← So Money with Farnoosh Torabi
So Money with Farnoosh Torabi
1984: The Ambition Penalty: The Data Behind Women’s Workplace Frustration
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Farnoosh Torabi
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Farnoosh Torabi
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Jackson Financial Announcer
You're listening to so Money with award winning money guru Farnoosh Torabi. Each day get a 30 minute dose of financial inspiration from the world's top business minds, authors, influencers, and from Farnoosh yourself. Looking for ways to save on gas or double your double coupons. Sorry, you're in the wrong place. Seeking profound ways to live a richer, happier life. Welcome to SO money.
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Stephanie O'Connell
There is a lot of championing the ambition of young girls and even young women. And you see this certainly in my own childhood, I experienced this. You know, I was growing up in the 90s. Girl power, spice Girls. I'll tell you what I want, what I really, really want, you know, and then we, of course, the girl boss era. This is, you know, when I was really starting my career. And so there was so much of this hyping up our ambition, letting us be whatever we want to be, imagine anything we want to be. But I started to notice the pushback almost immediately in the transition to adulthood when you went from really the potential of power where you're fostering an idea, a dream, the education and the skills needed to attain it, versus actual trying to access any of that power for yourself.
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Farnoosh Torabi
Welcome to Sew Money, everybody. I'm Farnoosh Tarabi.
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You know, women today are more educated than ever.
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We're more ambitious than ever.
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We're more likely to be breadwinners, business owners and leaders in our households and communities. And yet, despite decades of progress, the pay gap persists. Women continue to hit barriers at work, and many still feel punished for wanting both financial success and personal fulfillment. My guest today says that's not a coincidence, it's a system.
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Stephanie o' Connell is back on so
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Money with her powerful new book called the Ambition Penalty, which examines how corporate culture encourages women to strive, achieve and lean in, only to penalize them once
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they begin claiming real power, money and authority.
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In our conversation, we unpack the myths that we have been sold about ambition and meritocracy, why women are still more likely to face backlash for Negotiating and asking for raises and how inequality at work is deeply connected to inequality at home. Stephanie also shares why the rise of both girl boss culture and the tradwife movement miss the bigger picture and what actually needs to change if we want more equitable outcomes for women.
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Stephanie o', Connell, welcome back to SO Money. I am thrilled to have you on the show again and to be celebrating your new book, your latest accomplishment. It's called the Ambition How Corporate Culture Tells Women to Step up and Then Pushes Them Down. What a time to be publishing this book. And I know you've been working on this for years. I remember the first sort of op ed that you wrote, this essay that you wrote that went viral that then led to the book deal that now we're here talking about the book. And in those years, have we improved at all? Oh, my gosh. Was there a part of you that was worried, like, oh, this book might be dated by the time I come out with it?
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Stephanie O'Connell
I was so worried. Varnoosh. I sold this book when I was pregnant, and I wrote it during postpartum. So it took me longer than I thought it would. And I thought, oh, my goodness, by the time it comes out, it's not going to be relevant anymore. I thought we would have a woman president, and I was going to be making the case that don't be fooled by one woman in a position of power being being used as a proxy for. For this belief that gender inequality is all in the past. Little did I know how bad things were going to get. Little did I know that the pay gap was going to start growing in the wrong direction for two years in a row. And we'd see moms pushed out of the labor force and black women pushed out of the labor force in really targeted ways in 2025. So I guess it's more relevant than ever. And yet that's not really what I was hoping for when I was writing it.
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Farnoosh Torabi
Well, just to go back for a second, do you really hold the belief that if, let's say, Kamala Harris became president, that we shouldn't read too much into it?
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Stephanie O'Connell
Yeah, I do. I do. Because we have seen that the consequences of that firsthand. You know, when Barack Obama became president in 2008, there was this claim that, you know, racism is all in the past. And I think in objective terms, anyone who says that today is completely deluding themselves.
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Farnoosh Torabi
Where do they live? I want to go. I want to go to there. Yeah, that sounds like a euphoric place.
