals alike, to unite to challenge the system. In comprising this narrative, Estrich uses masterful legal research to detail how the law has changed over the last centuries as well as uses her experiences, the experiences of other women and current political events to make her point.

What I found impressive about Ms. Estrich's work is that she does not condemn men at all. She doesn't advocate for a utopian society and refrains from bashing males at all costs. Instead, Ms. Estrich's goal is to inspire women to change the system by working together. She advocates that top ranking women unite to change the system, advocate for other qualified women to be promoted or hired and to change policies in the corporation, law firm or agency that they work for. It is a frank discussion of the status of American women in the 21st century. As such, it is very American centric. It doesn't look at the status of women in Europe or any other part of the world.

What I also found particularly expressive is Ms. Estrich's writing style: she is candid, witty and very self-aware. She is also very articulate but does not isolate the reader. Estrich lays herself on the line and hides nothing. Estrich also attempts to look at how minority women fare in this modern world; however, there was minimal treatment of minority women. There was no analysis of lesbian, bisexual or transgender women and how they fare in contemporary American society. What she has comprised is a masterpiece that all women, whether you identify as a feminist or not, should read.