Fair Shake: Women and the Fight to Build a Just Economy

Book Synopsis: A stirring, comprehensive look at the state of women in the workforce—why women’s progress has stalled, how our economy fosters unproductive competition, and how we can fix the system that holds women back.

In the #MeToo era, when gender equality is at the forefront of the conversation, women are still falling behind in the workplace faster than ever before; this was true before COVID, and even more true after. Fair Shake explains that the system that governs our economy—a winner-takes-all economy—is the cause. The WTA economy self-selects for aggressive, cutthroat business tactics, which creates a feedback loop that sidelines women.

The book explores what legal scholars determine the “triple bind” including:

• If women don’t compete on the same terms as men, they lose.
• If women do compete on the same terms as men, they lose.
• When women see that they can’t win on the same terms as men, they take themselves out of the game (if they haven’t been pushed out already).

Fair Shake offers a timely, practical view of women in the workforce today—what holds them back and what stops them from entering at all. Using legal cases throughout, Naomi Cahn offers rich, detailed storytelling to demonstrate how our laws fail to protect women. This book is the much-needed wake-up call to make the lasting changes required for gender equality in the workplace.