Ep #130: How Women are Redefining the Economy with Katrine Marçal
Do you want to get promoted solely out of self-interest?
There’s a belief in economics that self-interest is the thing that motivates economic activity.
But what if that’s…wrong?
I know YOU want the title, the pay increase, and the recognition.
And sure, that IS self-interest. And that’s great.
But we both know that you want so much more than that.
You want to land the promotion AND you want to be the corporate badass who brings more diversity to the leadership table.
You want the pay increase AND you want to change the way your organization is run from the c-suite out.
You want the recognition AND you want to carve a path so other women can easily follow in your footsteps.
Because women like you aren’t interested only in self-interest. You’re interested in being part of something so much bigger than that, too.
As world-renowned author and thought leader on women and innovation, Katrine Marçal, says in this episode of Maximize Your Career with Stacy Mayer:
“When you add women to the story of economics and stir it around, the whole narrative changes.”
In this episode, we get raw and real about how to bring more women into the conversation around money and economics.
Listen on.
Want to receive the recognition you deserve, step into a higher leadership position, get paid for your ideas instead of the hours you put in at work, and enjoy more time, freedom, energy, and joy? Then you need to get your hands on a copy of Promotions Made Easy. Get your copy here.
What You'll Learn:
- How economics became the science of self-interest
- The problem of not counting women’s unpaid work as work
- Why women need to be allowed to act in their own self-interest
- Why Katrine is motivated to have a seat at the table
- Why women need to remind themselves that we are innovators
Listen to the Full Episode:
Featured on the Show:
- Read Katrine’s books, Mother of Invention: How Good Ideas Get Ignored in an Economy Built for Men and Who Cooked Adam Smith's Dinner?: A Story of Women and Economics
- Sign up for Katrine’s newsletter, Wealth of Women: A feminist take on economics and business
- Connect with Katrine on LinkedIn
- Connect with me on LinkedIn
- Join my group coaching intensive, Executive Ahead of Time
- Get your copy of my book, Promotions Made Easy: A Step-by-Step Guide to the Executive Suite
- Go to StacyMayer.com/Strategies to join my email list and receive my email series, Seven Promotion Strategies that Your Boss Won’t Tell You
Full Transcript
Stacy Mayer: Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of Maximize Your Career. I'm your host, Stacy Mayer, and super excited to be here with you this week. I have an extra special guest for you today. You are going to be so excited to meet her. I met Katrine actually a couple of years ago. She was a colleague in group mastermind that I was a part of. And you've probably heard about Eleanor Beaton. She wrote the foreword of my book. And every single woman that is in that program, I'm like, I need to be a part of their world. And Katrine definitely is at the top of that list and I have been trying to get her on this podcast, but she's very busy traveling the world. She's an international woman speaking about women and economics. And I'm just so thrilled to have her on here today to share with you her point of view and the history and the work that she has done through economics and her work as a journalist. And I am just so thrilled. Thank you, Katrine, for being here.
Katrine Marçal: Thank you. Thank you. I'm thrilled.
Stacy Mayer: Let me give you a more formal introduction and then we'll just dive right in to our conversation today.
Katrine Marçal is a bestselling author on women and innovation. Her first book, Who Cooked Adam Smith's Dinner?, has been translated into more than 20 languages. Katrine's second book, Mother of Invention: How Good Ideas Get Ignored In An Economy Built For Men, became a bestseller in Sweden in 2020 and has been published in several languages over the past year. She lives in the English countryside with her husband and three children. I am so, so excited to have you here with us.
All right, let's just dive in. What do you feel like is your secret to success?
Katrine Marçal: Oh. That is a big question. I think for me it is actually realizing what I'm good at and sort of having the courage to lean into that. And for me, that has been my writing. And I mean, when I wrote Who Cooked Adam Smith's Dinner?, I was in my twenties and it was this crazy idea. I was a financial journalist in Sweden covering the financial crisis, and I just had this idea: oh, this should be a book sort of about feminist economics and how economics forgot about women. And it just felt like this little narrow book I was writing on this narrow topic. And I did it and then I got this idea that that should sort of probably be read outside of Sweden because is a small country. And for some reason, I had the tenacity to sort of pursue that. And now ten years later, sort of Margaret Atwood endorsed it and it's out in 20 languages. And it's just this magical thing. I mean, you and I were talking about that before you hit record here with your book. And the books are so amazing. It's this such an old medium, but they have this enormous power. When you put something in into a book, you make a couple of ideas and take them and you turn them into a book. They get this life, if you're lucky, and they sort of take you out into the world. And they certainly, this book really took me out into the world. And this message I still still ten years later, I get letters from readers about this book. Did I answer your question?
