# This Isn't Working by Meghan French Dunbar - Blinkist

What’s in it for me? Maintain your sanity, advance your career, and create lasting change in a patriarchal world.

You’re working 60-hour weeks, perfecting every presentation, never missing a deadline.

Yet you watch less qualified colleagues advance while you’re told to be patient.

You spend hours crafting emails to strike the perfect tone between confident and likeable.

You smile through being called “aggressive” for the same behavior that gets men labeled “leadership material.

” Your shoulders are perpetually tense, bracing for the next moment you’ll have to prove you belong in rooms you’ve already earned the right to enter.

Here’s what no leadership book will tell you: you’re not failing at the game, you’re playing a rigged one.

You’re trying to win by rules that were written specifically to ensure you couldn’t.

The workplace wasn’t designed for women to succeed in it.

It was built on foundations that assume male superiority, reward aggressive competition over collaboration, and treat human sustainability as optional.

This chronic pressure reshapes your brain chemistry, damages your cardiovascular system, and convinces you that systemic failures are personal shortcomings.

But once you see the playing field clearly, everything changes.

You stop internalizing the dysfunction as your inadequacy, and can develop strategies that protect your energy while advancing your goals.

This Blink is your playbook for navigating what is, while building what could be.

Assessing the field

Picture walking into a conference room where you’re the only woman among twelve executives.

You’ve prepared meticulously for this presentation.

Your data is flawless, and your recommendations are sharp.

Yet when you speak, eleven pairs of eyes drift to their phones.

And when your male colleague repeats the same point five minutes later, everyone nods appreciatively.

You leave that room questioning whether you communicated clearly, or could have been more assertive, or maybe less so?

This scene plays out thousands of times daily in offices worldwide.

The exhausting part isn’t just that it happens.

It’s that women have been trained to see it as a personal failure instead of a systemic pattern.

Understanding patriarchy means recognizing it as a factual description, not a moral judgment.

It names the reality that in nearly every society, for thousands of years, men have held disproportionate power, influence, and authority.

This isn’t about claiming men are inherently wrong or evil.

It’s about acknowledging that our workplaces, like our societies, were built on the foundational belief that men are superior to women – and that this foundation shapes everything from meeting dynamics to promotion criteria.

The system teaches women to focus on serving and pleasing others while staying agreeable and not causing discomfort.

These conflicting expectations don’t disappear when you enter the workplace; they intensify.

You’re supposed to lead decisively, but not be bossy.

Show strength yet stay nurturing.

Be ambitious but not threatening.

The game requires you to excel at contradictory rules simultaneously.

These impossible standards create real consequences.

Like when you work late to prove your commitment, then feel guilty about missing bedtime stories.

Or when you apologize before stating your opinion in meetings, or quiet yourself in groups of men – even when you’re the subject matter expert.

When you meticulously prepare to avoid any perception of inadequacy, yet never feel quite good enough.

The physical toll compounds the mental one.

Chronic stress from navigating hostile terrain every day affects your sleep, your health, your relationships.

You might develop that permanent knot between your shoulder blades from unconsciously bracing yourself before entering certain spaces.

Your body keeps the score of every microaggression, every moment of being overlooked, every time you had to work twice as hard for half the recognition.

Once you see this clearly – that the playing field was never level, that the rules were written for a game you were never meant to win – something shifts.

You stop internalizing the system’s failures as your own inadequacy.

And that’s where your new strategy begins.

Prioritizing defense

You’re in a performance review.

Your manager leans back, fingers steepled, and says your work has been solid – but that you seem stressed lately.

Maybe you’re taking things too personally.

Perhaps you should consider whether this role is really the right fit.

You walk out doubting your own perception of working 60-hour weeks while covering for two vacant positions.

By evening, you’re wondering if you really are too sensitive for leadership.

This is gaslighting in its professional form – making you question your reality rather than addressing systemic problems.

It’s one of many manipulation tactics that thrive in workplaces built on patriarchal foundations, where your natural responses to dysfunction get labeled as personal weakness.

The stakes here extend far beyond your career.

More than 85 percent of workers have reported experiencing significant stress, with work being the primary source of that stress.

This chronic pressure changes your brain chemistry, increasing depression and anxiety while damaging your cardiovascular system.

Your body wasn’t designed to stay in constant fight-or-flight mode, scanning every meeting for threats, every email for hidden criticism.

The consequences ripple outward.

