Feminist Founders Subscriber-Only Podcast

Welcome to the Feminist Founders audio series event. This is a bonus for paid subscribers of the Feminist Founders newsletter. If you're here, thank you so much for your support. I'm excited to bring you this series, featuring incredible thought leaders who will share insights about doing business differently in a way that honors equity and social justice. I hope you learn a lot from this. Let's dig in.
Becky Mollenkamp: Hey, I am joined today by Josie Cox, who is the writer behind Women, Money, and Power on Substack, which I’ll link to in the show notes so you can subscribe. That’s what she and I are talking about today: women, money, and power. We met randomly a year ago while learning more about Substack at a webinar on the topic. We connected and recommended each other's Substacks, and I’m so excited that she agreed to do this. She’s the author of the book Women, Money, and Power: The Rise and Fall of Economic Equality, which again is a lot of what we're talking about here. She is an incredible journalist, editor, and author, with a wonderful, lovely accent (I say as an American). I’m really grateful she participated in this series, and I think she brings a thoughtful voice to what I’m offering here. I hope you listen, enjoy, and subscribe to her Substack.
Becky Mollenkamp: Hi, Josie. Thank you for doing this audio series with me. I’m so excited to talk about women, money, and power. You literally wrote the book on it, so it’s your area of expertise. I’m going to start by asking: why women, money, and power? What is it about those three things, and how are those issues inextricably linked?
Josie Cox: Hi Becky. Thank you so much for having me on this series. It’s a great question to start with because, as you say, my book Women, Money, Power came out earlier this year, and I’m absolutely convinced that those three concepts are inextricably linked. It’s the reason I wrote the book. For a little bit of background, I’ve been a financial journalist for about 15 years now, and I really started my career covering the nuts and bolts of finance and markets—stocks going up, stocks going down, bonds, currencies, big macroeconomic trends like interest rates, and things like that. I didn’t have a background in finance. I went to a liberal arts college and majored in politics and modern languages, so not finance at all. Especially at the beginning of my career, it was a real steep learning curve. I learned a ton about the technicality of markets, but one of the things I didn’t expect to learn was that the world of money and finance, and therefore, by extension, power, is still so gendered.
What I mean by that is when we look at the highest echelons of business—corporate America and corporations around the world—we still see predominantly men leading those organizations, making those powerful decisions. And predominantly white men at that. Ever since I started covering these industries, I became really fascinated by this dynamic, this inequity, and with the question, which sounds simplistic, of why? Despite the fact that as a human race, we’ve achieved so much—we’re putting people on the moon, we’re flying people into space, we’re creating driverless cars, we’re curing complex diseases—why do we still struggle with this inequality problem and this amazing asymmetry in positions of power?
Since I started reporting on this, I’ve harbored a desire to delve into this topic in a meaningful way. About six years ago, I went freelance after giving birth to my daughter, which gave me the opportunity to explore the intersection of women, money, and power in a meaningful way. A couple of things happened that triggered me to actually sit down and write the book. One was having a daughter and experiencing firsthand what it’s like to balance personal life and professional ambition, which is something many women in the paid labor market face. The other thing that happened was that about a year into the pandemic, in 2021, I had the opportunity to interview a CEO of a Fortune 500 company. I was already very interested in the topic of gender in the labor market and the economy—why the gender pay gap is still 82 cents on the dollar in the US, why there’s still a dramatic decline in women’s labor force participation after they have their first child.
As I sat down on Zoom (because it was the pandemic) to interview the CEO, the first question I asked was why the gender pay gap is still so prevalent and pernicious, and why we have such a tough time closing it. The interview was off the record, so I can’t tell you the name of the CEO, but what he said was absolutely flooring. He said that one thing I had to understand was that sometimes when a woman takes a temporary leave of absence from the paid labor market to start a family, to take maternity leave, when she comes back, she’s just not as professionally ambitious as she was. This response really startled me. I was confused as to why this line of thinking was still considered accurate and appropriate at the highest level of business. It also made me realize that there are still so many misconceptions and myths around women, money, and power, and around the gender pay gap and all these inequities. That’s why I decided to tackle the book. I decided to use it as a way of lifting some of these misconceptions, addressing these myths, and asking why, despite all the progress we’ve made—despite the fact that 80 years ago, Rosie the Riveters were working in the labor market in a concerted way—we still have stigmas around certain roles that women and men should have in the labor market and in life. Why are we still contending with bias, heuristics, and the challenges and obstacles that women still face in the labor market?