Stacy Mayer: Yes, absolutely. Because what I see in you is this embrace of your own personal experience and things that happen to you as a female journalist, specifically in the world of economics and your own ideas. And then really putting that and translating that to a book form. And you're such a brilliant storyteller as well, right? So much of what you're doing is so relatable and but also challenging in a relatable way. Right? So it's not polarizing. That's another thing that I really love about the work that you do where you're very frank, you're very honest, but you're not really saying anything negative. You're just like, this is the history, folks.
Katrine Marçal: Yes, yes. And I try to be funny as well, which I think is. Yeah, I think that's a bit of a secret weapon to if you can do it.
Stacy Mayer: Tell us a little bit about Who Cooked Adam Smith's Dinner? and tell us what that book is about so that we can follow along.
Katrine Marçal: Yes. So the founding question of of economics is this question that Adam Smith, the Scottish philosopher, asked in his very big book from 1776 called The Wealth of Nation. And the founding question of economics is how do you get your dinner? And that's actually a very good economic question because we take it for granted that we can go to the store and there will be things to buy there and somebody who will sell us stuff and it will be open and they will accept our money and so on and so on. But actually for this to happen, just a simple loaf of bread to be there on a shelf in the store, lots of very complex economic processes need to take place. So Adam Smith was interested in what makes all of this work? How does this really, really complex economic system keep going? And his very, very, very famous answer to this founding question of economics, how do you get your dinner? was it's not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer or the baker that you get your dinner. It's from them serving their own self interest. So we do what we do. We go to work every day because we want to make money and we want to serve our own self interest.
Katrine Marçal: And from that, economics basically became the science of self interest. And when you talk about thinking like an economist, it's often analysing a situation, looking at the different players and why do they do what they do based on their self interest. And some people took it further and talking about greed is good. If everybody just if everybody just goes out and sort of tries to make as much money as they can, then magically this is going to become the best of all worlds. And that is to a large extent what economics became or standard economic theory. What I do in the book is I add women to this story. So, okay, the founding question of economics is how do you get your dinner? How did Adam Smith, the founding father of economics, get his dinner? The answer to that question is that he lived most of his life with his mother, who looked after the household for him so that he could write his big books on economics. So she is the part to the answer to this bounding economic question that he forgot. And this has led to, for example, most of the unpaid work that women are still expected to do to a larger extent around the home. Cooking and cleaning and looking after children is still not counted as work in economic theory. It's not part of GDP. It's basically invisible to economic statistics still, which gives us a very skewed picture of what the economy is. But also I think it misunderstands it makes us misunderstand what drives people because it's not just self interest. I mean, you know that Stacy, obviously, but Adam Smith's mother, she was not like the butcher or the brewer or the baker. She didn't just look after her son his whole life because of self interest. Maybe partly. She was a widow in Scotland in the 1700s, so she couldn't go do many other things. But I think it's also fair to assume that she did what she did out of love or because she cared for him or she felt an obligation and all of these other reasons to why we do what we do in the economy, that economics has frankly not been very good at taking into account. So that's the story, basically. Adding women to the story of economics and stirring it around and then the whole narrative changes.
Stacy Mayer: I love this so much. So a lot of things, ideas came to mind, but I was really thinking about the corporate world. And there's been a lot of push. Why diversity helps the bottom line and bringing more women to the executive table clearly helps the bottom line. And in economics it's such an important factor. And yet it still feels like our business case is very challenging, right? So it feels like as a woman who's trying to get ahead in their career and trying to present it, like, can't you see, can't you see? Having me at the leadership table would bring you more self interest as a corporation, would bring you more money, would bring you more financial reward? And so there is a business case for it and we're able to show the numbers. Yet I think the missing piece is, is this idea that it's not just self interest, right? And so when women are bringing their whole self to the leadership table and they're really showing up and they're saying, okay, not only am I just going to get to the top because I want to be promoted to make you more money. But I'm actually going to change things around here. I'm going to bring more women up with me, whatever that change might be for them that they want to want to bring to society. And I think that's such an important factor in motivation for women as they continue to climb. Can you see any of the parallels? I mean, obviously, economics and corporate, the corporate world, can you see any do you ever speak to that?
