NO LIMITS: THE INSPIRING AND CAPTIVATING STORIES OF THE TRIALS AND TRIUMPHS OF NINE SUCCESSFUL GHANAIAN FEMALE CORPORATE AND PUBLIC LEADERS

From the title to the last page, this book is a clarion call, an encouraging shout from the sidelines, and a victory cheer for young women. Though it celebrates the nine women whose stories form its case studies, it aims not merely to eulogise them to make them feel good about themselves. Its purpose is far loftier than that. The book speaks to young women and provides for them new horizons to which they might otherwise not have had access. As Mr Alex Banful shows in this reflective work, underachievement among girls is not simply an economically rooted problem. Social expectations, as well as a lack of role models to extend their horizons and guide their target setting, are a big part of why young girls in this part of the world are far more likely to underachieve than their male counterparts. This book contributes to the effort to reverse the deleterious effects of these phenomena. By providing for young women with examples of females who have attained important heights, it preaches the message of ability to young girls and encourages them to dream of life beyond the kitchen. One of the strengths of this book is that it does not fall into the trap that many modern works that urge young girls on to professional attainment does: it does not make it a choice between the kitchen and the office. The stories tell of the professional achievements of the women role models. But it also talks about their home responsibilities. An important insight I think many young women will carry with them from the book is the quote from Ambassador Aggrey-Orleans to the young entrants at the Foreign Service that Ambassador Sena Siaw-Boateng shares: “No matter how hard you work here if you don’t balance your professional life with your family, you have not succeeded.” Too often, the messages of professional growth take an almost adversarial posture towards homemaking and family care. But these roles are not just historical roles women play; they are roles that continue to matter to women in society. They are roles that our species cannot hope to thrive if no one plays. Thus, the drive to empower women in one field should not disempower them in another. Not every girl needs to be a mother. But those who want to be should not be compelled to believe that they have to turn their backs on any other meaningful professional engagement to do so. The voices of these women come in strongly against that sentiment. The pride they take in their homemaking equals the pride they take in their workplaces and sends a clear message to young women readers: both roles are valuable. If you take on both, commit to doing them both well. Another important attribute of this book is that it does not present the enviable balance of homemaker and professional as easily or painlessly attained. While that incurs for the book’s mission the risk of being unappealing or, at the very least, much less appealing, it does young women who read it the great service of preparing them for the exhausting push and pull that this double-portioned life contains. Not knowing that the accomplished women one sees in public have achieved it at the cost of much emotional sweat, guilt and fatigue makes one underprepared for the onslaught that comes with the choice to be excellent professionally and as a mother, wife, or daughter or all three. That under-preparation can cause immense distress and even a sense of failure to young women in the early days of their journey. The idea that one alone is suffering to grasp what everyone else is doing effortlessly can lead to very low self-esteem and/or a defeatist attitude. So, while not sugarcoating the journey does make it less alluring, the book makes the right choice to honestly equip, rather than falsely lure young women into a difficult, if completely worthwhile, journey.