Machiavelli for Women

Defend Your Worth, Grow Your Ambition, and Win the Workplace

Stacey Vanek Smith

• Verlag: Gallery Books
• Jahr: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781982121778
• Thema: Negocios y empresa
• Thema: Mujeres en los negocios

From the NPR host of The Indicator and correspondent for Planet Money comes an "accessible, funny, clear-eyed, and practical" (Sarah Knight, New York Tim es bestselling author) g uide for how women can apply the principles of 16th-century philosopher Niccolò Machiavelli to their work lives and finally shatter the glass ceiling—perfect for fans of Feminist Fight Club, Lean In, and Nice Girls Don't Get the Corner Office. Women have been making strides towards equality for decades, or so we're often told. They've been increasingly entering male-dominated areas of the workforce and consistently surpassing their male peers in grades, university attendance, and degrees. They've recently stormed the political arena with a vengeance. But despite all of this, the payoff is—quite literally—not there: the gender pay gap has held steady at about 20% since 2000. And the number of female CEOs for Fortune 500 companies has actually been declining. So why, in the age of #MeToo and #TimesUp, is the glass ceiling still holding strong? And how can we shatter it for once and for all? Stacy Vanek Smith's advice: ask Machiavelli "with this delicious look at what we have to gain by examining our relationship to power" (Sally Helgesen, New York Times bestselling author). Using The Prince as a guide and with charm and wit, Smith applies Renaissance politics to the 21st century, and demonstrates how women can take and maintain power in careers where they have long been cast as second-best. " Machiavelli For Women is the ultimate battle guide for our times. Brimming with hard-boiled strategies, laced with wit, it's a must-read for every woman ready to wield power unapologetically" (Claire Shipman, coauthor of The Confidence Code ).

1 Machiavelli’s Playbook

“Since it is my intention to say something which will be of practical use… I have thought it proper to represent things as they are in real truth, rather than as they are imagined.”

—Machiavelli, The Prince (Chapter XV)

Machiavelli wrote The Prince for women in the workplace. Granted, he himself might be pretty surprised to hear this—he wasn’t exactly a champion of gender equality—but he writes, in the beginning of The Prince, that there are two kinds of princes: those who inherit their kingdoms and those who take control of a kingdom through conquest. For a prince who inherits his kingdom, Machiavelli writes, things are generally pretty cushy: the people are used to him, “his subjects will be naturally well disposed towards him,” and for him to lose his position, he really has to screw up (Chapter II, MPE). You can think of college-educated white men as the inheriting princes of the workplace, and Machiavelli did not write The Prince for them.

The conquering prince, on the other hand, is in a very tricky position and “difficulties abound” (Chapter III, DTE): He just took over a new land, things are in flux, and everyone is skeptical of him—like, “Wait, who is this guy we’re suddenly supposed to be taking orders from?”

It is for the conquering prince that Machiavelli wrote his most famous work. As women in the workplace, we are the conquering princes. Women have arrived in the American workplace! We are getting the degrees and we’re in all the industries and we’re rising through the ranks! This is good news and a real and substantial victory, but the workplace is still new territory for us. Change is incredibly hard. The patriarchy is not going quietly, and if the data is telling us anything, it’s that we need to change our tactics.

As luck would have it, The Prince is a brilliant tactical guide for how to gain and hold power over a newly conquered land. It is not a book about war (although Machiavelli is generally very enthusiastic about war); it’s a book for what to do after you win the war (the après war, if you will): You got the degree! The job! The big assignment you never thought you’d get! It’s yours! Now what? How do you keep the gains? How do you grow them?