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Stephanie O'Connell
Yeah. But I think it was like, more Speaking to this idea of how in the last 10 years there was really this focus on the exceptions rather than the rule. And I do make the case that having women in positions of power is important. However, what often happens is when you really have spotlight on one or two women doing or achieving extraordinary things, you can really lose sight of the metrics that characterize women as a social group, you know, across class and race and all of the other metrics. We're a huge body of people and I never want us to lose sight of what is happening for women at scale. Because there's a difference between what it takes for everybody, a woman to get ahead and what it takes for women as a social class to get ahead to raise the floor, not just the ceiling.
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Farnoosh Torabi
There's a book out right now that's flying off the shelves by a corporate woman, Emma Greedy. And she's a woman who rose through the ranks and is now trying to teach everybody else as though her playbook is something that we can all aspire. Not only aspire to, but but run our career lives by. Where do you see the cracks in that?
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Stephanie O'Connell
I really think it's wonderful that Emma Greedy is ambitious and as ambitious as she is. I think what we get wrong is, to your point, saying that her playbook is something that any woman can adapt or adopt to achieve the same kinds of success. And I think this is really true for any woman who's risen within a position of power. There is a really big difference between what works statistically versus what works in a certain situation with a certain amount of people, with a certain amount of support. And when you talk to people about their anecdotal experiences, a lot of that other stuff, those exceptions qualifiers, we don't actually get a look at. We don't necessarily know. You know, in Emma Greedy's case, of course, we know that she was incredibly well connected. And so that is something that's not as highlighted in the story but is certainly really relevant to her trajectory. But that's often true in these cases. And that is not to take away from what these women have achieved. I think it's important that they've achieved it. I think it's great that they're ambitious. But one of the comments to speak to what she said about like, well, I'm just a three hour mom on the weekend and that's really enabled me to be able to commit myself to my work. And that's the thing I don't like about that, is not that that she wants to be a mom for three hours and the weekends, I don't really care about that. I also don't care if somebody wants to be a mom 24 7. What I really don't like is the implication that there's some amount of time that if you just spend with your kids, then suddenly you will be able to access childcare and a caregiving infrastructure that doesn't exist and you'll suddenly live in a world in lawyers don't systematically underpay mothers and which in which male partners step in with equitable support. I think there's this mythology that, well, if you only spent three hours on the weekend with your kids, you would solve for the motherhood penalty or a lot of the stereotypes that hold women back. And that's just not the case. Like the problem is the fact that there isn't child care and there isn't even if you do have child care and you stay as committed to your career and you do work as many hours as your male peers after having kids, like you're still going to be subject statistically to motherhood penalties. Fewer opportunities, fewer promotions, fewer pay raises. And I think that's why I decided with this book to take a very data driven approach to understand what is happening at the statistical level instead of the anecdotal level. Because when we're just talking about anecdotes, there's a lot to be learned and I think it's important. It's great to get insight from people, but as I said, there are so many different qualifiers and things we don't necessarily necessarily see. Maybe the people who even experience those successes don't necessarily see as applicable to them. That's not applicable to everyone. And so when I think we're, when we look at unequal outcomes specifically across identity, looking statistically really helps us understand what works at scale, what is the norm versus what is the exception. And that's not saying that like people don't want to be exceptional. I understand you want to be exceptional, but being exceptional, exceptional is not the same thing as closing pay gaps and closing wealth gaps and closing opportunity gaps. And in those situations, you have to know what the norm is and what the statistical reality is. Because then even if you are exceptional relative to your group, your exceptional is still statistically going to be much less than the exceptional of your, you know, more privileged white male peer, for example.
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Farnoosh Torabi
Yes, yes.
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Stephanie O'Connell
So we have to be equalizing at this. I think understanding the norms first before we can really start to optimize for our greatest achievements in a way that really is sustainable and works for people.
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Farnoosh Torabi
Yeah.
