120. Women, Money & Power with Josie Cox

JOSIE COX  asks why money is still so gendered! Why progress towards closing the gender pay gap has been so elusive over the past few decades. Why we’re still failing to have good, inclusive conversations about gender inequality. Josie is a journalist who has worked on staff for Reuters, the Wall Street journal, and The Independent and as a freelancer for the Guardian, The Washington Post, Fortune, Forbes, the BBC and a host of other outlets. She was a 2020/2021 Knight-Bagehot Fellow at Columbia Journalism School. She has an MBA from Columbia Business School and is also an associate instructor within the Strategic Communications program at Columbia’s School of Professional Studies. She lives in New York City.

Follow Josie: Instagram | LinkedIn | Substack | Twitter

00:44 Josie Cox's Background and Career Journey
02:53 The Gendered Nature of Money
05:34 The Impact of Motherhood on Career
06:48 The Inequality Problem in America
08:35 The Gender Pay Gap and Its Implications
11:48 The Importance of Communication and Empathy
19:45 The Role of Women in the Unpaid Labor Market
40:30 The Struggle for Female Economic Empowerment

YOUR HOST

Julie Flynn is an experienced independent financial adviser and financial coach. Justice and equality drive Julie. Which is why she’s spent years studying and researching how stress affects our financial decision making.

Julie is best known for her work with women who have lost their partner and coaching financial services business who want to implement fair and transparent charges.
Ebb & Flow Financial Coaching | Bree Wealth & Tax | Instagram

CO-HOSTS
Emily Pool is a Financial Planner and Will Writer. She is passionate about empowering people to invest their wealth (pensions and savings) sustainably and in line with their personal values.

Michelle Lambell  started her career in financial services as a Stockbroker in 1999 undertaking both advisory and discretionary investment management. Today she is a Chartered Financial Planner, specialising in retirement planning advice, pensions and investments and a Certified Financial Coach. 

Sara Walker is a financial planner and financial coach with 33 years’ experience in financial services. She wants all women to feel financially confident and uses her professional and life experiences to support and educate women over 40 so they in turn feel able to support and be role models for the younger women in their lives. 

Transcript

Julie [00:00:36]:

Welcome to this episode of the Women in Money Cafe. Now today, Myself, Emily, Michelle, we're joined by a special guest today. We have got with us Josie Cox. The Josie is a journalist. And you might have read her articles in like, this is this is heavyweight stuff by the people by the way people. It is The Wall Street Journal, The Independent, The Guardian, The Washington Post, BBC, I could go on. Alright. But Josie is one hell of a journalist, and she has a book coming out very soon, which is Women, Money, and Power.

Julie [00:01:06]:

I don't know. Well, that sounds right up our street, doesn't it? So, Josie, we are utterly delighted to welcome you to the Women Money Cafe podcast.

Josie Cox [00:01:15]:

Thank you so much for having me. I'm absolutely delighted to be here. Thrilled to be having this conversation.

Julie [00:01:20]:

Alright. Now, I mean, I've just given people, like, a brief rundown on your CV and all these big credentials that you've got. Do you want to tell us a little bit more about yourself though?

Josie Cox [00:01:29]:

Sure. Yeah. No. I'd love to. So, I've been a journalist for about 15 years, and, I have got a bit of a weird background actually. So I grew up in Switzerland. My mom's originally from Czechoslovakia. My dad's British, hence the British accent, but grew up in Switzerland and then, decided to go to uni in the UK.

Josie Cox [00:01:50]:

So, went off and studied politics of all things, which I don't know anything about these days. So don't tell on you my former lecturers. But when I was at uni, I got involved in student media, was really thrilled. Spent most of my time in the student newspaper offices rather than in the library anywhere meant to be, and, decided that that was ultimately the only thing I really wanted to do after uni. That was the only the only career that I could Julie imagine myself going into. Had the great pleasure of graduating into the financial crisis. My timing's always been really excellent, which, of course, was a time when media jobs were hard to come by. But having grown up in Switzerland, I actually went to German speaking Poole, so was bilingual.

Josie Cox [00:02:36]:

And, obviously, a lot of the actions, so to speak, of the financial crisis was happening in the big financial capitals around the world, one of which was Frankfurt. And so I was lucky enough to get offered a job, at Reuters in Frankfurt, Reuters being one of the biggest financial news agencies in the world. And coming in, you know, I was very sort of humble about it and said to them, I don't have any background in finance. I don't have any background in maths or numbers or anything like that. But I'm really willing to learn, speak German, happy to talk to anyone about anything, ask all the dumb questions. And that proved enough to get me a junior reporter position straight out of uni in Frankfurt. So I moved out there, and, it was just really humbled by the experience. Got myself a subscription to the to the Feet, bought all of, Michael Lewis's books about bonds and god knows what, and was sort of very much self educated and learning on the job, and was fortunate enough to be surrounded by people who were just really lovely and really willing to help me and answer all the dumb questions and, just, you know, really get me get me up and running, so to speak, as a journalist.

