A stirring, comprehensive look at the state of women in the workforceâwhy womenâs progress has stalled, how our economy fosters unproductive competition, and how we can fix the system that holds women back.
In an era of supposed great equality, women are still falling behind in the workplace. Even with more women in the workforce than in decades past, wage gaps continue to increase. It is the most educated women who have fallen the furthest behind. Blue-collar women hold the most insecure and badly paid jobs in our economy. And even as we celebrate high-profile representationâwomen on the board of Fortune 500 companies and our first female vice presidentâwomen have limited recourse when they experience harassment and discrimination.
Fair Shake: Women and the Fight to Build a Just Economy explains that the system that governs our economyâa winner-take-all economyâis the root cause of these myriad problems. The WTA economy self-selects for aggressive, cutthroat business tactics, which creates a feedback loop that sidelines women. The authors, three legal scholars, call this feedback loop âthe triple bindâ: if women donât compete on the same terms as men, they lose; if women do compete on the same terms as men, theyâre punished more harshly for their sharp elbows or actual misdeeds; and when women see that they canât win on the same terms as men, they take themselves out of the game (if they havenât been pushed out already). With odds like these stacked against them, itâs no wonder women feel like, no matter how hard they work, they canât get ahead.
Fair Shake is not a âfix the womanâ book; itâs a âfix the systemâ book. It not only diagnoses the problem of what's wrong with the modern economy, but shows how, with awareness and collective action, we can build a truly just economy for all.