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And what I learned from your book is that at the very foundational level, women and as a society, we need to start to sort of rewrite a lot of these messages that we send to women. And we even just have in our heads that, for example, you know, if I would just work hard enough or if, you know, this idea that it is our faults. And what I'm learning throughout the pages is that, you know, we have to rewrite that to say, no, it's not because you didn't lean in hard enough. It's because the system is designed, actually designed to almost have you fail, you know, and so where does the education stop? And then the action begin? And I feel like the action requires more than just the person. It requires the collective.
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Stephanie O'Connell
Exactly. Now, I. I write a lot in this book, like, really debunking a lot of these myths to your point that women aren't achieving the same successes and opportunities and pay and wealth as their male peers because, like, they're not confident enough or they don't ask or anything. I really bust through those myths. But the other thing that I think is really important acknowledge is the research that shows us how much buying into those Ms. Actually locks gender inequality in place. So there's this really fascinating paper that showed that, you know, people who believed that women were underpaid because they didn't negotiate their salaries, they were also less willing to support pay transparency legislation and pay equity legislation, things that are actually proven to reduce gender gaps. So I think what is really important to take away from that is not only the. Not only correcting the misperception that the greatest barrier to opportunity is ourselves, but understanding what doubling down on that idea is really costing us. It's costing us solidarity. What we need to. To be able to demand the kinds of policies that actually are proven to reduce these gaps. And that's what you're alluding to is like, this is not just an individual project, it's a collective project. It's not to say that we shouldn't still have all of our best negotiation practices and skills at the ready, but it is to say that you doing all of the right things does not lead to the same outcomes for women as it does for men. And so in order to rectify that piece of the problem, you have to look past what you can do individually and start to add a collective element to each of these goals. So if the goal is to access more opportunity and pay in the workplace, then as much as you're optimizing your own negotiation strategy, let's also start looking at these collective elements like the pay transparency policies. Maybe the policy already exists. Maybe there is an equity pledge at the organization you work at, but is it being actually implemented? Is. Are our inequities being hidden in bonus pay and other things? Where is there an opportunity to start working collectively with other people at the organization to talk to management or HR about implementing these policies more equitably? And again, so it's not just you against the company, but rather you have a group of people who are coming to the company and saying, listen, you know, we want to make sure we're being valued. I know you want to make sure we feel valued as employees. And that not just improves your chances of getting what you ask for in a way that is more statistically effective, but it also reduces the risk of backlash, of having to do it all on your own.
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Farnoosh Torabi
Right. I often say, you know, because there is that statistic, you mentioned it. When women ask for a raise, they're more likely to be penalized even if they use the same script. And that to me, just signals that we need more women asking for raises because there's a part of that stigma or that bias, I think. And there's probably a lot going on there, but it's probably because, you know, we are. It's not stereotypically expected for women to ask for more than what they're given. Let's just like, say it very plainly. And so when you do that, it, even to another woman, it's considered an outlying experience. It's unsettling. And so you have a different reaction to it. And often too, too often that reaction is no. And so to normalize that is really the, the goal. Right. We have to just work harder. And so when you don't get the raise, talk about it, talk with other women, get people invested in this, in this problem.
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Stephanie O'Connell
And the other thing that, that it helps to talk about it is when we don't talk about this stuff and when we just continue to say these tropes, like the worst they can say is you face backlash for asking for more. And you've been raised on the idea that the worst they can say is no, then you're more likely to internalize it as a you problem instead of a problem with a system where people who have the same inputs experience different outputs depending on their identity. So that's not a personal problem, that's a problem with a system that's creating those different kinds of responses to the same request.
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Farnoosh Torabi
Yes.
