Editor's Letter: What Makes a Community?

By Powerbitches founder, Rachel Hills

A few weeks ago, I overheard a conversation in my coworking space between a marketing consultant and her client.

“People want to feel like they’re part of a community,” she said. And the most successful brands on social media were the ones that presented like a hive of interaction and activity. Ergo, her client should focus on ways they could make their brand feel more like a community, with events for their customers and lots and lots of pictures of happy, connected looking people on Instagram.

I found the conversation equal parts fascinating and dispiriting. Dispiriting because, as someone who has spent years obsessing about how communities work - and how they can work better - it bothered me to hear something I care so much about discussed so transactionally.

And fascinating because, well, she was right. In an era where many of the institutions that were designed to meet our need for human connection (church, neighbors, extended family) no longer play the role they once did - and maybe never properly met it for many of us - most of us are hungry to connect with likeminded people, form real relationships, and be part of something bigger than ourselves.

The problem is that while we’re really good at identifying that need for connection, we’re much less effective at creating environments that fulfil it.

Who among us hasn’t stood at awkwardly at a busy networking event, drink in hand, working up the energy to strike up a conversation with yet another stranger (or trying to figure out how to gracefully exit the one you’re in)? Or gone to a panel or conference presumably full of like-minded people - all there also in search of the same connection and community - and not spoken to any of them?

These problems are often framed in terms of introvert vs extrovert, but I’m an extrovert and I hate them too. I think they’re structural, inherent in the way gatherings are conceived, hosted, and facilitated.

But the good thing about them being structural is that they can be changed.

In that spirit, as someone who has thought a lot about how to create conditions that enable people to connect and form meaningful relationships, here are four things I believe all event organizers should be doing to enhance their communities.

1. Know who’s in the room. Like, really know them. Not just as an abstract marketing category, but as people. What are their names? What do they care about? What are they struggling with? Why are they here? And where appropriate, share this information with them, too. If I’m going to a meetup, a conference, or a cocktail hour and I know who else is there, that allows me to make a beeline for the people I have the best chance of connecting with, instead of just striking up a conversation at random and hoping for the best. It also allows me to ask better questions and more quickly find points of commonality, whoever I’m talking to at the event. Sending everyone who is attending a gathering each another’s photographs and bios before they meet is a trick I picked up at a Mindr networking event for women working in social impact, and it’s one I employ at all of our Powerbitches Salons.

2. Hosting is an active endeavor. As an event organizer, your job isn’t just to get people in the room. It’s to create conditions that help them to connect once they get there. If you’re hosting a dinner, this might mean thoughtfully assigning seats, rather than leaving them to seat themselves. If you’re hosting a mixer, it means checking in on people who are standing alone and introducing them to other guests with common interests. In a coworking scenario, it means talking to prospective members about who they are and what they care about when onboarding, rather than just talking them through the facilities in your space. (Shoutout here to Impact Hub Islington, where I worked as a member host when I lived in London, and which did hosting in a manner that is second to none.)

3. Think participation, not passive consumption. Panels, speakers, and screenings are a great way to get exposed to interesting people and perspectives, but as a general rule, they are terrible at building community. If you want your audience to form a connection with one another, you need to give them opportunities to participate and connect with each other beyond the Q&A at the end of the event. Last year, I took part in a Not Safe For Mom Group event that did this really well. Instead of focusing the conversation on those of us on stage, the facilitator invited participants to share their stories, experiences, and questions throughout the evening, creating a conversation that felt much more connected, cohesive, and profound than your average panel event.

4. Repeat encounters matter. Even the most beautiful, intentionally crafted gathering will struggle to create a lasting or meaningful connection if there isn’t an opportunity for the people in the room to meet again. Real relationships build over time, whether that’s in the structured environment of a monthly event series or annual conference, or the casual run-ins that happen on a college campus or coworking space. This is one of the main reasons we decided to pursue a membership model for Powerbitches - we wanted our members to meet each other over and over again, and to build the trust and community that comes with that.

What are your secrets for building authentic community and connection?

The Powerbitches Interview: Robin Marty

Journalist Robin Marty with her new book, Handbook For A Post-Roe America.

Our April salon speaker is journalist and author Robin Marty. We first fell in love with Robin’s work through her deep dive investigative pieces on the repro rights landscape for publications like Cosmopolitan, Rewire, and Rolling Stone, which make complex policy debates concrete and human. Her new book, Handbook for a Post-Roe America is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand what is likely to unfold when it comes to abortion rights in the United States over the next few years, and who wants to be able to prepare for it - personally or politically.

We sat down with Robin to talk about what the map is likely to look like, how we got where we are now, and how she funds her investigative reporting.

“The right needs abortion in order to motivate voters and achieve an electoral majority.” - Robin Marty

Powerbitches: How did you get started writing about reproductive rights?

Robin Marty: I had been a progressive activist for a while, but I started writing personally in 2009 after I had a miscarriage. We were expecting our second child and I assumed everything was fine until the 12-week checkup, where we found out there wasn’t a heartbeat and the baby had stopped growing at 8 weeks. My OB didn’t know how to do a D&C, so I had to try to find another doctor who would help me take care of it. It happened right at the moment they were having the debate about whether abortion should be allowed in the insurance exchange, and I wrote about my experience for RH Reality Check (now Rewire). One of the things that struck me was how many people responded to the article saying that it was okay for me to have an abortion because the baby had stopped developing. But it’s all the same procedure, all the same hospital paperwork. That was the moment when I really understood that it’s all the same, and it’s just that we’re creating these fine lines between what is acceptable and unacceptable.

