Latest / Books4Guys / Josie Cox on Women, Money, Power, the Gender Pay Gap, and Why Work Needs to Change

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Josie Cox on Women, Money, Power, the Gender Pay Gap, and Why Work Needs to Change · Books4Guys

• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: You weren't born or raised there, right?
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_02: How'd you guess?
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: The accent gave it away.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I I'm originally from Europe.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_02: I actually born and raised in well, we can get into this if you want.
• 0:26
  unknown: Whatever.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: No, where where were you?
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: Where were you born at?
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_02: So I was I was born in Switzerland.
• 0:32
  unknown: Cool.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_02: But my dad's British.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_02: My mom was originally from Czechoslovakia.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_02: So kind of from all over the place.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_02: She was an immigrant.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_02: They met.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_02: I was born there.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_02: They were intended to stay in Switzerland for a year, and they've been there for like 45, you know, it happens.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: So Wow.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: That is cool.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: And and I mean, I saw where some of your career had been in London.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: And then and then came over to New York, and you've been there for quite a long time now, it seems.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_02: I've been in New York for six years.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_02: Clinging onto the accent.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_02: But we actually I actually arrived on the 13th of March 2020, which is like day zero of COVID.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: I was about to say six years is like exactly when COVID happened.
• 1:16
  unknown: Yep.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_02: So that was a bit of a rude awakening.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_02: But you know, it was um we made it through and we're here now and we're still here.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: So that's amazing.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: Well, very, very cool story, Josie.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: I love talking with people who have been well traveled or who have migrated from somewhere else, just because it adds to just like all the things you get to experience and share, and and you get, I don't know, it just opens you up to new ideas, new cultures.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm sure as a journalist, that adds a lot of value of just being able to, I don't know, see different perspectives on on just the way people think and live.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I just think that's very fascinating.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I'm just chronically nosy.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_02: I think that's why I became a journalist.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_02: I just love asking people questions.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_02: So you know, traveling allows you to do that, right?
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, I love that.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: And Josie, that's kind of leading to my first question, but I want to let people know.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: So I came across you because of your book, Women Money Power, which I was we we're gonna dive into because I want to get just your just your thoughts on on what led you to to researching and putting that book together.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: But I would love to kind of just kick things off for those that don't don't know you and are not familiar with your work.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: You've been a journalist for for almost two decades now.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and you've worked with many different companies and and and news outlets, and you you've worked in two different continents as a journalist, and now you've got a book, and we were just talking, you're working on your second book already.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: So you've done a lot of fascinating things, you're doing a lot of fascinating things, but what led you into wanting to become a journalist?
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, great question.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_02: So um, yeah, as you can hear from my accent, not from the US.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_02: I was born and raised in Switzerland, and um, my dad's British, so I wanted to go to college in the UK and kind of discover my roots, you know.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_02: I actually originally thought that I was gonna go into like diplomacy or work for the United Nations or do something like that.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_02: Like a lot of travel, meet a lot of different people, you know, explore the world.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_02: And but when I was at college, I started doing college media like a lot of journalists did.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_02: So I got involved in like campus newspaper, and I realized that I just really enjoyed interviewing people and I really enjoyed asking people indiscreet questions that just like wouldn't come up in everyday life, you know.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_02: And I j I love stories.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_02: I love storytelling and I love taking interviews and making them into stories.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_02: And so, and then when I sort of, when it dawned on me that that could actually be a career, I was like, wow, that is so cool, you know?
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_02: And so I um started looking for internships.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_02: This was around the time of the financial crisis, so not a good time to be looking for jobs, but I got very lucky.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_02: I had grown up speaking German, I'd gone to, you know, public school in Switzerland speaking German.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_02: And that was sort of my superpower because a lot of the financial crisis at the time was kind of centered around Europe and around Germany.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_02: And so I applied for all these different news organizations, and somehow my application floated to the top of the pile at Reuters, the huge kind of newswire.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_02: And I managed to get a junior reporter job covering financial markets, because that was the only story of the day in Frankfurt.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_02: Now, what I should say is that I was a liberal arts major.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_02: I am terrible at math.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_02: So financial markets was not something that I had naturally kind of gravitated towards, but it was a job, right?
