Now here’s a guide to personal finance that tells it like it is.

In the introduction to their new book, On My Own Two Feet: A Modern Girl’s Guide to Personal Finance, Manisha Thakor and Sharon Kedar take the bull, so to speak, by the horns. In their words:

“Today, many women are choosing to marry alter in life or not at all. With divorce rates high, and given that women have statistically longer life spans than men, it is a basic fact of life that a high percentage of women will spend as much or more of their lives single than coupled. Therefore it’s unwise to think that Prince Charming is going to swoop in to solve your financial woes. In fact, it’s probably safe to assume that Prince Charming doesn’t have a clue when it comes to money, even if he acts like he does.”

These two savvy ladies (and Woodhull alums!) serve up oodles of insight on why so many women–and men–end up missing the boat on personal finance:

“It’s not that people want to make bad financial decions–its that they never learned the basics. Personal finance is not taught in most schools, and talking about money is still taboo in many circles. Parents often assume children will pick up the basics of personal finance on their own, and many parents don’t really have a grip on their own finances. As a result, millions of Americans simply do not know how to live within their means.”

I, for one, certainly would have benefited from some financial 101 coming at me at an early age. As a grown-up, I’ve had to play catch-up–and am still playing, and often feel like I’m missing the ball. But nuf with the sports metaphors. Just trust me. This book is a homerun. (Whoops–couldn’t help myself there.)

There’s much more about On My Own Two Feet here. And for bonus points, check out the Economic Literacy program over at Girls Incorporated and the Financial Literacy module from Woodhull that’s available through the Dove Real Women, Real Success Stories website. And pass it all on!

OK, I promise not to bride out on you (I did that once, sort of, ahem, already), but the contemporary name game fascinates me to no end. Clearly, women my generation who marry are at a different starting point. In 1975, less than 4 percent of college-educated brides did NOT take their husband’s last name, compared to 20 percent in 2000. Most of my girlfriends have kept their last names; a few hyphenate. I may hyphenate officially, but for sure I’ll remain Deborah Siegel in print. But anyway, as it turns out, according to an article appearing in the Times’ Style section yesterday, there are actually consultants now who will help modern couples figure out what to do about merging their names. Interestingly, the article notes that only children (c’est moi) and family business owners may be among women perhaps most concerned with losing their lineage by tossing their name. BTW, I love the article’s title: “To Be Safe, Call the Bride by Her First Name.”

The Daring Book for Girls intrigues me. As an author, I’m interested in how this book’s authors have developed their platform (that schmancy publishing industry term for everything that’s going to help a book become a phenomenon). Daring has a trailer, and a theme song. It has two brilliant authors behind it, one of whom has a Ph.D. in ancient history and religion (for all you academics out there) and both authors are savvy web entrepreneurs as well. The book follows on the heels of an already-proven bestseller. It is marketable not only to girls, but to their parents—Gen Xers like me, who were raised on Free to Be You and Me and are fed up with Princess Power. And most of all, the book’s premise is one damn good idea.

I’d be green with envy if I didn’t personally know that the authors are women of stellar intention and integrity, not to mention generosity of spirit. Andrea Buchanan and Miriam Peskowitz are the women who brought the parenting blogging circle MotherTalk into being and are responsible for bringing online visibility to a number of important books on women’s issues, and scores—perhaps hundreds now—of books by women. As the MotherTalk website says, “We love what we do, and really take our books and our authors under our wings.” And so, having taken their own book under their wings, it comes as no surprise that The Daring Book has soared. It hit the bestseller list on November 11, just a few weeks after it hit the stores.

What surprises me instead—and what I find intriguing—is the jaded critical reception the book seems to have inspired in some journalistic circles. Reporters and interviewers have loved to ask, with a lofty sniff of sarcasm, “What’s so daring about this book?” In a culture as overly saturated with images of toxic girlhood as ours, they ask, what effect can a wholesome activity book that mothers (or others) and daughters are encouraged to do together possibly have overall?