PB: In your first book Crow After Roe, you look at how, although abortion is technically currently legal in the United States, the pro-life movement has whittled away at rights and access on a state and local level. How has that played out? And how has the addition of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court change that?

RM: At the time we were writing the book, there were all these model legislations being floated by red state legislatures. This was the first time a fetal heartbeat bill had been introduced, the first time a 20-week ban had been introduced. All of these bills were designed to go to the Supreme Court. They were written to appeal to Justice Anthony Kennedy, who was then the swing vote on the court, trying to persuade him to come up with a new line at which abortion should be banned. Now with Kavanaugh on the court, the swing vote is Chief Justice John Roberts, who has publicly said that he believes Roe was wrongly decided. Right now, we have 20 different cases that are right at the approach of the Supreme Court. My guess is that the court will overturn Roe, but not until after the 2020 election. The right needs abortion in order to motivate voters and achieve an electoral majority. It’s the same reason I don’t think we’re ever going to see a total federal abortion ban in the United States. There are too many people who will vote Republican because they want to make abortion illegal, but who don’t agree with them on anything else.

Stock photo of a pro-life street preacher taken during Robin’s reporting in Louisville, Kentucky. Image credit: Robin Marty.

PB: For a lot of people, the idea of a “Post-Roe America” evokes images of a Handmaid’s Tale-style dystopia. Is that realistic? What should we expect?

RM: We’re basically going to a situation where abortion is legal on the northern part of the East Coast, on the West Coast, in Colorado, New Mexico, Illinois, and Minnesota, and illegal through most of the rest of the country. Wisconsin and Michigan should be able to keep things in place, but it depends on who is in power. In some ways, the pro-choice movement is really well prepared for this situation: there are activists and organizations who are already transporting patients interstate to receive treatment, the system is just going to have to be embellished. The other side of it is that unlike before Roe v Wade, doing abortions ourselves at home is much safer than it was prior to the 1970s. We have a system where people can obtain medical abortion safely, but we don’t yet have a legal system that accepts it. There’s no medical reason a clinician needs to be present when a person ingests mifepristone, but legally restricting the use of telemedicine is an effective way to restrict access. One way activists are fighting back is through a bill called the Pregnant Person’s Dignity Act, which argues that every person should be free from scrutiny if they’ve had a miscarriage or other difficult situation in their pregnancy. Because once abortion is illegal, every miscarriage is a suspected abortion.

PB: We first encountered your work as a reporter for outlets like Cosmopolitan, Rewire, and Rolling Stone, writing incredibly detailed investigative pieces that put a human face on the reproductive rights landscape. Of all the stories you’ve covered and the people you’ve met along the way, what are the ones that have most stayed with you?

RM: One of the most interesting stories to me was traveling to Idaho and meeting Brandi Swindell, who was working to position her organization Stanton Healthcare as “the new Planned Parenthood,” only without abortion. She was the first “pro-life feminist” I had encountered, and it was the first time I really understood how someone could view themselves as a feminist but not believe in access to birth control. It was puzzling to me, but also really fascinating. We were so close on so many issues, but because we disagree on abortion, we can’t work together on any of them.

“Look at where your closest clinic is. How far away is it? Would you need to travel? Do you need to start saving for your own abortion fund?” - Robin Marty

PB: How do you fund that kind of deep reporting work - especially when it involves travel?

RM: [laughs] I’m broke most of the time. I self-fund a lot of my work and just hope for the best. I’ve found granting organizations can be good at providing the money needed for things like travel, but there’s often an extra layer of editorial that goes on top of that. There are things they want to see that the story doesn’t always bear out. I try hard to make sure everything I do stands up to scrutiny. I have abortion opponents who are more than willing to throw me up against the wall, and on the other hand, abortion rights reporters who are worried that [through Robin’s reporting and her podcast Ask An Anti] I’m too close to the enemy.

What’s the number #1 thing you recommend pro-choice people do to prepare for life after Roe?

If you have any money, give money to an abortion fund. They are doing all the work to move people from place to place so they can access the care they need. Also, look at where your closest clinic is. How far away is it? Would you need to travel? Do you need to start saving for your own abortion fund? Would you need to take time off work? Make a plan now, because it’s going to take money, it’s going to take resources, and it’s going to take time. When you’re pregnant and you don’t want to be, you have to do things fast. And the more information you have, the fast you can move.

Robin Marty will be in conversation with Powerbitches founder Rachel Hills at our next Salon event, on April 25. Click here for more information and to secure your tickets.

Money As a Circle: Working Class Money Lessons

By Lex Schroeder

When you grow up seeing people underpaid for their valuable work—in my case, both of my parents and many members of my community in a small town in Maine—and know that so many people, especially women and especially women of color, are hurting because they are severely underpaid for their work, it’s hard to go to bat for yourself. At least it is for me. 