Josie Cox [00:03:42]:

And that was such an education. But one of the things that I didn't know that I would learn while on the job was that money as a concept is still so gendered. And I couldn't help but notice that really from the get go when I was Sort of going out and interviewing traders or investors or bankers. You know, it was 90% of the time, it was men. May maybe 80% of the time, it was men. It was it was overwhelmingly men, and I was really it's already then, I was sort of making this conscious effort to try and speak to, a diverse demographic of people when I was interviewing people for my articles, but really struggling to do that. And that only became more clear Women, So I've worked at Royce's for a couple Poole years, transferred to London eventually. In London, it was a very similar picture in terms of that demographic.

Josie Cox [00:04:29]:

And then, I moved to work at the Wall Street Journal. Again, I was covering sort of currency markets and stock markets and bond markets. And more often than not, I was just spending the entire day speaking to Women. And I couldn't help but shake this this question of why is money so gendered? Why is investing so much The domain of men still. And then in in 2016, I took a job at The Independent. I became their business editor, which is really interesting challenge. And one of the most exciting things that happened, during that 1st year when I was in that job, For me, exciting, I'm sure it wasn't for everyone else, was that the UK government started, or introduced this mandate for around gender pay gap reporting. And I'd sort of been, you know, sort of dancing around the topic of the gender pay gap for many years.

Josie Cox [00:05:22]:

But having this mandate in place, which essentially compelled every company that employed at least 250 people in the UK to publish their gender pay gap by quartile of the workforce every single year started to give us all this really rich data. Right? And, Of course, there are all these stories about companies manipulating their gender pay gaps and not perhaps quite publishing all the data that they're meant to. But, nonetheless, I think it gave us a really interesting, really sort of rich picture of what inequality in the UK labour force actually looks like. And that kind of got me hooked. I sort of spent, you know, many, many hours after work trawling through all this data, asking the questions of why certain companies claim to have a no gender pay gap at all, and was that really legitimate? And, You know, just sort of the cultural the cultural questions as well. Why are why do we still have a gender pay gap? Why, especially at the highest ranks of corporations, Is it still so male dominated in so many cases? And so I was just really getting my teeth into that, when the pandemic hits. And, well, I should back up a little bit, actually. One of the things that was really kind of formative in my pursuit of this Topic was in 2018, I became a mom.

Josie Cox [00:06:42]:

And I'd sort of academically known all about this huge sort of, inflection point that tends to happen in a woman's life when she has kids and how often it becomes this really kind of, You know, intolerable balancing act between kids and career. But experiencing it first-hand was really jarring for me, and I think that gave my reporting and my perspective as a journalist a whole new depth. And then the pandemic hit. Again, in the spirit of having Timing. I had just agreed to move with my husband to New York. So we actually moved out to New York City, on the 13th March 2020, which I don't know if you'll recall, but that was pretty much the day the World Health Organization declared COVID a pandemic. And New York, I'd say, was probably slightly ahead of Europe in terms of the intensity of the pandemic at that time. So it was literally a case of us arriving in New York Hello.

Josie Cox [00:07:41]:

We're here. And everyone else leaving the city. So it was a it was a really interesting time to be there. But quite quickly, as I sort of settled in to living in America, I realized that the inequality problem was absolutely the same in America as I had witnessed it to be in the UK and perhaps even more severe. Things like gender pay gap reporting weren't even a topic of conversation over here. That sort of element of transparency has is really in its nascent it's very, very nascent over here, compared to what it is in the UK. And so I just really got my teeth into this idea of America being this land of opportunity, apparently being this land of opportunity, you know, being this sort of, This sort of Lambell of the of a free country of an advanced democracy of the most sort of, you know, innovative country in the world in many respects and yet a huge gender pay gap. So many women who, aren't able to rely on affordable childcare, on reliable childcare.

Josie Cox [00:08:49]:

And so, you know, very, very, very, very long answer to your question, but that sort of ended me up where I am today, because I felt like I had to write a book about And I had to sort of delve into this question of why despite the fact that we are such an advanced economy, despite the fact that we have, You know, manage to secure so much progress in so many respects? Why are we still failing In so many regards, why are women in this country still only earning, on average, 82¢ to every $1 that a man earns on average? Why are we seeing this huge drop off in female labour force participation after women have kids? How is that all just happening, And why is someone screaming and shouting about it?