Machiavelli’s Big Break

Machiavelli himself was a bit of a new prince. Nobody is quite sure how he got his first government job, but everybody agrees it was a total coup. Machiavelli was hired as a low-level diplomat when he was twenty-nine, and he was very far from a shoo-in for the position. He was not from the “right” family. His father was trained as a lawyer but had gone bankrupt, lost his license, and was reduced to trying to scratch out a living from his property. That didn’t go so well: He was always in terrible debt, and Niccolò and his family grew up in near poverty. However, Machiavelli’s father loved literature, history, and learning. There are even stories of him trading chunks of land for books. One thing is sure: Machiavelli Sr. spent some of the money he did have educating his son in what seems to have been a pretty over-the-top way, considering the family’s situation. Niccolò Machiavelli got a full, classical education and was instilled with a deep and lifelong love of history and literature. That may have been what helped get him his job. Still, Machiavelli’s spotty family history was a drag on him his entire career. Nobody worked harder than Machiavelli. He was, by all accounts, brilliant at his job, a tireless worker, and well-liked by his colleagues. But he was held back from a bunch of promotions and high-profile assignments because he simply didn’t have the pedigree.

The Power Principle

Power is an interesting concept. Although it is the main focus of Machiavelli’s book, he never explicitly defines it. So what is it? What is this thing Machiavelli is obsessing over?

Power doesn’t exactly have the best reputation. Say the word and it conjures up images of men in expensive suits behind giant desks, screwing over investors; General Patton barking at a bunch of faceless troops that America will not tolerate a loser; the Eye of Sauron crushing little Frodo. Power has become, I think, synonymous with the ability to force people to do things. If someone is described as being power hungry or drunk on power, it is not a compliment (at least, not for most people. Maybe for Sauron).

I don’t think “power” in the way we commonly think of it is what most women want: The ability to crush underlings is not a life goal for most well-adjusted people. But that does not mean women aren’t interested in power. I think what women want in the workplace has a lot more to do with the original meaning of the word. Its original Anglo-French root, poeir, means “to be able.” I think that’s a very useful definition. Power means being able to do things, to have agency and be the masters of our own fates. Women in the workplace want to be able.

Of course, for most of recorded history, being a woman has largely been defined by not being able: not being able to own property, vote, smoke cigarettes, get an education, drive, practice most professions, travel alone, live alone, or participate in government. In literature and on-screen, when women weren’t being locked in towers, married off to secure some political alliance, or manic-pixie-drifting through some guy’s hero journey, they were home waiting for their husbands/fathers/brothers/boyfriends/baby daddies to come back. Women weren’t where the action was. Women waited. Any power women had was confined to martyr-like virtue or a whisper in the ear of a man who actually did have power; see Lady Macbeth, Scheherazade, Medea, Ophelia, Cleopatra, Penelope. Even today, women tend to fit into these roles. Take the hit TV series Game of Thrones, which seemed, for years, to be a narrative all about strong women seizing power. The show systematically destroyed every powerful woman in the last few episodes of the show. Most offensively, Khaleesi Daenerys Targaryen—breaker of chains, mother of dragons—who, after commanding armies, traversing continents, raising actual dragons, outsmarting wizards and kings, and striding naked out of multiple burning buildings, went crazy when her boyfriend dumped her. She went so crazy, her lousy boyfriend was forced to kill her and hand the kingdom over to a white guy from a good family. These are the stories we take in all our lives. It’s no wonder the world has issues with women in power.

Just look at the difference in how we use the words prince and princess. If a man is a prince, he is a model citizen, a cut above the rest, and everybody wants a piece of him. If a woman is a princess, she is difficult, entitled, demanding, and you soooo don’t want to be in her bridal party.

What Is Standing Between Us and Power?

What is the difference between the inheriting prince and a new prince? A little bit of historical precedent and a sweet family crest, but mostly it’s a story. In fact, the main obstacle between women and power is not a sexist manager or an oppressive organization or even the dreaded patriarchy. It is a story of our own worth.

