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Sarah Kaplan (00:01)
Research has basically shown that actually the most effective leaders are the collaborative ones, the team builders, the listeners. But those are traditionally feminized characteristics. And so that isn't considered merit, even though it should be. And therefore, we don't see women as meritorious because we don't because that's feminized and therefore devalued. So why have we defined merit in the way that we have? Because it actually isn't very functional, our current definitions of merit.
Rose Brunache (00:30)
you
Kim Villanueva (00:35)
Hello and welcome to Feminism Now. I'm Kim Villanueva, the president of the National Organization for Women. As you probably know, it's our 60th anniversary. If there's anything that now loves, it's education. And so we are celebrating by educating ourselves. Over the year, we've featured four capsules addressing issues important to women. And the one for the first quarter has been on economics, the cost of being a woman. So today's guest is a perfect one. We're delighted to have Sarah Kaplan, Professor Emerita.
and founding director of the Institute for Gender and the Economy at the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management. And of course, we want to hear from you and what you've learned from our capsule. You can call now at the number in our show notes and send us a voice message or email us a voice memo at feminismnow at n-o-w dot o-r-g. We'd love to put your voice on the show. And now, Rose, take it away.
Sarah Kaplan (01:26)
you
Rose Brunache (01:30)
So excited to be here today with Sarah Kaplan, founding director of the Institute for Gender and Economy at the University of Toronto Rotman School of Management. Sarah, welcome.
Sarah Kaplan (01:40)
my goodness, what a pleasure to be with the two of you.
Rose Brunache (01:42)
Okay, so we'll dive right in. You know it's now 60th anniversary and we're celebrating with capsules to learn about feminist issues. Our first one is the cost of being a woman and your research fits right in. You didn't start as a gender scholar. How did you get into it?
Sarah Kaplan (01:57)
Well, I'm basically plus or minus the same age as now, so I feel like I've lived the journey with you. And I guess that is really part of the story. So I'm an innovation scholar and previously an innovation consultant. So I didn't start out working in this space, but you kind of can't be a woman of this era and not be a student of the systems that are undervaluing women and gender diverse people.
I started my first full-time job in 1986 ⁓ just to date myself. And at that point, having grown up in a family, I'm the first of four girls. think, Kim, I heard in one of the podcasts, you're the first of five. So similar feeling. And there was sort of this sense of the world is our oyster and we should be able to accomplish what we want to accomplish. And of course, at that time, there had been a lot of progress. So one had this hope that it was just going to continue along in a trajectory.
Kim Villanueva (02:37)
Five girls.
Sarah Kaplan (02:55)
And, you know, then I woke up 30 years later and I was like, gee, not as much has happened as one would have hoped or one would have imagined 30 years previously. And, you know, at that time there were still more CEOs named John than all women CEOs altogether in the Fortune 500 and it was 2016, which was that election and all the misogyny directed towards Hillary Clinton. And, you know, just sort of a deep and incandescent rage.
rose up in me, had been there all along, but it kind of came to the surface and I decided I didn't want it to destroy me. So I would translate that into action. And one of the things that I observed was that a lot of people were trying to advance gender equality, were actually trading in kind of tired myths about things like women are more risk averse than men, that women are just choosing to stay home with children, that women don't want the top jobs. And I was like, we as academics actually know a lot.
that's not getting out there into practice, that's not getting out there into the conversation. And so I founded the Institute for Gender in the Economy because I wanted to both advance research that would take us forward and at the same time also translate it into ways that people could hear it and use it when they were making their arguments or in corporate practice.
Rose Brunache (04:13)
Can you talk about where you see the main cost of gender?
Sarah Kaplan (04:17)
Yes, so we do have a system, our economy, our society, organizations that has really traditionally devalued the contributions of women and gender diverse people. So women are more likely to experience gender based violence and this has lasting effects on their physical health, on their economic well-being, on their children. Women are more likely to be socialized into and hired into lower paying industries or jobs or companies. Because of interruptions in child rearing, women are more likely to
retire in poverty to be more likely to need social services. Because society expects women to be caregivers and also doesn't expect men to be caregivers, women are much more likely to be doing the double shift to experience burnout that leads to health challenges, lower employment opportunities. And I could go on for a very long time about some ⁓ of those costs. But one thing that I've been thinking about more recently has been the ways that
These challenges are also embedded in our products and services that these are also not designed with women in mind. So for example, it was only in 2025 that the transportation safety department actually introduced a crash test dummy for car safety that was based on women's anatomy. And we still don't really have a solution for pregnant drivers, right? So scary, right?
