How to survive a sexist workplace (hint: female friendships)

Billed as "Lean In for the Buzzfeed Generation,”Feminist Fight Club ($28), a new women-in-the-workplace manual by the New York City–based journalist Jessica Bennett, is brimming with no-B.S. tips for conquering “mansplainers,” dealing with thorny raise negotiations and identifying examples of subtle office sexism. Chatelaine spoke to Bennett about workplace gender wars, Mad Men and why so many people hate Hillary Clinton.

So what is a feminist fight club? It sounds pretty hardcore. My friends and I started gathering with wine and hummus at once a month, and we would essentially bitch about our jobs. We were all experiencing various forms of subtle sexism at work, and wondering if it was just us. Over the years, we traded tips for how to deal with these scenarios. We brought in guest speakers, and went on outings. [These] have been, in many ways, a lifeline through all the shitty things that happened in our careers.

Workplaces are less overtly “Mad Men” than they used to be, but the sexism is somehow more insidious. For my mother’s generation, the sexism was much, much worse, but it was easier to recognize and call out. If a guy slapped you on the ass or fired you when you got pregnant, you knew that was discrimination, plain and simple. These days, we have policies in place that supposedly prevent discrimination, but a lot of subtle things still happen — like women being assigned administrative tasks more often, or the fact that we’re interrupted twice as often as men when we speak. You can’t always be going to HR to report that.

This book isn’t a 500-page meditation on the origins of the pay gap, either. It’s an actual manual.

I wanted it to be practical, because what is missing from a lot of conversations about gender in the workplace is what you can actually do to fix the sexism. Now, next time you go into a meeting with a guy who interrupts you, you can have that page bookmarked.

Between worrying being perceived as aggressive or too ambitious (or not enough of either), how are we supposed to get any work done?

I’ve struggled with that. Like, I’m trying to get ahead at work, I'm trying not to be pushy, but I’m also trying to ask for what I want. And I need to do it with a smile, and a warm tone of voice. How can you possibly navigate that? It’s insane. At the end of the day, you have to be your authentic self, and not bend yourself into a pretzel trying to do it all.

Mid-career drift: women step off the corporate ladder

How can women create a feminist fight club of their own? You could start one with women in your office, or in different industries. Everyone has something to offer. Or you could just write a letter to a gal pal. It can feel a little kumbaya, but [American] Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony first got together at a dinner party, and then decided to write the Declaration of Sentiments, which ultimately led to women’s right to vote. Female friendships have actually led to political change.

The American election is a bang-on metaphor for how harshly our culture judges a woman’s professional conduct. It’s true. People “just don’t like” Hillary. I’ve heard very educated people say it’s not even about her policy — she just rubs them the wrong way. Well, okay, but every single piece of research shows that the more power a woman gains, the less we like her. It’s embedded deep in our culture, the idea that women are supposed to be nurturing and sweet, not powerful. Not bosses.

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