Bennett - Feminist fight club : an office survival manual (for a sexist workplace)

*This book is 21 percent more expensive for men

TO MY OWN FEMINIST FIGHT CLUB:

the ultimate squad, sisterhood,

girl army, #pussyposse, and battle

comrades a gal could ask for.

You are my queens.

CONTENTS

A month before this book was published, Roger Ailes, the founder and chairman of Fox News, resigned amid multiple charges of career-long sexual harassment. One month later, Donald Trumpon whose campaign Mr. Ailes had been a trusted advisorwould be heard on tape bragging about sexually assaulting women, kissing them without consent and grabbing them by the pussy.

Like many Americans, my jaw hit the floor in disbelief. Nave, perhaps, but I had been preparing to celebrate the victory of our first female president and suddenly here we were, in a news cycle dominated by two men whose violation of women was predatory and routine. And while it was decried by many, ultimately it didnt seem to cost them much of anything. Mr. Ailes left Fox with a $40 million settlement. Mr. Trump, of course, would become our president.

I wrote an entire book about the subtle ways that sexism and bias affect who holds power in this country. But these men felt like retro caricatures: as overt, cartoonish, exaggerated, and unremorseful as they come.

But the subtlety was still there too. Its what let them rise to power.

It was implicit in the continual questioning of the trustworthiness of the female candidate, Hillary Clinton, and the scrutiny of her qualifications, but not his, which jibes with research showing that women must be twice as qualified to be perceived once as good, and more so if they are women of color.

It was there in the way we called her shrilla term thats used twice as frequently to describe womenor suggesting, as many journalists did, that she should smile more. (Has anybody ever told Donald Trump to smile?)

Subtle sexism lies in the fact that Donald Trumps career is peppered by mistakes and failure, and yet were able to forgive himbecause men are allowed to make mistakes. And yet we fixate on the mistakes of women, judging them more harshly and remembering them longer.

It was the fact that, on the debate stage, Mr. Trump could interrupt his opponent 43 times, cower over her, and call her nasty, and yet she was the one who had to strike a near-impossible balance between niceness and authoritya glimmer of weakness, and she doesnt have the stamina; but too much harshness and she was cold, aloof, robotic, scolded for not having the right temperament by a man who is all but frothing at the mouth.

The root of subtle sexism is not all Donald Trump, or anyone else, of course. These attitudes are deeply, deeply ingrained in our culture, where for hundreds of years, its men whove been the ones in charge, the ones to take charge, the ones to feel entitled to have their voices heard. Theres a trickle-down effect of that history. It seeps into our psyches.

And it starts young. As early as middle school, boys are eight times as likely as girls to call out answers in classroom discussions, while girls are taught to raise their hands and wait their turn. Even in movies and on television, its the male actors who engage in more disruptive speech, and take up twice as much speaking and screen time as their female peers (theyre also more likely to play characters who have jobs in fields like science, law or politics). Perhaps we shouldnt be surprised, then, that the average person finds it easier to pair words like president and executive with male names and pictures, while words like assistant and aide cause us to think instinctively femalethis is what weve been teaching all along.

The good news is that complacency is no longer an option. As I write this, we are two months out from the largest single-day protest in recent historythe Womens Marchwhich attracted some 4 million women and men in 673 cities around the world. Americans have come out in droves to protest the immigration ban targeting Muslims, the rights of trans people to use bathrooms of their choice, and more. It was significant that many of those early registersincluding Ann Donnelly, the federal judge who halted refugee deportations, and Sally Yates, the attorney general, who said she would not defend the immigration order in court (and was subsequently fired)are women.

This is a book about battling sexism at work. But it is also a book about coming together to fight all kinds of injustice. Being a member of the fight club means supporting your fellow woman; it also means speaking out against racism, sexism, homophobia, and xenophobia in any context. There is power in numbers. Now more than ever, we need to stick togetherand we need other women, and men, by our side.

Yours in the resistance,

Jessica Bennett

March 2017

SLINGSHOT. FOR SHUTTING UP INTERRUPTERS. BULLHORN. TO MAKE YOUR VOICE HEARD. TISSUES. BECAUSE CRYING HAPPENS. BOBBY PINS. FOR KEEPING HAIR OUT OF EYES DURING BATTLE. IP STAMP. SO NOBODY CAN STEAL YOUR IDEAS. WHISKEY. NEVER KNOW WHEN YOURE GONNA NEED IT.

fem-i-nist / n.

A person who believes in equality between the sexes. (YOU!)

pa-tri-ar-chy / n.

A system that was created by and for men. No, not every man is part of the patriarchy. But we do refer to the patriarchy as The Man.

Fem-i-nist Fight Club / n.

Your crew, your posse, your girl gang; your unconditionally helpful professional support system; your ride-or-die homies.

The law cannot do it for us. We must do it for ourselves. Women in this country must become revolutionaries.Shirley Chisholm, the first African American woman elected to the US Congress

I t was a fight clubexcept without the fighting and without the men. Every month or so, a dozen of uswomen in our twenties and thirties, struggling writers and creative types, most of us with second jobswould gather at a friends apartment (actually, her parents apartment: none of us had an apartment big enough to fit that many people). Shed provide the pasta, salad, or pasta salad, and wed bring the wine (and seltzer... for some reason we all really liked seltzer). Wed pile our plates high and sink into the cushioned couches in her living room to talkor, bitch, ratherabout our jobs.

In those early days, the rules of the fight club were simple:

What was said in the group stayed in the group.

Members were never to speak the groups name.

And we practiced strict vag-cronyism.

Which meant that once you were in, you were in: engulfed in bosom-like support, embraced and respected, encouraged with finger snaps and fist bumps and cat videos, but no cattiness. This was not a meritocracy; we didnt care how much you accomplished. We had a strict no mean girls policy.

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