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_02: It was paid and it allowed me to be a journalist, like a real journalist.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_02: And so I packed my bags and moved to Frankfurt, moved into like a little studio apartment in a city that I didn't know.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I got myself a subscription to the Financial Times, to The Economist, to the Wall Street Journal.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, I'm gonna learn this.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna learn how to be a financial markets correspondent.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_02: I got lucky, I had a lot of great like mentors and bosses who sort of took me under their wing.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_02: And I realized that, you know, finance kind of has a bad reputation.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_02: I think a lot of people think of it as this sort of dry technical beat, but I pretty quickly figured out it's actually just about psychology and humans and power and those dynamics.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_02: And that's really interesting.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_02: Like we are, as humans, we're fascinated by all that stuff, right?
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_02: And so I started to really enjoy it and started really enjoying, you know, learning about that and kind of delving into these interesting power dynamics and relationships.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_02: But pretty quickly I realized too that the world of finance is very male dominated, right?
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_02: Now, this was, as you say, you know, a decade and a half ago, almost two decades ago.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_02: So, but even then, progress had not really been made.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_02: Like the biggest companies in the world were run by men and white men at that.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_02: And I was interviewing a lot of um like fund managers and CEOs and CFOs and people with power in the world of finance.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_02: And it was, it was rare that I would interview a woman.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_02: And it was just kind of baffling.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_02: Like that sounds sort of simplistic, because we all know this is true, but I was sort of baffled by it.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_02: And so I guess in the back of my mind, that was kind of where everything started in terms of what eventually led to this book.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_02: But I was sort of fascinated by the gender pay gap, by the fact that, you know, the like S P 500 CEOs are basically all men, you know, save for 10%.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and so fast forward a few years, I ended up transferring to London because Frankfurt has a bit of a shelf life when you're like a young person, you know, uh, transferred to London.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_02: I worked in London for a few years.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_02: I got hired by the Wall Street Journal to be a markets reporter there.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_02: So I was writing the markets report for the journal for a few years, then was briefly business editor at The Independent, uh, another newspaper in the UK.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_02: And then uh had a baby.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_02: So went on maternity leave.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_02: And that was like a really, really formative, interesting time for me because I'd started writing about the gender pay gap and I'd started writing about labor market dynamics and the way that often when a woman has a baby, when uh when a woman starts a family, that is sort of an inflection point in her career.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_02: And it becomes difficult to balance kind of personal responsibilities with professional ambitions.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_02: And kind of like academically and cognitively, I knew all of this, but somehow I thought that I would be like an anomaly, you know, and I would manage to do it all and lean in and whatnot.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but then of course I realized that keeping a small human alive is hard.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I decided to go freelance.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_02: And I really threw myself into this topic wholeheartedly.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_02: I was like, I'm gonna write about this gender pay gap and figure out what's going on.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_02: In 2020, we moved to the US at a time when the global pandemic was shutting down schools and childcare facilities, and women sort of took on this extra shift.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not gonna call it a second shift, it might be a third or a fourth shift.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_02: But anyway, the default right, totally, yeah.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_02: The the default in many, I should say, in many heterosexual marriages was that the woman took over that extra responsibility, that extra burden of care.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_02: And that just sort of like, for me, right?
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_02: I was like, how have we got to this point where, you know, women really are like the social security network?
