Becoming a Dangerous Woman

Starred review from August 19, 2019
Mitchell, former president of CNN and TEDWomen cofounder, chronicles her distinguished career in this engrossing debut that calls for all women to advocate for themselves and others. Born in rural Georgia to a military family, Mitchell met her father for the first time at age three, when he returned from WWII. She became an English professor and eventually moved to New York to pursue a career in journalism. After working her way up at WNBC New York as a reporter, anchor, and producer, she started her own production company and was recruited by Ted Turner to join CNN in 1994. Jumping back-and-forth across her life and career, Mitchell revisits relationships that helped shape her trajectory, such as those with Jane Fonda and Eve Ensler, and reveals traumas from her formative years that she has come to terms with thanks to therapy, including feelings of inadequacy and her being sexually abused as a child. Mitchell also includes interviews with other “dangerous women” who are unafraid of “speaking the truth when the silence is safer,” among them director Ava DuVernay, first woman president of Ireland Mary Robinson, and actress Monique Wilson.
In revealing, bold prose, Mitchell tells a remarkable story of perseverance that will inspire any reader.

September 1, 2019
A dangerous woman, in CEO, journalist, and documentarian Mitchell's perspective, is a woman who's bold and not afraid to speak truth. In her memoir, every chapter pinpoints the various qualities of dangerous women. Dangerous women break glass ceilings, as Mitchell did as an Emmy-winning producer. Being dangerous also means having the courage to start over, to ask the almost unanswerable questions, to tackle once-taboo subjects like gender mutilation and rape, and to simply shrug off the issues of age by mentoring and continuing to do worthwhile work, among other activities. She unabashedly opens her heart to reveal her journey: an abusive father, a poor childhood in Georgia, #MeToo-like encounters throughout TV-land, relationship failures, and even financial insecurity. Fueled also by her end-of-chapter interviews with women such as filmmakers Abigail Disney and Ava DuVernay and lawyer Kimberl� Crenshaw, Mitchell's notion of the benefits of being dangerous becomes a life philosophy that others can follow.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)