On some fundamental level, some small part of me still doesn’t want to get paid if I know other people are hurting. I think this is because I understand myself as part of a whole community, and I want my whole community to be well and taken care of. I’m proud of the fact that this is a value of mine, and I know where it comes from, but as a freelancer, I’ve had to find a creative way to work with it. (This is why when I’m not doing editorial development work, I try to create mechanisms for taking care of the whole community by rethinking business design from a feminist perspective).

“I understand myself as part of a whole community, and I want my whole community to be well and taken care of.”

Along these lines, the biggest shift for me as a business owner has been coming to understand that the more I can support myself, the more I can support others. I decided to become a freelance writer/editor and consultant for many reasons, but I also did it just to learn how to advocate for myself. Being freelance reminds me that change is happening all the time, and I can navigate that change. I can support myself because I’m good at my job, I ask excellent questions and see many possibilities, and I work hard for my clients. These things don’t change even though my work is always changing.

On the more practical side of things, as for pricing out projects and retainer contracts, I try to keep in mind three things:

“Ask for what you need” – I came up in dialogue and facilitation circles where I heard brilliant minds in the participatory leadership community routinely ask people to, “Ask for what you need, Offer what you can.” It’s a beautiful idea that just keeps me human and feeling connected to my community/the world. So in contract negotiations, when I feel myself want to erase myself or toss aside my own needs, I remind myself, “Ask for what you need.” And it’s usually pretty simple. I need to make a solid day rate (even if I give discounts, which I do, to women-led firms and nonprofits), and I need to set a price that accounts for taxes, travel expenses, and other work-related expenses. It’s a bit annoying, but asking for what I need often means telling a client, “No, I don’t bill hourly. I have a day rate or I’ll work with you for a set number of days per month on a retainer, and here’s why…” My work requires heads-down think time and writing time, and billing hourly just doesn’t serve the work well. When I am clear about this with clients, my clients trust me and we find a way to work together that respects everyone’s time.

“Lead with the work” – A mentor and colleague of mine, John Shook, taught me this during my years at The Lean Enterprise Institute. When the work is out front, when you’re running experiments and focusing on the work itself, not the anxiety around the work or the political relationships around the work, then everything becomes easier. In other words, I do fine if I remember that my job is to put pen to paper for my clients, making their good work visible to the world, and to build beautiful communication and knowledge management strategies. The sooner I jump into the work, even if it’s just sketching out a proposal and being in the creativity of this process, the easier it is for the client to see my value. I don’t recommend “leading with the work” by doing too much unpaid work upfront, but I do recommend doing some upfront work to show your client how you think and operate in the earliest stages of a project proposal or contract negotiation. 

“The more I can support myself, the more I can support others.”

Money is personal, and it’s not personal – Everyone has dozens of opportunities and constraints they’re working with and around at all times that other people simply cannot see. If someone can’t pay you what you ask for, that’s not on you. Only your client knows their own budget and constraints. You need to still ask for what you’re worth and what you need. It’s just not personal if they say no to you. The good news is, while a potential client may surprise you by saying “no” when you are expecting a “yes”, they may also surprise you with a “yes and…” I have learned to put myself out there because the world is fundamentally open in all directions. Good and bad business surprises happen all the time. Or as my auntie says, “The tide goes in, the tide goes out.” There’s more good working class wisdom from Maine for you!

Lex Schroeder is the Co-Founder of Feminists at Work and co-producer of the Entrepreneurial Feminist Forum. A writer/editor and strategic communications consultant with deep roots in systems thinking, complexity science, and participatory leadership, she works frequently with Changemaker Strategies.

Powerbitches Members Share Their Most Important Money Lessons

As part of our ongoing conversation about $$$, we asked our community to share their most powerful and productive money advice.

Here’s what they told us:

“Price your work based on cost rather than value. This runs counter to most advice I've read, which tells entrepreneurs we will earn more money if they charge based on the perceived value of our product/service rather than what it costs to produce. But I found my businesses became far more sustainable when I picked an hourly rate (or more accurately, a set of them) and priced everything I worked on based on that. ‘Value’ is subjective. Labor is less so."
- Rachel Hills, Powerbitches founder

“Get an accountant with lots of clients who are self-employed/freelance/in the arts. Folks like us have specialized reporting requirements and fluctuating incomes, and my accountant has saved my ass so many times I've lost count. She walked me through becoming an LLC and a legit business in the eyes of the IRS, starting Roth IRA and SEP retirement accounts and gently harassing me to contribute every year, figuring out sales tax filings, and recommending other professionals to fill in the gaps. Her fees are more than worth the money and stress she's saved me–and they are deductible. I love Jadah Carroll, who I always recommend.”
- Therese Shechter, Trixie Films

“There are plenty of practical steps I've taken that have benefitted my finances, from using the Qapital app to raising my rates to more accurately reflect what my labor and experience are worth, but the most powerful work I've done is re-adjusting my attitude about money by seeing a financial therapist. So many of us carry shame and even trauma about work and money and living under capitalism. In my experience, these feelings must be addressed to really make way for abundance in its many incarnations.”
- Kristen Sollee, author, Witches, Sluts, Feminists

“Outsource what you habitually don't like or have time to do - for me, it’s my accounting. I think of it as the rule of threes. Make a list of the three things you are naturally good at. Do those things. Next, choose three things you are not super good at yet but that you think you could and want to get really good at. Dedicate yourself to those things and become an expert in them. Finally, choose three things you habitually hate doing and are always behind on, and outsource them.”
- Jillian Foster, Global Insight and Continuum

