More Money Podcast - 382 Wealth, Women and the Ambition Penalty - Stefanie O'Connell Rodriguez, Writer and Founder of Too Ambitious

Episode Date: November 22, 2023

Why is there still a gender pay gap? Why are women so often criticized or penalized for being ambitious and career-focused? Why is it so much harder for women to build the same kind of wealth and achieve the same form of success as men when they follow the same rules? These are some big questions to ask, which is why I invited back on the show to try to answer them. Since Stefanie was first on , all the way back in 2016, a lot has changed since then. Over the past few years, she's launched the website as well as an award-winning newsletter of the same name to tackle topics often overlooked in the personal finance space such as the gender pay gap, the motherhood penalty, and other barriers that women in particular face when it comes to building wealth and successful careers compared to their male counterparts. In our discussion together, Stefanie not only shares her take on some of the hot-button issues, but she also brings receipts in the form of hard data and academic studies. For full episode show notes visit: https://jessicamoorhouse.com/382 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

and welcome back to the more money podcast this is episode 382 and i of course am your host jess morehouse welcome back to the show so excited to have a repeat guest but it's been a very long time since i've had her on the show and a lot has changed in both of our careers our lives since she was on the show she was on the show back in february It was, I think, after that was only like six, was it six months? So that I think was my first season of the show. Yeah, because the first season of the More Money podcast, if you're brave enough to listen to that first season, it is, you know, raw. Let's just call it that. I was trying to figure out how to do a podcast while still working a full time job. Oh my gosh, that was rough. She was episode 35, if you ever want

to check her out. I'm talking about Stephanie O'Connell Rodriguez. Of course, I should say who I'm talking about. She was on the show back then to talk about millennials and money and a bunch of things. I wanted to have her back on the show because she's kind of pivoted a little bit away from just personal finance content. I mean, she's still doing stuff in that space, but she's really done some amazing work in the past year or two talking about ambition, power, women, and it's just, I love what she's doing, especially on her Instagram and her newsletter. So definitely make sure to follow her on Instagram at Stephanie O'Connell. She is just making some really high quality reels like damn, like really, really, really good stuff. She has research she has she's got receipts about everything that she's talking about, which I really appreciate. But also she has an amazing

newsletter called too ambitious. And for a good several years, she was also hosting and producing a real simple magazines money confidential podcast that was named one of Spotify's best For a good several years, she was also hosting and producing Real Simple Magazine's Money Confidential podcast that was named one of Spotify's best new shows of 2021 and also won a 2022 Webby Award honoree and a 2022 Eddie and Ozzie Award and also a 2023 Signal Gold Award winner. Gosh, a lot of awards going on. So we really dive in in this episode and it was great. Partly, it was selfishly that I wanted her on the show. I wanted to make a good episode. But also, I'm doing some

research for my book. And so this was kind of killing two birds with one stone, having her on the show. And then also like, oh, great. There's some great resources and good little nuggets that I can put into my book, which is amazing. So you're going to love, love, love, love this episode. So without further ado, let's get to that interview. But before I get to that interview, I want to share a little bit more information about my online course that you may not even know about, but it's been around for almost three years called Wealth Building Blueprint for Canadians. It's a course I built specifically with you Canadian listeners in mind who want to learn how to do passive investing like I've been talking about for years on the show. If you want to get rich slowly,

invest for the long term, you don't want to day trade or dabble in something speculative like cryptocurrency or some hot stocks that you find online. You just want to make sure you can retire one day or save enough for buying a home. And this course can help you. It is specifically about all the fundamentals you need to know about investing as a Canadian. But then I also show you how to build a strategic investment plan and then how to invest in your own portfolio by way of either using a robo-advisor or doing it on your own from scratch. There's lots of worksheets and calculators and spreadsheets that you will not find anywhere else on the internet,

hence why I had to build them myself, but also get lifetime access as well as access to the private Facebook group, my monthly Q&A sessions for students, a private email you can contact me with, and you also get a private one-on-one session with me when you finish the course as well. There are so many benefits to the course, so I highly recommend going to jessicamorehouse.com slash course to find more

information and to apply. Again, that's jessicamorehouse.com slash course to learn more and to apply. Welcome back to the podcast, Stephanie. You know, I think the last time you were on the show, I think I emailed you, I think it was in 2015, possibly when he just started. That was eight years ago. Wow. A lot has changed. Absolutely. For both of us. For both of us, for the better. We're, we're doing great. I am so in love with what you are doing. And also, I mean, we've known each other for a while, so I've seen your, your journey, your career journey. And I love that you like figured out something that is just hitting everybody like, oh, yeah, this is it. This is and this is so you. So I'm so excited to have you on the show to talk about ambition, to talk about women, to talk about why it's just harder for us.

