In her new book, Iron Butterflies: Women Transforming Themselves and the World, developmental psychologist Birute Regine investigates and explains how women often contort themselves to make it in a man’s world.

Ms. Regine documents how, at a certain point in their lives and often out of necessity, successful women bring traits and values traditionally associated with women to their callings and into the marketplace. Yet Regine is confident that a revolution in underway. A recent in article in the Huffington Post explained further, saying:

In a complex environment and an interconnected world, skills associated with women will prove more and more effective and keenly pertinent: their holistic view of the world, their ability to see interconnections among things, their relational intelligence, their tendencies toward collaboration and inclusion, their ability to empathize.”

Referred to as Iron Butterflies, the term captures “their individual resilience and fragility, conviction and poignancy, their inner beauty and outer strength.” Russ Welon of the Huffington Post encourages that Iron Butterflies become “essential reading for young women who often fail to appreciate just how hard-won are the opportunities they enjoy today.”

The book provides insights into the lives of 60 successful women,  including businesswomen, CEOs, a Congresswoman, a governor, an ex-prime minister, a Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, a winemaker, artists, doctors, and nurses. The women discuss their insecurities and struggles.