It’s a bit of a long response to your first question, but women, money, and power is, as you say, a fascinating intersection for me. I truly hope my book sheds light on why it is so complex, but why it’s so important that we understand this intersection.
Becky Mollenkamp: That CEO’s response startles me too and how out of touch it seems, but it also doesn’t surprise me because, as you said, we know there are still so many misconceptions about women, money, and power. I have my own thoughts on why, which basically boil down to maintaining the status quo—making sure men continue to have the money and power—but I wonder what conclusions you’ve come to about why these remain since that’s what prompted you to write about this.
Josie Cox: Yeah, it’s a great question, Becky. I think there are a number of different reasons why these biases still exist. The most simple one is that they are so entrenched, and the history of money, and therefore, by extension, the history of power, is just so male, so gendered. There’s a particular law I write about in the book that dates back hundreds of years called coverture. Under coverture, which was adopted from English law across the world, women really didn’t have any rights at all over anything—not their own money, not their own body. They didn’t have the right to property at all. That was a dominant system of thinking and an accepted truth for such a long period of time. Of course, into the 19th, 20th, and now 21st centuries, we’ve chipped away at these remnants of coverture, but the echoes of it still remain. We see that in everything, in gendered stereotypes in society—the fact that it’s more accepted for a woman to do a certain job, it’s more accepted for a man to do a certain job. We see it in the practice of a woman taking a man’s name at marriage, for example. The vast majority of women still take their husband’s last name when they get married, and that’s actually a hangover from coverture.
There are many cultural factors as to why these biases are still entrenched. I think the question is so interesting against the backdrop of what’s happening now. What we’re seeing across not only the business world but also the political world is a backlash against the progress we’ve made and against feminism. I’ve spoken to a lot of experts—economists, sociologists, psychologists, anthropologists—and I think what we are seeing is a fear of upsetting the status quo. I think a lot of men think that the progress of women is some kind of zero-sum game, as in the more women gain rights, the more it threatens their position in society, which is, of course, an absolute myth. But I think that has instilled a degree of fear in certain members of society, and as a result, we are seeing this backlash against women’s rights and progress.
What doesn’t help is that we’ve had a political period here in the US where the most powerful man in the country demonstrated that a normalized version of misogyny is entirely acceptable. That has created this accepted norm around undermining women, questioning women, questioning their autonomy, questioning their leadership, questioning whether they should even be allowed to make decisions over their own bodies. It varies in obviousness depending on what you look at, but it is there, it is serious, and we’re seeing it in the data. Recently, we saw a decline in the proportion of women across the American C-suite for the first time in many years. Many companies are still preaching a DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) agenda, saying that diversity and getting more women into leadership is a real strategic priority, but that’s not coming through in the numbers. I think that could also be a result of this fear of upsetting the status quo and the myth that women’s progress is men’s loss. That is absolutely just not true.
Becky Mollenkamp: When I hear all of that, it gets depressing, and I know you must feel that too. Your Substack is awesome. It’s a wealth of news, data, and quality thought pieces about all of these issues you’re discussing here. I would think being as immersed in it as you are, writing about it as much as you do, and seeing the data and the backlash to progress that had been made, it’s hard and depressing. What keeps you going, writing about these issues? I’m sure it can feel overwhelming—how little has significantly changed and the backlash we’re living through against progress.
Josie Cox: Yeah, another great question. Thank you for your kind words about my Substack. You know, I sometimes joke that it can feel like a broken record when I keep trotting out the same statistics and data about the gender pay gap or female labor force participation rate, but ultimately, we’ve got to keep sounding like a broken record as long as things don’t change, right? Your question about what keeps me motivated, what keeps me even optimistic, ideally, is this real appreciation of the fact that the reason I’m doing this work is to power progress. I firmly believe that it’s almost our duty to try and muster optimism, or if we can’t muster optimism, then at least some version of hope—hope for change, hope for progress, hope that ultimately, despite the setbacks, we are moving in the right direction.
