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Pay Up: The Future of Women and Work (and Why It's Different Than You Think) Kindle Edition

4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 125 ratings
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INSTANT NATIONAL BESTSELLER

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.

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Editorial Reviews

Review

"Reshma Saujani has helped many women crack the glass ceiling, but now she’s convinced that we need to rebuild the foundation of work itself. Her provocative book will challenge you to rethink some of your basic assumptions about what it will take to create real equality of opportunity.”
—Adam Grant, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Think Again and Originals, and host of the TED podcast WorkLife

"Reshma Saujani is a truth teller and builder of movements. For all of the women who have climbed the ladder at work but still find themselves sidelined, exploited, and burned out, this book offers a daring new approach: it's not our job to do more, it's time for our workplaces to
pay up."
—Tarana Burke, Executive Director of 'me too' International

"
Pay Up exposes the lie that so many high achieving women were indoctrinated with: work hard, do well, and do anything a man can do. Finally, we have a book that aims to fix the system, not the woman."
—Rachel Simmons, New York Times bestselling author of Odd Girl Out

"The last two years have been scary, stressful, and heartbreaking for every family in America, and we're all still searching for a way forward.
Pay Up is a moving look at the daily sacrifices women make, and a rousing demand to make those sacrifices visible, respected, and valued. "
—John Legend

"The crisis facing women today isn't just about lost wages, it's about the internal harm done by overwork and the long-term implications for families.
Pay Up goes beyond giving advice —it provides clear strategies that empower women to change their workplaces and their homes. This book is a must read for any working mom who wakes up wondering: 'Is this worth it?'"
Dr. Becky Kennedy, Founder & CEO of Good Inside

About the Author

Reshma Saujani is a leading activist and the founder of Girls Who Code and the Marshall Plan for Moms. She has spent more than a decade advocating for women’s and girls’ economic empowerment, working to close the gender gap in the tech sector, and, most recently, championing policies to support mothers impacted by the pandemic. Saujani is also the author of the international bestseller Brave, Not Perfect, and her influential TED talk, “Teach Girls Bravery, Not Perfection,” has more than five million views. She began her career as an attorney and Democratic organizer, and she now lives in New York City with her husband, Nihal; their sons, Shaan and Sai; and their bulldog, Stanley.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B098422MFS
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Atria/One Signal Publishers (March 15, 2022)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ March 15, 2022
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 2534 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 234 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 125 ratings

About the author

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Reshma Saujani
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Reshma Saujani is the Founder and CEO of Girls Who Code, a national non-profit organization working to close the gender gap in technology and change the image of what a programmer looks like and does. With their 7-week Summer Immersion Program, 2-week specialized Campus Program, after school Clubs, and a 13-book New York Times best-selling series, Girls Who Code is leading the movement to inspire, educate, and equip young women with the computing skills to pursue 21st century opportunities. By the end of the 2018 academic year, Girls Who Code will have reached over 90,0000 girls in all 50 states and several US territories. Girls Who Code alumni are choosing to major in CS, or related fields, at a rate 15 times the national average; Black and Latina alumni are choosing to major in CS or related fields at a rate 16 times the national average.

Reshma began her career as an attorney and activist. In 2010, she surged onto the political scene as the first Indian American woman to run for U.S. Congress. During the race, Reshma visited local schools and saw the gender gap in computing classes firsthand, which led her to start Girls Who Code. She has also served as Deputy Public Advocate for New York City and ran a spirited campaign for Public Advocate in 2013.

Reshma’s TED talk, “Teach girls, bravery not perfection,” has more than four million views and has sparked a national conversation about how we’re raising our girls. She is the author of three books, including the forthcoming Brave, Not Perfect - scheduled for release in Winter 2018, New York Times bestseller Girls Who Code: Learn to Code and Change the World, and Women Who Don’t Wait In Line - in which she advocates for a new model of female leadership focused on embracing risk and failure, promoting mentorship and sponsorship, and boldly charting your own course — personally and professionally.

Reshma is a graduate of the University of Illinois, Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, and Yale Law School. She’s been named one of Fortune’s World’s Greatest Leaders, Fortune’s 40 Under 40, a WSJ Magazine Innovator of the Year, a Future Lion of New York by the New York Times, a Harold W. McGraw, Jr. Prize in Education winner, one of the 50 Most Powerful Women in New York by the New York Daily News, CNBC’s Next List, Forbes’s Most Powerful Women Changing the World, Fast Company’s 100 Most Creative People, Crain’s New York 40 Under 40, Ad Age’s Creativity 50, Business Insider’s 50 Women Who Are Changing the World, City & State’s Rising Stars, and an AOL / PBS Next MAKER. Saujani serves on the Board of Overseers for the International Rescue Committee, which provides aid to refugees and those impacted by humanitarian crises, and She Should Run, which seeks to increase the number of women in public leadership.