Women are often given lower credit ratings. They often get less funding for their startups. Many drugs are not tested on women, or if they are tested on women, the data is not disaggregated. So we don't know the differential effects of a drug on a woman versus a man. In the news right now, how ride sharing apps have been designed in ways that actually don't privilege women's safety. So there are all these different ways that inequality is embedded also in our products and services. So it's not just an employment problem, it's also in our innovation.
system. that I would say is a second cost. And then because we're talking about gender, I also want to talk about men. You had an excellent episode on that this season. There's a lot of costs to men of this gender system that we have in place. know, men are so much more sensitive to peer observations. So that's leading them to not want to excel in school.
is leading them to not want to have gender equal households unless they know that other men also want that. There's so many ways that peer pressure is shaping their inability to engage in ways that are not stereotypically masculine. I put that in quotes. There's so much shaming that is done towards men that then ends up leading to a crisis of despair that men are so much more likely to die of all of those diseases of despair.
like depression and loneliness. And so they get radicalized and polarized and don't get a chance to actualize. I don't know how many more Ises I can put in there, but basically there's so many costs of this gendered system that really affect men too. So I want to focus on that. And then finally, I'll just say, we have to talk about the intersections with race, disability, socioeconomic class, immigration status, sexual orientation. We need to talk about that fact that gender is not binary.
that non-binary and trans people are particularly affected, especially right now, being targeted. So there's all these costs that are intermeshed that ⁓ are very important to consider as well.
Kim Villanueva (07:45)
Yeah, as you've talked about, a lot of the systems are biased against women and gender. But there's also this idea of meritocracy, which is gender free. And supposedly, if you're smart and you work hard and you're super phenomenal, then you'll succeed. What made you start looking at the idea of meritocracy?
Sarah Kaplan (08:03)
Yeah, well, it's a fascinating topic and very important to consider because I think in some ways the idea of the meritocracy is another trick of the patriarchy. And the United States founded on this myth of meritocracy without considering what made that quote meritocracy possible. So I got interested in particular because looking at the corporate world, it is really the number one excuse that people give for
resisting affirmative action, for resisting diversity inclusion efforts. I hear it all the time. And particularly, I'm doing a study in Canada. have a regulation that the Securities Commission has for all companies. have to report on their board diversity. And particularly, they have to say whether they have a target or not. Not a quota, just a target. Did you set a target? And if they didn't set one, they have to explain why not. And this has to be in their annual reports. And so I spent a whole bunch of time looking at thousands and thousands of explanations.
And the number one reason that companies do not set targets is because they say, don't want to undermine meritocracy or we don't want to compromise quality. But you know, I'm a researcher, so I went out and looked at the research and you know, those excuses are kind of hilarious because all the research that I've seen on not even targets, but quotas, like hard quotas shows that it actually increases quality.
And it increases quality because all of those highly qualified people who have historically been overlooked because they weren't part of the privileged class get an opportunity to participate. not only are things like affirmative action increasing quality, but people are arguing that they don't in a way that's actually completely not aligned with what the research says. there's even a paper that is entitled
the crisis of the mediocre man. And the reason it's entitled that, because they studied quotas and found that not only did more qualified diverse people get included, but that the people who then had quote, fewer opportunities were the mediocre men who had historically gotten all of these opportunities because they were part of the privileged class. And they were the ones who got sorted out, which is why quality actually increased. So it's a.
The research tells you something very different from what people believe is happening in the meritocracy.
Rose Brunache (10:25)
Why is the idea of meritocracy so compelling to people?
Sarah Kaplan (10:29)
Well, I think it is so compelling to people because one, for people who are in positions of privilege, it justifies their position. It says, if it's a meritocracy, I got here for all the right reasons. And for people who aren't in positions of privilege, who haven't had access, it's a way for the system, that justification system to give them hope. And also,
to make them feel that if they didn't make it, it's their own fault. It's an individual problem. It's your fault. You didn't make it because, you know, not because the system was against you, not because we have all this people in positions of privilege hoarding the opportunities, it's because there's something wrong with you. So that is why I think the notion of meritocracy has really survived. And I think the challenge, there's kind of two challenges with the idea of meritocracy.