From a practical perspective, you’re absolutely right. If you immerse yourself in the news cycle, in topics around the patriarchy, inequality, and the war on reproductive rights, it can feel overwhelming. I’ve made a conscious effort, particularly throughout the book writing process, as I’m working on the Substack and other projects related to this topic, to just step away. It’s sometimes easier said than done because I feel so passionate about this topic and this work, and I feel that it’s the only thing I want to be doing professionally, but you have to rebalance. I do that by getting outside. I try to go for runs or walks every day in my neighborhood or the park. I really feel that I recharge when I’m in greenery, so I seek out trees and parkland and anything that connects me to nature. I grew up in the countryside, so that’s something very much entrenched in my DNA.
I’ve also tried to set myself a mission of reading books. I love reading, but I’ve made a point of choosing books that aren’t all doom and gloom and that don’t just highlight the work that lies ahead of us. I read novels and books that are on completely different topics from the ones I write about, books that champion success, that tell joyful stories, because there’s a fine line between naivety and realism. But I think we have to recharge if we really want to take this work seriously and give it all we’ve got.
Becky Mollenkamp: Thank you so much for explaining that, for sharing your thoughts about how you stay in it. I think so many of us can relate to that battle of trying to stay positive or at least motivated in the face of everything going on. I want to go back to your earlier response because you mentioned some people believe that progress for women is harm against men. It makes me think of that pie, right? There are only so many pieces to go around, so if women get more, the men will have less. You said that’s not true, and I agree, but I’d love if you could expand on why you don’t agree with people who have that sort of pie mentality toward progress.
Josie Cox: Yeah, I think it’s such a great question. Honestly, I think it’s one of those questions we don’t ask enough, and we don’t raise this topic enough because, you know, the truth is that over the last 50, 60, even 70 years, women have made a huge amount of progress in terms of asserting themselves in the paid labor market and gaining legal rights—the ability to do their job without getting fired if they get pregnant, the ability to do their job without getting fired if they get married, etc. We now have legislation to make sure women don’t get paid different amounts for doing the same job. All this legislation has underpinned the progress women have made in terms of their roles in society, in the labor market, and in the economy more broadly. But we haven’t seen an equivalent seismic shift in the role of men in society.
So, anyone who thinks progress for women is a setback for men, this kind of zero-sum mentality, I do empathize with that because I think it can be scary to consider yourself in a position where your own role and privileges are threatened. That’s really scary, so I totally get that. But in response, I’d say we have to get our heads around the fact that progress for women, women’s economic empowerment, women’s legal rights, are ultimately good for everybody. We see that in so many ways. Maybe the most obvious way we’ve seen that recently was during the pandemic, when women were really coming back into the paid labor market in big numbers. There had been a dip when the pandemic started, when childcare facilities were closing, when schools were going remote, and women left the paid labor market. Then, in the aftermath, when schools and childcare facilities reopened, we saw many women coming back into the paid labor market. One of the most interesting trends was that many women who previously hadn’t had the opportunity to work were now able to because there was a new openness to remote work and hybrid work, which gave mothers of young children the opportunity to work when they wouldn’t have been able to if they had to go into a physical office.
This relatively short-lived era of flexibility was good for the entire labor market. We saw a rebound in productivity. Labor force participation was up across genders, age groups, and demographics. When gender is no longer a barrier to participating in the economy, productivity goes up, GDP goes up, and unemployment goes down, and that’s good for all of us, regardless of gender. There are some striking stats—I don’t have them all off the top of my head—but I’m pretty sure there was an IMF (International Monetary Fund) report that came out a few years ago showing that if we were to totally eradicate the gender pay gap, globally, we would grow GDP by trillions of dollars every year. If numbers and dollar amounts are your thing, that’s a pretty powerful figure to keep in mind.
The nutshell answer to your question is that it’s not a zero-sum game. There is no such thing as the pie shrinking when women’s proportional slice of it gets bigger. The whole pie gets bigger, and it’s not like men’s slice gets smaller. We need to understand that more. We also need to put ourselves in the position of individuals who might feel threatened by changes in society. It’s our responsibility to do that because this issue isn’t going away. This is very much in the spirit of something I always say: we need to get better at empathizing, having conversations, acknowledging and recognizing how someone feels about a situation. Only if we bridge those divides and have those conversations will we really make progress toward a common goal.