The same profit-at-all-costs mentality that drives impossible workplace demands has decimated nearly 70 percent of wildlife populations in recent decades.

The system that burns through human potential with equal disregard for sustainability treats the planet with the same extractive logic.

When businesses incentivize ruthless exploitation of resources – human and natural – everyone pays the price.

Recognizing these patterns helps you understand that burnout isn’t a personal failure.

The six primary causes include unfairness, excessive workload, lack of control, inadequate rewards, absence of community, and values misalignment.

Notice how many of these are baked into workplace structures that expect you to do more with less while navigating discrimination and double standards.

Your defensive strategy starts with boundaries that need no external validation.

Set a hard stop time for checking emails – your availability after hours is a gift, not an obligation.

When someone questions your commitment, respond with your results, not justifications.

Document everything: every extra project, every instance of unclear expectations, every time goalposts mysteriously move.

Also create what researchers call psychological safety nets.

Identify three colleagues who see your workplace clearly.

Check in with them regularly – not to complain, but to verify your perceptions.

When someone tells you you’re being too sensitive, these allies remind you that expecting fairness isn’t oversensitivity.

Most importantly, stop explaining yourself to people committed to misunderstanding you.

Your peace matters more than their approval.

Advancing on the field

You’ve just delivered a breakthrough solution that saved your company three million dollars.

In the all-hands meeting, the CEO thanks the innovation team, specifically naming two men who were peripherally involved.

Your name never comes up.

Later, your manager suggests you should have spoken up more during the process.

The trap closes perfectly: be visible and risk being labeled aggressive, or stay collaborative and remain invisible.

Situations like this highlight why an offense-focused strategy is also essential.

Not being aggressive, but intentionally advancing your position despite the systematic erasure.

It means creating your own visibility systems when traditional ones fail to see you.

Start by redefining how you measure impact.

Traditional metrics often miss the work women do: building the relationships that make deals possible, preventing crises through careful planning, mentoring others without formal recognition.

Track these contributions yourself.

Keep a running document of problems solved, relationships built, crises averted.

When promotion time comes, you’ll have evidence of value that transcends narrow performance indicators.

Next, master the art of strategic visibility without playing politics.

Send weekly updates to your manager summarizing your accomplishments and frame it as keeping them informed, not boasting.

When you have an idea in a meeting, email it to key stakeholders beforehand.

Now there’s a paper trail when someone else voices it later.

Use the phrase, “As I mentioned in my email” liberally.

Build influence through informal networks when formal ones exclude you by noticing who actually makes decisions, and who just has the title.

Cultivate relationships with executive assistants, technical experts, and longtime employees who understand how things really work.

These connections often matter more than official reporting structures.

Transform patriarchal expectations into unexpected advantages whenever you can.

If you’re expected to take notes in meetings – fine, you now control the narrative of what was decided.

When they assume you’ll handle the emotional labor of team cohesion, suddenly you’re the person everyone trusts with crucial information.

In this way, every underestimation becomes an opportunity to exceed expectations.

Finally, learn to make strategic trades.

If you’re asked to plan the office holiday party again, agree – but tie it to something concrete, like leading the new product launch, presenting to the board, or joining the strategic planning committee.

Make your “yes” conditional on getting something that advances your actual goals.

The key is choosing battles that reveal systemic patterns, not just individual slights.

So when you push back, make it about process and precedent, not personality.

This isn’t about winning every fight.

It’s about winning the ones that change the game for everyone – including yourself.

Building your squad

You’re sitting at your desk, crafting yet another perfectly professional response to a hostile email.

You’ve handled six similar attacks this month, each time alone, each time wondering if you’re overreacting.

Down the hall, three other women are doing the exact same thing, each believing they’re the only target.

This isolation isn’t accidental – it’s how patriarchal systems maintain power: by ensuring you never compare notes, never realize the pattern, never combine forces.

The myth of individual resilience keeps you exhausted and alone.

You’re told to lean in harder, build more grit, develop thicker skin.

But resilience without community is just slowly burning out in isolation.

No amount of personal strength can overcome systemic barriers designed to outlast any individual’s endurance.

Breaking this isolation starts by nurturing intentional connection.

Find one other woman in your organization who sees the workplace clearly.

Meet monthly for coffee, not to vent but to map and observe patterns.

When she mentions being interrupted constantly in meetings, and you realize it happens to you too, you’ve just transformed two personal problems into one systemic issue.