And we can't ignore this. I've got to tell you a story. So when, you know, we have International Women's Day and I rarely like talk about I don't know, I've been getting a little bit more like, hey, I'm going to talk about like my views on things. But I put a post being like, you know, let's stop with like having these bullshit like International Women's Day parties or whatever, because I remember working in the office. It's like happy International Women's Day. I'm like, great. I know I'm still earning less than this guy. Right. Like, let's stop with the facade and actually do something about it. And not so much on Instagram, but on TikTok, I got a lot of comments being like, the gender pay gap doesn't exist. And then I'm like, well, here's all these stats. Like,

people still don't believe this. Why do you think people still have a hard time accepting that we haven't broken the glass ceiling and things are still unequal. It's pretty wild because there's just so much data around how unequal society remains. And this is not just across gender identity. This is also true across racial identity and ethnicity and ability and sexuality and all of these different metrics. And it's not even close with some of these things, right? These are persistent gaps. And the thing that really strikes me, particularly with gender, just because it's such a critical mass of people, like half the population. You can't explain it away. No.

That it really hasn't changed in our lifetime. And I think that's the thing that really started to light my fire when I was seeing these people kind of claim that this isn't a real problem or that we're past this or that the next generation is solving this. Because when you confront the data, like from the time that I was born to now, the pay gap is almost the same. And I think that's something that one, a lot of people don't realize. And then two, people have all of these justifications, right? It's this idea, there's this mythology of, well, women just choose to have children, right? So as though men don't have children. Yeah, like there's someone else involved in that, but okay. I think there are other people who have children in the workforce, right? Or women just choose lower paying jobs or women aren't interested in certain fields or women aren't

capable of having the upper body strength to do this and therefore, you know, make this kind of money. And it's predicated on two things. One is this idea of the myth of the way women are as being fundamentally, naturally, inherently different from the way men are psychologically, physically. And these differences are incredibly overstated. Like there's a lot of variety in the human population, but the differences between groups are very very very small when you look at gender differences the differences between people are big but if you look at a full group versus a full group you don't see those same kinds of differences and so there's a lot of conflation of this idea of like natural differences with destiny and one it's bullshit and then the second is this idea of choice justification oh women just don't want this or aren't suited to this or preference they prefer these things and again

it's just so steeped in mythology when you have people saying i was trying to get this job in i was just posting a reel the other day, in trucking. And the company won't hire me because they don't have enough women to train other women. And they don't let men train women because men sexually assault women. And you're like, I think we're trying to solve the wrong problem. Right. It's like, wait, first of all, the policy that men can't train women is a ridiculous way to solve for men sexually assaulting women. Fire these freaking men.

Yeah, it's like maybe fire the predators. I don't know. An idea. Second of all, this is how it works. This is the gatekeeping effect that keeps these people out of the industry and prevents them from getting these kinds of jobs. And then people like to say, oh, women just don't want to be truckers. And it's like, no, that, you know, you look at a difference, a real difference in an outcome. And then you kind of say, well, this difference in outcome is proof that, you know, women don't like these jobs that pay well. And it's just not true

because you can parse out any single one of these arguments. And this is what I've basically dedicated my Instagram to doing. Take any one of these arguments these misogynists are claiming and you will find the proof points of why it's within professions. You know, comparing the same job level is also very myopic way to talk about pay gaps because it fails to capture the fact that you have men and they still won't get the promotion. So comparing at a job level is already fundamentally missing half of the pay gap. You know, these are the kinds of nuances that I think really get overlooked. And I think I was surprised to your point earlier about the extent to which we're living in denial. And there's some research, at least in the United States, I think it's almost half of American men believe the gender pay gap is solely made up for political purposes. Half? Oh my God. Yeah, it's something really disturbing.

And even people who have not hostile sexism, but just like kind of benevolent sexism, like this idea that men and women have different but complementary skills. Right. It's not a bad thing or a good thing. They're always positioning women's skills as somehow like mutually exclusive from equal pay and power. And so it creates this hierarchy and reinforces an argument or justifies what is really unjustifiable inequality. And that's what I wanted to confront was to say, no, this is nonsense. These are myths that all of us, I think, even me, you know, have unwittingly internalized about ourselves and the way the world works. And we have a lot of work to do to dig up this mythology and start looking at what does

it really mean to facilitate equal outcomes by acknowledging the fact that the systems and the norms that we have built are not doing that currently. I'm curious because so you know how we know each other is like being in the personal finance sphere and then you kind of pivoted to talking more about this topic and you have your newsletter and everything like that. What inspired that shift? Because it's like for me it's like oh it's you know adjacent but it's different. Did something happen? Like, was it based off personal experience or, you know, what inspired it? It was a bit of a journey.

I'll say that. So I've been writing about personal finance. But, you know, as a woman writing about money, I was always asked, you know, or at least sent the press releases about these ideas of like, well, why don't women earn as much? Or why don't they negotiate as much? Or why don't they invest as much? And a lot of the things that would come up in these surveys, I would find to be really not reflective of what I was hearing and reading and seeing in the conversations that I was having with women who were in the workforce, who were asking for more, who were really trying to lean into their financial lives, oftentimes more so than the men in their lives or the men that I was speaking to.

