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Darra did everything right.
She researched market rates. She built her case. She made sure to reaffirm her enthusiasm. It was a textbook negotiation.
But Darra was told she was “too money-motivated.”
Women are encouraged to be ambitious—to speak up, ask for more, negotiate. But while women ask for raises as often as men, they are less likely to get them. For many, doing everything by the book isn’t enough.
That’s the central tension explored by award-winning journalist and author Stefanie O’Connell in her new book The Ambition Penalty: How Corporate Culture Tells Women to Step Up — and Then Pushes Them Down. Drawing on a decade of reporting on women, work and money—and interviews with dozens of women who have lived the consequences of being labeled “too ambitious”—O’Connell makes the case that stories like Darra’s aren’t outliers. They’re a pattern.
This conversation is more important than ever. While men and women once reported equal levels of ambition, a gap is growing. As companies roll back commitments to women’s advancement, 80% of entry-level men say they want a promotion—compared to 60% of women. Ambition, it seems, is taxed before women even reach the negotiating table.
The Ambition Penalty is a definitive research-backed interrogation of why women’s ambition is still being punished—and why the individual empowerment playbook isn’t the solution.
The girlboss era seemingly guaranteed that confidence, hustle and negotiation would lead women to parity. That message, preaching unabashed ambition, seeped into everything, from books and podcasts to social media posts.
It felt empowering because it was actionable. The problem is that it placed the burden entirely on individual women while leaving the systems that penalize them for their drive completely untouched.
O’Connell’s research makes this clear. Even when women use the same career advancement strategies as men, they advance less—in both trajectory and pay.
Even the language around ambition reveals this narrative. “He’s ambitious” reads as a compliment, suggesting a praiseworthy drive to succeed. “She’s ambitious” is considered a warning, suggesting a calculated, manipulative work style. It’s the same word with opposite meanings.
The reality O’Connell surfaces is that women’s ambition is still treated as undesirable—even though the same culture encourages women to be driven and successful. Men’s ambition, by contrast, is far more often rewarded and cultivated into power.
O’Connell calls this phenomenon the ambition penalty. It’s the professional, financial, social and personal costs women face when asking for or pursuing more—more influence, autonomy or money.
As a result, women get less credit, are promoted less often—even when they outperform—and carry a disproportionate share of non-promotable work. This adds up. Even a 3% undervaluation of women’s performance compounds into dramatically unequal career outcomes over time.
The backlash women face for ambition can trickle into their personal lives. Women whose incomes outpace their male partners’ have a 35% increase in the likelihood of domestic violence and a 20% increase in emotional abuse.
It’s not the ambition itself that’s the problem. It’s the consequences women still disproportionately face when they demonstrate it.
You’ve probably heard, “Women just aren’t as ambitious.”
They are. Women enter the workforce craving advancement, promotions and raises—often with as much or more ambition as men. But that ambition erodes over time. Not because of some inherent trait, but because of what happens on the way up.
Gender bias is still deeply embedded in workplace culture, and women’s ambitions are much more likely to be systematically damaged by daily interactions as a result. But O’Connell cites research showing that in organizations where gender diversity is actively prioritized—through mentorship and other structural supports—women’s ambitions are protected.
This is proof that environment, not nature, is the variable.
The good news is that if the environment is the problem, it can be changed. Throughout The Ambition Penalty, O’Connell offers advice that women can actually apply. A few standouts:
Where implemented, pay transparency policies have been shown to increase wages and reduce the gender pay gap by 20 to 40%. Push for it. Talk about it. Use it.
A DEI stock photo on a website means nothing if the leadership page is rows of white men with Ivy League degrees. Pursue ambitions in environments that actually reward them—for everyone, not just a narrow few.
From salary transparency spreadsheets to ERG organizing and coalition-building, find your people and work together. The system wasn’t built alone, and it won’t change alone.
The ambition you feel shrinking isn’t a character flaw. You’re not “just losing your motivation.” Instead, it’s a documented, predictable response to a biased environment. Naming it is the first step to not being defined by it.
O’Connell’s book isn’t about victimhood. It’s about accurate diagnosis—and smarter strategizing.
Women who understand the ambition penalty are better equipped to name it, navigate it and build environments that don’t perpetuate it.
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