The Toxic Link Between Female Power And Male Fragility

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What is your relationship to ambition? Has your professional ambition grown or evolved in unexpected ways in our post-pandemic world? And how does your ambition affect your interactions with men?

I ask these questions because the annual Women in the Workplace report from McKinsey and Lean In came out today, and one of its top-line findings is that despite all the talk about quiet quitting and “lazy girl jobs,” women’s ambition is higher than ever before—and, it should not surprise any of us, equal to that of men. This finding held true whether or not women were taking active steps to prioritize their personal lives, which is not altogether surprising, either. After all, as Julia Korn wrote for ForbesWomen in August, we should not assume that a woman is less professionally ambitious because she has reordered her life’s priorities.

In spite of the data showing that women and men harbor relatively equal levels of ambition, our real-life reactions to female ambition is far less straightforward. This was the subject of a recent panel discussion I moderated as part of an exclusive film screening of Chloe Domont’s new movie, Fair Play, which debuts on Netflix tomorrow (October 6). The film follows a hedge-fund romantic couple, Emily and Luke, whose dynamic is fundamentally altered when Emily receives a promotion Luke thought was his. Emily becomes Luke’s boss, and he, as a result, slowly unravels. Domont told me that the inspiration for the film came from her own life.

“My successes… started to feel like a loss, in many ways, because of the kinds of men I was dating. These were men who adored me for my strengths and for my ambition, but at the same time, they still couldn’t help but feel threatened by the very things that they adored me for,” she said. “That’s what I wanted to explore with this film: The toxic link between female empowerment and male fragility, and why is it that a woman being big makes a man feel small?”

These are good questions—though, I look forward to a future when we don’t have to ask them.

Cheers!

Maggie

Featured Forbes Profile: How Panda Express CEO Peggy Cherng Used Her Ph.D. To Get Rich In Fast Food

Peggy Cherng built Panda Express into the McDonald’s of Chinese food by using her engineering background and big data to exponentially spice up sales—making her a multibillionaire along the way. “A lot of people in the restaurant business aren’t educated as engineers,” she says. “I have an advantage.”

ICYMI: News Of The Week

Dr. Katalin Karikó received the 2023 Nobel Prize in Medicine earlier this week, alongside her collaborator Drew Weissman, for her research that led to the development of mRNA Covid-19 vaccines. Dr. Karikó, who made the inaugural Forbes 50 Over 50 list in 2021, has relied on tremendous persistence throughout her career, overcoming doubt and even a demotion as she pursued mRNA research.

In other good news for the alumnae of the 50 Over 50 list, Diana Greene Foster—the researcher behind the landmark Turnaway Study, which has documented the negative effects of being denied an abortion—was named this week as one of the 20 recipients of the 2023 MacArthur Fellowship, which also known as the prestigious “genius grant” for extraordinary intellectual achievement.

Speaking on stage at the Forbes CMO Summit in Miami on Tuesday, TikTok influencer Dylan Mulvaney said she hopes brands will use her experience as the target of “hate and vitriol” to avoid “performative” inclusive marketing and instead be true allies. It was one of her first in-depth interviews since her partnership with Bud Light sparked a boycott on the brand and death threats for Mulvaney that left her “scared to leave [her] house.”

If your healthcare bills feel exorbitant, it’s not your imagination: A new report shows that women spend $15.4 billion more than men in out-of-pocket healthcare costs each year, based on deductibles, coinsurance, and out-of-pocket maximums. The discrepancy held for women in every age group from 19 to 64.

Peggy Cherng is one of just 12 self-made women—and one of two self-made Asia-born women—on the 2023 Forbes 400, our definitive list of the wealthiest people in America. To see the full list, which came out this week, click through here, and to see which women made the list alongside Cherng, check out this story here!

The Checklist

1. Skip the over-rehearsed job spiel. You don’t need to become a salesperson to land your dream job. Instead, follow these three strategies to show up confidently and authentically to your next interview.

2. Beat inflation with your portfolio. Inflation is here to stay, but here are 12 tips about where to park your money for a decent return.

3. Put an end to self-doubt. Among the best things you can do to help boost your self-esteem: Stop comparing yourself to others. Remember that everyone has their own unique journey and there is no “right” way to live yours.

The Quiz

Walmart heir Alice Walton is once again the richest woman in the U.S. after the big box retailer’s stock climbed by 19% since our 2022 ranking. Like most of her family, Walton has largely stayed out of the spotlight, with one notable exception—which passion project has her wealth funded?