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Stephanie O'Connell
And so when we don't share when this has happened to us, we already conditioned to internalize responsibility for every issue as a personal issue. We go in, we internalize, we go in on ourselves. Instead of reaching out to other people who maybe have been through something similar, even if they didn't necessarily have something as dramatic as having a job offer rescinded, maybe they were told that they were ungrateful or not a team player or not a good fit. And when we start to do that not only reduces our personal shame and the other things that we might internalize along the way, but it also helps us contextualize our experience within the broader experience of what is happening to all women. And that is a really important piece of this, and it's something I bring up throughout the book, is that so often we go back to thinking of this as a personal, individual problem. And instead if you can situate what is happening to you within the broader experience, within the data that I that I write quite a bit about in this book, it helps you understand that the biggest barriers to your advancement, to your opportunity, to getting more of what you want are not individual barriers happening from inside of you. They are collective barriers that are experienced in the world around you. And you are sharing those barriers with many other people. And the best way to push back against that kind of shared barrier is collectively, as you said, by speaking up about these things, by challenging the norm, by reshaping ideas of what women are allowed to claim for themselves. Because we're all talking about it.
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Farnoosh Torabi
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book you give us some takeaways like you gave the example of like, well, what's the worst that can happen? The worst they'll say is no. And then how to rethink that, reshape that. Well, I loved this one. When you hear women opt out of high paying male dominated work and then that's also like why we have the pay gap, for example, that some will say, right, well instead, how about this? Male dominated fields are more hostile towards working women, making it more difficult for women to be hired, advanced or be rewarded within them. And where's the lie in that? I don't see a lie in that.
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Stephanie O'Connell
There ain't no lies. There's like 450 citations in this book because you know, as a woman on the Internet I have heard I have been undermined every step of the way, you know.
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Farnoosh Torabi
So well, let's talk about personal stories. I want to talk about an example in my career and I want to hear too from your own personal life because we kind of grew up in the same time and place with personal finance and you know, working with different partners and doing all sorts of different kind of work. Speaking engagements, da da da. And so one time I was negotiating a deal, I was renewing a contract with a partner that things have been going really well. This was like our third year. And at one point during the conversation, now typically in these conversations you're working. I have an agent that's kind of working on my behalf with a brand rep and the Brand rep told my agent to tell me because I asked for more. She said, and it was a woman. Doesn't farnouche make enough already? And so. So I was like, the fire was lit. And I said to my agent, please write down the following and relay this to her. And he had no problem saying this to her. I said, you know, first of all, it's not of her business what I make. Like, I don't know what you're asking here. What I make enough in totality. This is just this contract. Whatever. Whatever you're referencing. Like, that's actually not the point. Right. And I also said, are you sure you want to go on the record telling a woman that she doesn't deserve to make more simply because. Because from where you stand, the money you're offering should be enough. Like, what. Where is the data? Where is. What are you using to make this judgment call? And you have to sometimes put people in their place and almost be like, would you say this out loud? Would you tweet this? Would you tweet this? Or what do we. Do we even use Twitter anymore? But, like, you know, the things. The audacity that we had have behind closed doors, the actions that we will take, the things that we will say, you know, really check yourself, because is this something that you want to have be let known widely to the public? And I'm speaking now to hiring managers, deal makers, negotiators, managers. That's a proud moment for me. And by the way, we got the raise. And so, yes, I had to. I had to threaten her a little bit to say, like, I'm gonna. Like, I'm a mom now, right? When your kids talk out of line and they're out of bounds, I've learned that you're supposed to be like, okay, do you want to do a rewind? Do you want to do a rewind of that? Let's pretend this didn't happen. Start over. Start over. And I had to sort of patronize her a little bit in that sense. But, like, that's sometimes what you got to do. This is. This is like, we're talking money here, you know, not.
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Stephanie O'Connell
Yeah, Candy, talking. We're talking about our livelihoods. And speaking of women and Money, you know, 45% of American mothers are the breadwinners in their households. So the idea that women, especially moms, should just be grateful, it really still rests on this assumption that the work women do is not actually necessary. Even as women are, between childcare, housework, and their financial contributions, they are the providers in this world. So the idea that it, quote, unquote, makes sense for women and mothers especially to be paid less just because they are caretakers is nonsensical. And yet there is still this idea that, you know, women's pay growth stalling out a decade before their male peers, per the latest 2025 analysis. Somehow. Yeah, well, that's when, when moms, you know, typically have young children. Of course, we would never say that fathers having young children is an explanation, a sufficient explanation for why they should suddenly flatline in their mid-30s and never recover. Earnings wise, it would be a five alarm fire. And yet here we are like three decades later and, and still seeing the same patterns. And it's just mystifying to me the level of comfort there is with that and the total lack of urgency around it. And I think it's just these deep seated ideas of what we think women are not or are not entitled to much with us, even though people are not very comfortable with admitting to it.