Katrine Marçal: Yes. Yes, there are parallels. And I think things are changing even in the corporate world. So, I mean, what my book was really criticizing ten years ago when it first came out in Sweden and then it's obviously travelled quite far and wide luckily, but it was this sort of very, very narrow focus on, for example, in economics on just GDP as a measure of everything that's good in a society. And it's just too narrow. It doesn't show a lot of the work that women do. And and and I think since economics has been changing and we sort of measure welfare in different way and we measure happiness, and there is definitely a movement to change this. And I do see similar things in the corporate world, sort of looking at different metrics and other ways of looking at at profit and, and so on. So I think there's definitely parallels there.
There's also this big discussion that we've had since the pandemic, particularly I've noticed in America around care and the value of care. I think during the the lockdowns, when many people had to do their day jobs, their pay jobs and look after children full time, it's really brought this point home that care work is infrastructure. Without Adam Smith's mother looking after the household, he couldn't have written The Wealth of Nations. So the economy, the formal economy, race, rest on this other, I don't know what you want to call it, a love economy or a care economy. And without it, nothing works. Which I think many of us saw during the pandemic. And I feel that discussion has sort of come back into the corporate world as well. Now. Post Well, we're still not out of the pandemic, but but I do get requests to come and talk around these issues. Do you notice this as well?
Stacy Mayer: Well, I was actually going to say that the shift on who has to be a part of the care economy has really changed. And I think that because the men are being brought home and even just from my own personal experience at school drop off and things like that, it's now it's about 50/50 men doing the work and things like that. And then it's allowing women to step into this role that's more career focused role, whatever that might be for them. But what was happening I think before for women is that there was this idea that they had to do both, right? So they had to be the caretaker. But then they're also expected to be fully committed at work, and especially if they want to rise or have more responsibility or anything like that. They are just like basically the options were to do both. And so a lot of women are like, no, I can't do both. And then of course, the self-interest of family ends up weighing out.
Katrine Marçal: Yeah, yeah. And exactly. And that's the point I tried to make in that book is, is that if we don't even measure this in, everybody knows it's yes, it's unpaid. This work that needs to happen around the home in order to to keep the family going. But when people look at this and they have this problem in their individual lives, how how do I make all of this work? And what I try to show in this book is that this is not just you and your family and your life, where this is a conflict, this is a real economic problem. And the problem is that we don't even count this as work. And it clearly is work and it's not visible in economic statistics. So how can we have a proper conversation around it? And that's why I think things are changing. And also, I mean, in my own family, my husband is a stay at home dad. So he is continuously threatening to write a book called I Iron Katrine Marçal's Shirts or something, because that's fair game.
Stacy Mayer: Oh, wonderful. So you have a lot of really great personal stories that happened even before you wrote your first book as a as a journalist, as a woman in economics. And I would be wondering if you have any stories that you can share fuel to your fire that actually propelled you to write?
Katrine Marçal: No. I mean, there's there's a lot I was just just reading this week. So this is not a personal story, but I'm still shocked. There's this big forum for economists on the internet called Economics Job Rumors. And there is somebody that did a study on what are the what are the most common words used when discussing female economists on this forum online. And it was I think it was slut, lesbian and prostitute. What and yeah. And and some things I cannot mention on your podcast. And then what were the most common words that were the most common words used to discuss male economists? And it was things like Nobel Prize, mathematician and textbook. And I think that just says quite a lot about just how it is, unfortunately, within economics. So I'm a financial journalist, so I've been in that world and and certainly things I mean, things have happened to me. I mean, my sort of big story, because it was a turning point for me when I was a young journalist, was when I I was going to interview a Nobel Prize winner in economics here in in Stockholm, in Sweden. And I had studied his work for, I don't know, weeks. And I was sitting and he came down and we were going to do the interview. And he just took one look at me and said, So who wrote your questions? And when you're, you know, 20-something, you don't have a good answer to that. And it was it really that was one of these experiences that really made me think about authority and how tricky it is to make people perceive you as somebody with authority within this field. And it seems to not not matter how much how hard you work. And it was really just one of these moments and also it really pissed me off. So I think that the field me, it fueled me.