And I was like, something here feels really disconnected. And what I started to find was that in these conversations, I was coming up against a lot of anecdotes and stories. And one of the ones that hit me was that I was speaking to a woman who was working in tech and she had been negotiating her salary, following all of the best practices, bringing data points, bringing market research research really contextualizing her offer reiterating her excitement and her commitment to work with the company like best practices check

check check and you know how job interviews are these days she went through like the 10 rounds they were psyched but as soon as she asked for more the company completely went cold on her. They rescinded her job offer. She was crushed. She was like, what do you mean? My whole life, I was told that the answer to gender inequality is just ask for more. And yet here I am doing it and doing it in all the ways I've been taught and following all the best practices. And not only does it not work, but I'm being punished for it. And for a while, she felt depressed because she had never heard of this phenomenon that women actually do face more backlash when they do ask for more than their male counterparts. But because she had never heard it, she thought

it must be me. It's my issue. I did something wrong. And then she really struggled with that emotionally. Like we talk about this idea of imposter syndrome of not feeling worthy. She had never felt that before. Imposter syndrome came from the result of this experience. It came from a result of the sexism that she had to face in the workforce. It wasn't because she's a woman that she's naturally born with imposter syndrome. She was made to feel that way because she enacted the exact same behavior as her male colleagues and her male colleagues get rewarded and she's being told, no, you don't belong and she's penalized for it. And so after a while of kind of nursing those wounds,

she said, she started speaking and reaching out to a couple of friends and talking about that experience because she had to kind of process through it. And she said, I talked to three close friends about it who had the exact same story. And I was like, oh my gosh, this is like, at the time I was like you're blowing my mind because forever the advice was like the worst they can say is no and yet time and time again

there's something worse right time and time and now we're talking about like not just no we're talking about withdrawn job offers we're talking about and I've gone on to have many of these conversations with people, but people who like, oh, they'll ask for a raise and they won't get fired. But then like their boss starts treating them differently or they become the difficult one or they get seen as not a good fit or not committed to the company. And it's like, wait a second here. This is some bullshit. And so what I decided to do after hearing so many of these stories was look at the data more broadly, because a lot of the data I had been immersed in was really personal finance focused. And again, if you just look at outcomes, if you just look at pay, if you just look at promotion rates, if you just look at whatever, you do see these gender disparities. And so you can easily say, yeah, women you just look at whatever, you do see these gender disparities.

And so you can easily say, yeah, women invest less than men. Why is that? Oh, because they're not confident enough or they're risk averse or whatever it is. very this limited set of studies that actually show oh actually if you contextualize income with investing behavior you know it's differences in income that dictate risk capacity not differences in gender women earn less they have less money to risk you know so it's not like women are these like naturally risk averse people it's just that they make less money and they have less money available to risk. And they are more likely to be the ones who are caring for their family members and their constituencies and realizing that it gives them less to risk on investments. So these were the

kinds of threads I just started seeing upon really looking deeper into the data and saying like, wow, this doesn't really reflect the reality of these people's experiences at all. And actually, there's this huge body of research that shows us why. Yeah. No, I think that's what I saw. I remember seeing those posts early when you were kind of making this pivot. And it shocked me because that was always my worst fear because I always thought, yeah, the worst they can say is no, but no, that is not the worst thing that could happen. They can actually take away the offer, and you never hear those stories. I've certainly never heard a story of a man asking for more and then not getting the job. They'll just get a no. But it's incredible, especially since,

you know, I think we kind of grew up when, you know, Lean In came in, and that was kind of like putting the onus on women. You're not trying hard enough. Lean in. And I believe that. I thought that book was amazing. And then I tried doing some of the things that she said in her book, and I literally didn't get any positive results from it. I asked my boss for a raise in promotion and the result wasn't a no. It was a yes, except a delay, delay, delay. And what actually happened was I started doing more, providing more value and output because they're like, oh, the raise and promotion title changes is coming, but just start doing that job anyway. So I thought that was going to happen. Eight months later, nothing happened. So I quit. I think that's a very common story I've heard from other people, too. It's like,

well, I was promised this and it didn't happen. And I thought I was doing the right thing. That's such a good story, too, because like then there's this argument's like, well, I was promised this and it didn't happen. And I thought I was doing the right thing. That's such a good story, too, because like, then there's this argument of like, well, why do women take on all of this extra office work and this office labor? You know, they shouldn't do that. They should demand their value. And it's like, you're wrong no matter what you do. Yeah, it's like I did and it still didn't happen. And then there's all these expectations. And then if I stopped, if I like and I feel like near the end, I was kind of quiet quitting. Either I either they didn't notice that I was doing less or they were like, oh, is everything OK? And I'm like, what's happening here?

Am I like a bizarro world? Yeah, it makes you feel crazy. And that's the other thing I really want my work to speak to is there's so much gaslighting in these conversations around women and work and career. Not only is the sexism and misogyny so embedded still in the workplace and kind of frankly everywhere. It's in the home life, too. It's in relationships.