Julie [00:09:38]:

Okay. Well, we're off having a bit of a scream and a bit of a shout about it. We did. I think What I'm curious about is, you know, as you were researching the book, were there any particular key insights that came up for you about why this gendered nature of money keeps persisting Mhmm. That you think would be particularly relevant for us right now?

Josie Cox [00:10:00]:

Yeah. Many, actually. But one of the one of the anecdotes that I keep coming back to and that actually became the prologue to the book, because I was just so shocked by it, was early on in the process of researching a book. It was about It was early in 2021, so we were still very much sort of in the depths of the pandemic. I managed to have a an interview with Probably one of the most, powerful and, well known CEOs in this country. And it was an off the record interview, so I'll never be able to say who it was. But he agreed to have a chat with me. We talked on Zoom, and, we were sort of, You know, easy pleasantries broke the ice.

Josie Cox [00:10:44]:

And, he knew that I was reporting quite, in-depth on the gender pay gap and on inequality in the workforce. And I said to him, you know, I'm really curious from your perspective just to hear why you think, after all this time, we still have this gaping and very pervasive gender pay gap across the labour market and particularly on your organization as well. Now, of course, being in being a US corporation, That company wasn't compelled to publish its gender pay gap, but it does have operations in the UK, and it employs more than 250 people in the UK. So I had the UK gender pay gap for the US corporation, and I could use that as a sort of proxy. And so I said to him, you know, what do you think? How do you Characterize this? What do you think is the reason why we're not making more progress? And he said to me he said, well, 2 things. 1 is that Jennifer pay a woman less than a man for doing the same job. And I went, yes. Doing otherwise would, quite frankly, be illegal under the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

Josie Cox [00:11:43]:

And then he said and the other thing is that sometimes, you have to understand that when a woman has a baby and temporarily goes on a maternity leave and leaves the paid labour force, when she comes back, She's just not as professionally ambitious as a man. Okay? Pindrop. I was absolutely floored. I mean, to be clear, I understand what he's saying, and I understand that his from his perspective, that is something that he has observed. Right? But it's such a superficial explanation, and it's such an easy sort of low hanging fruit explanation That also entirely places the onus on a woman to fix the gender pay gap, right, and to fix herself and, essentially, to lean in, right, which is this narrative that I thought we were all over by this point. But I was really amazed at the ignorance or feigned ignorance or whatever it was. I was amazed at the fact that he thought that that was the most appropriate and accurate explanation in that particular a scenario to give. And it just got me thinking about whether people actually understand why the gender pay gap exists, and I don't think they do.

Josie Cox [00:13:02]:

And I think it's such a complex topic. And I think that as humans, we have this tendency and we have this bias to reach for the most the easiest, most palatable explanation, and that's exactly what he was doing. And so I that's the protocol of my book, and that sort of sets set me off on this journey of going back in time and figuring out where we went wrong and why we still have all these misperceptions, essentially?

Julie [00:13:30]:

Alright. So I'm listening to you. I'm not trying to figure out which CEO it is. I am. I think I can guess, but I'm not go I'm not going to say anything. But isn't that interesting that I think when we've got complicated Problems. People want simple solutions. Yeah.

Julie [00:13:47]:

And the 2 of those are just incompatible, aren't they?

Josie Cox [00:13:50]:

Completely. And I think the other thing was that and that we tend to do is we tend to have a really tough time putting ourselves in other people's shoes. Right? I think particularly this person, he He's not a bad person. You know? He's obviously extremely intelligent, you know, amazing education, like, incredible academic achievements, brilliant business Women. You know? Very such a strategic thinker, all of this. But I wonder Whether he's actually taken the time to think. Right. If I'm an if I'm a junior employee coming into this organization, I'm a woman.

Josie Cox [00:14:32]:

You know? I just got married or maybe I didn't, but I want to start a family. I have a baby. What are the things that are what are the forces in my life that are going to impact the decisions that I make professionally and personally. And I just don't know whether think this is kind of like a theme that sort of followed me throughout the reporting of the book, this idea of whether we, as humans, are adequately putting ourselves in other people's positions. And I think that's that applies to everything from figuring out why the gender pay gap exists all the way through to you know, here in the US, we've had this war on reproductive rights over especially over the last 2 years. And I think that one of the reasons why we why abortion and reproductive rights have become such a hugely politicized and politically divisive issue is because we're not very good at having conversations with people who disagree with us. And I and that's, like, one of the conclusions I draw in my book is that we have to become better at talking to people with whom we disagree. So I don't

Julie [00:15:33]:

know. Slight tangent. Slight tangent. Have you read Malcolm Gladwell's Talking to Strangers?

Josie Cox [00:15:39]:

I have, and it's brilliant.

Julie [00:15:41]:

Oh, uh-huh. Right. That's one for another podcast episode.