Stacy Mayer: So what can we do? Because I feel like sometimes fighting the system is really tough and again gives us a third job that we have to do to be successful in our role at home, be successful at work and fight the system. So what can we do?
Katrine Marçal: Well, I think we do need to fight the system.
Stacy Mayer: Well, talk more about fighting the system now. What do you mean? I want to hear it.
Katrine Marçal: Even just my experience with my my little book that I wrote in my twenties and I think it was much more controversial when it came out. I gave a talk on it, it must've been 2015 because that was when it came out in the UK. So I was in London School of Economics in London, and there were these male economists in the room and they were really, I mean, I remember it as if they were really shouting at me. They might not have been shouting at me, but they were really disagreeing with this message. And you can't do this. And la, la, la. And and that was in 2015. And I think if I went back to London School of Economics today, it would have been completely different, which doesn't doesn't have anything to do with me or my book specifically. But I do think the discourse and the debate has changed. It's not okay in the same way to say no, we shouldn't include women in economic statistics. It has shifted. And I have seen that just because I followed this book, I wrote around. So things do change.
Stacy Mayer: This just a reminded me of something. I just thought, okay, so that same shift is happening in the corporate world, right? So nobody in the right mind would say, no, we don't want women on the leadership table. But what they do say is: we don't have any qualified candidates. That is such a common and it's completely ridiculous. And this is what my mission is. It's to show women how they can show that they're qualified candidates, right. To put themselves in front of them. So in that sense, right. So yeah, maybe they're not saying it out loud, but when you, you know, is there anything else that you're noticing that's kind of still there, those stereotypes? Right. Obviously in this internet forum that just came out this last week or whatever. Right. That's still very obvious. So it's all right there in front of us. But but what else? What's kind of happening? And maybe this possibly leads into what the individual can do for themselves.
Katrine Marçal: Well well, I'll tell you something depressing first Stacy.
Stacy Mayer: Okay, fine. I wanted to keep it real.
Katrine Marçal: Well, first, I mean, so it sounds like you are definitely fighting the system. So that's good. Well done. But secondly, the depressing thing I want to say, so I am Swedish, which I've probably already mentioned about five times. And Sweden is a country famous for gender equality policies. So we have a lot of the things that women, for example, in the US really want. There is maternity leave and paternity leave and affordable child care and all of these things. I think Sweden invests 4% of GDP into systems like this and they're very, very good because they basically pay for themselves, because when you invest in caring infrastructure, you get more women in paid work and they pay taxes. So the system pays for itself. It's very clever and it leads to things like if you're here in Stockholm, you see a lot of men pushing babies around in broad daylight, which you do not get in that many other parts of the world.
Stacy Mayer: Berkeley, California.
Katrine Marçal: Berkeley, California. My sister studied there. That's correct.
Stacy Mayer: Yeah, exactly. That's where I am. Yes, I see it!
Katrine Marçal: Is the whole country like that? No, but people react to that. But the depressing thing is actually women in leadership positions, the US is doing better than Sweden and so is the UK. Which is interesting, isn't it? You have more women in senior management in the US and UK than in Sweden. So what that means to me is that it's much more complex. It's not just because people are screaming for affordable child care and maternity and paternity leave and dads looking after babies and we have all of that in Sweden and still we don't get women into leadership positions, particularly in the corporate world, which to me is is depressing. But it also shows that this is a complex thing. Women in leadership, and nobody has really solved this this problem. And I think this just we need to just attack it from from many different angles. Does that really depress you?
Stacy Mayer: No, I actually I can't say it depressed me. I love kind of getting to the heart of of what's happening and looking at the the numbers and the statistics, because it's really important for us to see this right in front of us and and to know what's happening.
Katrine Marçal: There was a question in there somewhere that I didn't answer.