Becky Mollenkamp: Thank you so much for that. I need that reminder because it’s easy for me to get into the mindset of, "If they can’t take a joke," you know, in that place of not wanting to spend my time or energy trying to convince men that my piece of pie doesn’t harm theirs. But it is important to have people who are willing to do that work because, as you said, this is the system we live in, and it’s not going to change unless we make a change. Men need to make a change, but they’re not intrinsically motivated, so we have to help them get there. Thank you for that. The last thing I want to finish with is your vision for what’s possible. You’ve been writing about these inequities; you write about what it looks like in the workplace when money and power are not equitably distributed. What is your vision for what you would like to see happen? What is your vision for the professional experience for women around money and power, and any thoughts you have on how we get there?
Josie Cox: My vision for what’s possible—that’s such a great question. The first thing that comes to mind is this line in my book where I write that sometimes, depending on the news cycle and some of the bad news and depressing statistics, hope can feel really elusive. But I also firmly believe it’s our duty not to give up hope because, ultimately, hope fuels progress. That just made me think of that when you asked me about my vision for what’s possible. I think a lot is possible if we maintain hope and stay focused. Progress is certainly feasible. There’s still a lot of low-hanging fruit. Many workplaces are not equipped to accommodate women, particularly mothers. Solutions can be complex, but they can also be simple. We could achieve a lot by creating a greater understanding around the lived experiences of mothers in the workplace—what it feels like to juggle unpaid labor with paid labor. We need to destigmatize those conversations, create a culture where we’re talking about the types of gender gaps I discuss in the book, making them part of the mainstream conversation. We need to contribute to a world where gender inequality isn’t seen as a women’s issue because we all know that’s not true. We know that when we create a more equitable economy and society, everybody benefits.
My vision for the future is a world where we have those conversations, where that understanding is universal—a world where people have these stats at their fingertips, like how much our collective wealth would be enhanced if the gender pay gap was smaller. A shared understanding of the truth of that. We have to be hopeful, we have to be ambitious, and I believe we can work toward closing the gender pay gap. I don’t think it’s going to be easy, and I don’t know if we’ll ever see a world with no gender pay gap, but I do have a vision of a more equitable future. I hope others do too because, as I say, hope is the catalyst. Hope is what we need to get up every morning and keep going, keep fighting for this mission.
Becky Mollenkamp: Thank you, thank you, thank you for all your thoughtful answers and for being part of this series. I really appreciate your time and energy. If we can finish by having you share with people where they can learn more about you. I’ll share your Substack, Women, Money, Power, and you have a book by the same name. Are there any other socials or places where people can connect and learn more from you?
Josie Cox: Yes, I love hearing from people, so do get in touch if anything I’ve talked about resonates, or if you want to talk more. I love having conversations, meeting new people, and sharing thoughts with people who share my values. I can be found on Twitter (or X as it’s now called) at @JosiePotts_NYC. I’m on Instagram at @JosieCox, and I’m on LinkedIn as Josie Cox. I also write a weekly Substack called Women, Money, Power, the same title as my book. It’s a weekly news digest, everything that’s on my mind as it relates to women, money, and power. I’m also doing a lot of writing for a new media platform called The Persistent. I’m the founding editor there. We send two newsletters every week, one on Tuesdays and one on Thursdays, tackling interesting topics related to women in the economy, politics, society, and culture. The prime goal of that website is to elevate women’s voices, to have those important conversations, and to champion the mission of creating a more gender-equal world.
Becky Mollenkamp: Thank you again to Josie and to all of you for listening. Again, make sure you go subscribe to her Substack—the link is in the show notes—Women, Money, Power, and grab her book by the same name. It’s really important information. Thank you all for being paid subscribers, for being here, and for engaging with this incredible series. If you feel inclined, share it so others can enjoy it too. Let them know how to upgrade or subscribe as paid subscribers so they can access it as well. I will have another discussion with another incredible thought leader for you tomorrow.