First is, as we've been talking about, even within our existing definition of meritocracy, it's not a meritocracy because all these opportunities, I can't even tell you how many thousands of studies have been done to demonstrate that if you use these current criteria, you have an equally qualified man and an equally qualified woman. The man is gonna get the promotion, the man is gonna get hired and all of that. But then there's this question of like, well, why have we defined meritocracy in a particular way? Well, if we define
effective leader is someone who's authoritative in command and control, and we have historically socialized men to be authoritative in command and control, then they're going to look like the meritocratic person. But if research has basically shown that actually the most effective leaders are the collaborative ones, the team builders, the listeners, but those are traditionally feminized characteristics. And so we don't value those characteristics that isn't considered merit, even though it should be.
And therefore we don't see women as meritorious because that's feminized and therefore devalued. So one is in this current system of merit, women are not, even equally qualified women are not being selected or people of color or people with disabilities. But also why have we defined merit in the way that we have? Because it actually isn't very functional, our current definitions of merit.
Kim Villanueva (12:47)
Yeah, it does seem that meritocracy does set up sort of an artificial sense of competition, you know, where the rules are already biased against women. How else do you see that meritocracy falls down in reality in the workplace?
Sarah Kaplan (13:01)
Well, I think one of the most important ways that meritocracy falls down is that our belief in meritocracy actually makes things less meritocratic. And there's a wonderful new book out called The Meritocracy Paradox by Emilio Castilla. And what he basically shows with his research is that when you, that thing about even equally qualified women and men, and if the men are more likely to be given the position or the promotion or the raise or all of that,
is that if you tell people that they're in a meritocracy, that problem is exacerbated. If you tell people just, have good human resource processes and all of that, you don't say anything about meritocracy, that problem gets reduced. So it's the very idea that we're in a meritocracy that actually triggers a lot of the kinds of bias that we're seeing. And so I think that's one way.
that where things fall down, and it's a real paradox. It's like by saying we're in a meritocracy, we actually do not get a meritocracy.
Rose Brunache (14:01)
One of the things you pointed out is that people who succeed from meritocracy want to believe in it and they want to believe that they pick themselves up by their bootstraps. Is this something we should try to fix and how this desire to believe in meritocracy?
Sarah Kaplan (14:15)
Yeah, so people want to believe in it because you don't want to think I got this job unfairly. And it's also true that people in positions of privilege, I'm not saying that those people have not worked hard, have not worked long hours, have not tried a lot. I'm not denying that. But I think what many of those people don't see is that they have the wind at their back and other people have headwinds. And so they can't understand that they've worked this hard.
that they shouldn't deserve those roles without seeing that actually other people are working just as hard, but they don't have the networks. They don't have the wind at their back the way that you do. And so actually research has shown that one of the most effective ways that you can get buy-in to efforts to increase diversity is by calling out that issue of the wind in the back and saying, all we're trying to do is have everyone have equal wind at their back. And that seems to make people more receptive.
because otherwise they think, it's completely unfair. These people are getting these opportunities and I'm not. And by the way, that's why so many women or people of color are resistant to these efforts too sometimes because they don't wanna feel that they got an opportunity quote, because they were a woman or a person of color or a disabled person and everyone part of it. Again, the trick of the patriarchy is they lobbed that at them without seeing no, actually you didn't get it because you're women. You got it because we actually gave you the same
wind at your back as everyone else. And so I work with a lot of women just saying, you know, when you're saying that, you're actually fulfilling part of the project of holding you back. And so I work a lot on myth busting and reframing. And the reframe is you didn't get it unfairly. You got it because we actually just gave you the same wind at your back.
Rose Brunache (16:02)
All right, so this is a fascinating discussion, but let's just take a minute to hear from our chapters.
Sarah Kaplan (16:07)
you
Sasha Goodfriend (16:11)
My name is Sasha Goodfriend and I'm the executive director of MassNow. I've been with MassNow for the last 13 years and in the last 13 years, I'm most proud of MassNow's work to pass the most comprehensive pay equity legislation in the country to ban employers from asking salary history to determine comparable pay. In 2026, MassNow is fighting for menstrual equity. Specifically, we have three bills on our legislative agenda that we are centering.
One to increase access to menstrual products in schools, prisons, and shelters. Another to make menstrual products free in all public buildings. And a third to mandate ingredient disclosure for menstrual products because the FDA currently does not. You can find more information about us at MassNow.org. That's M-A-S-S-N-O-W.org. We're also on Instagram at MassNow and on TikTok at MassNow.
Sarah Kaplan (17:09)
you
Rose Brunache (17:13)
Okay, so we are back talking with Sarah Kaplan about women and the economy. In one of your videos, Busting myths of meritocracy, you note that headlines often trumpet how a company would be better if you just put women on the board. But that might not be true. Why is that?