Stacy Mayer: I was just wondering if there's anything that the individual can do. Because I love that you personally are tackling this gigantic problem. Right. And so, you know that your work is one small piece of of what can be done. And amazing if it changed to the whole system for sure. Right. You know, that would be amazing. But but yet you chose you choose to do it anyway. And so on the individual level, what, what is the work that we can do for ourselves to either to speak up to, to share, to put ourselves in these positions, if that's what we want to do, any anything that comes to mind in that way.
Katrine Marçal: Something that I am passionate about is more women speaking up when it comes to economics and those issues. And I think there are so many male business leaders, for example, or men in corporate who also participate in to larger extent than women in that in that discussion about the economy and what we're what should we do and where is it going? And I think women are still still not doing that very much. And I think women are obviously discouraged from from speaking up on those issues. I think as a woman, it's more acceptable to... I think they've seen that in the Financial Times, which is the big business paper in the UK where I live, where they looked at people who wrote into the paper and that women will do it if they have a personal experience that somehow sort of applies to whatever is being discussed. But they do not write in with an opinion about the economy. 'I am in this field of business and therefore I think we should...' And and and I think that is a very big problem because it's such a male dominated field and and area of debate. So that is something that I would really love for for more women to do. And what I try to do with my books is also just take economics and show that it really is, you know, it's just a language. It's not rocket science. And it's and bring it down and it's something that is very important that we all participate in, I think, this this discussion. So that's something I would love for you to do.
Stacy Mayer: Is there a I just had this idea because I'm I'm often noticing that when women do speak up, it's in these women's forums. So they'll do it at a women's leadership forum or they'll they'll have these deeper conversations. But I can't imagine that there's too many women economic forums. And so I'm wondering if maybe this is a happy accident for you, that the only way you could speak up is in the more public forums, like in these mixed gender forums or 90% male forums, whatever that might be for you, because that's what exists. But I think for for women, and I'm so grateful for women's leadership and that we've created these outlets for women, but that is a challenge because we feel like we've done our work and we're like, Oh, I spoke up or I attended this event or I had this conversation, but it's not actually infiltrating the greater population. It's sort of still staying within our own little tiny world that feels safe.
Katrine Marçal: Yeah, exactly. And we need women to redefine leadership and redefine power and redefine what the corporate world is and should be. And this sounds like a very big to-do list for for women. But I do think that's that is what needs to happen, because all of these things... And that's what I try to do with with my books is just show that it's not just you. It's this whole system. And some people find my books quite, particularly my latest book Mother of Invention, which is about women and innovation, find that very depressing because, you know, you tell the whole story about innovation and how women have been excluded from that and how technology keeps getting defined as whatever men do and how that pushes women out. And I do that in order to show that, hey, it's not just you. It's, you know, it's 2000 years of history or more, and it's this big sort of structural problem. But many people do find that depressing because it makes it seem like, oh, it's so much to do. It's such a big beast to to fight. So that is I guess that is a problem. But it's also the truth. The reason why why women find it hard, for example, to find it harder to get into leadership positions all over the world is because leadership and power, it's all been defined based on on men. So we need to change the definitions and change the norm and do so much. But I do think in the end, it's it's going to be worth it because it will it is creating a better world for for everyone, not just women.
Stacy Mayer: What if we go back to this idea of self interest? Right. Full circle. And I was thinking about the woman who is, you know, challenged by it's really difficult to fight the whole system. Right. Add one more thing to my plate. But truthfully, I see time and time again when a woman, one single woman gets herself just from a self interest standpoint, like, you know, I think it would be great to make a salary of 400,000 base comp, right? Like I, you know, and I'm going to ask for it. And that is based in. In some way it's self interest, right? Yes. Yet that self interest is changing the system. That one thing that you can do.
Katrine Marçal: Yeah. And that is such an important point which I should have mentioned earlier actually, but self interest because economics became the science of self interest and women were excluded from that. And part of that was also that women are not allowed to be greedy, women are not allowed to serve their own self interest. Men should be out in the formal economy, make the money and greed is good. And that should all be based on this female self sacrifice, unpaid labour. That just happens and nobody has to measure it or think about it or think about how to incentivise it. So women were also shut out from from self-interest. So part of actually breaking down the system is also allowing women to be, you know, to act in their own self interests to a larger extent than they have been allowed to do historically. So, yes, and I probably should have mentioned earlier.
