Work Like a Woman: A Manifesto For Change

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But we all grapple with questions like these almost every day. Humans are tribal. Even if we’re not a complete fit for the group we’re part of, we like to create social groups with rules we understand and can work to. I used to love watching Mary do her Changing Rooms ( except less shit)thing to ailing retail outlets. I love that she has faith in actual retail outlets. I'm Team Mary all the way for people and the planet before profits. Yet for every hard-working, no-nonsense retail saviour are multiple fast fashion online outlets churning out cheap clothes at a Rumplestiltskin rate.

Work Like a Woman: A Manifesto for Change Book - Oliver Bonas

Work Like a Woman: A Manifesto for Change is more memoir than instruction for any working woman entering the corporate world of work.

This book written by Mary Portas about her life is a memoir to feminism and all women who are fighting against alpha culture in the workplace✨ a pioneer of change in her industry, Portas is a real inspiration for many women and men alike who work within fashion and marketing. however, I learned that she is also a huge ambassador for many charities and champions a lot of smaller charities who you may not have even heard of before, whilst she also set one up herself!

Work Like a Woman - Penguin Books UK

Read this as part of a work book group - somebody said she thought Mary was a bit of a Janet Street Porter figure before she read the book - and if honest that’s what I thought. Why I chose it: I’ve been working from home since moving to the UK for my partner’s job, but just started a new office gig this week. I figured I could both use a refresher on how offices work and thought this one on how they could be improved would be a good place to start. I wasn’t totally wrong, but I wasn’t right, either. Mary continues to present Channel 4’s annual December documentary, What Britain Bought in which she offers an eye-opening look into the shopping trends of the year.The couple lives in Primrose Hill, north London, and have recently bought a second home in the Slad Valley in Gloucestershire. In her book, she refers several times to her Catholic working-class roots – her mother was so devout she once genuflected in the aisle of a cinema by mistake – but she isn’t one of those people who likes to insist that, no, she has not really changed at all. In fact, she can hardly recognise the girl she once was. Mary is very experienced which came across in her writing. Some of her anecdotes were interesting and helpful, other times it felt a bit like an autobiography which is not what I signed up for (maybe I’m being a bit harsh). Portas reflects on her career progression starting in the early '80s outlining the alpha culture that was apparent and the decisions that she made on the way to create a career where she felt she had more control. The creation of her own organisation allowed her to shape a culture of compassion, her decision to change her role in the same organisation again giving her the freedom to do the kind of work that she wanted.

Mary Portas: ‘It was a question of how do I want to work as a

Loved this book and Mary’s conversational style of writing - you can imagine her saying every line. Referencing her own experiences of work in an alpha-male world, Mary challenges the typical workplace and how ‘working like a woman’ and bringing equality into both the workplace and the home can have benefits for both women and men. Mary has got it spot on with what millennials in particular are looking for in their working life, and there’s very few companies taking into consideration sharing childcare, collaboration, letting people be their real self and standing up for what they believe in, I’d love to work’s at the Portas agency. I can only hope that every company moves to this way of thinking in the future and we create a more equal working culture. There is a lot of good in this book - the chapter where she shares her company’s culture statement could be useful, and in the end she offers tips for women in each decade of life (which isn’t necessarily super helpful in some cases, because it assumes a bit of a linear career progression). But I found it a bit frustrating that so very much of the book focused on accommodating childcare. I’d say maybe 1/4 to 1/3 of the book was really focused on this, as though this is the only issue that women face challenges with. And it obviously is a huge issue, but there wasn’t any recognition that one might need work balance for reasons other than caring for children or elderly parents. It seems to be a common world view, and I find it frustrating, as though other life pursuits or challenges don’t matter as much.

However. While she condemned Sheryl Sandberg's 'Lean In' for only advising women to navigate the patriarchal business system, and not dismantling the system itself, Portas' book seemed to share a similar tone with Sandberg's. Whilst I generally agree with most things she says, I'm more bothered with 80-90% of this book being her own story of a shopwindow decorator on path to business leadership. I did not (really) know Mary Portas before, so it may have startled me more than an English person would have been startled by it? I like that Mary tries not to exclude men from this, and couches terms in such a way that you know she isn't saying they apply only to, and to all, women exclusively. It shows that thought has gone into the presentation of this manifesto, as well as into the beliefs it represents. I was really interested and intrigued to read Mary’s theories about leadership using more traditionally ‘feminine’ values, but I was hugely disappointed. There seemed to be a lot of padding and repetition of the same points about gender inequality in the workplace, and very few actual ideas or examples of what she proposed. Of the few ideas she did propose, such as enhanced maternity pay, flexible working, no blame culture and not putting profit at the heart of everything, I found them unoriginal and also (can I be the only one?) already in place in my current working environment (higher education). I therefore found it a bit bizarre that she proposed these things as new and groundbreaking. I would have liked to know more about what she meant by leading by intuition and more interesting and original examples of what ‘feminine’ leadership looks like in theory and in practice. There was also very little definition of what she meant by ‘feminine’. Widely recognized as the UK’s foremost authority on retail and brand communication, Mary Portas has a multitude of expertise; business woman, advertising executive, retail expert, Government adviser, broadcaster and consumer champion. The British media crowned her “Queen of Shops”.