The daunting plight of the career-minded woman

"In order to have the power, we need to take it"

A woman and man stand side by side and button blazers
(Image credit: Illustrated | iStock/IPGGutenbergUKLtd)

For many professional women, the last five years have been an exercise in perseverance, bookended by movements at odds. We were told to lean in, to throw ourselves into the C-suite, and butt our way into all-male spaces. But in the process, many of us faced abuse, humiliation, and harassment at the hands of the men whose ranks in the boardroom we were meant to be joining.

From the outset of our careers, young women are expected to endure infantilization and exclusion all while advocating for better policies in the hopes that someday, things will change. If we've made little progress in shattering the glass ceiling or closing the wage gap, it certainly hasn't been for a lack of trying.

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Natalie Daher

Natalie Daher is a writer, reporter, and journalist based in New York who's appeared on The Daily Beast, Longreads, Racked, Lapham's Quarterly, CNBC, and City Lab. She co-authors a newsletter called Clipped about women's media.