It's in families. But also there's this mythology of, well, that was 50 years ago, and that is not the case. In fact, some of this is even more insidious because it's not as explicit as saying we just don't hire women or we just don't promote women. They're telling you that, well, we do, but you didn't do it in this right way. Or it was because of X, Y, and Z factor and there's always another moving of the goalpost and there's almost always a double standard in the way it applies to women and doesn't apply to men. Now all of this being said, this doesn't mean I'm anti-negotiation. It doesn't mean I'm anti-advocating for yourself. But my issue with

the way this career advice has been positioned is that one, it's that simple, and two, that it works equally for everybody, because that's not true. It doesn't work equally for men and women. It doesn't work equally for people of color. It doesn't work equally for so many people across intersections of identity and i think why i think this conversation is important rather is because when we don't acknowledge that there's a full spectrum of possibility and a lot of it is driven still by discrimination and bias then people go into the place of it must just be me and it must just be my fault instead of recognizing that this is still like a very deeply flawed workplace. And it doesn't mean we shouldn't try, right, and still do these best practices. But if we acknowledge that

it's not me, it's them, then we can shift the context, right? It's like, okay, if it's them, let me see if I can go to a new context and find real support and champions of the things I'm trying to do, because I know the value I have to offer. And even if these people can't get on board with it, there are other people who will. Exactly. I think, yeah, there's two things there. So number one, the gaslighting thing. I'm so glad that is a term because for so many years, I didn't know how to describe how I felt, but I had so many workplaces where I'm like, why do I feel like I'm, yeah, I'm not good enough. I'm not trying hard, but I'm like, I know I am, but I'm very confused. Like you said, the sexism, the discrimination, and I feel like there's an alignment with,

you know, also racial discrimination. It's so subtle. It's not like what you see in like those movies where it's like someone saying a bad word to you or, you know, what have you. It's so subtle with just a few little actions or you're left off an email or something like that, that you're like, you feel like, am I going crazy? Is this me? Did I do something? And then you spiral. And this has happened to me at so many different workplaces. It's only now that I've been like self-employed for almost seven years that I

can see it through a different lens. I'm like, oh my God, that's what that was. That wasn't my fault. I was in a toxic work environment that was heavily sexist, but it wasn't the sexism that I grew up understanding. It was this different layer that I didn't understand at the time. But the other thing that you mentioned that, you know, it's when you recognize, okay, this space is not working for me. I keep on getting pushed down or told to stay there. It is not your job to fix an institutional problem. Like, I think a lot of us women think we need to fix it. It's, oh, it's a problem that we have, so we should fix it.

I've tried at every place I've worked, and it was never a good result in the end. It was always a better result when I chose to leave for a better situation. But that's also really hard because then you feel like you're quitting, you're failing. It's, again, your fault. You didn't do good enough. And it's just like a spiral of wow we're just I'm the worst I mean and it's it's hard it's just hard to do like I hate when you know in personal finance world people are like oh your expense your cost of living is really high

why don't you just move like that's something that's a lot of reasons why like even for me I don't feel safe in certain small towns so they're much more affordable right and it's the same thing you know I'm saying this at through the framework of like you know if you're in an environment where your ambition is constantly undermined and not supported and championed I think it's time to start looking at new environments but I also acknowledge that that is very difficult. And I just want to say that nothing is just anything. It is always more complicated. And I think that complexity and nuance is something you and I are both really trying to do more of in our work because I think

it's a real disservice. I think things that are easy and straightforward sell well. Yeah. But it's, I think, ultimately a disservice. Actually, there was some great research that came out earlier this year, specifically on the negotiation thing, this idea of, oh, well, women just don't ask for more and therefore that's why there's a gender pay gap. And so this research found, not only is that not true, but they also found that the myth that women don't ask for more is what people cite as a reason for paying women less. They use the myth, there was evidence of using the mythology of these gender differences

to justify the gender differences. And I was like, this is the thing I'm talking about, right? And so I think it's really important in the work we do to not just talk about this nuance, but really call out these narratives and start doing this myth busting. Because what this research tells us is that is what is gonna create some accountability is to challenge these narratives and say no you can't gaslight with me anymore because i know better i i wonder too if there's one thing i was thinking of we hear a lot of these stats like i hear often it's like women aren't you know financially confident imposter syndrome those things get talked about all the freaking time of, we hear a lot of these stats, like I hear often, it's like women aren't, you know, financially confident, imposter syndrome, those things get talked about all the frickin time. And I feel

like sometimes the more we talk about them in a way that women are like this, you almost perpetuate it, you can't help it. And so like, I am trying to reframe, I try not to say imposter syndrome anymore, because doing research for the book, I'm like, you know what? I never had imposter syndrome up until I started working in a space where they discriminated me. I never felt like that in film school. And it was male dominated because it was a wonderful art bubble where everyone was like, it doesn't matter your gender. We just judge you on your art. And it was a beautiful space. And then I remember going to my first job, which was still a very art focused space, but male dominated and realizing like, oh, things are different here. And this I was not prepared for this. And I kind of, I was a super ambitious, confident person,

and did really well in film school. And I finished and I recognized during that it was just a four month job at this film festival, I became someone different. And I think I was just like, I didn't know who to be. I didn't know where my space was. And I was trying to look to other women to see what were they doing. And they were very quiet. They worked really hard. They didn't complain, all these types of things. And I'm like, I guess that's what I should do. But I feel like, yeah, sometimes we're looking to what are other women doing? And sometimes they're doing what other people are doing. Then we're just perpetuating these myths and then actually then becoming the reality, which is terrible. But I don't blame women.

No, no, no, no, no, no, exactly. We're just trying to do what we think is right and trying to survive. Yeah, yeah. It makes a lot of sense and i do think it's important that we talk about all of these things within a broader structural context right everything that we see even like the sex even explicitly hostile sexism perpetuated by men or women it's just part of this broader system of incentives and disincentives of like, who are you supposed to, quote unquote, be in the world? Men are supposed to be providers, leaders, ambitious, bold.