The story is, quite simply, that women are less valuable than men are. Dr. Cecilia L. Ridgeway is a Stanford University sociologist and author of Status: Why Is It Everywhere? Why Does It Matter? She says women, by and large, are considered to be “low-status” and men—college-educated white men, specifically—are considered to be “high-status.” High-status people typically “set the agenda”: They talk a lot, make decisions, and have strong opinions. Low-status people follow the agenda: They listen a lot, execute orders, and make sure high-status people have the support and resources they need—they are essentially the Igors and Renfields to the high-status Dr. Frankensteins and Count Draculas.

Leaders are, by definition, high-status. So when women are in leadership positions, it often does not sit well with people. Imagine if you saw a twelve-year-old scolding her parents or the office intern started laying out his vision for the company to the CEO; those are low-status people behaving in a high-status way, and it can stir up strong emotions in people, like shock, resentment, and outrage. Those are the emotions many people feel about women in leadership roles, even if they don’t want to feel that way.

But this is good news! We’re not fighting anything real. We are not dealing with a lack of brains or ability or skill or work ethic. (Studies show basically everybody agrees on that.) The truth is, women already have everything they need to thrive and rise in the workplace, and the workplace will be better for it. All we have to do now is make that happen. And to do that, we need to tell a new story.

There are a bunch of things working in women’s favor. First, stories change all the time. (Sixty years ago, cigarettes were good for you, marijuana was bad for you, and women didn’t enjoy sex.) Also, workplaces are full of people with the best of intentions, who are ready to make changes, and who want an equal, more diverse workplace. But stories can also be formidable, because they are woven into our identities. We use stories to make sense of things, and letting go of them can make the world seem frightening and chaotic. In a way, people are fighting for their lives when they’re fighting for their stories. Our stories, as David Foster Wallace pointed out, are the water we swim in.

Machiavelli Feels Your Pain

Machiavelli, incidentally, was no stranger to the awesome power of stories. In fact, when a story changed, he lost everything.

Machiavelli thrived in his job as a diplomat. For about fifteen years he was sent all over Italy and much of Western Europe to represent Florentine interests. Popes and kings knew his name; he worked on projects with Leonardo da Vinci; and he was involved in international affairs at all the highest levels. He had properties all over Tuscany, a devoted wife, six kids, and adoring friends. He was a true power player. But when he was forty-three, Machiavelli’s luck ran out in a big way. The powerful Medici family seized control of Florence and, as a high-ranking member of the fallen republic, Machiavelli was stripped of his job and his money, accused of conspiracy, and thrown in jail with “shackles clawing into my ankles” and “lice so big and fat they seem like butterflies.” He was tortured and interrogated for weeks, and was incredibly lucky not to have been killed. But the Medicis let him live, let him out, and ran him out of town.

It was in exile that Machiavelli wrote The Prince.

They say the Bedouins sang songs about water because they had no water. Niccolò Machiavelli wrote about power because, at the time he wrote The Prince, he had none. He had lost everything.

Machiavelli wrote The Prince in a tiny rural village outside Florence where his family owned a small, scruffy tavern and brothel—far from the social elites and levers of power he so loved. He spent his nights poring over ancient texts, studying the great kings and warriors of history: men who had conquered nations and created stable, prosperous kingdoms. Machiavelli confided to a close correspondent that these historical figures felt like his friends and seemed more real to him than the actual humans around him, most of whom were farmers, low-level merchants, and prostitutes. He so revered these historical figures that he would dress up in formal clothes before sitting down to do his readings, which he did alone in a small stone apartment attached to the tavern.

Machiavelli’s lack of power is painfully obvious in the opening bars of The Prince. “Should you from the height of your greatness some time turn your eyes to these humble regions,” he writes, “you will become aware how undeservedly I have to endure the keen and unremitting malignity of Fortune” (Dedication, DTE). Machiavelli wrote these words to Lorenzo de’ Medici, who was, in fact, the cause of his “malignity of Fortune.” The Prince, Machiavelli’s love letter to Florence, was also a kind of cover letter. Machiavelli was hoping the book would shine so brightly, and its ideas for Florence and Italy would resonate so deeply, Lorenzo would say, OMG, HE’S SO BRILLIANT! I DON’T CARE IF HE WORKED FOR THE OTHER SIDE, I HAVE TO HAVE THIS GUY ADVISING ME!

