Save the Assistants hit bookstores this Tuesday, and I wanted to share a couple of links with you guys.
- Newsweek interviewed me about assistant horror stories, looking for a job during a recession, and pursuing your side projects in order to stay sane.
- I wrote a post for Urban Muse Writer, Susan Johnston’s great blog for freelancers, about ways to best adapt your blog into a book.
- Over at LearnVest, a website about personal finance for young women, I talk about how assistants can save money on even the shittiest of salaries.
- Marie Claire reviewed the book, calling it “vindicating and inspirational.” Something tells me they know a bit about assistant life.
Have you ever flipped through a magazine and felt like they were missing your perspective on something? One girl, Ashley Falcon, felt like she and other plus-size women weren’t getting enough advice and support from fashion magazines. Rather than just complain, Ashley got going – she joined Marie Claire magazine as an intern, and soon she was penning her very own column for the publication. How did she make the leap from unpaid intern to full-time writer? One day, Ashley was sharing a cab with a Marie Claire editor. She mentioned that she had to work much harder than her more slender coworkers to find cute, appropriate work attire. The editor thought Ashley made a great point, and before long she was winning a huge following with her honest yet funny takes on plus-size shopping. The column, “Big Girl in a Skinny World,” is a hit.
Her first column addressed the gruelling quest for the perfect pair of jeans. She included three of her favourites that work for up to a size 24. That’s probably the first time those digits have appeared on one of the magazine’s fashion spreads unless it mentioned the model’s age.
The article is surprisingly and admirably frank. Ashley doesn’t just claim to be an expert, she offers her testimonial as an unashamed size 18: “I go through at least a few pairs of jeans every year, routinely wearing holes in the area where my thighs rub together.”
Ashley wrote that “It’s not easy being chic, but it’s an epic struggle when you’re a big girl.”
Congrats, Ashley, and keep up the good work!
April 28th is Equal Pay Day. I’m not sure exactly whether the day is supposed to be about “celebrating” the fact that men and women are allegedly being paid equally or about bemoaning the fact that men still make more than women for doing the same jobs. I’m going with the latter, obviously. Marie Claire has some sobering stats that we should keep in mind today:
- For every dollar a man makes, a woman makes 78 cents. That number has climbed 1 cent since 2006.
- Fresh-out-of-college women make $15,498 less per year than the boys; over a 35-year career, they’ll make $210,000 less.
- A 25-year-old female PR specialist makes the same as her male colleagues; 20 years later, she’ll make about $35,000 less.
- She-EOs make $303,000 less than their male counterparts.
- Male primary-care physicians make 22 percent more than lady docs.
- Male IT workers make 11.9 percent more than geekettes.
- According to the American Association of University Women, at the current rate, we’ll reach pay equity in 2040.
Woo, what a fun holiday! Time for some Jager bombs in the break room!