And so when they behave in those ways, they are rewarded. And when they don't behave in those ways, they are penalized, right? When men take paternity leave, they get backlash. And that's a problem too. So this isn't just about like, these are bad men or bad women, right? It's not that. It's about questioning this broader structure of who is supposed to be this way and who is supposed to be the other way, and then punishing people when they behave in these kind of counter-stereotypical ways. Women are allowed to be leaders too. Women are allowed to be ambitious too. And men are allowed to be nurturing and they're allowed to be empathetic. And we are already all of these things. We have greater well-being when we're allowed to be

all quote-unquote masculine and feminine. And we only hurt ourselves when we're allowed to be all quote-unquote masculine and feminine and we only hurt ourselves when we're cutting parts of those pieces of our personalities off and and hurting each other and i think the difficult thing is it is really hard to be countered to those roles those traditional roles that again are, are sometimes very subtle, but little things that I remember, like one thing that was really important for me, and I'm like, I don't know if I knew why I was doing this at the time. They, at one workplace, they always asked the support workers, and I was one of them, to take over reception for the hour that the receptionist was on lunch break. And I refused to do it because I'm like, why are you asking me? You're not asking these sales reps. They're not

freaking doing anything. And I worked there three years and I think I did it once. And then I said, sorry, I'm too busy. I'm too busy with work. I don't want to be the receptionist because I'm a woman. And it was basically just women. I think there was one guy who, you know, volunteered to do it. But it was hard. I got flack for not doing it because I didn't want to, you know, be a stare. I don't I didn't want to be the stereotypical receptionist because that was not my role. But it was expected of me and not lots of the other men that could have absolutely done it. Well, and this is a great example because it shows you the impossibility of the catch 22, because if you do do it, then the argument will be, well, you shouldn't be providing this extra unpaid labor. You know, this is the problem that women always

take on this stuff. And, you know, and no wonder they're not compensated their full value. But then if you, you know, if you don't do it, then like, what's wrong with you? You're the problematic one. Why can't you step up and be a team player? And I think that's the thing that drives me crazy about the discourse in the workplace and certainly talking about the workplace online. There's just no way to win. And you just see this come up in absolutely every example. This was such a such a simple thing, right? Manning the desk. But you see this in age discrimination for women. There was a study that came out that showed when women are in their 20s, they're perceived as being too young for most professional roles. And then they tip into being

perceived as too old, and there is no in between. And that not only is an ageism standard, but it's a gendered ageism standard. Same thing with body weight. You know, I saw that that you did on Instagram. Yeah, I did a review on this research, too. You know, when women gain body mass, they're discriminated against, you know, and that might not be surprising, but then aren't. Yeah, in the same ways. And so it's it's like again this double standard of how all of these different intersections of identity and being are held to such a different standard depending on the gender of the person who's you know expressing it or has that identity so it's just i i think it's a lot to your point earlier about it's harder to pinpoint, but it's insidious in that it's absolutely everywhere.

It's everywhere. Yeah. Have you found any data to just speaking to the body mass research? Because one argument I see a lot of and one thing that I've complained a lot about is makeup for women. And the argument always is like, well, you don't have to wear makeup. I'm like, I absolutely do. Yeah, I absolutely do. If I'm doing speaking, if I'm on TV tv if i'm going to an event and i have to

and and hair takes 45 minutes to an hour that is time and i spend money on these products you know you will earn less if you don't yeah and so but then they're like well if you don't want to spend your time and your money on that then don't do it i'm like it's but i know for a fact i have to and and even to like I was talking to a male friend of mine and you know, we do lots of media and stuff like that. I'm like, honestly, I say no to quite a bit of media now because it's awesome. I don't really see too much of an ROI for doing a quick five minute thing on the news that I don't get paid for. But I'm like, the cost the sun costs unless I'm already in hair and makeup for I'm going to do some Instagram reels or I'm

going to do something else. It's doesn't make sense for me. Whereas a guy Oh, yeah, I'm going to do some Instagram reels or I'm going to do something else. It doesn't make sense for me. Whereas a guy, oh, yeah, I'm free right now. But sometimes I get a call like, oh, you free in 30 minutes. Like, I can't do it in 30 minutes because I'll still be doing my hair and makeup for a thing that maybe someone will see on TV. So what's the point? And it's yeah, it's frustrating. Yeah, I identify with that a lot personally, doing a lot of media.