Sarah Kaplan (17:30)
Right. Well, I think this is something that people who are trying to promote diversity and inclusion want to make this quote business case, you know, that this is going to make, you know, that there's a lot of work from consulting firms and other organizations showing that, for example, there's three or more women on the board, the company, you know, will do better. So I have gone on the record as saying that might not be true.
Let me tell you why there's a couple of reasons. The first is correlation is not causation. It could be that really good companies that perform really well also are good in other dimensions, like including women on their board. So we don't know which direction the arrow goes, but there's all these claims that the direction is you put the women on the board and then you get better performance. And I think that it doesn't recognize the reality of what we know.
If you look at what we call a meta-analysis, which is we take all the individual studies that have studied this and we put them all together, what it shows is on average there is no effect. Now I should say on average it's not adding women doesn't make things worse either. And so one of the questions that I like to ask is, well, why should women have to be better than the men in order to be included? Like that seems like a very weird bar. And that is a little bit what that...
Business case is kind of saying, it's saying you have to be better in order to be included. So I find that hugely problematic. The second thing that I wanted to say is that when organizations have made efforts to include women, it's often been in a very tokenistic way. And 50 years of research have basically said, when you have tokens and you don't do true inclusion, you don't get any of the positive benefits. So.
We don't know in many cases what the upside could be and therefore the data won't show us because in some cases their companies are really getting the benefit and in other cases companies are not getting the benefit because it's been merely tokenistic. Actually I'm thinking there's a third problem as well and that's that these kinds of arguments can actually trigger backlash. I even had one board director say to me, know, well we added a woman to the board last year and it didn't change our performance so we're not going to do that again and I'm like.
What are you even saying? So that kind of thing of, that argument can trigger backlash.
Kim Villanueva (19:54)
think that diversity inclusion would be good for your bottom line and that you'd want to promote that and announce that.
Sarah Kaplan (20:01)
It can be good for your bottom line, but you have to do it in a real way. And you have to not think that it's going to be good for your bottom line next quarter. Like some of these things take a very long time. Just like a big R &D investment, just like a big infrastructure investment, you don't expect the returns the next quarter. And if you put that demand on diversity and inclusion, but not on other investments, then you're not going to get the payoff.
Kim Villanueva (20:24)
right, it's not realistic. Now you've taken on some other ideas too, like leadership training or how to address unconscious bias. How do you think these actually work for women in the workplace?
Sarah Kaplan (20:35)
Well, I think that these have been put in place for very good reasons because they can work under certain circumstances. So diversity training can work, but not if it's mandatory. Research has shown that if people are forced to do that training, they really resent it. And again, it can lead to backlash. People have to be curious about it. If you make it kind one of the key competencies, diversity management is key to getting promoted, then more people will want to do that kind of training. So it can be effective.
Unconscious bias training can be very enlightening. I find it personally very enlightening because we all have unconscious biases, but it can also really lead to backlash because it's gonna make you feel bad about yourself maybe. so then if you feel bad about yourself, you're gonna be less likely to change. And by the way, one of the big problems with unconscious bias training is it seems to signal that the problem is in our brains, but actually the problem is in our systems. so if, you know, it's...
that neoliberal project to make everything an individual problem, if you therefore do unconscious bias training, it's basically saying if we fix the individuals, we can fix the problem without recognizing that these are systemic. This is the way we organize the definitions of merit as we've been talking about. And so I really struggle with that. And similarly, for example, leadership training, a lot of companies have really invested in leadership training for women or leadership training for other underrepresented groups.
You know, that could be useful, but if the leadership training is like how to be like that white guy at the top of the organization, then that's not effective either. And also by the way, it again, it individualizes everything. says, well, we're going to train you. And then if you don't succeed, it's your fault as opposed to wait, we still have a system that doesn't accommodate caregiving. And we still have a system that values masculinized types of activities and you can't train someone and then put them in a terrible system. then.
expect that something is going to change. that's really my, I don't think that leadership and diversity training and all of that, they don't have to be ineffective, but you really have to be thoughtful about the package of things that you're doing and how that kind of training is just one component of a broader set of activities.
Rose Brunache (22:47)
So now that we know that meritocracy doesn't work, what does and how do we fix the system?