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_02: And I was freelancing and parenting, and I had the opportunity to go back to school, which was something I never thought I would do.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_02: I got a fellowship at Columbia Um Journalism School, which gave me the opportunity to kind of stand back and look at my beat from a sort of more holistic perspective and to think about how I might, you know, center my reporting around that.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_02: And I'd always wanted to write a book, and I'd always kind of quietly said that that was something I wanted to do.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_02: It feels very um, it feels very self-confident to back yourself and be like, yeah, I'm gonna write a book because it's such an ambitious project.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_02: But you know, here I was.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_02: And during that time, I had the opportunity to interview um a CEO of a very large company.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_02: And if you've read the book or if you've glanced at the prologue, you'll know this story.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_02: But for the benefit of those who haven't, a very quick recap, a little teaser.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_02: So I had the opportunity to interview the CEO.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_02: It's somebody who's very well known, kind of household name, but it was off the record.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_02: So I'll never be able to say who it was.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_02: And I asked this person, you know, why do you think the gender pay gap still exists?
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_02: Why do you think the gender pay gap exists in your firm, in other companies, within your sector, beyond your sector?
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_02: Why are women in full-time work, on average in the US, still only getting paid about 80% of what men in the equivalent positions are getting paid?
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_02: And why has that gap really not shifted much in the last 20 years?
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_02: Like why have we plateaued?
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_02: You know, why is women's labor force participation still much lower than men's?
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_02: All these questions.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_02: And he sort of looked at me, of course, this was on Zoom because of the pandemic, and he went, Well, you know, you really have to understand that sometimes when a woman takes some time out of the paid labor market to have a baby, when she comes back, she's just not as ambitious as she was.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_02: And I was just thinking, like, BS, right?
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_01: Mm-hmm.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's sad, right?
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_02: That that is an explanation that is so readily offered up that is considered appropriate and accurate and acceptable.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_02: I was just so shocked.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_02: And so this sort of set me on this journey, and I realize I've given you like the longest answer to a simple question.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_02: But it set me on this journey to figure out like how we got to where we are today.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_02: Like, why are we still accepting that the why are we placing the onus on women to fix a system that is so rigged in a certain way that is not only unfair towards women, but also to men, right?
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_02: Like, how are we still so averse to men being the primary caregiver, right?
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_02: Why is taking paternity leave still so stig stigmatized?
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_02: Why are we still so gendered in terms of both domestic life and professional life?
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_02: And so what came out of all of this wondering was the book that you mentioned, Women Money Power, which is sort of a historical explanation, chronologically going back in time to the Second World War, and then sort of charting the course of history forward through the decades and looking at each decade and what happened in each decade that contributed to creating gender equality and then also led to backsliding and um just sort of charting this rise and fall, as the as the subtitle says.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_02: So that's the story of the book, and that's the story of my career.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: No, Josie, thank you for sharing that because I I wanted you to have the mic and go through all of that because I think it's very fascinating.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: I haven't had anyone on this podcast who has written about this topic.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: And it's very interesting because I think over the last two decades, it seems like the conversation's been put out there.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: So it's the awareness seems to be there, but like you said, the action doesn't seem to line up with the awareness.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm curious to know, and again, you hear people talk and every everyone seems to be like, yes, we need to make this fair, we need to make this fair.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't seem to be happening though, because as reports continue to come out, it's still like, well, they're still not on equal playing field.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: And we all agree that's BS.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: I would say most, you know, and this is books for guys, like we need to know more details about this because we're aware, but we don't, we're not fully aware.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: We don't know the details, we don't know the why.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm curious to know what are some things that you discovered while researching and putting this together that may be a surprise to to maybe people like myself who we know what's going on, but what are some things that that would surprise or shock us to where it may send a wave through us that says, like, hey, we need to be more intentional about helping progress this change along.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: What are some things you discovered and learned?
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's such a good question.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_02: And again, it's something I could talk about all day, as you know.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_02: So the first thing I would say is that when I set out to write this book, I really thought that I would be writing exclusively about the fight for women's professional equality, right?
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_02: And economic equality, and that this would be like all about the fight staged for women by women.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_02: And it's really not that, right?
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_02: This is so two-sided.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_02: I think if if feminism has fallen short over the last decades, it has done so because it has not factored in the role of men.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_02: And it has not taken into account that men suffer too, right?
