PHOTOGRAPH: AGATA POSPIESZYNSKA
http://www.harpersbazaar.com/uk April 2020 | HARPER’S BAZAAR | 127AT WOR K
We are usually taught
to mistrust one
another – an attitude
that makes little
sense in a working
world that is still
terribly unequal
careers, when they could easily have been rivals. Both Booker
Prize winners, Margaret Atwood and Bernardine Evaristo
have long been noted for championing debut writers. Phoebe
Waller-Bridge continues to work with Vicky Jones, the director
of the original Edinburgh run of Fleabag, and Olivia Colman
has used many of her award speeches to credit the work of her
female co-stars.
Social media and the rise of face-to-face women’s networks
in numerous companies are also helping to foster the idea that
none of us has to do anything alone. When you need help, it’s
far easier now to find someone and ask them than it was, say, 10
years ago. The trick is to do so responsibly and courteously.
Think about how you would want to be asked and what it would
take you to say yes. Learn to respect people’s time and send
(very) short emails. Be graceful in the face of indifference –
and of ‘no’, too. Think as much as you can about what you can
easily and painlessly do for others, and do it without an agenda.
Send thank-you notes. Let people know when they helped you.
It’s also good to be upfront. Ask younger colleagues ‘What
can I do to help you out? ’, and be honest with them about what
is realistic and what is pie in the sky. You
may not be able to get them a job or a
pay rise, but you can connect them with
someone i n you r c i rcle w it h whom you
think they would have a good conversa-
tion. The more straightforward you are
about this, the easier it is. So many
potential moments of support are poi-
soned by someone thinking, ‘Is this
person networking because they want
something out of me? ’ Anything any of
us can do to make connections genuine
is worthwhile; be clear that the intro-
duction is being made because these
two people really are like-minded, not
because it is a transaction or a deal.
I recently interviewed Aline Santos, the vice-president of
marketing at Unilever, for my podcast How to Own the Room. She
told me about how, during her early career back in the 1980s,
she wore glasses and men’s blazers to look more serious, and
even put on aftershave to avoid distracting her male colleagues
with perfume. Times have changed, and now we expect to
succeed as ourselves – not to have to blaze a lone trail wearing
borrowed clothes. I like to think that nowadays Eve Harrington
wouldn’t stalk Margo and try to oust her. Instead, they’d form
a production company and succeed together.
‘Lift As You Climb: Women and the Art of Ambition’ by Viv Groskop
(£12.99, Transworld) is out now.have made us swallow a nasty, untrue narrative about female
ambition. The trouble is, we rarely hear the antidote to tales of
Machiavellian women hampering one another’s success. In my
experience, in real life we are not especially comfortable shaft-
ing others to get what we want; in fact, we are more likely to get
a kick out of helping them. In the words of Serena Williams, ‘the
success of every woman should be an inspiration to another’.
I only got my first break in writing
when I was doing work experience on a
magazine because a young editor took
the time to talk to me and trusted me
to help her with her workload. That
was on Cosmopolitan 25 years ago, and
the woman was Kath Viner, now the
first female editor of The Guardian. I’ve
lost count of the women who have given
me an email address or an introduction
when I desperately needed it. Yes, there
are male colleagues who have done a
lot for me too. But I particularly notice
and appreciate such generosity from
my female counterparts because we
are usually taught to mistrust one another – an attitude that
makes little sense in a working world that is still terribly unequal.
In Silicon Valley, just 11 per cent of senior executives are
women, according to the research group Inspiring Women in
Technology. The recent Opportunity Insights project at Harvard
showed that, currently, about 41 per cent of men will out-earn
their father, compared with only one in four women. And last
year, the World Economic Forum warned that it will take
100 years to achieve gender equality. Clearly, as women we
have a lot to gain by ‘lifting’ each other as we climb.
The good news is that today’s society abounds with stories of
women who are doing exactly this. Tina Fey and Amy Poehler
have spoken about their support for each other through their