“Fuck the ‘shoulds.’ You don't need the fanciest new software, an office space, or anything else to legitimize you. In fact, keeping expenses to a minimum and creating systems that allow you to streamline and automate is one of the best ways to earn more...and invest it into the causes and business you care about.”
- Kait Scalisi, MPH, Passion by Kait

“Money is personal, and it’s not personal. Everyone has dozens of opportunities and constraints they’re working with and around at all times that other people simply cannot see. If someone can’t pay you what you ask for, that’s not on you. Only your client knows their own budget and constraints.”
- Lex Schroeder, Freelance writer and communications strategist

“Two small pieces of advice:
1. Brass Taxes is a local and very affordable outfit that specializes in tax prep for freelancers and self-employed people -- they know how to comb through your expenses! www.brasstaxes.com
2. I have automated most of my donations to go out on a monthly basis. This helps me remember to do it and makes it feel like a normal, ordinary part of money life, not a big stretch at the end of the year.”
- Jen Peirce, Criminal justice researcher

“I read the book Overcoming Underearning by Barbara Stanny and it was so helpful! It's both practical and inspirational, and ends up being a journey in valuing yourself, taking yourself seriously, and being honest and loving with your finances. She also suggests to go through the book with other people, and that helped immensely! Well after reading the book, a small group and I still meet together to discuss finances, get real with each other, and open up about our fears and wins. It's been life saving! “
- Kimmay Caldwell, Hurray Kimmay

“Wanting to make the world a better place and helping uplift others are important elements of my mindset as well as business. But I have also learned the hard way that you can't help others from an empty space. That's negative martyrdom. If my business makes more money, I can help nonprofits and causes close to my heart. And a flourishing business means I can hire women employees. Conscious living all the way.”
- Sweta Vikram, Entrepreneur and author, Louisiana Catch

The Powerbitches Interview: Prisca Bae

Prisca Bae

Prisca Bae has spent her career serving as a bridge between the women’s movement and the private sector, working for companies like Goldman Sachs, Women in the World, and advisory group Seneca Point Global. In 2015, working at PepsiCo in the  Global Diversity & Engagement group, she led the development of a $100 million commitment to women and girls.

We caught up with Prisca to learn more about her unique career path, her experiences working for change in corporate America, and how she built her enviable professional network.

You can catch Prisca in person at our next Powerbitches Salon on March 23 (tickets here).

Powerbitches: You work at this really interesting intersection of advocacy and the private sector. How did you land there?

Prisca: Being an immigrant and a woman of color has defined my life’s passion and goals. I was always a feminist and majored in women’s and gender studies at Columbia. I never thought I could make a career out feminism so I went to law school and ended up at a big law firm. It made sense at the time – I had huge law school loans and wanted to start supporting my parents, who were nearing retirement. 

10 years ago, I made a career pivot. Thanks to some great mentors, two female partners at my firm who I’m still good friends with today, I met an attorney named Kim Azzarelli who would hire me to work with her at Goldman Sachs in the philanthropy group. We would go on to work together at Women in the World and Seneca Point Global, which she founded with Ambassador Melanne Verveer, the first-ever US Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women’s Issues, a role created during the Obama Administration by Secretary Clinton.

There was no strategy behind my career pivot other than surrounding myself with supportive mentors who cared about me as well as advancing women in work and leadership.

“Being an immigrant and a woman of color has defined my life’s passion and goals.” - Prisca Bae

Powerbitches: How did your work build from there?

Prisca: At Goldman Sachs, I helped manage Goldman Sachs Gives, a $500 million donor-advised fund for the partners of the firm. It was an incredible opportunity to learn from leaders in the development and social impact space. 

At Women in the World, I ran the Women in the World Foundation and became immersed in the women’s and media space and saw the genius of Tina Brown first hand. I also got to know how the production and media side of things work, which was exciting for a former attorney. Both Goldman Sachs and Women in the World gave insights and access into worlds I never thought I would be a part of. At Seneca Point Global, a global advisory firm Kim founded with Ambassador Verveer, I helped Fortune 500 companies on their corporate social responsibility and women’s empowerment initiatives. I’m really proud that I was able to build a career that was both mission driven but also enabled me to continue to pay off my student loans.

Powerbitches: Let’s talk about your work at PepsiCo. As their Senior Director of Global Diversity & Engagement, you led the launch of a new $100 million commitment to women and girls. How does something like that happen?

Prisco: When I was first approached by PepsiCo, I thought it was to join the Diversity & Engagement team – and my focus would be global women’s issues. At that time, PepsiCo wanted to develop an external women’s strategy, something that aligned with their internal business priorities and could help women and girls around the world. Indra Nooyi was the CEO and I could not imagine a more interesting and exciting opportunity.

Prisca with her squad - Dawn Smalls, Jamia Wilson, and Penny Abeywardena at the 2018 Feminist Press Feminist Power Awards. Photo credit: Alexa Hoyer.

The internal alignment and approval process was my first challenge. It started with making the business case, which was obvious - women make the majority of purchasing decisions (~70-80%). I then mapped the existing landscape and presented to stakeholders throughout the company, showing what other companies were doing and how much they had invested. From that, we were able to get a commitment of $100 million over 10 years from the business and PepsiCo Foundation. 