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_02: When there's inequality, when there's gender inequality, that's something that it keeps everyone back, right?
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_02: And and the flip side of that is that if we achieve equality, that is something that everyone benefits from, right?
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_02: This idea of it being a zero-sum game is wrong, right?
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_02: Categorically false.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_02: So that's number one.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_02: And a great book that I read, it was funny, while I was in the process of researching my own book, somebody said to me, you should read a book by Richard Reeves called Of Boys and Men, which some of your listeners may be familiar with.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_02: It essentially charts this sort of idea of the male identity crisis and the role of men in society today.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_02: The person who recommended it, who who brought it up to me, said, You should read it, you'll have you'll hate it.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_02: They thought that I would be like really like aggravated by it and completely disagree.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_02: I read it and I realized that we're saying exactly the same thing, right?
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_02: We're coming from completely different angles, but we're addressing two sides of the same coin, necessarily so, right?
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_02: So, yes, we have to have conversations about women advancing in the economy.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_02: We also have to have conversations about men's role.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_02: And we have to challenge this notion, as I said earlier, that the domestic sphere, that home life, that parenting is somehow the domain of women, because it's not, right?
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_02: We all know that rationally, but I think we haven't yet quite internalized that.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_02: So that was the first thing.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_02: The second thing was just kind of the data and the economics of it.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_02: There are various different reports and various different analyses on this, but I think basically everyone agrees that if we were to close the gender pay gap globally, we would create an economic value that is worth trillions, right?
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_02: In terms of everything from, you know, women being able to do the jobs that they want in terms of reaching their professional and economic ambitions and potentials, but also things like if we look at countries where we do have more gender equity in the workplace, particularly like some of the Nordic countries, we see that the gender pay gap is smaller, we see that women's labor force participation is higher, mostly because they have better child care, right?
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_02: So that's kind of the big piece.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_02: But what we see in those countries is not only that women are earning more money, we also see that marriages are better, like divorce rates are lower.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_02: We see that mental health across the board is better.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_02: You know, all of these are kind of repercussions and perhaps not necessarily expected repercussions of just accepting and ensuring that that gender is not a barrier to anything, right?
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_02: Anything at all, like work, home life, anything.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_02: And so, you know, I think that is something that we we haven't internalized here in the US.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_02: I think there is still a very clear, if not acknowledged, divide between genders and the responsibilities and the roles that they play in society.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_02: But looking at those international examples and particularly delving into like the data has really taught me that it's kind of it, I mean, it is a no-brainer, right?
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_02: It's a no-brainer.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: That's interesting, Josie, because I've not heard those statistics and and that data.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_00: But I would think, and I want to go back to something you're saying.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: You were talking about like how how there's we make these issues so divisive sometimes where it's this side versus this side.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: But when you sit down and actually have a conversation or read a long form book or hear an interview, you realize that most of us probably are more in agreement on these things than we are in disagreement.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: Because I think if you went and took a poll and just said, hey, do you think everyone should be paid equally?
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: Like we should all be on the same playing field, I'm sure like 90 plus percent would say, Yeah, like no-brainer.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: So it's interesting how you can't get there when you know everyone agrees, but it's because you've got these just the way things are set against each other that keeps the friction there and keeps things from progressing.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's very fascinating to me.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: I on many different topics, I find this very frustrating.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm like, we could get so much done if we would just talk it out and and do it.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_02: Completely, you know, and I get it.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_02: Like I think on a fundamental level, as humans, we're scared of change.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_02: I think that's something that has been proven time and time again.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_02: And so, you know, I understand that there's like a nostalgia for a time gone by.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_02: And and I'm I'm kind of talking about like the trad wife trend, but also like beyond that, right?
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_02: I think that that there's something scary about changing things in society, about changing societal expectations and roles and norms and mores and all that kind of stuff.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_02: But we have to get over that, right?