That shift from “what’s wrong with me” to “what’s wrong with this structure” changes everything.

Build what sociologists call conspiracies of care – small groups who actively advocate for each other.

When your colleague has a major presentation, you show up.

You ask questions that highlight her expertise.

You reference her ideas in later conversations.

She does the same for you.

This isn’t scheming; it’s refusing to let each other disappear.

Create cross-generational alliances that honor different experiences.

The woman 20 years into her career has survived different battles than you.

Her strategies might seem outdated until you realize she’s playing a longer game.

Meanwhile, the recent graduate brings a fresh perspective on what’s possible when you haven’t yet learned to accept the unacceptable.

Each generation of women shouldn’t have to rediscover the same truths alone.

Include men as genuine allies in these alliances – but remember, they’re not your saviors.

The ones worth engaging don’t need a primer on basic equality.

They already notice when meetings mysteriously lack women’s voices.

They use their access to challenge systems from angles you can’t reach, or advocate in rooms you’re not in.

But “alliance” means they follow your lead on strategy, not the reverse.

Most critically, document everything together.

When multiple women report the same behavior from the same person, it’s no longer he-said-she-said.

When three of you notice that women’s projects consistently get fewer resources, that’s evidence of discrimination – not coincidence.

The most radical thing you can do in a system designed to isolate you is refuse to be alone.

Every connection you make weakens patriarchy’s most powerful tool: convincing women their struggles are personal failures rather than collective experiences.

Changing the game

Imagine walking into a workplace where your ideas get heard the first time you voice them.

Where working parents aren’t penalized for having boundaries.

Where collaboration replaces competition, and success means bringing others up with you, not climbing over them.

Where your worth isn’t measured by how many late nights you sacrifice or how well you mask your exhaustion with fake enthusiasm.

This isn’t fantasy – it’s what becomes possible when we stop accepting broken systems as unchangeable reality.

Happily, the strategies for survival in patriarchal systems are also blueprints for transformation.

Every time you document patterns instead of individual incidents, you’re building a case for structural change.

Every boundary you set without permission becomes a new norm others can follow.

Every alliance you form creates a pocket of possibility where different rules apply.

Start by creating micro-environments that operate equitably.

When you run a meeting, institute a no-interruption rule and enforce it.

Rotate who takes notes.

Call on people who haven’t spoken.

These seem like small adjustments, but they demonstrate that other ways of working are possible.

People experience what equality feels like, even briefly, and that experience is harder to forget than any diversity training.

Use your growing influence to institutionalize changes, not just personal workarounds.

When you find a way to make project assignments fairer, don’t keep it as your secret advantage – make it policy.

When you develop a system for ensuring all voices get heard, build it into team processes.

Track and share what works.

When your team’s retention improves after implementing flexible scheduling, for instance, document it.

When productivity increases after you stop rewarding whoever stays latest, measure it.

When innovation flourishes because diverse perspectives finally get heard, quantify it.

Data that challenges the profit-at-all-costs myth is revolutionary.

It proves that human sustainability and business success aren’t opposing forces.

Again, make the invisible visible through collective documentation.

When five women independently report that their ideas only get heard when repeated by men, that pattern becomes undeniable.

When exit interviews reveal the same reasons women leave, year after year, that’s not a retention problem – it’s discrimination that can be legally challenged.

Your workplace changes are part of a bigger movement.

The boundaries you set today model work-life integration for the next generation.

The boys watching you lead with both strength and empathy learn that power doesn’t require domination.

The girls seeing you refuse to shrink absorb permission to take up space.

You’re not just navigating a broken system – you’re actively rebuilding it one interaction, one policy, one courageous conversation at a time.

The main takeaway of this Blink to This Isn’t Working by Meghan French Dunbar is that work shouldn’t leave you questioning your worth, masking your exhaustion, or shrinking yourself to fit.

Final summary

These aren’t personal weaknesses – they’re the predictable results of patriarchal systems that demand the impossible while erasing women’s contributions.

The way forward isn’t about pushing harder but about getting smarter.

Creating a strategic defense protects your energy.

Setting up a calculated offense helps advance your goals.

And joining forces with others breaks the isolation that keeps women stuck.

Every time you document a pattern, build an alliance, or set a boundary, you chip away at a system that relies on your silence.

The game was always rigged.

Now you’re equipped to change it.

Okay, that’s it for this Blink.

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