At PepsiCo, you can’t have a top-down strategy - it’s such a big, diverse company. It’s a matrix. There are all these silos and groups that work independently, so if you want to get something big done, you have to influence people who might have other priorities to work with you. Fortunately, there were supportive leaders throughout the company who cared passionately about women and girls. Right now, the fund is very focused on putting money into women farmers and closing the crop gap. 

I left my role in Diversity & Engagement and joined the Public Policy and Government Affairs group over a year ago, but the work to advance women is still ongoing. And by 2025, PepsiCo and the PepsiCo Foundation will have invested $100 million on women and girls, which I’m really proud of.

Powerbitches: A lot of people who are looking to do mission-driven work wouldn’t necessarily look at the private sector as a place to do that. Why should they?

Prisca: Everyone and every sector has a role in contributing to positive change in society. While I can understand the criticisms directed towards corporations, in my experience, corporations can also serve as a force for good. The sustainability and corporate social responsibility movements within the private sector have been going strong for over a decade and is only getting stronger. 

“If you want to get something big done, you have to influence people who might have other priorities to work with you.” - Prisca Bae

While it’s important to have people advocating on the outside at nonprofits and advocacy groups, you also need to have people on the inside serving as allies. The thing that I feel very passionately about is that everyone has a role. You need allies wherever you go. And I’m an ally in the private sector. 

Powerbitches: What advice do you have for someone currently working in the private sector who would like to use their role to make a difference?

Prisca: I think of that Mr. Rogers quote, “Look for the helpers.” Seek out like-minded people within your company (they exist!) and figure out how to do make positive impact with them. It could be small, like starting a volunteer project or raising money for a nonprofit. 

If you want to get involved in a more systemic way, find out where that work is happening in your company and just be helpful all the time. Because when a role opens up, they’re going to think of you.

Powerbitches: Finally, it seems like a lot of your work has been based on relationships and connecting people. Do you see yourself as a connector?

Absolutely. I love to connect people.

People always tell me that I know a lot of people. I think I also just have a tendency to like people. And I really like helping people. That’s one of the reasons I’ve been able to amass this incredible network of people - because the relationships are authentic. 

I have certainly had times when I’ve met someone whose work I’m interested in and it hasn’t gelled, whether because of chemistry or energy or shared experience. But there are enough people out there that you’ll like. Find those people and focus your energy on them. And help each other – especially women – because nothing’s going to change otherwise.

Prisca Bae will be in conversation with Powerbitches founder Rachel Hills at our March Salon event. Click here for more information and to secure your tickets.

Editor's Letter: We Need to Talk About Money

By Rachel Hills

I knew I needed to do something radical about my approach to money when I screwed up three negotiations in the space of a week.

The first was when a client I had been working with for a few weeks (but who hadn’t yet signed a contract) came back to me and told me she couldn’t afford the amount we had originally agreed and would need to cut my fee by half. The second was when I lowballed another client by quoting based on what a friend whose judgment I trusted thought they could afford rather than the time it would take me to do the work, leaving me kicking myself when I realized what my hourly rate would be. (Clue: significantly less than I would like.)

The third - and the one which caused me the most embarrassment - was when I reached out to a woman I admired about co-hosting an event for an organization doing work we were both passionate about. She wrote back asking if I would be charging for tickets. I panicked, not wanting her to think I was exploiting her but wanting to earn something for the labor involved in running the event, and quoted her a nominal ticket price. She turned me down not because my price was too high but because it was too low - she was too stretched at the moment to do anything pro-bono.

“this pattern of undercharging is tied to a bunch of more universal issues at the intersection of gender, self-employment, and purpose-driven work”

My cheeks burned with my own smallness, and I fought the urge to write back and explain to her that it had all been a big misunderstanding. I was happy to charge more! I had only quoted such a low price because I hadn’t wanted her to think I was greedy! But I had enough sense to know that email would only make me look even worse.

I tend to blame this pattern of undervaluing and undercharging for my time and expertise on five years working as a full-time freelance journalist at a time when the industry - and associated rates - were in freefall.

But it’s also tied to a bunch of more universal issues at the intersection of gender, self-employment, and purpose-driven work.

Most advice on women and money is targeted at women in salaried jobs. This makes sense - there are more of them, for one - and one of the reasons women collectively make less money than men do is because we are less likely to negotiate (and our negotiations are received differently).

But the challenges women in salaried jobs face when it comes pay and negotiation are exacerbated for women who are self-employed, who must continually negotiate our worth. Price yourself too low, and you end up feeling resentful, exploited, and powerless. Price too high, and your risk getting no customers at all. There can also be a different calculus applied to freelancer or project-based payments, on both ends of the transaction: what looks like a good rate in a full-time job can result in poverty wages for a self-employed person or small business owner.

For women doing purpose-driven work, there are additional complications. Often, our desire to make whatever it is we care about a reality can outstrip our desire to be paid fairly for our work. I’ve lost count of the number of women I’ve worked with who have calculated their projects budgets based on the minimum amount required to get them off the ground - which usually results in underestimating labor costs and cashing in on goodwill instead. Sometimes, this results in underpaying the people we work with. Even more often, it involves drastically underpaying ourselves.