And then like it's winds up being a full day commitment for like three minutes. You're like, what else can I do with this? Like, honestly, I'm like, what else can I do with this makeup today then? Yeah. But again, like another thing that's highly gendered, also highly racialized. You just see these things come up in absolutely every aspect. And I think, you know, we were talking about equal pay before. Pay is just one metric of the way these things show up. It's in recruitment, it's in hiring processes, and it's in evaluation processes, it's in promotions, it's in how leaders are evaluated, right? So I think the same way that makeup and appearance and body mass and like all of these little things become

gendered and then they each they're gendered their discrimination and bias across gender identity on each of those dimensions are then compounded by the total number of qualities of all those things and then that's compounded by the total number of processes in the workforce. And it's just like, oh, I then see how this idea of a microaggression then becomes such, creates such huge disparities. Yeah. And yeah, another term I'm so glad exists, microaggression, because those things have existed my whole work life. It wasn't until I was able to create a career where I'm in control. But also, too, I recognize I have an agent who mainly who does all of my negotiation for my behalf. He's a man. And I'm pretty sure I make more money because he is a man. I don't know that for a fact. He's also

a good agent. But also, I'm just like, I wonder if that having that kind of you can't get to me unless you talk to this man makes me more money. I mean, I think I get more because of that. My agent is also a man. I mean, also self-employment protects me from a lot. Yes. And it's interesting now because there's been more research coming out about what happened during COVID. And as more people were able to work from home, they weren't subject to as much daily discrimination that comes with going into the office and those kind of toxic workplace interactions. And you did see there's women's labor force participation, at least here in the United

States, is at a record high because of that. So I think there's a lot of quote unquote solutions that people talk about that I'm always really skeptical of because they're always talking about it within the context of like in this one anecdotal instance, this worked for me or this for like the top one percent of people. And I'm always really interested in when do we see changes that create a real impact for the majority of people, right? So seeing women's labor force participation hit a record high at a time when flexible and remote work was adopted at a level we've never seen before, that actually tells us something. And then that makes all of these conversations about people demanding you return to office for jobs that have been proven to not be needed to be done in office all the more nefarious. Because then you can just say, like, we know now that that's just sexist. I know. And I know you want me to come to the office merely because you have a lease on a building that, you know, just like sublease it. My gosh, there's solutions to this stupid problem. I'm curious, too, because I feel

like I did see a reel that showed women were the first to kind of being let go during COVID. So it's like, we're always the ones to like, oh, there's, you know, there's a war, we'll step in. And they're like, oh, the men are back. So you can go back to your home. We're always the first to feel any kind of financial crisis. Why do you think that is? Like in this day and age, why are we still valued less? I mean, it's tough because this isn't like this goes back to before what we were saying about these being broader structures. It's the devaluation of anything that's associated with femininity. It's not even just women, right? It's the devaluation of anything that's associated with femininity. It's not even just women, right? It's the idea of leadership is associated inherently with masculinity, and that is what is valued. And anything that's related to care or community

is related to women and femininity. Again, not based on anything that's true about differences between men and women, but rather just stereotypes of this is the way men and women are. And anything that is seen as feminine is incredibly devalued, the kinds of jobs, the kinds of unpaid labor that we choose not to compensate. And so I think when you see crises take hold, you see those divisions play out. You see it happening, you know, obviously in times of recession. You see it happening in climate change. You see it happening in war.

You'll always see the same inequality that you see in a workplace play out in moments of crisis, too. Yeah, it's fascinating. And I think the other thing is it hurts everybody, right? Like it's not, I mentioned this before, like I don't center men in my content. I think they're centered enough. But let's be clear, this isn't helping them either. The pressure to feel like they have no value if they're not out earning their partners, that's not good for them as much as it's not good for us. The idea that if you're not financially dominant or physically dominant, that's not good for

culture. It's not good for anybody. So I think really the goal of all of these conversations isn't just so that like we can feel a little bit better at work. I think the goal of these conversations is to really reimagine these roles for ourselves and what's available to us, because I think we'll all be better served if we're not limited to these ideas of what men and women should be and what we're allowed to access or not access. Yeah. And I feel like for a lot of us, at least for me, I never really thought about gender until I entered the workforce. But like growing up in school, even in university, I thought everything was pretty equal. I'm like, oh, I don't feel discriminated. And once you would just enter this environment that's just had all this discrimination for so many years, it's so

hard to battle. And I think that's the complicated thing is you're like, okay, well, I understand these stats. What are the solutions? And then you can look to, I've done so much research, like what are solutions? And a lot of the ones that are like, here's what you can do on an individual level. It's like, well, we've tried a lot of those and they still don't work. The only way to actually see change, and we've seen this, is it has to be on a bigger institutional level. Like I know you did a reel recently about when companies are transparent about their pay scales. This is what actually makes change. Do you want to talk a little bit about that? Because I thought it was so fascinating. Yeah. So this is a great example of the way I was talking about looking for solutions that work at scale as

opposed to an exception. So pay transparency legislation has been starting to be passed in cities here in the United States and certain countries. They've been implemented. There's one study that it was based in Denmark because they had implemented pay transparency about like a decade ago. And they saw that among those companies that were big enough to require pay transparency, their gender gaps just started to disappear. And not only because they started to confront differences in pay for the same work, which is how we typically think of comparing pay. But they also started to see when they had to be transparent, all of these other differences emerged. They were like, oh, well, a lot of what's driving this pay differential is that we don't recruit very many women and then we don't promote a lot of them to leadership.

So a lot of this pay is being reflected by these differences that aren't just address it, but people do feel compelled to address it when they see and are confronted with the data how unequal these systems are. And so there was this great similar study here. It wasn't a study, rather it was a case study at the company Buffer. It's a social media startup where they started implementing this pay transparency policy internally. So it doesn't even have to be legislation. It could just be an internal company policy. And they share what everybody's salary is, how it's calculated, how it's determined.

