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This Isn’t Working
Book

This Isn’t Working

How Working Women Can Overcome Stress, Guilt, and Overload to Find True Success

Meghan French Dunbar
Basic Venture, 2025
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Editorial Rating

8

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Recommendation

Workplaces are burning people out. Endless hustle and glorification of competition leave employees — especially women — disconnected and exhausted. Leadership expert Meghan French Dunbar challenges this broken model and offers a new vision. Drawing on her work with a range of leaders, from scrappy start-up founders to global CEOs, she details how healthier approaches that support women improve outcomes for everyone. French Dunbar’s research-based insights, practical frameworks, and real-world examples illustrate how shifting away from toxic norms creates workplaces where people and performance flourish.

Summary

Most businesses operate through a patriarchal lens that empowers men and excludes women.

Every part of the business world caters to men’s bodies, needs, and values — excluding women or forcing them to adapt. For example, since the advent of central air conditioning systems, people have set office temperatures based on the metabolic rate of a middle-aged man. Most offices retain this norm today, even though research shows women’s productivity and accuracy decline significantly in cooler conditions. Women face inadequate facilities for basic needs such as breastfeeding. Their chairs and workspaces don’t fit their bodies, constantly reminding them that they are outsiders in professional environments. These daily frictions undermine women employees’ sense of belonging and create additional stressors.

Likewise, the definition of business success is stereotypically masculine, emphasizing competition, domination, and profit. This “win at all costs” mentality manifests as corporations that pursue shareholder wealth even when that pursuit causes harm: cutting wages while enriching executives (Walmart); sacrificing worker safety for productivity (Amazon); denying environmental...

About the Author

Serial entrepreneur, business journalist, speaker, and leadership expert Meghan French Dunbar focuses on making business better for all.

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