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Farnoosh Torabi
And you also talk about how over time it may seem like we've made a lot of progress in the sense that our acceptance of a woman's ambition has become less gross. Like we're not, we're not as like grossed out by it. Because I remember my mom in the 80s, right, going and asking for a raise, getting backlash, getting fired, and, and that completely turned her off, not only to that job, but like a lot of jobs, she just kind of was like, I'm good, I don't want to work anymore because that's not where I feel accepted. And we were way more, I think, in the 70s and 80s and prior to, I don't know, what would you say? What was the turning point? But then you also go on to say that it's kind of masked now, like, okay, we'll let you come in and work here. But a lot of these antiquated assumptions and biases endure.
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Stephanie O'Connell
Yeah. So what I really notice is that there is a lot of championing the ambition of young girls and even young women. And you see this. Certainly in my own childhood, I experienced this. You know, I was growing up in the 90s. Girl power, spice Girls. I'll tell you what I want, what I really, really want, you know, and then we got, of course, the girl boss era. This is, you know, when I was really starting my career. And so there was, was so much of this hyping up our ambition, letting us be whatever we want to be, imagine anything we want to be. But I started to notice the pushback almost immediately in the Transition to adulthood, when you went from really the potential of power where you're fostering an idea, a dream, the education and the skills needed to attain it, versus actually trying to act, access any of that power for yourself. So when you try to turn your education and your skills and your dreams into resources, money, compensation, and I think that has really shifted basically to the entry level. There is an acceptance of women's ambition to the point of, okay, let's let them dream, let's let them be very, very qualified and then let them enter their workforce. Course. But as soon as you start looking up into any position of management authority, meaningful power in that workplace, suddenly you see huge gaps open, emerge in terms of men's and women's outcomes. And you see a lot of the backlash rise and rise and rise, and it gets worse the higher up you try to climb. And I think what that tells us is that, that there is an acceptance of women's labor, like women's labor is now understood as incredibly valuable, but only insofar as it's used to really support the men in leadership. And I think there's people who are going to bristle at that suggestion. But statistically, the data really points that to this consistent pattern that there's an acceptance of women's labor up until the point that it challenges this perception of authority and power as being still very male coded. And these very, very stereotypical, what we might think of as dated tropes of authority, looking like a very old white dude. So I think we have a long way to go. And you know, if you certainly look in terms of just the data on who's in power, that really hasn't changed. I think people have. I actually write about this in the book. There's huge misperceptions about how far we've come when it comes to positions of power, leadership, even things like pay. You know, there's so much of a focus on women's educational outcomes and I think it has wound up being used to foster this narrative of progress. And that's not to say that educational progress is in progress. But one thing I point out is that, you know, women started outpacing men and college 40 years ago, and yet we are still living in a world in which pay gaps have been locked in place for two decades. And women, 83% of men in corporate leadership and 83% of those in corporate leadership are men, overwhelmingly white men. Right. So we're not seeing these, these outcomes really change beyond that entry level.
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Farnoosh Torabi
And I've seen it too, in relationships where you might have in hetero relationships. I have a friend who, you know, she was a stay at home mom, took a break from her career for a while, was a stay at home mom, then started a business. The business is now doing really well. And she told me, you know, I think I might make more than my husband this year. And I think it's going to be a problem for him. You know, like he never thought that was, that she would eclipse him financially because he's also, he also works in finance. So like that's a real sensitive area of self worth for him. And, and I get that in some ways. But now it's like completely changed, you know, a little bit of their, of their dynamic in the marriage. So of course that's going to play
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out in the workplace.
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It's playing out in relationships.
