Book reviews by J. Steven Svoboda

How Obama’s Gender Policies Undermine America

How Obama’s Gender Policies Undermine America. By Diana Furchtgott-Roth. New York: Encounter Books, 2010. www.encounterbooks.com. 47 pp. $5.99. Review by J. Steven Svoboda.

How Obama’s Gender Policies Undermine America by Diana Furchtgott-Roth is the sixteenth in a series of small chapbooks Encounter Books is offering in a fascinating new publishing program. In this increasingly screen-oriented age, the concept of promoting paper books by putting out small, inexpensive, pocket-sized pamphlets on topics of political interest is a fascinating endeavor that should be supported.

Furchtgott-Roth is the author of two excellent books, Women’s Figures: An Illustrated Guide to the Economics of Women in America and the more recent The Feminist Dilemma: When Success is Not Enough.

In fewer than fifty small-sized pages, writing accessibly so that the entire chapbook can probably be read in fifteen to thirty minutes by most readers, the author makes her case that the federal government is hurting our economic strength by attempting to ensure equality of outcome for women in the marketplace and not just equality of opportunity. “Equal outcomes is a pernicious goal for government policy, one that smacks of central planning and heavy official intrusion into private decision making, such as what to study and what vocation to pursue.”