The Prince was Machiavelli’s Say Anything boom box moment to the powers that were. He writes, heartbreakingly, that the work represents the very best he has inside of him: “Though I deem the work unworthy of your greatness,” he writes to Lorenzo, “yet I am bold enough to hope that your courtesy will dispose you to accept it, considering that I can offer you no better gift than… all that in the course of so many years, and at the cost of so many hardships and dangers, I have learned, and know” (Dedication, DTE). This is how the great and ruthless Machiavelli begins his book: begging the man who took everything from him to pity him and let him back into the fold. The Prince! The great treatise on power! The infamous guide to being unapologetically ruthless! And it starts out in the most submissive, pathetic way imaginable. He apologizes. He flatters. He grovels. And after all of this cringe-worthy bowing and scraping he actually delivers. In The Prince, Machiavelli lays out some of the boldest, most original ideas of his day. He looks at things with an honest (if slightly cynical) eye and speaks his truth—an uncomfortable and shocking truth that shook the very foundations of humanism, which Cicero had laid down centuries before. Machiavelli’s observations were not noble or soaring. They were not inspiring or heartwarming. They did not make you feel good about human beings. But they were real—born of the bloody, vicious feuds Machiavelli had witnessed during his life and career and had studied from centuries past. Now that is a boom box moment if ever there was one.

Except that it didn’t work. It seems Lorenzo never even bothered to read the book. The Prince did get some attention, but it was mostly shock and horror at what Machiavelli had written, culminating in a threat from the all-powerful Catholic Church to excommunicate anybody who bought the book (which, I can only imagine, was very hard on sales).

On top of being broke, exiled, and unemployable, Machiavelli was now notorious and despised. He did not get his job back. He did not return to Florence in triumph, and his city and his country were not saved by him. Machiavelli was crushed by this turn of events and wrote to his friend, “I shall continue, then, among my lousy doings, without finding a man who remembers my service or who believes that I can be good for anything.”

Machiavelli went from being a power player, a patriot, and a political savant to a disgraced traitor and a villain. When a story changed, he lost everything and found himself in the same position as many women in the workplace: on the outside looking in, for reasons that had nothing to do with merit.

Machiavelli knew the powerful role stories could play in our lives all too well. So what is Machiavelli’s advice when you’re going up against a story that is holding you back?

Machiavelli’s Lesson: Don’t Blink

One of Machiavelli’s main messages in The Prince is one of the simplest and also one of the most difficult: See the situation you’re in clearly. Face reality. Don’t blink.

Machiavelli thought the inability (or unwillingness) to see things as they were was one of the most common pitfalls for princes. In The Prince he recounts many instances of leaders and generals who refused to look at the reality of their situation and who lost battles or kingdoms as a result. His conclusion: Fully facing reality is crucial, even for the cleverest, most prepared prince, because “the times are more powerful than our brains.”

It’s human to want to avoid bad things and not look at something ugly. There’s a reason kids lie paralyzed with terror under their comforters, convinced there is a monster under the bed, without actually ever just looking to see. Facing discrimination can feel like this: You’ve already put up with years of unfairness—a harder time getting hired, a harder time getting promoted, lower pay, a more critical eye on your work, harassment, disrespect in all its glorious and glittering forms—not to mention the regular challenges of a workplace: endless meetings, toxic colleagues, bad managers, layoffs, crazy politics, budget cuts, your yogurt getting stolen out of the communal fridge. And now you’re supposed to focus on a big, systemic problem like discrimination? Just so you really see it in its full shittiness?

Yes.

To fight this monster, you need to know it. That is not easy. Most people will do almost anything to avoid looking and, for that reason, there is a major denial problem around gender discrimination in the workplace. Me? Se...