And then the pay gap grew, gender pay gap grew. And they were like, you know, this isn't working. Why is that? Oh, it's because these same things. We're not recruiting properly. We are not having women coming into leadership roles. And again, instead of saying, oh, women aren't interested in these jobs or women don't want to work here or women aren't interested in leadership, we need to do a better job of recruiting in places that don't just cater to white men. We need to do a better job of identifying the top performers in our company who are leadership material and make sure we're sponsoring them because they're great performers and not just because they're our buddies that we go golfing with. And then their gender pay gap closed after having gone from growing with transparency to using transparency as a tool to address these chronic issues. And so we started to see not just these case studies, but also like as legislation has been passed in different parts of the world, you can start to see these differences emerge on a macro level.

And that's where it gets really exciting because you're like, oh, wow, like this whole city that implemented this policy is starting to see these gaps go away. And I know I feel like there is something else that you shared that said that when there is more women managers or in the higher management, we see a bigger difference and it's like yeah maybe it's because yeah we need more more diversity on the hiring committee to see more diversity come into the company yeah so that that one was specifically about women in management and they found that the tipping point was when you get about 60% of women in management, all the gender pay gaps disappeared. And so what that tells us is that the approach that a lot of companies have taken to diversity

thus far is this idea of tokenism. Right. Like, let's put someone who fits that bill at the top and then we've checked that box. Right. I've got a woman in this position. I've got a person of color in this position. And that doesn't of color in this position and that doesn't move the needle and it doesn't move the needle because then that person is really isolated and they don't have you know if you're in a position of leadership you need buy-in to your leadership you can't just be put there and then not given the support that you need to have people say, oh, like, yeah, these aren't, you're not just here at the table, but you're being heard and your ideas are being valued. And what happens is if you have more representation, a critical mass of representation,

you're more likely to get that buy-in that actually challenges the status quo, as opposed to being just like the one voice in the room that's saying, hey, maybe this policy isn't working to facilitate the most equitable outcomes, or it's not rewarding our best performers. You know, you really do need that critical mass of people there to provide the support. And then you do see these differences further down the organizational ladder start to go away. And so that's, again, a great example of things that work at scale and not just in this one instance when I asked in this way with this punctuation and this outfit in this perfect time of day, this worked. No, and this mirrors something. I had a conversation with someone, and I will not give any details because we're like, please don't.

This is off the record. But they did say people focus just on the C-suite. They don't focus on management. Management is what moves the dial. And management still, you know, they were talking about like it's male and it's, you know, white. And that is why we're not really seeing change below that. And we're just seeing those yet the tokenism happening so they can check the box and say, oh, we did our best. And you need that representation at every level of the organization. Oftentimes,

you see a lot of people trying to address this from a bottom up or a top down, right? It'll be like, OK, we'll get to equitability in our hiring at the entry level, or we'll get to even a corporate board. That's great. I want to see women on corporate boards. But you can't just address the two opposite ends of the ladder. You have to address every rung of the ladder. I'm getting so many ideas. I'm like, okay, after this, write down all these notes so it can kind of add some more little things in my book. Finishing this section. I'm like, okay, after this, write down all these notes so I can kind of add some more little things in my book. Finishing this section, I'm like, oh, shit, there's more stuff that I have to include. I am so happy that you were doing what you're doing.

I think it is such important work. So I highly recommend everyone follow you on social media and subscribe to your newsletter. Do you want to kind of share where people can find you at and subscribe and like and follow? Yeah, I am Stephanie O'Connell Rodriguez. I know it's a lot of letters, but social media good news doesn't fit all of those. So just Stephanie O'Connell. And my newsletter is called Too Ambitious. And we got some exciting things in the pipeline that aren't quite ready yet. But Instagram is the place where I'm most active. So you can find me at Stephanie O'Connell there. Thank you so much for taking the time. I'm so excited for what you have,

whatever it is on the horizon, because you're doing such amazing, important work. And I appreciate you coming back on the show after all these years. Thanks for letting me chat it out with you. And that was episode 382 of the More Money Podcast with Stephanie O'Connell Rodriguez. Her website is tooambitious.com. And I highly recommend checking out subscribing to her newsletter of the same name, Too Ambitious. Also, make sure to follow her because she's making some incredible TikToks, reels on all of the social platforms. You can find her on Instagram at of the social platforms. You can find her on

Instagram at Stephanie O'Connell. You can find her on TikTok at Stephanie O. Rodriguez. Those are the places I'd probably point you to. But I will link to everything in the show notes for this episode, jessicamorehouse.com slash 382. You can find all podcast episodes on my website, jessicamorehouse.com slash podcast. Or if you know the episode number, just go to jessicamorehouse.com slash podcast. Or if you know the episode number, just go to jessicamorehouse.com slash the number of that particular episode. But she's doing some really, really incredible stuff and can't wait to see more of what she's putting out. Let me tell you. Let me tell you. I've got a few things to share with you. So do not go away and stay with me. Do you want to figure out where your money is going? Do you want to organize your finances once and for all? Do you want to feel less anxious about your money? Well,