These critics have got a point—but only, I would counter, to a point. The popularity of the book among girls, I might venture, speaks for itself.

And what’s the lesson here for authors? Have a “high concept” idea that comes from a place of integrity, market the hell out of it online, and offer us all some semblance of hope. That last one—and you’ll forgive me for my lack of cynicism—is key.

These authors are no sell-outs or naive patsies. When NPR Weekend Edition’s John Ysdtie asked coauthor Andrea Buchanan on the air yesterday whether childhood itself is much different today, she had this to say: “In the 1970s, children had yet to be discovered as a powerful marketing demographic. Girls are schooled, at 8 years old, to think about their bodies, and the way they look, and the clothes they wear. Because girls back then were not marketed to as they are now, it wasn’t on their mind to think about these things until they were older.” Girls today are pressured to be grown-ups far sooner than we used to be. Nine is the new seventeen. There’s more focus today on doing activities not for activities sake, but to get into college. Girlhood used to be different. It used to last. “Part of what we wanted to do with this book,” said Buchanan, “was extend girlhood a little bit.”

Buchanan and Peskowitz are not nostalgic throwbacks. They are optimists who merely ask us to give daring a chance.

Regardless of which candidate you’re gonna support next November, you’ve got to admit that to wake up and see the word “feminist” on the cover of the New York Times this morning is itself a testament of the effect Hillary’s running is having on the presidential debate. I mean, this beats “soccor moms” and “security moms” hands down. The article, “Feminist Pitch by a Democrat Named Obama,” suggests that the Obama campaign is “subtley marketing its candidate as a postfeminist man, a generation beyond the gender conflicts of the boomers.” In other words, in the eyes of the postfeminist generation, the best candidate for women might be a man.

But the claim that younger women are less interested in Hillary than Boomer women are seems to go against what the polls are saying. As GWP readers know, I’m obsessed these days by the stats showing the generational breakdown of women’s support of Hillary. I posted back in September about how polls were showing younger women supporting Hillary more than Boomer women were. Has anyone seen the recent stats on this one? I’d be curious to hear.

Photo cred.

My piece on the Disney movie “Enchanted” is now up over at the Women’s Media Center. Here’s a little addendum to that piece, to leave with you with this weekend:

Everyone’s singing the praises of Amy Adams, who plays the fluttery protagonist, Giselle. I loved her performance in Junebug (where, as Roger Ebert reminds us, she tells her snake of a husband: “God loves you just the way you are, but he loves you too much to let you stay that way.”) And while Adams herself is entirely enchanting in Enchanted, truth be told, what enchanted me more was the two-minute JC Penney commercial from Saatchi & Saatchi that ran just before the film.

The Penney spot is called “Aviator.” John Lennon’s “Real Love” plays in the background as a bespectacled, determined little girl gets the ultimate revenge on the neighborhood bullies by transforming herself from local outcast to local hero by using her imagination and ingenuity. As AdWeek aptly describes it, the spot opens with her quietly drawing a picture about traveling to the North Pole on her porch when the boys of the ‘hood pelt her with water balloons. She runs inside to dry her picture with a blow dryer and then begins on a construction project. Riding her Big Wheel back and forth from a neighbor who supplies her with materials, she begins to build her “secret” project. The boys are soon intrigued and serve as her bodyguards. When she is finally ready to debut her creation, the entire neighborhood has gathered for the unveiling. She’s built a rocket-like “North Pole Voyager.” And the boys end up saluting her. The spot ends with the on-screen tagline, “Today’s the day to believe.” Ok, so it’s a gosh darn Christmas ad from JC Penney. But I’m telling you, it made me teary. See for yourself, above.

Just wanted to throw out there that I’ll be posting an interview with Esther Perel, author of Mating in Captivity, next week sometime. Stay tuned!

