Tuesday, May 3 at 8pm ET | 5pm PT. In celebration of Asian American and Pacific Islander Month, PBS Books is pleased to host a conversation with Reshma Saujani, discussing her latest book “Pay Up. The Future of Women and Work (and Why It’s Different Than You Think).”
Reshma is the founder of Girls Who Code and bestselling author of “Brave, Not Perfect”; she confronts the “big lie” of corporate feminism and presents a bold plan to address the burnout and inequity harming America’s working women today. Since the feminism movement, women have been told that they can “have it all”– break glass ceilings and succeed in their careers.. 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 her book, 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. She outlines four key steps for creating necessary change: empower working women, educate corporate leaders, revise our narratives about what it means to be successful, and advocate for policy reform. Don’t miss the conversation. There will be time for questions from the audience at the end of the conversation.
About the Author: Reshma Saujani
Reshma Saujani is the author of “PAY UP: The Future of Women and Work (And Why It’s Different Than You Think)”. She is a leading activist and 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.
Learn more at reshmasaujani.com.