Josie Cox [00:15:45]:

And the other one that I check-in there is, Adam Grant's Think Again. I don't know if any of you have read that.

Julie [00:15:50]:

Nope. I'm writing that one down.

Josie Cox [00:15:52]:

All about, he basically makes the point that true human intelligence It means the ability to change your mind about things and to have that kind of agility and that willingness to reconsider things.

Emily [00:16:06]:

Right.

Julie [00:16:07]:

Okay. So I think I mean, I find what you're saying and what you're right about absolutely fascinating, but I don't want to hog the conversation. So, Michelle, I was wondering if you had a question that you wanted to put to Julie.

Michelle [00:16:22]:

It's that thing that the gender gap has been there, and I think we see it in lots of different aspects of our world, our life. And I'm trying to get to that. But Money, That answer was just, as you say, not addressing the actual issue. And I and I think the bit about conversations is really key because We have to address the really uncomfortable things in order to get to the real answers because otherwise, we're never ever going to get there. And it would be interesting to see, I suppose, how other CEO views, you know, as to why that is. I mean, have you sort of spoken to many other CEOs and got sort of their use as to what the issue is?

Josie Cox [00:17:04]:

Yes. I have. And I think that The ignorance or this the particular answer I heard from the particular CEO I just told you about is not unique. And I think a lot of people do still, You know, subscribe to this idea that if women made different decisions, then We would be able to eradicate the gender pay gap and equality would be a reality. You know? I think that a lot of people in positions of power don't appreciate the daily struggles that people, both women and men, have with competing forces in their life. Right? And one of the things that I delved into quite deeply in the book and in my research was around just childcare. Right? Because I think, ultimately, babies, You know, account for a lot of the explanation as to why there is this huge divergence in the career paths of men and women at a certain point in in their in their professional journey. And I know it's the case in the UK as well that Reliable, affordable childcare is just not there.

Josie Cox [00:18:22]:

And there was this incredible report out by, The some research that Bright Horizons, the, care provider, actually did just a couple of days ago, just spelling out the extent to which Poole professional decisions are being dictated by the availability of childcare. And how is that still the case? So many people have kids. The vast majority of people make the decision or, you know, end up starting a family. And so why are we still not putting those policy blocks in place to make it possible for people to reach their economic potential and to partake in the paid labour market to the extent that they want to. And I think that that is just such a basic thing that so many leaders of corporations are not aware of because they've never had to be. Right? Yeah. So and I think one important point to make is that, you know, this is not just about male leaders. Right? There are plenty of Women in positions of power and leadership who aren't attuned to the fact that It's not a woman's choice.

Josie Cox [00:19:36]:

Right? It's not necessary. I mean and, okay, maybe it is a woman's choice, but what is that choice informed by? Right? Is it informed by the fact that it just doesn't make it's not it's just not financially feasible for a woman to want to b throw herself into the paid labour market. You know? And so I just think that there needs to be more kind of, like, a holistic understanding of all the different factors and forces in play.

Michelle [00:20:06]:

It's quite interesting that you say that a lot of some of the work that I do is with couples who are divorcing.

Josie Cox [00:20:12]:

Mhmm.

Michelle [00:20:12]:

So I often find The, you know, stereotypical scenario is the husband has continued to work through the whole marriage and has accumulated a good pension provision. The wife Again, it's not stereotypical. It's not always the same, but you generally think about the wife who's may have sort of taken time out of the workplace and doesn't have so much pension provision. And it's quite interesting on some occasions, you know, that the husband will say, well, why should my ex wife be entitled to that because it was her decision not to work. You know, when actually the decision was made as a couple because of childcare and all of those things. And then you often sometime you know, I find sometimes, You know, the wives agree. And you think, hang on. And that's where, as I suppose, in my role, I have to kind of bring everyone back and go, hang on.

Michelle [00:21:00]:

Everyone has a role to play in this marriage. And, actually, let's have an, you know, an equitable split of everything at the end to show But, actually, it was a shared Yeah. View. But it's the same kind of view, isn't it?

Josie Cox [00:21:15]:

There's this incredible book that I read when I was doing research, by a lady named Eve Rodsky here in the US. And the book is called Fair Play, and it's basically all about, The unpaid labour market and the extent to which all of this unpaid labour is still predominantly being done by women in the labour market and predominantly by mothers. And, it's so funny. I've had so many conversations, like the one that you just referenced, Michelle, where, You know, this question is asked around well, you know, a woman hasn't worked for x number of years. For argument's sake, 10 years. Well, wait. Hang on. Has she not worked, or has she done all the work that's not paid that has enabled this family to remain a stable unit and stay together.