I have a great tool for you, my collection of budget spreadsheets, which you can find at jessicamorehouse.com slash shop. These new and improved budget spreadsheets have helped thousands of people over the years. And these are honestly the budget spreadsheets that me and my husband still use today. They come in Google Sheets and Excel. They also come with a comprehensive video tutorial to show you exactly how it works. And they're very easy to use. Not only that, I've got versions for pretty much any scenario. So if you're an employee, I've got a budget spreadsheet for that. If you are self-employed, I've got a budget spreadsheet for that. If you're in a couple and one of you is an employee and one of you is self-employed, I've got a budget spreadsheet for that. If you're in a couple and one of you is an employee and one of you is self-employed, I've got a budget spreadsheet for that. I've got seven

different budget spreadsheets for any kind of situation. So no matter what's going on in your life and your income, I've got a budget spreadsheet for you. So if you want to take action and see some progress with your finances, this is one really easy step that you can take right after listening to this episode. Just go to jessicamorehouse.com slash shop, find the right budget spreadsheet for you, and then start making some moves that future you will be really, really thankful for. Okay, first and foremost, your reminder at the end of every episode, make sure to check out jessicamorehouse.com slash contest for my big book giveaway. We are just to let you know, we only have four more episodes of this season. All of those guests have books coming out. So I've got four more books to add to the pile, but I've got

quite a few books already in the giveaway. So go to jessicamorehouse.com slash contest to enter to win. I will be drawing winners in January at some point. So after the new year, that will hopefully be the moment where my book will be done because time's a ticking, time's a ticking. I'm recording this in advance of when it's actually coming out. So I'm hoping and this is me like, what is it? Maybe this is manifesting. I'm putting this out into the universe that by this time when the episode comes out, I will have only one chapter left to write. Is this realistic? I don't know. But my schedule says that is what needs to happen so I can stay on track and actually submit my book by its deadline. Though I have heard from a few other authors I've been chatting to that most people ask for an extension, but I just want to prove to myself that I can be on time.

I don't like handing in things late. So this is what we're putting into the universe. We are going to be one chapter away from being done. January is going to be my little saving grace. That's my buffer month is what I'm calling it. I want that month to just review everything, checks and balances, make sure everything's okay. So when I submit it, I feel really, really good about it. Also, just asking for your thoughts and prayers so I can find a new title for my book. I've got a working title. I'm not in like, it may end up being that. But are there other books with that title? Yes, that is not that's not a good place to be in. So I'm hoping that by the time I submit my book, I will have come up with the perfect title. And by title also, yeah, this is me also saying, hey, if you have some ideas of a book title for me, a book that is I can't share too much about what it's about. But it's basically about why we all have a hard time with

money. Basically, you know, kind of, it's a mixture of, you know, psychology of money, and then behavioral finance, and also digging into trauma. And then also lots of things that we discussed on the podcast today, what are some barriers for if you are, you know, a minority or marginalized, in some way? How is it making it harder to advance financially? And then ultimately leaving you with some solutions and, you know, kind of a game plan for moving forward. That's pretty much it in a sort of nutshell without really sharing exactly what's going in the book. So if you can think of a title, I would love to hear from you. DM me on Instagram. Shoot me over

an email. Jessica at JessicaMorehouse.com is where you can reach me. For me, here's just to give you an idea of like titles of other books I've read that aren't really finance related, but I've been reading a lot of psychology books, books that I've read that I'm like, damn, that's a good title. Or like, these are titles that are like things that we have said or we've heard someone say. So for example, What Happened to You? Like that's, I know that you're like, is that a good title? Yeah, I don't know. I remember seeing that title on a bookshelf. I'm like, ooh, that's a good title. The Psychology of Money, a great title. Unfortunately, it's already taken and it's a very popular book, but I'm like something like that. That would have been a great title. I don't know. So if you can

think of anything, anything springs to mind, you get some inspiration while listening to this show, hit me up and I will give you a little mention in the back of the book, the thank yous. So, you know, just an idea, putting that out there. Just, I need something. I need something. Okay. But speaking of books, I mentioned this on the episode that I did with Adrienne Barr. I am so thrilled to have my next guest, LLT is who it is. Next week, I've got Simone Stolzhoff. He's the author of The Good Enough Job. It is one of my favorite books that I've read all year. And I've read the most books I've ever read in any year. I listened to him speak on some of my favorite psychology podcasts. And like this, this guy's incredible.

I need to read this book. I pre-ordered it. I don't do that for a lot of books. And absolutely loved it. Hence why I'm literally telling everyone I know, get this book. It's so good because it's about a topic that no one talks about, which is let's get rid of this idea that our career, our job has to be our passion or our identity, which I know is rich me saying this because I do love my job and it is kind of part of my identity and passion, but I do actually want to do a better job of disconnecting that because I have lost, I feel like I've lost myself a little bit along the way. And I'm trying to now in this weird year of writing the book and doing a lot of therapy and self-discovery, I'm trying to figure out how to have a life outside of this part of my life, if that makes

sense. So such a good book, such a great interview. You're going to love it. So that is what's in the queue for next week. Can't wait for it. And yeah, that is that's really all I've got to say. So thank you so much for listening. Big shout out to my podcast editor, Matt Rideout. And I will see you back here next Wednesday. Have a good rest of your week. this podcast is distributed by the women in media podcast network