Companion Read: Ambition Monster & The Myth of Making It
The new wave of Anti-Girlboss memoirs by former certified Girlbosses™ themselves
Hi close friends,
I was so delighted to hear that many of you enjoyed my newsletter a few weeks back about the uptick of wellness, skincare, and beauty culture in body horror fiction. As I’ve mentioned before, I was an English major in undergrad and I still love analyzing books and films for fun. So I thought I would turn this into a series called Companion Read! I often naturally find myself gravitating towards reading (or watching) stories with similar themes or genre, like one might explore over the course of a semester in school (a few of my favorite classes were Asian American Lit, Climate Fiction, and The Bible in American Literature!). In this series, I hope to bring you two stories in conversation with each other, tied together by some sort of through line, such as subject matter, time period, or writing style.
Today’s focus are two books that were recommended to me by fellow newsletter writer,
! Both Ambition Monster and The Myth of Making It are non-fiction works which explore the limits of ambition — particularly a woman’s ambition — in the workplace, through the lens of the authors’ personal experiences as they’ve climbed the ranks of the professional world themselves. As a woman also working in media and entertainment and trying to pave a path for myself that feels authentic to my passions and values, it was simultaneously comforting and terrifying to read their journeys, seeing them probe similar assumptions and challenges of modern work life that I’ve already encountered in my very early career.Our Reading List:
Ambition Monster (2024) by Jennifer Romolini
After years of relentlessly racing up the professional ladder, Jennifer Romolini reached the kind of success many crave: a high-profile, C-suite dream job, a book well-received enough that reporters wanted to know the secrets to her success, and a gig traveling around the country giving speeches on “making it.” But beneath this polished surface was a powder keg of unresolved trauma and chronic overwork. It was all about to blow.
Ambition Monster is a gutsy and powerful look at workaholism, the lingering effect of childhood trauma, and the failures of our modern rat race. This is a Cinderella story of success and a brutal appraisal of the cost of capitalism—perfect for people pleasers, overachievers, and those whose traumas have driven them to be perfect, no matter the cost.
The Myth of Making it: A Workplace Reckoning (2024) by Samhita Mukhopadhyay
Samhita Mukhopadhyay had finally made it: she had her dream job, dream clothes—dream life. But time and time again, she found herself sacrificing time with family and friends, paying too much for lattes, and limping home after working twelve hours a day. Success didn’t come without costs, right? Or so she kept telling herself. And Mukhopadhyay wasn’t alone: Far too many of us are taught that we need to work ourselves to the bone to live a good life. That we just need to climb up the corporate ladder, to “lean in” and “hustle,” to enact change. But as Mukhopadhyay shows, these definitions of success are myths—and they are seductive ones.
Mukhopadhyay traces the origins of these myths, taking us from the sixties to the present. She forms a critical overview of workplace feminism, looking at stories from her own professional career, analysis from activists and experts, and of course, experiences of workers at different levels. As more individuals continue to question whether their professional ambitions can lead to happiness and fulfillment in the first place, Mukhopadhyay asks, What would it mean to have a liberated workplace? Mukhopadhyay emerges with a vision for a workplace culture that pays fairly, recognizes our values, and gives people access to the resources they need.
Another Day, Another Dollar
When I first started reading Ambition Monster, I admit I was a bit impatient. Romolini starts her story talking about her grandparents, her parents, and finally her childhood as a young, Italian American girl in a working class family in Philadelphia. I kept thinking, okay but when are we going to get to the working and partying in the “golden age" of media in New York City part? What I soon realized was this generational history formed the foundation for Romolini’s do or die mindset when she herself entered the workforce. She reveals that under the surface of what appeared to be a classic tale of pull-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps American exceptionalism, was the constant feeling of insecurity and scarcity driven by her past traumas.
