Hello beautiful soul
I call BS. And I think you might too. 🙄
We are being told that women in the workplace are doing better than ever. That we are further along than we have ever been. That the panels and the policies and the progress reports are proof that things are changing.
I do not buy it.
Can we also just normalise something real quick?
The way women show up — in rooms that were not built for us, in systems that were not designed with us in mind, in meetings where we already knew the answer but waited to be asked — that is not weakness darling.
That is one of the most intelligent things a human being can do.
Because somewhere along the way your body figured something out. It figured out that being fully seen carried risk. That taking up too much space had consequences. That being easy and agreeable and endlessly capable was how you kept your belonging. And belonging felt like survival.
So we adapted. Brilliantly. Completely. We became the version of us that the system could handle.
And it worked. You are still here. We are still here.
You have built something real. You have navigated rooms and relationships and moments that would have broken a lot of people and you came out the other side still functioning, still delivering, still showing up.
The problem is not you.
The problem is that the adaptation that got you here is also the thing that is quietly keeping you from the version of your career that actually feels like home.
I have been coaching women for five years now, with a 20 year leadership career before that. And I keep hearing the same things from women in completely different industries, different countries, different life seasons. The same sentences. The same silences. The same quiet ache of a career that looks right from the outside and feels slightly off from the inside. Not broken. Just not quite home.
So here's me saying what I really think with my whole chest:
- I do not believe the story we are being told about women in the workplace right now. Not the polished stats. Not the panels. Not the we are so much further along narrative.
- I think a lot of us are in something that does not even look like struggle anymore. Still getting everything done. Still showing up. Feeling almost nothing while we do it.
So I built something to test that hypothesis and find out if I am right. As good as my spidey senses are (and they are LEGENDARY!), if I want to be a part of really changing the status quo, I need to be able to prove it.
It is called "What's Actually Real?". A research project on women's experience in the workplace in 2026. And here is the bit I love — it is not just a survey where you give and I take.
You go through the Five Career Freedoms with me. Pay, Promotion, Progression, Peace, Pivot. And as you go, you get a proper reflection back. A little symbiotic thing. You feed it, it feeds you.
[Because side note: that is how I think we do things more naturally in the feminine way, it's a reciprocal exchange, which is why a couple of my clients have ended up with me as their client about something different in the past 12 months.]
The Five Career Freedoms are my framework for understanding where your career is actually blocked — and where you are closer to home than you realise.
Pay. We tell ourselves it does not matter. That we are not in it for the money. That we are grateful for what we have. Honey, it matters. It matters because money is freedom and freedom is what we are here for. And most women I know are earning less than they should be — not because they are not worth more but because they have never quite believed it enough to ask.
Promotion. Maybe you are getting ready for leadership. Maybe you are already at the top table but your title says Head Of and not Chief and you are not sure if you even care but something in you does care and you just have not said it out loud yet. This one is about whether where you sit matches who you actually are.
Progression. This is not always about going up. Sometimes it is about going sideways into something that lights you up. Sometimes it is about learning something that has nothing to do with your current job and everything to do with who you are becoming. In 2016 I got turned down for a promotion and became a yoga teacher instead. I had absolutely no idea that was accidentally going to make me a Chief People Officer (story for another day haha). It did. Trust the season you are in.
Peace. Are you tired? Like actually tired, not just Monday tired. Are you in a season where the most radical thing you could do is simply work less, leave work at work, stop being available to everyone all of the time? Peace is a career freedom too. It is not giving up. It is growing up.
Pivot. This is the one that feels the most terrifying and the most exciting at the same time. You look at someone else's life or work and feel something you mistake for jealousy. It is not jealousy. It is self fury. Because you already know you could do that. You just have not let yourself say so yet.
Ten minutes. Every question optional. You can even talk your answers out loud if typing feels like too much today.
At the end you get your own Career Freedom Report. And when the full findings land this autumn you will be one of the first to see them.
I need real women for this. Not a focus group. Not a panel.
You.
Go here: womenatwork.ruthpenfold.com
And lastly: I am also going to speak to 50 women directly, to get more of a conversational hot take on your experiences. If you would like to be one of the 50, please book time with me here.
And darling — whatever your report says — I just want you to know something before you go.
You are so much closer to the career that feels like home than you think. The woman who built all those intelligent adaptations? She is also the woman who knows exactly what the F she actually wants. She has always known.
We are just going to help her say it out loud.
Rooting for you always!
Big love
Ruth x
Ps. I've finally done it, a virtual yoga class that is OPEN TO ALL. It's Somatic Yoga at it's core, but truthfully, is a blend of a few different styles of yoga. What it will do for you is more important: help you say no, help you love yourself, and help you walk into rooms like you know who the F you are!
Join us Thursday September 3rd, 11am EST baby!
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