Sarah Kaplan (22:53)
Yeah. I wish I could wave a magic wand. I would say one of the things about, again, about a lot of those diversity training efforts is that a lot of companies did them not with true positive intent. That is, they did it because they thought they had to do it as a pink washing thing or after George Floyd's murder, everyone was doing something on inclusion of black ⁓ colleagues and
and it was just performative, it was just because they thought they had to check the box. And so the checking the box doesn't work. There's lots of practical things that we can do. First, being thoughtful about how you define what's meritorious, you know, and having a discussion and conversation about it, agreeing to it, and then applying it consistently can be really important. Using analytics to understand where bias might be popping up that you didn't expect.
And then, as I mentioned before, I've been getting so much more interested in inclusion in products and services and policies and how you innovate. And I think if you really focused on your, organizations, how you go to market, how you launch your products or services, even for nonprofits like yourselves, if you really, any organization could think about inclusion in their offerings, that actually is gonna drive demand for inclusion in the organization. Cause you can't make an inclusive offering if you don't have a diverse team doing the work.
And so I think that's another thing that I'm really pushing on lately is not just treating this like a talent management challenge, but really thinking about it as the whole way we do business. And I don't mean do business just in the corporate world. This could be for any organization and the way that they operate.
Kim Villanueva (24:35)
Circling back on your concept about systemic change versus individual change, we really need to try to focus on policies that would affect everyone, such as, you know, Nell is actually going to be working on legislation for menstrual leave, as well as parental leave and things like that. But that, of course, you know, costs money. Companies are hesitant to do that because it costs them money. So how do we convince businesses that it's really good for their bottom line?
Sarah Kaplan (24:59)
So first of all, think that, you know, people, the framing that these things are gonna cost something is part of the project to not have them get done, right? So without thinking about, what does it cost to not do it? What about the cost of not being inclusive? And so if organizations are thinking about the cost, I would focus much more on the cost of not doing these things than on the cost of doing them.
That is one of the big reframes. And then the second thing that I would say is this is all part of this business case conversation, business case for diversity and inclusion. And I think that a lot of organizations use that, as I said, as an excuse to just not do the work. But it's so interesting. I have been in so many meetings over my years of companies that want to make a big investment in research and development or a big acquisition of a company. It's highly uncertain. They don't know what the result is going to be.
they can't make it work in their spreadsheet, all the little numbers. And so they just plug in a number that shows this is gonna lead to great performance later. But the moment somehow we come to diversity and inclusion, they've lost their imagination. They're unwilling to plug in a number, even though it's the same kind of uncertainty, the same kind of possible benefit to an organization, and much less of the potential downside than a big acquisition might have, because often those go very badly.
I find it so interesting that in certain domains, managers are completely willing to kind of have a gut feel and say, is what I want to do, and we're going to plug in a number for the out year performance. But then when it comes to diversity inclusion, they have no imagination. And what that does when you force a business case onto a problem like this is it leads you to very incremental thinking, to small actions that don't really transform your organization.
All the research suggests that if you do it right, you're going to get these long-term payouts. But you will never get those long-term payouts if you focus first on, give me the PowerPoint presentation with all the numbers all laid out in a nice neat row. And so I think it's another way of dampening efforts to really create true inclusion.
Rose Brunache (27:14)
Your talks are about meritocracy through systemic change, but it seems the United States is going in the opposite direction. The opposition's DEI or what people perceive as DEI. Is this unavoidable and how do we fight against changes like this?
Sarah Kaplan (27:27)
Well, it is quite interesting because it's been in the news lately that half the people fighting DEI don't even really know what it is. I think you're right to point out that people don't even really know that what it means is, you know, we want everyone to have the same opportunities to do things, but okay. It is a terrifying time, truly terrifying. I have to believe that
In some ways it's so terrifying because this is the last last gasp of the patriarchy. But maybe the patriarchy is tricky and who knows maybe it will figure out a way. But it's so desperate it's so violent it's so extreme right now that it makes me think that you know it's because we had so many wins you know. We got marriage equality and and and and now there's the backlash to you know marriage equality and so I'm not denying that you know these are very dire times and so
I do think it's gonna take bravery, but bravery is very contagious. There are so many people out there waiting for one person to be the brave person that I have found time and again when I have chosen to be the brave person, when I've put myself out there, and maybe even when I've had to take a few arrows in my back or whatever, so many people follow. So many people later say, thank goodness that you did that because it made it possible for me. So I think.
Even if you feel like even being a tiny bit brave, I would recommend doing it because I think that there's many, it will open up possibilities for many more people. Also a sense of humor helps. I would say you can't do any of this without the sense of humor. So I think that would be, I think one other thing that we need to keep in mind in these moments where they want us to not be joyful and not be happy and we can.
still do this work and still remember that the whole purpose of this is so that we all, people of all genders, people of all races can have joyful lives. ⁓ pursuit of happiness and all of that, was in the constitution.