Josie Cox [00:22:04]:

Right? And I always make this argument. And I don't know if people usually laugh because it sounds kind of wacky, but, You know, if in a heterosexual relationship, a man and a woman if the man's working full time in the paid labour market and the woman isn't, I kind of think that she's earning half his salary. Right? Yeah. Because without her, he wouldn't be able to do that. And, My husband got promoted a couple of months ago in his job. And I got a text from a friend and she said congratulations on your promotion. And I went, thank you. That's actually right.

Josie Cox [00:22:38]:

Because I was the one when we had a kid who actually went I went freelance Because I knew that 1 of us would have to be more flexible, and he travels a lot for work and it and it didn't make financial sense for him to be the one to take the step back. And I think that that is something that we need to get better at. We need to get better at acknowledging the role That a woman in a relationship and in a family is playing when she does take that little bit step back out of the paid labour market and into the unpaid labour market. I have got a good chunk of a chapter about divorce and, singlehood or singledom, I don't know what the word is, and the financial implications of that. And I was reading all these research papers around, What the impact when no fault divorce came into effect in the US in, I think, it was the seventies, what impact that had on financial empowerment of women. And, of course, I mean, it on the one hand, you know, it was it was a fantastic thing because it enabled women to more easily leave abusive relationships, to more easily just leave relationships that weren't fulfilling. But on the other hand, you know, a lot of them did find themselves in extremely financially situations. And I read this research paper analysing that time, and the research paper was actually written quite recently.

Josie Cox [00:23:55]:

It was maybe 10, 15 years ago. And the conclusion in the research Poole from this academic, who's highly intelligent and has all the data, was that Maybe the best thing financially for a divorce a divorced woman to do is to get remarried to a man. And it's so depressing. It's so depressing, but I understand where this person's coming from because of the parameters of the world in which we live. Right?

Julie [00:24:24]:

Yeah. That's quite scary, isn't it? Stuff. Like, Julie, a question for you then. Because, obviously, In your book, and what we've been talking about is, like, the big the big picture of how did we get here and what's it going to take to get us out. And, obviously, we can't all of a sudden I don't have a magic wand that I can wave overall the CEOs and all of a sudden all the gender bias skills. And their awareness of what it's like to be a woman and operate the workplace is just magic top.

Michelle [00:24:53]:

I can't do that. But I

Julie [00:24:55]:

wondered if the from the research that you've done, Have you got any tips or any suggestions for women listening about how do we navigate and advocate for ourselves in the workplace then? So if we can't if we can't fix it from the top part, we can push from the bottom. What could we do?

Josie Cox [00:25:11]:

Yeah. So I Have always been a big fan of Women communicating. Mhmm. And I think that that is either one thing that we generally, as a as a population, have get better at. And one of the things I talk about is having conversations that are rooted in respect, that are rooted in empathy, And not falling into this trap of however frustrating it is, not falling into this trap of phrasing something and communicating in a way that risks entrenching the person even more in their own views. And one of the this doesn't necessarily relate directly to the gender pay gap, but one of the episodes that I talk about in the book and an episode from which I think we can all learn Is so, again, in in in 2022, Roe v Wade was overturned here in the US, and Roe v Wade had had been the Supreme Court decision that essentially entrenched the right to abortion in the US constitution 50 years ago. So that passed in 1973. In 2022, it was overturned.

Josie Cox [00:26:19]:

And, that caused a huge amount of distress and fear and anger and polarization. And shortly after that vote, the state of Kansas, which is traditionally a very Republican state, had a vote on its constitution about whether to enshrine, abortion in its constitution. And considering history of Kansas and the fact that Kansas used to be very much and still is, to some extent, a sort of stronghold of the anti abortion movement. A lot of people expected that it was just going to sail through and that abortion was going to be banned in the Kansas constitution as well. And there was this one Abortion activist, reproductive rights activist who she's a communications strategist, a communications professional. And she essentially led all the communication around the pro choice campaign in Kansas, and it passed by a huge margin. And so when I learned about this, I just really wanted to know, like, how she did it because I think that the way that she communicated is something that we can all learn from. And I spent some time with her, and she said that she really thought long and hard about the shared values and about what we all can agree on, which is that we want to lead fulfilling lives, that we want freedom, that we want independence, that we want to be healthy, that we want to give our children the ability to live fulfilling and happy and healthy lives.