“Since leaving my parents’ house, I’d lived in seven different cities and towns, in more than a dozen apartments, with more roommates than I can remember, including several homes with different men. I don’t feel free so much as on the run – from home, from an ill-thought-out marriage, from grief, from memories, from bill collectors, from friends who no longer feel like friends. I’m running to stand still, to finally find my place. If I can make it work, New York is where I get to stop.”
And yet, she soon finds that what awaits her in the city is another rat race.
The experience of reading Mukhopadhyay’s book on the other hand felt more like that of reading a manual. The first half is a history of the evolution of the “working woman” in America, exploring topics such as the era of “leaning in,” the introduction of the “girlboss,” and the thorny nature of DEI initiatives. The second half delves deeper into her takeaways from her own experience trying to push feminism in the workplace forward, especially as a woman of color in a management position at Teen Vogue.
Similar to Romolini, for a variety of factors in her personal life, Mukhopadhyay developed a scarcity mindset that grew her need for the hustle, even after she had “made it,” explaining, “Work, for me, is directly connected to my ablity to provide for myself; I have to do it and do it well, whether I like it or not. Every single thing feels like the difference between surviving and not—no matter how many times you tell me otherwise or how untrue that might be. Which is why losing my job was traumatic for me.” (181)
Her research illuminates how her and Romolini’s stories are not just that of individual women dealing with burnout, but that of a larger pattern in the workforce:
“The stress of capitalism, the belief that you and you alone are responsible for your financial destiny and your ability to pay your student loans (or your mom’s bills), keeps us in an abusive, nonconsensual relationship with work. What is success, what is ambition, what is loving what you do when work is tainted by the constant nagging reality that if you lose this job, you are fucked?” (183-184)
It’s A Man’s World
Maybe it’s because of the tired trope of the “single, overly independent career woman,” but one thing that particularly surprised me about Romolini’s journey was her relationship with and dependence on men. We see early on how deeply her romantic entanglements inform her sense of self. Her first marriage is one that places her in the role of an unhappy wife. After her divorce, she’s unafraid to wield her sexuality in the pursuit of work, status, and success, saying, “I’m hooking up feverishly, haphazardly; using industry gossip as foreplay, submitting to sex not for pleasure but as an extension of my résumé, a gathering of useful information, a performance of independence, if not solely a means to numb out.” (109) When in committed relationships, she constantly compares her talent with that of her partners, who are often writers themselves, often to the demise of her own self-esteem.
“What’s more romantic to a hungry young woman than adjacency to greatness, even if it comes at a cost? I wasn’t in love with these men. I wanted to be them. Educated white men got all the attention, hoarded all the connections and success. Proximity to them felt intoxicating.” (91)
One of the “myths” that Mukhopadhyay breaks down in her book is that of the working woman who can “have it all.” The phrase was brought into popularity by former editor of Cosmopolitan, Helen Gurley Brown, who wrote the bestsellers, Sex and the Single Girl (1962), and Having It All: Love, Success, Sex, Money, Even If You're Starting with Nothing (1982), teaching a generation of women how to take advantage of the patriarchy to get ahead whilst still working within its confines, unsaid rules, and expectations. While reading about Brown, I was reminded of Romolini’s complicated codependence with men throughout her career, her self-awareness in unlearning gender roles, even still when she becomes a mother, and in a much healthier marriage with her now husband. Instead of passing down tips and tricks on how to please men in bed and chasing the bag as Brown does, her story reads like a therapist’s self-diagnosis of hegemony and notes of warning to the next generation.
The Path Forward
While Romolini’s story is certainly one worth reading, filled with tension, stakes, and adventure, truthfully, it also left me feeling a bit demoralized. Spoiler alert, she concludes by saying, “It took me years to discover there’s no dream job to chase, no have-it-all fairy tale, no happy ending in which to escape. The story is never so pretty or so neat. The best is often what’s right in front of you; the hardest, most ambitious goal is to stop running from yourself.” (292) I guess it’s true that dealing with your own demons and being okay with never being exemplary, if not for the sake of your mental health, is a perfectly worthy endeavor for one’s life. But is there nothing we can do to push the needle past “quiet quitting”?