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_02: Because again, if you look at the research, if you look at the data, you know, there's any number of academic studies done that prove that if we have greater diversity in the boardroom, for example, we get better outcomes.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_02: It's better for the bottom line.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_02: But likewise, you know, if we have like a diversity of brains in the household, like parenting, any parent out there will know that is the hardest job in the world.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_02: So why are we not, you know, accept like why are we not approaching it like a professional challenge and trying to get as many different perspectives in the room as possible?
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_02: And joining forces, right?
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: No, attention.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I'm I'm just thinking this.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I any of my friends who have children, I'm like, what your wife does is worth 5x what we're making in the workforce because there's no way I could do that uh every single day being on all the time.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: While most balancing professional careers, and it seems to be getting harder and harder and harder with with the cost of living or things you've got to do.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's you, you, you just can't times are different.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: Like one person can't carry the workload, and so you've got to reward both for doing that work.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm thinking of my wife too.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: My wife, I tell people, she's the hardest worker I know.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um, she's such a bulldog.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's she it's professional, it's fitness, it's taking care of us.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: Like, she elevates me.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: And that's kind of what you're saying.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_00: When things are on equal playing fields, like you elevate and everything gets better.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: I'm thinking about the stuff the statistic of lower divorce rate and higher economic output.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, these things just need to be broadcasted more.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I and I'm glad you are with your book.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_00: But what do you think it's gonna take for it to hit the larger scale to where because I'm still thinking of the comment that that CEO made to you too, like I'm baffled by that.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_00: There's I and maybe I'm around really good people that don't think that way, and I'm very blessed by that, but I just can't imagine saying that to somebody or believing it.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I hope that means more people are thinking the same way.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_00: But in your personal opinion, what do you think is needed to broadcast that?
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_00: Is it somehow getting that data more out there?
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: Because I think that that alone, that data, I think most people would say, hey, like we're in a crisis here on the divorce rate.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's over 50%, I think, in the US.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like, how do we fix that?
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_00: Well, here's some data that would help.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, what what is your opinion on that?
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean, I think you're absolutely right.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_02: I think appealing to people in the way that's gonna affect them, right?
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_02: If we're like, you know, if you sort of say, well, did you know that the gender pay gap means that your marriage is doomed?
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_02: That's a little extreme, but do you know what I mean?
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: Like if you have too much attention though, for sure.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, totally.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know, same with mental health.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_02: Like a lot of that extra burden of working, raising kids, of the, you know, unequal division of unpaid labor in the household, that really affects happiness.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_02: And happiness is such a broad topic, right?
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_02: But that that sort of encompasses everything from the health of a marriage to, you know, depression rates, whatever it is.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_02: So I think that's certainly it.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_02: I think having more conversations like this, delving into the data more, broadcasting that.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_02: But then I think maybe more fundamentally, I do think the workplace is kind of broken.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_02: Like our approach to work is really broken.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_02: And what I mean by that is that, well, let's let's take the pandemic as an example, right?
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_02: We, a lot of us who were in sort of white-collar service professions had to, you know, overnight become homeworkers.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, a lot of that shifted to online, a lot of that shifted to the home.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_02: Now, that was super tough for a lot of people, and I would never downplay that.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_02: But I think one thing that it did was it did create a little bit more equality in terms of the division of labor in the household.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_02: I appreciate I said earlier that a lot of women picked up that initial slack of childcare and education, but generally speaking, we do have evidence that men did step up more and do more, right, relative to what they were doing before.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: Because they're at home.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_02: I also think that we went through a phase during the pandemic of like humanizing work.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it suddenly became more acceptable to have conversations around mental health, around well being, things like that.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it was recognized that people work in different ways and that people are productive in different ways.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_02: And that for some, the hybrid model is kind of the best way that.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: That they can safeguard their mental health while also producing, you know, exceptional work, reaching their professional potential and all that kind of stuff.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_02: So I was really in it feels weird seeing encouraged by that because it was such a challenging time.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_02: But I thought that that shone a light on the ways in which our workplace might be broken or at least stuck in time, right?