Josie Cox [00:27:50]:

And so she could sort of use that as a basis for starting the conversation with people who had perhaps always voted on the polar opposite of the political spectrum to the way that she had voted. And lo and behold, the you know, she succeeded, and abortion is now enshrined in the Kansas constitution. So, you know, the way that what we can learn from that in sort of a work situation that we might find ourselves in, I think, is you know, by sitting down and having that conversation, if I'm a mom who needs to have a reasonably flexible schedule during the day in order to be able to do my job fully because I've got to pick up kids and I've got to bring them to the child mind or whatever it is, all because I've got to work from home Money day a week. I would I would want to have that conversation with my boss and explain why I'm making these particular demands and how that is going to translate into my own professional success work and why the proposal that I'm making will enable me to be the most engaged employee that I can possibly be. And I think more often than not, if you actually take the time to have that conversation To spell out the logic of a particular argument, it's going to be way more effective than just, you know, saying, well, I can't believe you're not letting me work from home one day a week. That's completely outrageous. Right? Whereas if I go in and say, okay. I understand that we have Poole that we have to be in the office every day.

Josie Cox [00:29:26]:

But let me tell you a little bit about my setup and the way that I work and what I can achieve and what compromises I'm willing to make in order to make it work for both of us. And that's not always going to be effective. You know, there have been and we've seen we've all seen the headlines about some Emily kind of draconian measures to get people back into the office and no wiggle room whatever. But, you know, I think more often than not, we, like, people managers are humans as well. Right? We're all we're all kind of in this together. So just taking that little bit of a step back and not assuming that someone is necessarily your opponent can just achieve so much.

Julie [00:30:06]:

I really like that because I'm thinking back to my own experience Women I had a proper job. I was an employee, And I had a child and then I was going back to work. And I did approach, that I wanted to do a condensed week.

Emily [00:30:17]:

Mhmm. And

Julie [00:30:18]:

I just went and said, can I have a condensed week, please? So, fortunately, they said yes, but I hadn't put a great deal of thought into it. I just asked for what I wanted. Yeah. Whereas your you use your phrase over communicating. It's almost like building a case. And what I saw you do is link it back to the other things that were saying about seeing it from someone else's point of view. Yeah. They want a productive employee, don't they? Yeah.

Julie [00:30:44]:

But it's telling this is how you make me more productive. Give me what I want. To give me what I want Yeah. And explain why.

Josie Cox [00:30:50]:

And I think you can also apply that to, like, a domestic situation. Right? I think we all You know, I think in in heterosexual relationships where the man is the breadwinner or earns the bulk of the collective family income, there does tend to be a default for the woman to pick up more of the unpaid labour, childcare, whatever that might be. And it's easy speaking from experience and speaking from anecdotal evidence that I'm hearing within my circle of friends, It's easy to default to being really agitated and being really annoyed that you're the one who is the default person who picks kids up from school, takes a day off work when the kids are sick, takes a day off work when it's a snow day like it is here in New York today, things like that. Ironic, my husband's actually home in the next room looking after the kid right now. So win. But rather than letting that frustration, which is inevitably going to bubble up, take control of the conversation and the narrative and the dialogue. And I know it's so hard. It's so it's so much easier to say than actually do.

Josie Cox [00:31:58]:

But, again, like, take a step back and take the time to have a conversation with your partner or your spouse and say, okay. Well, look. Here are the things that I need to do. Here are the things that I'm having trouble with. This is the particular, duty or responsibility that I'm it's really stressing me out, quite frankly. And it would be really helpful if, You know, you could do drop off 1 2 days a week or pick up 2 days a week, whatever it is, rather than, You know, as I'm sure well, I've certainly know I've done, you know, just saying like, oh my god. I do everything around here. Right? And that's the that's the impulse because it's frustrating, and it's tiring, and we're all knackered all the time.

Josie Cox [00:32:42]:

Right? But just trying a little bit harder to go into a conversation in a more measured way. Yeah. Again, like, harder done than said.

Emily [00:32:57]:

I do think that we need to be a bit braver as well, and I think that, There's nothing wrong with actually speaking with your feet sometimes, you know, because I know, sadly, I know a lot of women who, have walked out on marriages, because the husband hasn't been supportive of their careers or hasn't done their share of the childcare. And that's meant that they've lived half a life because he wanted his full life. And, you know, you have to be brave and make those decisions. And I would say the same about careers. I'd definitely say the same about careers. And, you know, if you're if you're employed in a big corporate and the culture is such that you just really don't feel appreciated, and they're not being flexible, and you feel there's this glass ceiling. I think that you should definitely be finding companies out there who are with it a lot better.

Josie Cox [00:33:47]:

Yeah. And I think I think a lot of that is about setting expectations at the beginning so that you don't end up having Julie the marriage or leave the job. Right? And one of the things, again, referencing this book Fair Play by Eve Rodsky, she says that a lot of women end up picking up a lot of the unpaid labour because they always have done it. Right? And their thinking is like, Well, I will manage the paediatrician because, you know, by the time I've explained to my husband that she's relationship. By the time I've explained to my husband, that this is the number you have to call, that this is the form you have to fill out, that this is the login the online portal to get the appointment or whatever, I might as well just Money it myself. Right? So it's like, no. Don't fall into that trap of Just doing it yourself because it's easier. If you actually want an equitable relationship and if you actually care about splitting unpaid labour to the extent that it's possible, you've got to put in the hard work as well.

