Pay Up

The Future of Women and Work (and Why It's Different Than You Think)

By: Reshma Saujani

Narrated by: Reshma Saujani

INSTANT NATIONAL BESTSELLER

“Reshma Saujani…offers a daring new approach: it’s not our job to do more, it’s time for our workplaces to pay up.” —Tarana Burke, founder of the “me too” movement

The founder of Girls Who Code and bestselling author of Brave, Not Perfect confronts the “big lie” of corporate feminism and presents a bold plan to address the burnout and inequity harming America’s working women today.

We told women that to break glass ceilings and succeed in their careers, all they needed to do is dream big, raise their hands, and lean in. But data tells a different story. Historic numbers of women left their jobs in 2021, resulting in their lowest workforce participation since 1988. Women’s unemployment rose to nearly fifteen percent, and globally women lost over $800 billion in wages. Fifty-one percent of women say that their mental health has declined, while anxiety and depression rates have skyrocketed.

In this urgent and rousing call to arms, Reshma Saujani dismantles the myth of “having it all” and lifts the burden we place on individual women to be primary caregivers, and to work around a system built for and by men. The time has come, she argues, for innovative corporate leadership, government intervention, and sweeping culture shift; it’s time to Pay Up.

Through powerful data and personal narrative, Saujani shows that the cost of inaction—for families, for our nation’s economy, and for women themselves—is too great to ignore. She lays out four key steps for creating lasting change: empower working women, educate corporate leaders, revise our narratives about what it means to be successful, and advocate for policy reform.

Both a direct call to action for business leaders and a pragmatic set of tools for women themselves, Pay Up offers a bold vision for change as America defines the future of work.

BEST BOOK E.V.E.R!

Finally someone has seen me! Thank you for writing this book! I have shared this book with not only the men in my life but also my employer. I am in!

You can’t unread this

This book reminds me of the matrix. If you want to see how deep the rabbit hole goes read this book, but be prepared to face the cold hard truth of striving to achieve your career goals and balance your family. I’m a full time single mom working in tech. I cried through so much of this book. It hits hard. Reshma doesn’t sugar coat anything, but makes an attempt to wrap the message in optimism and positivity.

Should be required reading

Personally, the validation I felt reading this book was like I was in church. Using data and personal examples from around the world, she points out the individual, societal, and business impact of the inequity working mothers face. Whether you are male or female, or ever plan to have children, this book shows how recreating the working world to support working moms benefits every person, business and society.

Run don’t walk

Incredible content. This is a flashlight on my own experience of burnout through COVID and articulated it in a way I never would have arrived at alone. To characterize the experience of working moms, non working moms, women who work who won’t have kids and prior generations of women in work’s experience is a heavy lift and also enabled me to have an open conversation with my mom and sisters about their experiences in a new way. I also hate texted my boyfriend (who I love) I’m refusing to do unpaid housework and want a written chores contract by Sunday so, yah… read the fackhing book! 10/10

Statistics that promote thought

I found this book to be very thought provoking, and alleviated that the author quoted statistics to make her points. We need to do more for working moms.