Published in 2019
240 pages
Alicia Menendez is a journalist and multimedia storyteller. Named Broadcast Journalism’s New Gladiator by Elle, a Content Queen by Marie Claire, and Ms. Millennial by The Washington Post, Alicia has quickly become a force in American media. Alicia is the co-host of Amanpour and Company. She has also contributed reporting to ABC’s Nightline and World News Tonight as well as ABC’s Emmy-nominated 2014 Election Night coverage. A native of Union City, New Jersey, Alicia is a graduate of Harvard College. She lives in Miami, Florida with her husband and her daughter.
What is this book about?
Women are perceived as either strong and cold or weak and warm. An award-winning journalist and cohost of PBS’s Amanpour and Company examines likability and empowers readers to reject an outdated image of leadership instead of reinventing themselves.
Research shows that the more women succeed, the less likable they become. The minefield is doubly loaded when likability intersects with race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and parental status. Relying on extensive research and interviews, and carefully examined personal experience, The Likability Trap delivers an essential examination of the pressure put on women to be amiable at work, home, and in the public sphere.
Rather than advising readers to make themselves likeable, Menendez empowers them to examine how they perceive themselves and others, and breaks down how the subjective nature of likability is riddled with cultural biases and how our demands for it hinder everyone’s progress and power.
Written from the perspective of a minority female Millennial, The Likability Trap proposes surprising, actionable solutions for moving through these cultural patterns holding us back. Ultimately inspiring us to value unique talents and styles instead of muting them, and to remember that even when we are held back for appearing unlikeable, we aren’t broken by it.