Reshma lives in New York City with her husband, Nihal, their son, Shaan, and their bulldog, Stanley.

Customer reviews

4.3 out of 5 stars
125 global ratings

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Mandatory reading for both CHRO's and fathers.
5 out of 5 stars
Mandatory reading for both CHRO's and fathers.
I have never read anything that articulates the "second shift" in a more compelling way. The statistical storytelling is absolutely brilliant, so much so I have already purchased 11 copies for people in my life... and I don't see that slowing down any time soon. Mandatory reading :)
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Top reviews from the United States

  • Reviewed in the United States on April 22, 2022
    This book came to my attention right after I read about the devastating impact our governments’ chosen responses to COVID have had on working mothers. After reading the free sample from Kindle, I decided the entire book would be worth reading. And I am very glad I did.

    The author's growth as a woman's advocate was interesting reading, as were her suggested solutions to the challenges facing working mothers today. Unfortunately, the challenges faced by working mothers today are the same challenges I read about back in my graduate school days in the early 1970’s at the start of the work-life movement. The fact that these same issues remain unresolved some 50 years later is disheartening and very telling in my mind anyway.

    While I don't agree with all of the author’s proposed solutions, I do hope this book and her proposed solutions serve as a catalyst for two conversations:

    1. A societal level conversation around the roles and expectations we have for women in society today
    2. A workplace conversation around how employers can best help and support the women, especially the working mothers, they employ.

    My strong recommendation is to read this book. Read this book so you can be better informed to participate in one or both of these necessary, critical conversations.
    4 people found this helpful
    Report
  • Reviewed in the United States on February 10, 2024
    As a new mom that is still working full time, this book is inspiring to read. Men and women all need to read this book.
  • Reviewed in the United States on April 26, 2022
    Whether you are a man or a woman… we are all part of a new movement because without women the US economy is cheated. There is a growing movement for working mothers that is bigger and better than before because we got it all wrong, and it now includes men! This is a book review for our times: Pay Up, by Reshma Saujani.

    Yup, I share tools like summarizing the most important bits with guests on my Mindshare Podcast with me, Liana Slater, and I am jumping for joy about this book. Don't worry, this is an honest review! (I have not interviewed Saujani... yet?) but I have something to share with you here in this book review, including a lot of personal commentary. This book was destined to arrive at my doorstep “early” by the powers that be. It also could have been sent to me as part of the professional trajectory I built for myself because I am passionate about equity in the workplace for women and working parents, as are the other changemakers who were sent the advanced copies. However it came to me, Reshma Saujani, the women’s empowerment activist, founder of Girls Who Code, and mother of 2 boys is talking directly to and about me and to each and every one of you.
    Well, OK I won’t be so dramatic. Revised statement: Saujani is talking to 23.5 million working mothers in the United States, to the rest of the world, and to each one of you: women, mothers, daughters, fathers, husbands, partners, brothers, friends and all human beings of the 21st century.
    Saujani is re-starting a Movement because we have gotten it all wrong over the past century. Pay Up gives us the much-needed history of women’s roles in the workforce and how they took shape in the 20 and 21st centuries. Women are invaluable to innovation and input that fuels the US economy. Without women, our entire economy is stifled. Saujani shares lots of data around this. There have been many “movements” towards gender equity with brave and relentless leaders, but the plight of working mothers specifically is abysmal in 2022. This is a well-researched call to action to empower working women, educate corporate leaders, revise our narratives about what it means to be successful, and advocate for policy reform.