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_02: Stuck, yeah, stuck in the past.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_02: What we've seen since then is a bit of a snapback, right?
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_01: Right to the way we do it.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_02: And that and I I find that really, really frustrating.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_02: These sort of ri like stringent return to office mandates, this lack of flexibility.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_02: And one of the reasons I find it so depressing is because when I was researching my book, I spent a lot of time reading the work of um Professor Claudia Golden, who won a Nobel Prize in economics for her work on women in the economy.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_02: And I mean, it's amazing that she won a Nobel Prize for this because in winning a Nobel Prize, it's sort of signaling that this is like mainstream economics, which it should be, right?
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_02: But one of the concepts she came up with was this idea of greedy work.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_02: And what she means by greedy work is the type of work that is really all-consuming, right?
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_02: Investment banking, it's consulting, it's the legal profession, it's jobs that demand that you are available around the clock, that you're checking your email at weekends, that you're checking your email in the evenings, that you're doing calls, that you're writing emails at like midnight.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_02: And that has become so normalized.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_02: It's such a in our kind of society obsessed with presenteism, you know, being available is sort of a, it's sort of a gauge of how committed we are, right?
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_02: And that's that doesn't allow for anything else, right?
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_02: And as a result of that, that's really kind of bifurcated our society in terms of the people who have greedy jobs and can't do anything else, and the people who do not have greedy jobs and can, you know, drop the kid off at school and pick her pick her up and help with homework and do all the housework, right?
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_02: And so I think we need to fundamentally re-evaluate the way that we work and our approach to productivity and the way that we equate success and all that.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_02: And that, I mean, like if I had a magic wand, that's what I would do.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_02: And I would also guarantee universal childcare, of course.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_02: But it's a that is not gonna change overnight, but I think it's something that we have to start talking about in a more meaningful way.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_00: No, and you talked exactly what I was gonna think, it was what I was gonna bring up, because I'm in recruiting and I've been in the professional recruiting space for 10 years.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_00: And there's been times where a mother has said, Hey, I cannot get into the office until 10 because I've got my my child and someone else's that I have to get to school and do all of this, and they're asking for flexibility, and the company's not willing to give it, even though she's willing to work after the kids go to bed or on the like whatever it takes to get the job done, that that mother is committed to getting.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_00: They just need a little flexibility.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm always thinking, like, when when a client says no, I'm like, why?
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_00: Why is that so hard?
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_00: Like, does that derail the progress of what you need to get done that much to where you can't consider somebody who is more than qualified to get the job done and do it?
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_00: Why are we why are why is there such a barrier to saying yes and allowing that?
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I and you brought up too, I was thinking the exact same thing.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_00: Like when COVID happened, it allowed for all this growth and everyone was so happy.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_00: And then every week it seems like there's another company that's mandating full-time back to office.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't understand the there's all the theories out there about why and all of this, but it just from a recruiting standpoint, I'm like, you're just minimizing your talent group by making these decisions, women, especially.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_00: So it's just uh Josie, I just I think it's very important that you are continuing your work and and and writing this book and talking about it as much as possible, because again, there's I'm in agreement with you, and I didn't even know all the like some of the data you you put out there.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_00: I'm assuming if someone heard that, and there will be people that obviously hear it from this conversation and and whatnot, I think it's gonna resonate and hopefully maybe that just continues like a wave to where that's shared more and more and more, and and maybe this maybe something gets done.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean, I r I obviously completely agree with you.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_02: I think I think the one thing uh after the after the book came out, I continued doing work and I've I've done some journalism on this.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_02: And one of the things that I think we can all help to do is to destigmatize certain behaviors, right?
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_02: And the one thing I'm thinking of specifically is paternity leave, right?
