The Inspiration Behind THE EXIT STRATEGY
Trouble, Men, and Combatting Sexism
I’m a recovering tech industry executive, meaning I worked for twenty years immersed in the not-so-subtle sexism of Silicon Valley. This book was inspired by my experience of being the only woman in the boardroom (and often the one in charge).
I explain in the author’s note that although the core story of my two main characters is fiction, the background of the continued sexist climate in the tech industry is not.
I wanted to pose a question: What if you took two women in that climate, with every reason to hate each other, and forced them to work together?
The stereotypes would say women are their own worst enemies, fighting over the guy who dumped them into the situation. But I wanted to take this book in a different direction, one that breaks with that tired and ridiculous cliché. The women I know and love are better and smarter than that. Ultimately, I wanted to write a book about female power and friendship.
I choose to write in the women’s fiction genre because I love stories of re-invention, and how women can overcome the tough situations we are sometimes thrown into. I’ve been through my own reinvention in the last decade and as a result, I’m a big fan of the sunscreen song by Baz Luhrmann. (If you’re not familiar, some bonus trivia and the song are below).
There's a line in that song which says the real troubles in life are not the ones we stay up at night worrying over, but the ones that blindside us at 4pm some random Tuesday afternoon.
The day you wake up thinking it’s going to be a perfectly normal work-day or school run in the morning, and something you never imagined slams you sideways.
How do you pick up and carry on when the unthinkable, the impossible or the unimaginable just tipped your world upside down? And how do you rise above the circumstance someone else has tossed you into?
In those horrors of a heartbeat something interesting happens. To quote one of my loved ones, you may realize "you're stronger than you think". Those are the experiences I wanted to share in my writing, and showcase how the power of female friendship can make all the difference in getting through them.
Pair that with the sexist Silicon Valley backdrop—and four years and ten plus revisions later, you have a novel I’m excited for you to read!
Bonus Facts: An Urban Myth, the True Story of the 'Commencement Speech' Behind the Sunscreen Song
Despite an urban legend that says the sunscreen song was written by Kurt Vonnegut as a commencement speech, the truth is that it was originally a column in the Chicago Times, by a woman. (Sound shocking that an expert woman’s work would be credited to someone else, right?).
This piece of tongue-in-cheek awesomeness was actually created by Pullitzer prize winning journalist Mary Schmich.
From openculture.com:
On June 1, 1997, Mary Schmich, Chicago Tribune columnist and Brenda Starr cartoonist, wrote a column entitled “Advice, like youth, probably just wasted on the young.”
In her introduction to the column she described it as the commencement speech she would give to the class of ’97 if she were asked to give one.
The thing is, Luhrmann and his team did not realize that Schmich was the actual author of the speech until they sought out permission to use the lyrics. They too, believed it was written by author Kurt Vonnegut. Read more on openculture.com.
Video Above Courtesy of Sabrina O'Con.