There’s also an underlying stigma that seeking payment for work we care about is greedy. That if we really believe in the work we’re doing, or we really want to serve other people, the money shouldn’t matter. (A rationale that is regularly used to undervalue the work of people in the caring professions, who are disproportionately women.)

“the challenges women in salaried jobs face when it comes pay and negotiation are exacerbated for women who are self-employed, who must continually negotiate our worth”

These patterns don’t just lead to our own systemic underpayment. They fuel an ecosystem in which we systematically underpay each other as well: whether we are hiring other women as contractors, or purchasing each other’s products or services.

This is something I’ve been conscious of for a long time as someone who hires other women, asking the friends and colleagues I work with to quote me a rate they think is fair, rather than trying to talk them down to a rate that might be more affordable for me. But it’s only recently that I’ve started to apply these same principles to my own work.

“These patterns don’t just lead to our own systemic underpayment. They fuel an ecosystem in which we systematically underpay each other as well”

My sabbati horribilis prompted me to do some soul-searching about my own deep-seated beliefs about money: among them, the lessons I’d taken on from my family and upbringing, the impact of my years as a freelance writer on my sense of self-worth, and my fear of being seen as greedy and undeserving if I charged what was needed to sustain my work.

It helped me to think about what I would do with my money if I had a lot of it: hire support staff to make the projects I was working on stronger, buy work from artists I loved, invest in people and businesses doing socially transformative work, support causes I believe in (not as altruistic as it sounds - one of my fantasies involved buying a table at the Planned Parenthood Gala).

It also prompted me to change some of my personal practices around money. To charge for projects based on the number of hours I estimated it would take me to complete them, rather than what I perceived the value to be to the client. (This is the opposite of what most entrepreneurs and consultants will tell you to do - they believe you earn more when you charge for value - but it resulted in an immediate increase in income, and no one has complained about price.) To track the time I spend on all the projects I work on - including the ones that don’t currently break even - so I have a clearer understanding of what I should be earning from them.

Finally, it was the impetus that prompted me to start thinking about our March Powerbitches discussion “We Need To Talk About Money,” which looks at questions around $$$ on a psychological, practical, and systemic level. Stay tuned for an upcoming blog post in which our members share their best money lessons and advice.

This won’t be the beginning and end of the Powerbitches conversation about money, I’m sure. It’s a topic that cuts to the core of so many things, from values, to our perceptions of our own value, to our ability to create and maintain boundaries.

But it’s definitely a conversation I’m excited to start.

5 Lessons on Power from Jill Abramson’s “Merchants of Truth”

Jill Abramson

by Rachel Hills

Jill Abramson’s new book “Merchants of Truth,” recently excerpted in New York Magazine, isn’t just a fascinating look at the transformations in the media industry over the last decade. It’s also insightful when it comes to the matter of women and power (and power more generally, no matter what your gender).

Here are five lessons I took from Abramson’s tenure as the executive editor of the New York Times.

1. Surround yourself with people who support your vision.

When I worked in magazines, I was always struck by how quickly publications transformed when they got a new editor in chief. Magazines I previously loved rapidly became terrible, ones I thought were mediocre became briefly magnificent, and always always within a few months you’d see an exodus of the staff who’d worked for the old EIC and an influx of staff who’d worked with the new EIC in her previous role.

This isn’t unique to publishing - friends in other industries (fashion comes to mind) tell me it happens there, too. And usually, it wasn’t a result of people being fired so much as old staff hating the new vision and the new boss wanting to bring on people they trusted. You can’t bring your vision to life without people on your team who support your vision.

When Abramson was offered the role of executive editor by then NYT publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr, she was given a microscopic window to choose her own 2IC.

“Who are you thinking about for managing editor?” Sulzberger asked.”

Thinking I wouldn’t get the job, I had not put together my dream team of other editors.

One beat later, Sulzberger was making his own suggestion for role: Dean Baquet, his second choice for executive editor.

“What about Dean?” he continued.

One of the comments on the Abramson’s NYMag article suggests that she might have fared better Baquet (who, spoiler alert, succeeds Abramson as executive editor two and a half years later) and Abramson had been made his 2IC. But it strikes me that the real issue here is that Abramson’s most important teammate was a competitor rather than an ally.

2. Always ask about money.

During that first conversation with Sulzberger, Abramson describes feeling “light-headed” at the news that she had been offered the role of executive editor. As a result, she doesn’t ask him about salary before accepting the position.

Later, after asking one of her masthead editors to study the issue of pay equity in the newsroom, she is told she is “exhibit A.”

The numbers showed that during my eight years as managing editor, my salary lagged behind one of the male masthead editors I outranked. My current salary was what [previous executive editor Bill] Keller’s starting salary had been in 2003, a full decade earlier.

3. If you don’t enforce your priorities, someone else will enforce theirs on you.

Years ago in a job interview, I was asked how I would manage competing requests for my time. I remember saying something about evaluating which tasks were the most urgent/important and doing those first. (Clearly not a terrible answer, since I ended up getting the job.)

A couple of weeks ago, looking at an inbox full of client requests that didn’t align with my schedule for the day, I reflected that it was equally important to not let other people’s priorities dictate yours.

Abramson’s essay is a case in point. Abramson was hired as executive editor largely for her reporting skills - which she put to use driving Pulitzer-winning stories like the NYT’s investigation of Apple’s business practices in China and David Barboza’s exposé of the vast wealth secretly acquired by family members of China’s rulers. But much of her day-today was spent in meeting rooms talking about “new digital products meant to generate revenue, like a cooking app.”