- [36:14]
Stephanie O'Connell
Yeah, I just, I did not know how big a deal this would be when I started researching the book. I wound up dedicating maybe a quarter of the book to relationships. And it's really a workplace book. But what I started to see as I dug into the data was just how much inequality outside of the home depends on the inequality within it. And you really see some really striking numbers. For example, when you compare the incomes of single men to married men, even controlling forced lecture bias like the people who get married are already more likely to be more educated. But even if you control for that, you just see the, these enormous gaps in earnings. And I think it really tells us something about how much access to women's unpaid labor is really subsidizing a lot of men's careers in ways that actually make it more difficult for all of us to advance. Because if some people are getting ahead because they have access to free labor in the home that other people, including single men, don't have access to, that's what's reinforcing a culture of like 247 workplace availability expectations and in office mandates and rigid work schedules that don't work well for, for most people who don't have that kind of added free labor to access. So I think it's really, really important that we acknowledge how much the household inequality we experience isn't just a personal problem again, but it's part of a broader pattern. What you said about your friend who, who's worried about outpacing her male partner's income because you think she thinks he's going to react poorly statistically in the data that is borne out, women whose incomes outpace their male partners in heterosexual relationships are not materially different in terms of their commitment to their relationship. There's this very dated stereotype that it's like the Miranda Priestly cutthroat career woman. But the data show women continue to engage in more household labor, continue to do more childcare, as you know. Well, even when they are the breadwinners, as you've written your book about. But despite doing all of that and carrying all of that load, these women are also likely to face backlash in their home for their successes, much like they are in the workplace for their successes. I, I found a paper that showed that physical violence against breadwinning women, the incidence of physical violence goes up 35% and emotional abuse goes up 20%. And so what I see really consistently, both anecdotally and in the data is we really have deep seated issues with, we have to have a reckoning with these ideas of what power is supposed to look like and who is allowed to act, access it. Because as soon as we start even attempting to share it, rather than having it being hoarded among a group of, of men, typically white, privileged, rich men, suddenly there is real backlash against everyone else who's trying to access some of it for themselves. And that's hurting all of us.
- [39:45]
Farnoosh Torabi
Yeah, because look, people want to stay safe. Yeah, they.
- [39:50]
Stephanie O'Connell
And understandably, understandably.
- [39:52]
Farnoosh Torabi
You know, I just had on a guest and we were talking about how the girl boss promise of the girl boss. Right. Stiletto your way up the, up the ladder. And you know, it sort of started with lean in and then it was the girl boss book. And so like that kind of, I feel like the, the, the emperor had no clothes on that. And. But what happened was there was sort of this movement towards traditional wifery, like, okay, if I can't be the girl boss, I'm gonna be the super mom. And like, I find that we've just sort of, we're working in these extremes. And it's a shame because I feel like there's so much opportunity in the middle.
- [40:42]
Stephanie O'Connell
And it's also just, just one of the things I like to point out is that the girl boss and the trad wife are, they seem like two opposite sides. And in a way they are, but they actually share the same fundamentally flawed formula. And that is basically the idea that a greatest barrier to women getting what they want is themselves. The girl boss is telling you, okay, you're not confident enough and you're not ambitious enough. The trad wife is telling you you're not feminine enough, or you don't have enough children, or you're not submissive enough. But both of those really put the problem in women. Instead of reckoning with the environment around women, that burns them out, underpays them, overworks them, no matter which tack they take. And meanwhile, you have the guys out here, not that, you know, they're doing fabulously, but relatively speaking, you know, while the trad wife is telling you to give up your paycheck and actually not give up your labor, but simply redirect it into the home, what they're ultimately leaving in place is that system that rewards men and gives them more access to leisure and money and work life balance at women's expense. And that's only going to reinforce that system rather than challenge it. And that's one of the other things I point out in, in the later chapters in the book on relationships is men in the United States actually have more free time than women, and they have better work life balance, and they did not have to give up any of their public power and economic autonomy to access it. So whenever we have these conversations about, like, whether it's tradwifery or even, you know, more honest things like work life balance, which I understand why it's a real struggle, I want to reframe the conversation between, you know, the work world and our personal lives from between the work life balance or imbalance women have access to versus the work life balance men have access to because the fact is they have more of it. And work and family life is automatically assumed to be mutually reinforcing for men in a way that is still positioned as mutually exclusive for women. And that is the problem for me.
