What Working Girl taught me about women at work

From the outside, the movies Dangerous Liaisons and Working Girl have very little in common. Dangerous Liaisons takes place in opulent 18th century France. Working Girl got us all rooting for Tess McGill as she made the transition from scrappy Staten Island to experiencing the Manhattan high life and leaving everything everyone expected of her to follow her dreams. 

Yet, both movies released in 1988, did have one common theme, women taking each other out. 

In Dangerous Liaisons, the Marquise de Merteuil manipulates the young Cecile and the pious Madame de Tourvel. In Working Girl, Tess discovers that her boss Katherine Parker was stealing her ideas. 

Even though the stories where worlds and centuries apart, in 1988, the theme of women, starting as girls undermining one another wasn’t new news. In fact, it was something you just expected. 

By the time I actively joined the workforce in 1993, I watched my back, carefully. 

First of all, anyone who had to get through middle school in the early 80s survived some kind of regular taunting that would never be tolerated today. 

Our Boomer sisters worked really hard to open the door for so many of us, but they were also afraid. If we were right behind them on the ladder, they took their high-heels stilettos and stomped on our hands holding the rung right below them. 

However, as my career progressed, I had the opportunity to experience women actually helping other women. Maybe it was luck that I had the opportunity to work with and for some women who really did have my back. It made a huge difference. I think this is what Tess McGill really wanted too. 

Imagine going into a workplace where you feel like you can do your work, not spend most of your time and energy covering your ass. What a feeling, right?! 

For Gen X ladies today, I know it can be a tough time. We may be feeling very bruised from being overlooked for roles we’ve worked really hard for and deserve. We may be squeezed out between Boomers who have no plans to retire and Millennials who want to scoot right into their jobs once they do. We’re realizing that we dealt with a lot of #metoo stuff that’s just being recognized for the bullshit it is. So many of us just sucked it up for the way the world worked. 

But I also see a sliver of hope and I see us Gen Xers leading the change. 

While we may not have had workplace sisterhood, Millennials want and expect that kind of community. I thank them for that because there is power in the masses of connection. 

When Gen Xers tap into that sense of sisterhood and support all women I think amazing things can happen. 

Look, there is still so much work to be done. There is still an income gender gap, women still have the brunt of family responsibilities and for Gen X ladies that means dealing with both kids and parents. #Metoo isn’t always fairly recognized. 

It’s not easy. I don’t think Gen Xers will ever have it easy. I mean come on, we seem to be the generation born to bad timing! 

But I think that if we rolled up our sleeves (don’t Gen Xers always?) and went to work being the generation that finally sealed the deal on women supporting women at work and in life, what could change? I get excited thinking about the possibilities. 

So as we celebrate International Women’s Day on March 8th, I want to ask you, how can you have another woman’s back? And how can you ask someone to have your back when you need it too? 

Let’s show those leading ladies of 1988 how it’s done.