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_02: I mentioned this briefly earlier, but there was some data out last year that just really flawed me, and it was around the number of men who are entitled to paternity leave and not taking it.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_02: And and I mean, effectively they're leaving millions, if not billions of dollars in worth on the table by just not feeling like they can take it, thinking that they're gonna be penalized in some way for, you know, like kind of upsetting gender norms, I guess, kind of defying expectations, whatever those expectations might be and whomever they happen to come from, right?
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_02: And and and breaking those barriers and changing those norms requires critical mass, you know?
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_02: And I I did a big piece, I big did a big sort of investigation on this for Bloomberg and looked at the data and then also spoke to a lot of men who either felt like they couldn't take parental leave because there was some kind of stigma and they would suffer repercussions, or people who had taken it and said that they were actually penalized, right?
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_02: And all of them said, you know, it would make such a difference if management walked the walk and not just talk the talk.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_02: In many cases, there were firms, employees at firms who I spoke to who said that their manager was like, Yeah, you should take it, but I never would because obviously I can't, because you know, I can't miss out on what's going on here, it would be really irresponsible.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_02: And like, no, I'm sorry, but that's not how this works.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_02: So this is sort of a you know, this is sort of a communal responsibility, a societal responsibility that we all have.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that everyone, in their own way, can do their bit, right?
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_02: Regardless of whether you're a parent or not, it is something that you can talk about, that you can be open to, that you can help to normalize in the workplace.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 28:25
  unknown: Yeah.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm thinking about that.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, companies really could make a stand by by almost forcing you to take maternity leave and celebrating it.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_00: Like, yeah, do not come in here for the next however long.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_00: We better see pictures of you and your family and tell us everything that's going on.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_00: And simple switch.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, think of how how great of a culture you can build too of employees who are like so thankful for that, and then all of a sudden they want to work harder because they work for for people who care.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_00: I had someone on the podcast this week actually, and just talking about like the human aspect of caring and listening and just how strong of a culture companies to implement and actually practice that have versus the ones who don't.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_00: That's exactly what you're talking about.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_00: Is okay, great.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's great if you want to implement and and offer paternity leave, but if you're gonna make it such a Yeah.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_02: And the la I'll just jump in with one last example because this is I just find this so fascinating.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_02: And then I'll let I'll I'll let you move on.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_02: But again, looking over at the Nordics, Sweden, so okay, against the backdrop of the US not guaranteeing any parental leave, right?
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_02: Sweden offers 460 days of guaranteed parental leave split between two parents.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_02: And the more equally you divide those days, the more you're financially incentivized.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_02: So you get more if you split it equally.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_02: And again, like as a reminder, I mentioned earlier, Sweden is one of the countries that has the lowest gender pay gap, the highest women's workforce participation rate, and the happiest marriages, which is not surprising when you think about it.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_00: That's so intriguing.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_00: My wife was actually in Sweden last week for work and she came home and she's like, we need to move here.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's amazing.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_02: I'll be right behind you following in your steps.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_00: Well, Josie, this has been such a great conversation.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I hope, I hope this spreads like wildfire fire, and I hope people pick it up and share it.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I hope people get your book and share your book because what's your the mission you've embarked on, as well as many other people, to help spread light and continue keeping this at the front of people's thoughts as as leaders try to create policies and and better cultures and better work-life balance.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_00: And because again, the better you treat people, the harder they're gonna work for you, which is gonna bring back value in tenfold instead of this opposite approach that we just continue to, for one reason or another, continue to stay on.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_00: So I I feel the frustration and I and I'm not, you know, I'm not even in it daily like you, but I'm glad that we've had this discussion because I'm gonna discuss it more now that we've talked about it.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so, Josie, I I appreciate you taking the time to do this.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_00: I think this has been extremely valuable.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_00: I'm very proud to share your work and your book on the website, and we'll put a link into the notes too, so that people can can purchase it and follow along with your work.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_00: But Josie, this has been a pleasure.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for coming on and doing this.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much for having me.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_02: It's been a joy.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks, Josie.