This is why I think The Myth of Making It is a nice complement and follow up to Ambition Monster. While it didn’t give readers a step-by-step guide of what is next, it does provide satisfactory starting points to consider. Although I don’t necessarily envision myself in a manager position at this point in my career, I found her advice in this regard valuable framework for when I do want to pursue a role like that. The following quotes particularly resonated with me, as I’ve already found myself even as a worker bee or underling in many instances trying to determine the right moments to speak up for what I believe in.
“There is a difference between a manager and a leader, and we need more leaders who are invested in equity, see their employees as part of their rise, support worker-led initiatives and organizing, and are driven by values of justice and fairness.
I’m not saying it’s going to be easy—we are usually disincentivized from being this kind of manager—but taking the time to think about why you want to get ahead at work and why you want to manage people will go a long way in determining how you lead.” (164)
“One of the ways I tried to manage that constant tension between what I believed philosophically and how the organizations I worked for were not ideal was to realize that (a) I am only one person and can’t change the trajectory of an entire organization, and I must stop thinking I can; and (b) my focus is and will always be the people who are working for me, and especially the people who have historically been left out of these spaces—no matter how challenging that may be, and despite what my bosses want.” (167)
Another concept that has particularly stayed with me is trying to figure out what my “margin of maneuverability” is at and outside of work:
“Binary thinking will not give us space to come up with creative solutions within systems most of us have to navigate to eat and to live. The question we need to ask ourselves is, how do we navigate these existing systems while keeping a bigger, grander political vision in our hearts and our minds? What is our ‘margin of maneuverability,’ or the space between working at a job to pay the bills and actually changing conditions for all women?” (48)
What are the things I can do in my downtime or day-to-day life that aid to greater causes? Perhaps listening to my colleagues’ concerns, sharing my own hopes and needs, and organizing collective action. And as Mukhopadhyay reminds us, “And when that is too hard—as it often is—we can take respite in the realization that we alone can’t fix the issues we are facing, but we alone can decide how much and in what ways we want to contribute to these systems.” (194)
Further Reading
This is the section of my newsletter where I share more recommendations in line with the theme of the work I’m reviewing, if you are so inclined to dive deeper. Let me know in the comments if you indulge in anything from this list or have any other recs!
READ:
(Non-fiction) We Were Feminists Once: From Riot Grrrl to CoverGirl®, the Buying and Selling of a Political Movement by Andi Zeisler — This book falls into the category of books I picked up at the Strand, read the blurb, didn’t end up committing to, but took a picture of to add to my TBR list. Written by one of the founding editors of Bitch Media, it explores what it means for a social movement like feminism to be re-branded as a consumer choice and co-opted as a brand identity.
(Fiction) Several People Are Typing by Calvin Kasulke — A workplace satire that takes place completely over Slack. A super quick and entertaining read that had some great twists and turns.
WATCH:
The Assistant (2020) — There are of course too many workplace movies and shows to name them all, but this film in particular really stuck with me at the time of watching it, after being in a string of assistant positions myself. A slow, quiet drama that investigates the darker underbelly of workplace harassment and politics.
LISTEN:
“Why We Love an Office Drama” Episode of Critics at Large — This has quickly become one of my favorite podcasts! Hosts and staff writers at The New Yorker, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz are funny, compassionate, and thoughtful critics. I listened to this particular episode one day while going through their backlog, which covers the impact of the workplace as a setting in novels and shows (like Severance!) throughout history, and how our changing relationship with work (such as the rise of remote work) has shown up in these types of stories.
I hope you enjoyed this second installment of Companion Read! Next week, we’ll be diving back into the book club pick so get hype. Till then, xoxo.
Love this!! Critics at Large is also one of my favorite pods.
It’s so interesting to hear your pov on these two books - I personally preferred AM of TMOMI but I also just enjoy narrative driven books and felt it read like fiction, which kept me invested. I do think Samhita has such incredible things to share and I admire her so much. Great read as always!!