Josie Cox [00:34:48]:

So I have this policy. It's small, but every time I do something that is related to childcare, medical appointments, school, whatever it is. Even if I'm the one sending the email, I cc my husband. Right. Because I just want him to feel like he has a duty to be part of that conversation and part of the decision and to know who all the people are Who I'm talking to about whatever it is. Right? So it's small things like that. It's making sure that you are not contributing to your default status. Yes.

Josie Cox [00:35:21]:

Right? Mhmm. Then I think you're absolutely right, Emily. I think, you know, it does. You also have to be responsibility responsible for your own happiness and your own fulfilment.

Michelle [00:35:31]:

Absolutely. Yeah.

Josie Cox [00:35:32]:

Right? And, You know, no one is going to fight harder or advocate harder for you than yourself, ultimately. So

Julie [00:35:41]:

Can I can I just ask

Emily [00:35:42]:

a Question? Swing back on the whole CEO thing that we were talking about earlier. So, obviously, it's nice to see that we are getting more female Board representation. But do you think that those females who are on board are largely ones who have made a different choice, I e, maybe chosen not to have children. Because I do find that, Those who are sort of high up in companies and have chosen that route can be a little bit Begrudge it. I think there's grudges on both sides. There's the there's the woman who hasn't progressed so far because she's had childcare and responsibilities, And then there's a woman who has progressed because she hasn't, and I think there's a little bit of distrust and annoyance between the 2 groups. And how does that interplay, Faye, do you think is am I am I talking rubbish? How did you find this?

Josie Cox [00:36:35]:

Yeah. I mean, I think it's always dangerous to make generalizations, And it's just not helpful. Right? But I think that there is certainly evidence that people that women who, you know, have dedicated Money time and effort and energy and made that conscious decision to not have kids that they might have. And there's a you know, there's plenty of Research and academic evidence that supports that too, that they are more likely or they might find it more, easy to advance to the top of a corporation and into the management class. That's certainly true. I think we all need to get better at not judging people and understanding that, again, like, we are responsible for our own fulfilment and our own happiness, Women the parameters of what's possible, of course. You know? But if a woman makes a decision that she doesn't want to have a kid and she wants to work 20 hours a day and, you know, tick all the boxes and, you know, do all the things that the corporation the corporate world requires for her to be the most engaged and, prominent person in that particular role, then that that that's hard decision. You know? And, you know, when you started asking the question, it reminded me of this having it all narrative that I squarely, hopefully, take down in my book.

Josie Cox [00:38:12]:

And I think that there is still We still, even to this day in 2024, glamorize this idea of having it all, which is totally, utterly ludicrous, because it's just not possible. What does it even mean? Right? I think it sort of speaks to the Flynn in narrative actually as well, Which was, of course, that Sheryl Sandberg book that came out in 2009, I want to say. And the I mean, it was actually quite a nuanced argument that she made in the book, but the big takeaway, and the sort of overarching, gospel that rang out from that book was that as long as women pulled up a seat at the table and leaned in and advocated for themselves, everything would be okay. You know? And we know we know that that's not right, and we know that that's not possible. And, you know, I think that, Again, all of this just comes down to the fact that we need to be more tuned in. We need to be more empathetic. We need to appreciate the nuances, and we need to appreciate the fact That that gender gaps occur for such a broad range of complex interplaying issues.

Julie [00:39:25]:

Alright. Just So I just saw

Emily [00:39:28]:

so can I just say something?

Julie [00:39:30]:

I

Emily [00:39:31]:

once saw Helena Morrissey speak at an event, And, you know, she's got quite a few children, and I really appreciated something that she said. And she said, you know, this would not be possible if I didn't have a really supportive husband and was able to pay for a really, really good childcare. Yeah. And I think that just comes back to the point of She's just explaining that she hasn't got it all in that sense. She's not doing it all. She's not raising grandchildren. She's made etcetera, but she's been in a fortunate enough position to have it all. And I think it is important that people don't realize that that is an easy thing to have.

Josie Cox [00:40:08]:

Yeah. Totally. I think I actually hugely applaud the women who are coming out now and especially over the last couple of years, you know, who might once have been branded as Women. Right? And they're saying, no. There's nothing supernatural about me. There's nothing, you know, exceptional about what I'm doing. It's just that I have the resources available to me to be able to make these professional decisions. And, again, everyone's in you know, I got I had a nanny for a time, and I don't think I would have been able to write the book if I hadn't.