This isn’t to place the blame on Abramson: she was editing the NYT at a moment of enormous upheaval for the whole industry (which is what her book is about) and she clearly wasn’t surrounded by allies.

But it is a reminder that if you don’t set boundaries around how you spend your time, someone else will set them for you.

4. Stay open to new ideas.

At the heart of Abramson’s essay is the central conflict between her desire to maintain the NYT’s credibility as a news organization, and the desire of the new CEO Mark Thompson to make the newspaper competitive with new online competitors like Buzzfeed, Vice, and the Huffington Post.

Where Abramson wants to play to the NYT’s strength in news and investigations, Thompson wants to create monetizable subscription products. Where Thompson wanted to increase revenue through native advertising, Abramson wanted to maintain a strict division between journalists who wrote sponsored content and those who wrote for the rest of the paper.

At one point, during a meeting where Thompson suggests that news staff develop ideas for revenue-generating content, Abramson snaps and declares, “If that’s what you expect, you have the wrong executive editor.”

Ultimately, both Abramson and Thompson were right - the NYT needed to develop new sources of revenue and it needed to protect its credibility as a new source. And at the conclusion of her essay, Abramson graciously acknowledges that under then-publisher Sulzberger’s leadership the Times navigated the digital disruption better than most of its competitors.

5. Avoiding conflict will bite you in the ass.

Abramson learns that the Guardian’s Janine Gibson is returning to the UK, and wants to offer her a job at the NYT. “The idea of having a true partner, another woman who had made brave journalism decisions and was forging her way into the future, appealed to me immensely,” she writes.

There’s just one problem: Gibson and Dean Baquet, Abramson’s deputy, don’t get on. On the advice of CEO Mark Thompson, Abramson stalls on sharing with Baquet that she will be offering Gibson the job, telling him instead that she will be considering several people. Baquet soon finds out she lied to him, goes to Sulzberger to complain, and the next morning Abramson is fired and told that Baquet will be the new executive editor.

Wanting to avoid giving someone news that will upset them, or not wanting to own up to something that will make you look bad, is normal. Most people hate confrontation. But dealing with potential conflicts as soon as they arise is always better than letting them fester.

And as Abramson’s example shows, there’s no quicker way to escalate an unpleasant situation than to obfuscate in an attempt to avoid it.

Did you read the Abramson essay, too? What lessons did you take from it?

The Powerbitches Interview: Shanthony Exum

Shanthony Exum. AKA Miss Eaves

Shanthony Exum, better known as viral music sensation Miss Eaves, is a force to be reckoned with. A multi-media artist whose work spans music, video, paper mache and fine art, her fierce femcee electro-pop-rap-dance-explosions celebrate confident women who aren’t afraid to love themselves and have landed her on lists of feminist anthems alongside legends like Beyonce.

When Powerbitches picked up the phone with Shanthony this week, she was plotting a new EP and accompanying music video. By the end of our conversation, she had gotten an email from a TV show that wanted to license one of her songs.

You can catch Shanthony in person at our next Powerbitches Salon on February 19 (tickets here).

Powerbitches: When did you start making music?

Shanthony Exum: About 10 years ago, when I was 26. I was living in this artsy town [Winston-Salem, NC] where everyone was in a band - all my friends were in a band, my boyfriend at the time was in a band... so I thought hey, I want to do that too.

My boyfriend and I started a band together, even though I didn’t have any real credentials at the time. It was a noisy electro party band, and I was writing songs about eating snacks, Smurfs, and wearing spandex pants.

The band was pretty bad, because I was still learning how to rap. But as an artist, I’ve never stopped myself from doing something because I don’t know how to do it. I just try to figure it out and get better along the way.

PB: And when did you realize it was something you wanted to pursue more seriously?

SE: I was 28 when I started Miss Eaves. My ex and I broke up, and I still wanted to make music, so I started making my own beats and putting out these little demos. Very quickly I found that people were more interested in my solo work than the stuff I was doing with the band.

In 2012, I put out a song called Diva Pop and made my first music video as Miss Eaves for it. This DJ in Belgium saw it, and invited me to collaborate with him and go there on tour.

I coincidentally was leaving for tour right after I got laid off from my job in North Carolina. I wasn’t super happy at that point, and wanted to start taking my music more seriously, and live in a bigger city. So instead of going home when the tour was over I got off my connection in Newark NJ and moved to a tiny apartment in Sunset Park in Brooklyn. I started freelancing, spending more money on making music videos, and really pushing things.

PB: What drives your work?

SE: I think my art is driven by my experiences. I’ll start with something that frustrates me and I think is probably universally annoying. I’ll try to write something that is true to myself, taking out all the stuff that is super super specific to me.

“Chub rub” is the feeling I have when I wear a sundress as someone with thick thighs, and Paper Mache is about the fact that the first thing people want to talk to me about is whether I’ve seeing someone, even though I’m making all this cool art. I take things that no one else is really talking about in music, ask how do I feel about this, and how do I capture that vibe?

“A viral hit is a big crack in the wall, but the wall is still there.”
- Shanthony Exum

Still from the video for one of Shanthony’s songs, Thunder Thighs.

