WHISTLE BLOWER BY SUSAN FOWLER AND IN PURSUIT OF DISOBEDIENT WOMEN BY DIONNE SEARCEY

 In the month of June, I have read two memoirs written by two female writers from different backgrounds with their experience with life, work, and society. 

The Whistle Blower is a memoir of a girl from a poor family who had a big dream to work in a good company as an engineer. She had mentioned in the early chapters of the book that haw hard it was to be born in a family who had limited resources to educate their children. Although it was hard to fight with the outer world in terms of materiality, she learned good culture and strong morale being a christain. 

While pursuing her big dream, she joined Uber company as an engineer in silicon valley. It was the tech hub of the USA where most of the largest IT companies located. As Susan started working in a team, on the very first day she got a text message from her manager purposing for sex. He was intending for an open relationship with her and also texting about his past life of sex. It was mind-boggling for her since she was just starting the job and did not know the manager even personally. She reported it to HR hoping that HR can help her in this matter and the manager would be punished for his act of indecency. 

To her surprise, the HR lady told her that since it was his first offense, they could not do anything. Then she was silenced sending her for the vacation. After she returned from the vacation, she was given the choice either to work with him having a bad review of her performance, or move to another department. She felt alone. Later she moved to another department and joined the female engineer group. She came to that there was many other female staff who were sexually harrassed by the same manager.

Not only she was sexually harassed, but she was also constantly abused, mistreated, her performance review was revoked purposefully, her transfer was declined. Her manager told her that he knows what to do with only those who had the 'title engineer' but not the skill. She was also mocked when the company branded leather jackets were distributed for the female after her fight with the department who earlier denied buying any jackets for the female staff, but only to the male. 

There were staff who committed suicide due to the racist culture of Uber and also many of them had suicidal thoughts including herself. Finally, she quit the job and joined another company. In the same year, she published the blog about UBer's culture Travis Kalanik stepped down from the CEO. She felt relieved. To sum up, this book is an eye-opener for the employee who works for the big companies where the working culture is somehow murky, discriminatory, sexist, racist. 

In the Pursuit of Disobident Women by Dionne Searcey is a memoir about her personal life, professional life as a reporter for Times Magazine. Besides, this book is about Boko Haram of Nigeria, women in Boko Haram militia, and challenges she faced as a reporter in a wartorn zone. 

Leaving her home in the US with her three kids and husband and making stories of the terrorist group in Nigeria was horrific. However, she has presented the story in such a way that while goosebumps raise with the word of Boko Haram, she made laugh with her sense of humor. When she was meeting with leaders of Boko Haram about the girls kidnapped from Chibok, it made her nervous being surrounded by the militia with Ak-47. She also interviewed the girls who were under the detention of Boko Haram, they said that they were taught how to kill people in the name of their God. 

There are so many issues she raised in this book about the hardships of the citizen living in Boko Haram-controlled areas. The girls who were kidnapped by Boko Haram were forced to marry the commanders. After being released from Boko Haram some of the girls wanted to defend their husbands who were still the commander of the terrorist group.  Killing, poverty, corruption is pervasive. She at last says,' if Nigeria becomes a failed state, Europe will fail, and if Europe fails, so does America. This how she presented the balanced view on both Africa and America. When she was talking about the killing of the children, civilians by the police, and militia with her children, her son Luther asked her why they were not going back to America. In response, she honestly says that there is white police personnel who are killing black people. She says that there good and bad thighs everywhere in the world. Boko Haram was not started by the bad people. When the citizen was not heard by the state for the long and silenced by guns, they will fight back as the last resort. 

She also presented Laos as a beautiful city of Nigeria full of skyscrapers and art and culture. The book is full of information and inspiration to those who wanted to take the risk with reward.