Kim Villanueva (29:32)
Women aren't in the Constitution, but that was. We're striving for that. So, you we always try to end our podcast with discussions about hope. So what gives you hope? I mean, as you said, it's very dire right now, but what can we look forward to? What gives you hope?
Sarah Kaplan (29:46)
Well, one of the things that gives me hope is sounds like it's a negative thing, but it's not. And it's exactly all of these organizations kind of walking back their DEI efforts and all those kinds of things. While the ones who are walking it back were the ones who are only ever doing it as a pink washing exercise anyway, they weren't truly doing it. And so maybe we're done with all of the fake efforts and you know, like the people who didn't want to do it now just don't have to do it. And they're...
You know, so that in a way will reduce the backlash. And in fact, the organizations that get it are just embedding it in everything they do. Maybe they're not saying DEI or diversity inclusion. They're just saying, ⁓ wait, we just need to make this our standard operating procedure in everything we do. And you see so many organizations doing that, that dividends are going to pay off for years and years and years and decades. And the organizations that aren't doing it are facing lots of backlash, like, you know, boycotts.
and are gonna lose talent. And so I actually think the walking back is walking back of a lot of pink washing activities that maybe is gonna lead to more sustainable change. And then I will say one other thing, which is this is a real moment for the think globally, but act locally. And I love that in your podcast, you feature these efforts of all your local chapters because
Those stories, every single one of them, listened to all, you know, this whole season and every single one of them gave me hope. Good. It's amazing what these different chapters are doing and Western Kentucky and just made me so happy. And so I think if we look to cities and towns around the country, you're going to see all sorts of inspiring things, local cooperative movements, local shared kitchens like Martha's Table in DC.
Employee ownership models like Project Equity in California or Evergreen Cooperative in Cleveland that help employees, you know, buy out retiring founders. There's so many great feminist experiments going on all over the place. And these experiments are the models for what we really want the economy to be and I think are going to grow. And as, as we move into a new era, those are going to be the seeds of change. I, I, despite everything, despite it being very hard to read the headlines these days,
I find that there are many seeds of change and these kinds of conversations that you have are part of that.
Rose Brunache (32:10)
Thank you, Sarah Kaplan, for being here with us today and for busting some of the mess about meritocracy.
Sarah Kaplan (32:16)
It's my pleasure to be here. What a great conversation. Thank you.
Kim Villanueva (32:24)
Today for our additional segment, we welcome our Policy and Advocacy Director, Shelley Von Hoff. She's leading our book club, which is called the Feminist Public Square, and we're excited to read along with her. Take it away, Shelley.
speaker-4 (32:36)
Hi everyone, my name is Shelby Von Hoff and I am the Policy and Advocacy Director for NOW. I'm also working on The Feminist Public Square, our book club. For the 60th anniversary, we've picked books that match up with our quarterly capsules, learning about different feminist perspectives together. I'm here to share our latest book picks and invite you to read along with us. March is the last month of our capsule, The Cost of Being a Woman. We are reading Tori Dunlap's Financial Feminist.
A book that aims to help women learn financial literacy and become confident with things like investments and salary negotiations. Our second capsule is Protecting Care, Protecting Choice, focusing on health care and reproductive rights. We will be starting in April by reading the book American Sickness by Elizabeth Rosenthal. The book is about how health care became big business and how we can all fight to get the care that we need. In May, we'll be reading Liberating Abortion by Renee Bracey Sherman and Regina Mahone.
a social justice history of abortion. And lastly, in June, we will be reading Fighting Mad, Resisting the End of Roe v. Wade by Crystal Littlejohn, a book of essays that show what it's like to fight for our rights. We would love to have you join us in our educational journey. Come with us and pick up a book.
Kim Villanueva (33:49)
Thank you so much for joining Rose and I this week as we talk with Sarah Kaplan about economics and merit. Here's to making the economy a more equal place for everyone. Of course, we'd love to hear your thoughts. Did you feel you pulled yourself up by your briefs? Did the meritocracy let you down? Our numbers in the show notes. You can call and record a voice message or email us a voice memo at feminismnow at n-o-w dot o-r-g. We'd love to play your message.
Sarah Kaplan (34:04)
straps.
Kim Villanueva (34:16)
Thanks for listening and stay tuned for our next episode in two weeks.
Sarah Kaplan (34:20)
you