Josie Cox [00:40:40]:

It was the pandemic, and I had a 2 year old, and My husband was on calls all hours of the day, and it was a decision that we just made at the time. It was an investment that we decided as a family would be the most sensible for us, for my professional advancement, for my husband's professional advancement, for our collective mental health, for our happiness, for our marriage. And it's you know, it's a bit dirty still to talk about outsourcing childcare In some circles, and especially, like, having a nanny or having a babysitter. But, you know, if you if you can afford it and if you make the decision that that is the right allocation of money for you in the long run, who cares? You know? Who are we to judge?

Julie [00:41:26]:

No. I think I think one of the things I'm looking forward to reading in the book is the themes that you've pulled out so far is that being able to see things from other people's point of view. Let's judge less, and let's get better at communicating. But I'm curious. Let's see. When does the book come out, do you see?

Josie Cox [00:41:47]:

Sorry about the background noise here. That's New York's I

Julie [00:41:50]:

can't hear it. You're okay?

Josie Cox [00:41:53]:

The book comes out on the 5th March over here in the US and in Canada and on the 14th March in Europe and What else?

Julie [00:42:01]:

So on the 14th March, let's say that every male leader, CEO, manager in the UK Has this book delivered to them? And they are given the day off to actually just sit there and read the book. And then they come into work the next day. What's the one thing you would like to them to be either thinking, saying, or doing differently having read the book?

Josie Cox [00:42:26]:

Oh my gosh. That's such a good question, Julie. One of the things that I hope that they appreciate from the book is I actually spent a lot of time going into the history of the women who fought for female economic empowerment in this country particularly. And I start with the Rosie derivatives during the 2nd World War who took up the jobs of men that had previously been reserved for men and how that felt. And I actually met some Rosie Riveters who are still alive. They're in their nineties, and I hung out with them. And they told me about that experience of going in And, like, building aircraft, right, and doing all these, like, very sort of blue collar jobs that were previously the domains of men, and how That changed their lives and how empowered they felt and how proud they were of contributing to the economy and how independent they felt and how confident they felt. And then what happened after the war, of course, was that a lot of them well, the vast majority of them were relegated back into the unpaid labour market.

Josie Cox [00:43:29]:

They were sort of defaulted back to being carers, being stay at home wives. And that is sort of the one of the starting points of the book is this kind of this sense of resentment and how that trickled down through generations. And I think a lot of people don't appreciate that. A lot of people don't appreciate the way in which women have sort of been on this undulating journey through history. And that despite all of this and despite all this hard work that's been done in terms of legislative change and cultural change and social change. We're still where we are today, you know, all of the all of the gaps and biases that we've just been talking about the last 45 minutes. And so what I really would love for leaders to take away from this book is that we're squandering all this progress, and we're squandering all this effort that has been put in to create the foundations of a country that should actually enable anyone, regardless of gender, regardless of race, to reach their full economic and professional potential. And the big piece that I think is still missing and that these leaders have a role in fixing is the culture piece.

Josie Cox [00:44:45]:

And I would love people to walk away from the book and just to be just to take a long, hard look at themselves than think, what role am I actually playing here? How can I actually, I'm in decisions that I make on a day to day basis? How might they actually be playing into this? And what conversations am I not having that I should be having?

Julie [00:45:10]:

That sounds

Josie Cox [00:45:10]:

a bit sounds a bit abstract.

Julie [00:45:12]:

Oh, no. I like it. I'm actually going to go away and be thinking about what conversation should I be having that I'm not having. That one's going to keep me up at night. Look, Josie, thank you so much for giving us your time and telling us all about your work. Absolutely Cannot wait to read the book. For the listeners that are listening, thinking, oh, this Josie woman, she sounds like my kind of person. What's the best way for people to follow you and keep

Josie Cox [00:45:37]:

I'm on Flynn. I'm Josie Cox on LinkedIn. I am on Twitter, joseecox_ny See, I have a substack as well, where I send out I send out, a newsletter every Monday morning. It's called Women Money Power, and it started as a sort of, repository for all the things that didn't make it into the final cut of the book. Interesting, research that I came across, interesting conversations I was having, but it sort of expanded well beyond that. And it's sort of a digest of all the things that are going on in the world, that week that relate to Women, money, power in some way. So follow me on that. And I have a website, umjoseecox.com.

Josie Cox [00:46:20]:

You can get in touch with me via that. As I say, the book's out 5th March in the US and Canada, The 14th March in the UK and elsewhere. And, it's available for preorder now, pretty much anywhere where you get good books.

Julie [00:46:36]:

Alright. Okay. Well, good luck with the launch of the book. Can't wait to read it. Michelle, Emily, thank you for joining me. And you, lovely listeners, thank you for tuning in. And until next time, please do take care of yourselves.