    I joined one movement 14 years ago when I jumped onto the Great Resignation train. “What’s that?” you ask. “The Great Resignation is now,” you say. “These past 2 years, the Great Resignation stems from the pandemic exacerbating the significant gender inequalities and double standards that are causing widespread burnout in women.” Well, I am talking about the OG Great Resignation. The Movement of leaving an untenable situation and the unreasonable expectations from corporate America and of society at large. In my privileged world, I “Leaned” OUT of the corporate rat race by quitting my job to recover from severe burnout from “having it all,” and following my personal values around raising my toddlers and protecting my wellbeing. Having a career, raising a family, striving for the next promotion, ensuring I remained on track for challenging and rewarding work all without support… “Having It All” was just killing me. And I was tough. I was raised as a latch-key kid of a working single mother. I was ready for the Motherload. But as mentioned, it was destroying my wellbeing and made very little financial sense with paid childcare and other necessary supports. This OG Great Resignation was the reason Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead, by Nell Scovell and Sheryl Sandberg was written in the first place. Highly educated women were leaving corporate and other professional and service work in droves in the early naughts due to this lack of support from the system, corporate leadership, and the government. Not due to their “will” or lack of a will to lead!
    Working-class and single women have always been strained with having to make enormous sacrifices to raise a family and to bring home a paycheck. Situations exacerbated by a lack of extended family and modern isolation, lack of government programs, childcare, and job protection laws, leave working mothers without the proverbial village of support needed. The pandemic has had a disproportionate impact on all women, and it was catastrophic for working mothers.
    Saujani’s new book Pay Up highlights how Covid exacerbated the unsustainable plight of working women in America. She sheds light on the hidden inequalities at work and at home and the need for most ambitious women to hide half of their lives from their work leadership in order to get ahead. Pay Up is JUST the book we all need to read right now, to know we are not alone and to create change. Saujani exposes things many people have been getting wrong, or ignoring, and she creates a roadmap for change!
    Saujani admits she was a huge advocate for Lean In and even looked down on stay-at-home moms. Her “Aha” moment came after she herself had a child, and then a second child, and had to juggle work and child-rearing during the pandemic. After she started to walk the walk, she realized that the system needs to change, not the working mothers. Um, yes! Yes, Reshma. That makes a LOT of sense and I am thrilled you point this out. Women are way too damn hard on other women. Other moms are not the problem. Women need to protect and nurture their wellbeing but it is not up to the individual women to change the system. It is up to corporate leadership, government, the system to change the system.
    As a political activist fighting for The Marshall Plan for Moms, Saujani describes this as “an investment in women’s recovery and empowerment.” In the book she reveals the “big lie” of corporate feminism and a lack of real progress we seem to have been fighting for for years. Saujani presents an ambitious plan to address the burnout and inequity that impact corporate innovation and success, as well as harm America’s working women. While the government is fighting things out in Washington, Saujani offers a roadmap for change, or ”a bottom-line primer” on what’s needed and what employers and individual women can do to “contribute to the revolution.” This very specific tool for change can be super useful as we all strive to set up a more sustainable working world and to protect an invaluable source of our collective economic and personal wellbeing. I highly recommend you read Pay Up, and send a copy to any working mother you know is struggling and above all, share with anyone with the power to create lasting institutional change.
    To each of you who read this to the end, thank you for being a key part of this revolution just be taking part in my mission and the mission of MonumentalMe.com to create and better manage positive change.
    Customer image
    4.0 out of 5 stars This is a movement that we ALL need to be a part of. Listen up here before your purchase...
    Reviewed in the United States on April 26, 2022
    Whether you are a man or a woman… we are all part of a new movement because without women the US economy is cheated. There is a growing movement for working mothers that is bigger and better than before because we got it all wrong, and it now includes men! This is a book review for our times: Pay Up, by Reshma Saujani.