And on my pile of books to muse on next is one with the longest and most kick-ass subtitle ever–Suzanne Braun Levine and Mary Thom’s Bella Abzug: How One Tough Broad from the Bronx Fought Jim Crow and Joe McCarthy, Pissed Off Jimmy Carter, Battled for the Rights of Women and Workers, Rallied against War and for the Planet and Shook Up Politics Along the Way–and another by a Woodhull alum that sounds like just what I need right about now, On My Own Two Feet: A Modern Girl’s Guide to Personal Finance by Manisha Thakor and Sharon Kedar.

And do keep an eye out for some guest posting in this space from some of the incredibly talented women taking my Making It Pop bloginar…Coming soon!

Those lines I posted from Rebecca Solnit the other day (from her book A Field Guide to Getting Lost) generated additional wisdom from writer friends who have been there too, in the form of emails that lifted my spirits and made me re-commit to keep on going with the proposal writing process, even though I was feeling a bit at sea.

One of my favorite responses came from a dear friend (and a gorgeous memoirist), Mindy Lewis, who teaches nonfiction writing at The Writers Voice and knows a thing or two about process. Mindy and I shared tea and sympathy (and Zabar’srugelah) yesterday, and then she emailed me this, about cultivating the art of being at home in the unknown:

“That’s the spirit! So elusive, hard to get there and stay there, but always the right place to be.”

YESSS.

(Look for Mindy’s next oeuvre, an anthology, in 2009!)

So says my gal and resident Gen Y-er Courtney. Writes C:

The ugly truth about superwomen, my generation has come to realize, is that they tend to be exhausted, self-sacrificing, unsatisfied, and sometimes even self-loathing and sick. Feminism—and the progress it envisions—was never supposed to compromise women’s health. It was supposed to lead to richer, more enlightened, authentic lives characterized by a deep sense of wellness.

Read the rest, and more, over at The New Statesman this week, where Courtney is blogging it up on behalf of feministing, which was asked to elucidate why they care deeply about a particular spiritual or intellectual philosophy. Courtney is writing her take on, as she says, what feminism ain’t, what it is, and what it could be.

Hey, did anyone go to Woodhull dinner seminar with Leslie Morgan Steiner last night while I was out careening at Helaine Olen’s book party?! BTW, that book party had the best party food ever–little tea sandwiches with cucumber and yogurt, artichoke crostini, and so forth. Party goers included Jessie Klein (who is writing a fabulous book on gender and school violence), Esther Perel (whose book Mating in Captivity just came out in paper) and my better half, Daphne Uviller (who co-edited Only Child with me). Helaine looked radiant in her little red dress, and it was fun meeting some of the women currently running Mediabistro. I may be teaching an intensive with Mediabistro soon–will blab about it here if I do.

And here’s another event some of you might be interested in, here in town:

New York Women in Communications Presents:

An Evening with Wall Street Insider
Maria Bartiromo

Date: Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Location: MSN, 1290 Avenue of the Americas, 6th Floor
Time: 6:00pm-8:00pm

Maria Bartiromo, host and managing editor of “The Wall Street Journal Report with Maria Bartiromo,” and anchor of CNBC’s “Closing Bell” will be interviewed by Robert Dilenschneider, CEO of The Dilenschneider Group and author of the recently released “Power and Influence: The Rules Have Changed” (McGrawHill) on Tuesday, December 18th, 6:00 PM at MSN.

Bob will speak with Maria about her stellar career as a financial journalist, her skill at getting important people such as Condoleezza Rice, Alan Greenspan and President Bush to sit down and talk to her about issues facing the economy and how publicists and corporate PR people should work with the financial media.

Cost: $35 for members, $50 for nonmembers, $20 for student members.

Seating is limited, register here.

Alison Bower of Womens eNews has the low down on where the presidential hopefuls stand on the issue of sex education. She reminds us that the U.S. has spent about $1 billion on abstinence-only education in the last decade and the White House seeks $28 million more. Infuriating doesn’t begin to describe it. Read more, here.