Stacy Mayer: I love it. Oh, my God, that's beautiful. So tell us about your latest book. I know it's now available in the US and we'll link to it in the show notes, but how did this book come about?
Katrine Marçal: Oh, so it's called Mother of Invention: How Good Ideas Get Ignored in an Economy Built for Men. And it starts with the story of the rolling suitcase. So we invented the wheel 5000 years ago. And since then, we have applied the technology of the wheel to lots of things. We have cars and bikes and hamster wheels and whatnot. But there is one very famous exception to this rule that many economists have talked about, which is suitcases. So we didn't get wheels on suitcases until 1972. That's the first successful patent for a suitcase with wheels. So that is after we put two men on the moon. And this is this classic mystery of innovation. How come that this invention, which should have been so obvious, right, take this 5000 year old technology of the wheel and apply it to the problem of carrying a heavy suitcase. Well, clearly, product that will disrupt the whole global luggage industry. Still, it didn't happen. And there's been lots of explanations to why. And the thing is, the real reason is it has to do with gender. Which is what I found out, and which is why I start the book there. There were actually suitcases with wheels well before 1972, but they were all niche products for women. And as the niche products for women, nobody took them seriously or invested in them or thought they could be anything that disrupted the whole whole global industry.
Katrine Marçal: And there was this really, really strong assumption that from the industry that no man would ever roll a suitcase because it's unmanly. A man has to carry. And they thought the luggage industry thought, well, women might buy the suitcase with wheels, but women are too small of a market because women don't travel alone. If a woman travels, she obviously does it with a man and he then has to carry her suitcase for her. And this is actually these sort of really gendered assumptions was what delayed this innovation that we now take for granted. And even after the rolling suitcase was invented, at first no American department store wanted to sell it. So really, really took a long time. And it was it was a very, very strong gendered resistance. So I start the book there and the book is full of these stories about how innovations that we now take for granted were held back or delayed because of gender bias. The electric cars, for example, were around already in the 1800s, but they were marketed to women and product developed with women in mind. So male consumers didn't want them. And so the history of innovation is full of this. And so I wrote a book about it and and it's trying to to show and explain what we are missing by not including women, more particularly when it comes to innovation.
Stacy Mayer: It's awesome. I love it. I love your storytelling. And they're also such vivid stories and really just like makes me want to take action like. And sometimes I actually find myself in today's society, my husband will be like, We need to roll this. He wants to buy the $5 card at this at the airport and, you know, pile everything up, not carry everything himself. And then here I am with six bags and a baby on my hip, you know, carrying everything.
Katrine Marçal: Oh, you're strong.
Stacy Mayer: So we've touched on this. Obviously, the whole conversation has really been to this. But I think it's worth asking again, why do you personally feel motivated to have a seat at the table, to have a voice in this conversation, whatever that seat looks like for you?
Katrine Marçal: You know, I think I just can't help myself. I mean, sometimes I just wish, don't you? Sometimes you just wish that you could just... But somehow it's what's meaningful. And yeah, I think I just I guess I've always been a bit difficult and, and, you know, in a good way. I like it and I like to challenge things. And, and I think that's just who I am. I don't I blame my parents, I guess.
Stacy Mayer: Good. Good on them. Yeah, that's great. So before we go today, do you have any words of advice for a woman who's been struggling to advance her career? Feels like she can see all of the politics around her, the gender bias, but still is having trouble getting to that next level. Do you have any words of advice for her?
Katrine Marçal: Oh Stacey. I don't know. I mean. Well, that would be the same thing that makes people find my books depressing, which is it's not just you. It's the whole system. It's 2000 years of history. It's all the institutions. They're not built for people like you, so it's not personal. But I find that there's a message of hope in that. And I like to think like that clearly. And I write my books like that to sort of put things like that, individual struggles that people have into this larger context. But other people do find that depressing. But yeah, I guess something along those lines would be my...