    Yup, I share tools like summarizing the most important bits with guests on my Mindshare Podcast with me, Liana Slater, and I am jumping for joy about this book. Don't worry, this is an honest review! (I have not interviewed Saujani... yet?) but I have something to share with you here in this book review, including a lot of personal commentary. This book was destined to arrive at my doorstep “early” by the powers that be. It also could have been sent to me as part of the professional trajectory I built for myself because I am passionate about equity in the workplace for women and working parents, as are the other changemakers who were sent the advanced copies. However it came to me, Reshma Saujani, the women’s empowerment activist, founder of Girls Who Code, and mother of 2 boys is talking directly to and about me and to each and every one of you.
    Well, OK I won’t be so dramatic. Revised statement: Saujani is talking to 23.5 million working mothers in the United States, to the rest of the world, and to each one of you: women, mothers, daughters, fathers, husbands, partners, brothers, friends and all human beings of the 21st century.
    Saujani is re-starting a Movement because we have gotten it all wrong over the past century. Pay Up gives us the much-needed history of women’s roles in the workforce and how they took shape in the 20 and 21st centuries. Women are invaluable to innovation and input that fuels the US economy. Without women, our entire economy is stifled. Saujani shares lots of data around this. There have been many “movements” towards gender equity with brave and relentless leaders, but the plight of working mothers specifically is abysmal in 2022. This is a well-researched call to action to empower working women, educate corporate leaders, revise our narratives about what it means to be successful, and advocate for policy reform.
    I joined one movement 14 years ago when I jumped onto the Great Resignation train. “What’s that?” you ask. “The Great Resignation is now,” you say. “These past 2 years, the Great Resignation stems from the pandemic exacerbating the significant gender inequalities and double standards that are causing widespread burnout in women.” Well, I am talking about the OG Great Resignation. The Movement of leaving an untenable situation and the unreasonable expectations from corporate America and of society at large. In my privileged world, I “Leaned” OUT of the corporate rat race by quitting my job to recover from severe burnout from “having it all,” and following my personal values around raising my toddlers and protecting my wellbeing. Having a career, raising a family, striving for the next promotion, ensuring I remained on track for challenging and rewarding work all without support… “Having It All” was just killing me. And I was tough. I was raised as a latch-key kid of a working single mother. I was ready for the Motherload. But as mentioned, it was destroying my wellbeing and made very little financial sense with paid childcare and other necessary supports. This OG Great Resignation was the reason Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead, by Nell Scovell and Sheryl Sandberg was written in the first place. Highly educated women were leaving corporate and other professional and service work in droves in the early naughts due to this lack of support from the system, corporate leadership, and the government. Not due to their “will” or lack of a will to lead!
    Working-class and single women have always been strained with having to make enormous sacrifices to raise a family and to bring home a paycheck. Situations exacerbated by a lack of extended family and modern isolation, lack of government programs, childcare, and job protection laws, leave working mothers without the proverbial village of support needed. The pandemic has had a disproportionate impact on all women, and it was catastrophic for working mothers.
    Saujani’s new book Pay Up highlights how Covid exacerbated the unsustainable plight of working women in America. She sheds light on the hidden inequalities at work and at home and the need for most ambitious women to hide half of their lives from their work leadership in order to get ahead. Pay Up is JUST the book we all need to read right now, to know we are not alone and to create change. Saujani exposes things many people have been getting wrong, or ignoring, and she creates a roadmap for change!
    Saujani admits she was a huge advocate for Lean In and even looked down on stay-at-home moms. Her “Aha” moment came after she herself had a child, and then a second child, and had to juggle work and child-rearing during the pandemic. After she started to walk the walk, she realized that the system needs to change, not the working mothers. Um, yes! Yes, Reshma. That makes a LOT of sense and I am thrilled you point this out. Women are way too damn hard on other women. Other moms are not the problem. Women need to protect and nurture their wellbeing but it is not up to the individual women to change the system. It is up to corporate leadership, government, the system to change the system.
    As a political activist fighting for The Marshall Plan for Moms, Saujani describes this as “an investment in women’s recovery and empowerment.” In the book she reveals the “big lie” of corporate feminism and a lack of real progress we seem to have been fighting for for years. Saujani presents an ambitious plan to address the burnout and inequity that impact corporate innovation and success, as well as harm America’s working women. While the government is fighting things out in Washington, Saujani offers a roadmap for change, or ”a bottom-line primer” on what’s needed and what employers and individual women can do to “contribute to the revolution.” This very specific tool for change can be super useful as we all strive to set up a more sustainable working world and to protect an invaluable source of our collective economic and personal wellbeing. I highly recommend you read Pay Up, and send a copy to any working mother you know is struggling and above all, share with anyone with the power to create lasting institutional change.
    To each of you who read this to the end, thank you for being a key part of this revolution just be taking part in my mission and the mission of MonumentalMe.com to create and better manage positive change.
    Images in this review
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    2 people found this helpful
    Report
  • Reviewed in the United States on October 6, 2022
    “Whether we are one of them now, perhaps one day want to be, or have no intention of ever being, we need to fight for the rights of working mothers because we are, in essence, fighting for every woman’s right to have control over their choices about work and motherhood…” is a pretty accurate summary on how I feel about this read, as a childfree woman. Highly recommend
    3 people found this helpful
    Report
  • Reviewed in the United States on May 28, 2022
    Loved this book, and struggled to put it down. Reshma does a great job at setting the stage in a very replaceable way, outlining where we have been led astray in believing we could have it all in our current culture/ support systems, and what we need to do on a personal, business, and legal level to support women. Loved it and highly recommend for all, regardless of gender.
    One person found this helpful
    Report
  • Reviewed in the United States on April 1, 2022
    I have never read anything that articulates the "second shift" in a more compelling way. The statistical storytelling is absolutely brilliant, so much so I have already purchased 11 copies for people in my life... and I don't see that slowing down any time soon. Mandatory reading :)
    Customer image
    5.0 out of 5 stars Mandatory reading for both CHRO's and fathers.
    Reviewed in the United States on April 1, 2022
    I have never read anything that articulates the "second shift" in a more compelling way. The statistical storytelling is absolutely brilliant, so much so I have already purchased 11 copies for people in my life... and I don't see that slowing down any time soon. Mandatory reading :)
    Images in this review
    Customer image
    Customer image
    One person found this helpful
    Report
  • Reviewed in the United States on March 18, 2022
    This book is a long time coming. Do you want Same Sh-t, Different Decade? Or do we want a plan for actual change?
    One person found this helpful
    Report
  • Reviewed in the United States on June 6, 2022
    Great book for all women!

Top reviews from other countries

  • Nicole Richardson
    3.0 out of 5 stars Could have been an instagram post
    Reviewed in Canada on September 29, 2022
    Although I appreciate some of the info, this book could have been summed up in a one page instagram post.

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