PB: You had what most people would consider to be your “big break” in 2017, when your song Thunder Thighs became a viral summer hit. What was that experience like?

SE: Thunder Thighs was definitely my biggest song so far. I kind of see it as a fluke. My song before that, Hump Day, had done well and my fan base was growing steadily. I’ve always loved this quote by the artist Molly Crabapple that there’s no such thing as a big break, there’s just tiny cracks in a wall of indifference.  A viral hit is a big crack in the wall, but the wall is still there.

At first it was really hard, like “I’m never going to be able to live up to this.” When you have a viral hit, everyone’s like, “Can you write another Thunder Thighs?” That’s not how it works. What I do isn’t marketing. It’s art. Thunder Thighs was a fluke. I wrote that song because I felt it. I can’t replicate it. I’m not a musical robot.

It was a little crippling. I thought I wasn’t going to write anything again. Then Rich Matthew gave me this beat, and I wrote the song Paper Mache, and a lot of people were into it. I wrote my EP Me AF. I learned that I have to just write art for art’s sake and not try to write Thunder Thighs over and over again, even if people are pressuring me to do that.

“If you’re making art to please other people, it’s not going to work.” - Shanthony Exum

PB: I love how you spoke before about how when you first started, you didn’t care that you weren’t all that good, you just wanted to work at getting better. How does this ethos of constant improvement play out in your art now?

SE: For me, it’s about learning from other people. If I like an artist, I’ll deconstruct everything they’re doing and try to figure out how I can apply those concepts to my work. I really value critiques from friends, asking, do these lyrics make sense? I learned from talking to other rappers that I used to overuse metaphors and similes - it gets boring after a while. Also, practicing a lot. Before I go to the studio I’ve already gone through the song 20 or 30 times to make sure it sounds right.

If you’re doing stuff to please other people, it’s not going to work. Every time you make a piece of art, work to make it better than the last piece you made.

PB: What are the biggest challenges facing musicians today? How do you navigate them?

SE: It’s really hard to be heard. There are so many people who are making music and it’s hard to stand out, especially when you’re competing against these giant artists. When everyone is only talking about Cardi B - Cardi B is cool, but it’s hard for indie artists to be seen and heard over these huge music machines.

I’m still trying to figure it out. I’m still pushing, making music, investing in myself. I put a lot of money into my own work.

PB: What advice would you offer to other women wanting to launch a career in music in the current climate?

SE: Be prepared to put in the work. A lot of times, people get really caught up in the glamor of it all. They want to play these big shows, go on tour, and they haven’t even written a song yet. If you want to have a lasting career, it has to be a slower build.

[Shanthony receives an email saying that a popular TV show wants to license one of her songs.]

See, I always feel discouraged and then stuff like that comes though. So that’s another bit of advice I give - not to get discouraged. You have to believe in the work and do it for the work’s sake, rather than doing it for other people’s approval.

And invest in yourself. People will go out to eat, go to bars… why are we not putting that money back into our projects? For this new video I’m working on, I’ll be paying for it out of pocket. But now I might be paying for it out of this TV money!

Shanthony Exum will be in conversation with Powerbitches founder Rachel Hills at our February Salon event. Click here for more information and to secure your tickets.

Editor’s Letter: A More Meaningful Way Of Talking About Work

There’s an adage that Americans begin conversations by asking what you do for a living, while people from other, presumably more sophisticated countries (France, Italy, even my home country of Australia, according to a recent article by New York Times columnist Bari Weiss) ask you where your family’s from, where you like to go on vacation, or your favorite condiment to add to your avocado toast.

This tendency, we are supposed to think, is a symptom of a lack of imagination. To speak first about work is to reduce a person to their economic status, to say that what we do to earn a living is more important than what we do for leisure.

And to some degree, I get it. I too hate being asked “what I do” - as a self-employed person juggling multiple roles and projects, I lack the easy shorthand of a title and job description that clearly and quickly answers the question.

But I LOVE talking about work. More, perhaps, than anything else.

Talking about work isn’t inherently unimaginative or superficial. At their best, conversations about work can be a form of rich interpersonal engagement, a way of asking someone: What do you care about? What are you doing to make the world better, more beautiful, or more interesting? What are you finding difficult about making that happen? How are you working through those challenges? And what are you learning about yourself and others in the process?

These are the conversations that have formed the foundations of many of my closest friendships, and they are the types of questions that form the basis of every Powerbitches event: be it a group conversation about money, an intimate dinner with a leading artist and musician, or an evening spent brainstorming our way through the challenges our members are facing in the projects they’re working on.

These conversations aren’t just more interesting than the standard “what do you do” conversation. They also build a greater depth of connection and understanding. So, how do we have more of them?

One answer is to get more specific. To go beyond the easy shorthand of the one- or two-word answer (a relief for people like me, who don’t have one) to explain what we actually do, and to be curious enough to encourage others to do the same. Another is to be more expansive in our definition of what work is - “I’m a designer/lawyer/babysitter, but what I’m really excited about is...”

Finally, we can move beyond the “what” of our work to the “why.” Why do you do what you do? What contribution do you want to make? And if your current job isn’t the best vehicle through which to make that contribution, where else could you make it?

Talking about work doesn’t have to be meaningless small talk. It can be the basis of some of the most meaningful and exciting conversations we have.