Stacy Mayer: Yeah, that's why I wanted to bring you on here because it's not personal. And I think we spend a lot more time having the conversation about imposter syndrome than we do about history and what's happening in the world. And that's the conversation I want to be having. Right? It's like, you know what? Actually, let's just assume it has nothing to do with you. And then you get to decide if you want to advance for your own self interest. And that's okay. And really, how do we how do we get more and more comfortable with that in and of ourselves and to be able to just take the steps necessary for whatever life we want to create for ourselves.
Katrine Marçal: I agree. And I mean, particularly my latest book was on women and innovation. And as I mentioned and like I have thought a lot about why seems so hard for women. And when I'm out speaking on these issues to incorporate settings and other types of settings, a lot of organizations have this problem that women just don't step forward and and say: I'm an innovator. I have an idea. And when they have structures, internal incubators that people can apply to, they find that mainly men apply. And and obviously, when you look at things like venture capital, it's men basically have a monopoly in all of that. That's a real problem. But then you start reading history and you see how how difficult we have made it for women to see themselves as innovators. You know, women basically invented software today. The most valuable companies in the world are all software companies. Many people don't even know that this is basically a female invention. And another brilliant female innovator, this woman, I you know, she's not in the book, but somebody I studied who invented modern mobile phone technology more or less. And she never saw herself as an innovator. And you think, well, you invented modern mobile phone technology and you still can't say the words. You know, she couldn't. I mean, she you know, I'm an inventor. I'm an innovator. We make it so hard for women. It's this whole history of why that is the case. And I think knowing the history and knowing why that is, I think that can probably or hopefully help people to say, no, it's not me having some imposter syndrome that has to do with something in my background. It's it's not you, it's the system. And I think that is just a much more accurate picture of how things stand. And then when you know how things stand, you can make a decision just as you say, yes, what are you going to do?
Stacy Mayer: One of the lessons that I learned for overcoming gender bias is to surround yourself with imagery of people overcoming gender bias. And I just saw a series of Post-it notes that were like, you know, on my screen, which was like women invented software. Just so you know. And just reminding ourselves that we are innovators and this is the work that we did. And we've also have a history of that work. Yes, it might not be recognized publicly, but we do have a history there.
Katrine Marçal: Mm hmm. Yeah. So, yes, all this to make the important point, that reading my books is not depressing. No matter what people say.
Stacy Mayer: I love it. I think everybody should read your book. Speaking of, where can we learn more about you and follow you? And I'll link to everything in the show notes as well.
Katrine Marçal: Yeah. So I mean, so firstly you should read my books because my books are better than me, but and then I have a website KatrineMarcal.com and you can sign up to my newsletter.
Stacy Mayer: Oh, her newsletter is so good. This is it's actually don't call it a newsletter. What is it? Call it you call it something else.
Katrine Marçal: Is it the newsletter. What is called the Wealth of Women. Is it a newsletter?
Stacy Mayer: I don't know. It feels beyond newsletter. This is journalistic excellence that comes into my inbox and it's really amazing.
Katrine Marçal: Oh, thank you. Yeah, it's called The Wealth of Women, so I'd love for you to sign up to that. And yeah, in my books, Who Cooked Adam Smith's dinner? And the other one is called Mother Of Invention.
Stacy Mayer: That's fantastic. Oh, Katrine, thank you so, so much for being here. This has been such a lovely chat and I'm so appreciative as I know everybody listening is as well.
Katrine Marçal: Thank you.

About Your Host
Hi! I'm Stacy Mayer, a Certified Executive Coach and Promotion Strategist on a mission to bring more diversity to the leadership table by getting 1000 underrepresented corporate managers promoted into senior executive positions each year worldwide.
I help undervalued executives scale to the C-Suite using repositioning strategies that build your confidence and visibility, so you can earn the recognition and support you need from key stakeholders while embodying your unique leadership style.
My podcast “Women Changing Leadership with Stacy Mayer” tackles topics like executive communication, getting more respect in the workplace from challenging bosses and team members, and avoiding the common mistakes that sabotage career advancement.
Enjoy the Show?
- Don’t miss an episode: follow the show on Spotify and subscribe via Apple Podcasts or Stitcher.
- Leave a review in Apple Podcasts.
- Share with your friends on social media by clicking the links below.