- [43:02]
Farnoosh Torabi
Like, right, you have to choose.
- [43:03]
Stephanie O'Connell
Refocus. Yes.
- [43:05]
Farnoosh Torabi
I mean, I'm like, this crazy anecdote. I was on the. On a flight coming home the other day, spring break, and there were these two dads, two men who had, like, were traveling alone, and they were each sitting in the aisle seats in. In the same row. So they were chatting. And I was right behind one of the dads. And at one point the dad says, one of the dads says, you know, my wife had a big career when we were dating. But then, you know, she. She had to give it up because she needed to become a mom. Mom. And I was like, oh, oh, is
- [43:37]
Stephanie O'Connell
that how it works?
- [43:38]
Farnoosh Torabi
Like, I didn't realize, have you given up your career to be a dad? Like, and now she has. They have three children. And then he was complaining that she was spending too much on the credit card. No respect. This is the other thing too, Steph, that, like, we just don't value caregiving we do not value it. And I. And we meaning men, women, everyone. Yeah, we don't appreciate this as, and you said this, you know, more eloquently than I am now. I'm just raving enraged right now.
- [44:06]
Stephanie O'Connell
I'm just rage with me.
- [44:08]
Farnoosh Torabi
I'm just like, there's just fire coming out of my ears. But like we, at the end of the day, if we could just get around appreciating the care that is not the care of like in a board meeting at work, getting a deal done. You know what I mean? There's so much more to life. And to your point, it is the stuff that allows you to then, that allows the other partner to then go and do all of those things. Things that bring home, you know, a paycheck.
- [44:36]
Stephanie O'Connell
Totally. I always say that what's really telling about these soft life trad wife accounts is that they're not actually advocating for the kinds of policies that would enable more people to engage in that lifestyle full time. Like it'd be one thing to be like, look at my beautiful home, look at my beautiful children. Don't you want universal healthcare and basic income protections and paid leave and, and other policies that would actually value the labor and the care work that would enable more people to engage in it full time? But that's not what they're saying. They're out here peddling a fantasy and then telling you to double down on things that will make that fantasy even less accessible and more economically vulnerable and fraught for you. And that's because they don't actually value caregiving as much as they might pretend they do. What they value is a gendered division of labor and a gendered division of power. And that is very different from valuing careg. They do not want universal health care and basic income protections because it would mean men could engage in caregiving labor too. And they are explicitly against that. And so why I really want to refocus so much of this book around is like the way we have positioned the things as trade offs that shouldn't be. And where we need to really reframe the conversation as like, this isn't about care versus paid labor. This is about making everything we want to do more accessible to everyone. And positioning things as, as tradeoffs in this way and in these very gendered ways is actually doubling down on reinforcing the systems that are making it so
- [46:19]
Farnoosh Torabi
difficult to begin with the ambition penalty. It's like, I can't believe I'm holding it. It's so cool. Like years ago, I know. Well, you know, I think if I can do nothing, it's I can spot a good idea. I don't have many of them of my own, but I know when someone else has a really good idea. And when you came out with this, I was like, oh, my gosh, this is a TED Talk. This is a book. This is a movement. Stephanie o', Connell, thank you so much for writing this book. You should have like, basically an honorary degree in economics at this point.
- [46:51]
Stephanie O'Connell
This is my thesis.
- [46:53]
Farnoosh Torabi
Harvard, Gail, Princeton. Give her a PhD already. Stephanie OConnell, thank you so much.
- [46:58]
Stephanie O'Connell
Thank you. Varnish
- [47:02]
Farnoosh Torabi
the Ambition Penalty How Corporate Culture tells Women to Step up and Then
- [47:06]
Pushes Them down comes out tomorrow.
- [47:09]
I'll see you back here on Wednesday.
- [47:10]
And I hope your day is so.
- [47:26]
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