THE MYTH OF MAKING IT

The origin story of how we came to glorify work - one that offers a transformative vision for the workplace, in which fair pay, equal access, collective responsibility, and real fulfillment are all within reach - from the former executive editor of Teen Vogue.

THE MYTH OF MAKING IT speaks directly to the feeling everyone has (especially women) about the need to acquire health, wealth, and influence all at the same time at a breakneck speed. It doesn't feel like enough to have a stable job; it must be the one of your dreams, and you must climb the ladder as high as you can go, as quickly as possible. Make the best connections, do the most efficient work, give it everything you have. And even that is not enough - it's essential to also have a loving relationship with a fancy apartment overlooking the skyline, to have the best fitness routine, to be on top of the latest fashions. To cook, clean, have kids (because of course kids should be part of the equation of a perfect life), sexually and emotionally satisfy your partner, and make it look easy. But it's not easy, and it never was. As a daughter of South Asian immigrants, Mukhopadhyay examines the myth of "having it all" for women and debunks the idea that it was ever attainable for a single person in the first place. From Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique in the early 1960s to the 2015 show Younger, women have had to walk the tightrope of reaching and breaking the glass ceiling by "hustling" and "leaning in" twelve hours a day, but still find time to work out and be the perfect partner. This historic look at how women in the workplace have evolved, paired with interviews, expert analyses, and Mukhopadhyay's personal experiences in the workplace, deftly cuts through all of these assumptions to encourage rest. In asserting that emptying yourself for your vocation is no longer fulfilling and actually quite damaging, Mukhopadhyay asks: what would it mean to have a liberated workplace? Is the oppressive grip of hustle culture really worth it? THE MYTH OF MAKING IT is a manifesto to those looking for a better path to work/life balance. Samhita Mukhopadhyay is a former Teen Vogue executive editor, senior editorial director of culture and identities at Mic, and executive editor at Feministing. As a writer, her work has appeared in Splinter, Al Jazeera, The Guardian, New York Magazine, Medium, Talking Points Memo, and Jezebel. Born in New York City, Mukhopadhyay lives in the New York metropolitan area.