Girl, Watch Your Privilege

How Trickle Down Feminist Authors Inspired My Book

4 min readJan 18, 2022

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People often ask me what books influenced my bestseller, “A Woman’s Guide to Claiming Space.

Here’s the politic answer.
Many authors informed my love of writing. Dr. Maya Angelou, whose books helped me survive middle school, was a major influence.

While true, this is only part of the story.

Here’s the whole truth.
There are wildly popular books out there aimed at women which I found to be profoundly damaging. I won’t call out any one book in particular, as there are many, although I’ll admit the title of this article is my not-so-subtle call out to one of the worst offenders.

Books falsely claiming to empower women often have three glaring problems. I was determined to write a book which addressed all three.

Catering to the Richest Women: Screw the Glass Ceiling. Trickle Down Feminism Doesn’t Work.

“Women need to break the glass ceiling. That’ll solve everything!”
“Um… I can’t afford to feed my kids.”
“Don’t worry. When I’m CEO my wealth will trickle down. Trust me.”

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Eliza Van Cort, a communication strategist, is an international speaker, media commentator, bestselling author and parent of four.