"The Challenge of Being a Woman" was written, in part, because of the author's intense dislike of the offensive designation of whore or 'ho. She believes the inimical appellation has practically become a synonym for woman, used frequently and indiscriminately by men whose reason for using it seems to be nothing more than their disdain for women. The book is her brief account of the long and arduous struggle of women in what she perceives to be a man's world. It is sometimes humorous, sometimes serious. A must-read for both women and men.

As she lies in a hospital bed, wounded from a gunshot, Beth recalls a past that begins in the cotton fields of Arkansas in 1949 when she is nine years old. There, she sees colored people for the first time, and when she attempts to befriend one of the little girls she's told that white folks are not meant to mix with "nigras." The difference in the white and black world becomes apparent. After leaving the south at age seventeen, Beth pursues her interest in the history of black Americans and learns of horrors they endured; she also discovers their many achievements and contributions to...