Miss America on Donald Trump, SoFi CEO Out, Miranda Kerr's Advice

Good morning, Broadsheet readers! Valentina (@valzarya) here. Meg Whitman has a new gig (no, not that one), Miss America disses President Trump, and Miranda Kerr’s dating advice causes a stir. Have a great Tuesday.

EVERYONE'S TALKING

• Entrepreneurs undercover. A couple of weeks ago, a Fast Company story about a pair of female entrepreneurs who invented a male co-founder to dodge sexist treatment went viral. “It was like night and day,” Kate Dwyer, one of the co-founders of art marketplace Witchsy, said about the experiment. “It would take me days to get a response, but [fictional co-founder] Keith Mann could not only get a response and a status update, but also be asked if he wanted anything else or if there was anything else that Keith needed help with.”

Yesterday, the BBC published another story of a female founder adapting to startup sexism. Eileen Carey, CEO of diversity and inclusion software startup Glassbreakers, dyes her blonde hair brown and wears glasses instead of contacts in order to be taken more seriously. She was originally told to become a brunette by a female VC: "I was told for this raise [of funds], that it would be to my benefit to dye my hair brown because there was a stronger pattern recognition of brunette women CEOs."

But it's not just about pattern recognition, Carey admits. She has changed her appearance in an effort to look older, more serious, and to avoid being hit on by male investors. "For me to be successful in this [tech industry] space, I'd like to draw as little attention as possible, especially in any sort of sexual way," she says.

While the creativity of these entrepreneurs is impressive, I hope their stories don't prompt other women to follow in their footsteps. We can't trick society out of being sexist—or change the status quo by hiding our true selves. Those who doubt that certain types of women, or even women in general, are as smart or capable as men need to be confronted by examples that prove they're dead wrong. We've all heard "you can't be if you can't see it," right? Allow me to present an alternative version: "They won't see it if you won't be it."

ALSO IN THE HEADLINES

• What Happened on Amazon. What Happened, Hillary Clinton's memoir about the 2016 presidential election, just went on sale today—and some are already giving it one-star ratings on Amazon. Many of the one-star reviews were posted prior to the book's release date, which underscores the likelihood that the reviewers had not actually read the book and are simply using Amazon as a platform to communicate their dislike of the former First Lady (or peddle conspiracy theories about her). Despite this, her latest title ranks highly on Amazon's most-sold list. Fortune

• That was SoFast. Following allegations of sexual misconduct and fraudulent actions by managers, Social Finance (SoFi) CEO Michael Cagney announced in a memo to employees that he will be stepping down by the end of the year. He said that he “could not be prouder of the company we’ve built together," but noted that "the combination of HR-related litigation and negative press have become a distraction from the company’s core mission.” SoFi is one of the most highly valued private fin-tech startups in the U.S. and the country's biggest online lender. Fortune

• Meg's new gig. Meg Whitman has a new job...and it has nothing to do with Uber. The Hewlett Packard Enterprise CEO is joining the board of Dropbox, a close partner of HPE. Fortune

• Politics post-Access Hollywood. Hiram Monserrate, a former New York City Democratic councilman and New York state senator, was convicted in 2009 of assaulting his then-girlfriend. He is running for his old city council seat, prompting some elected officials to denounce his run and protests on the steps of City Hall (One sign reads: "Keep domestic abusers out of office"). Nevertheless, Monserrate has already raised more than twice as much as his opponent. New York Times

• Miss America v. POTUS. Contestants in the Miss America beauty pageant slammed Donald Trump during the ceremony in Atlantic City, N.J. on Sunday: Miss Texas Morgana Wood made a strongly-worded statement about his delayed response to the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va., while Miss North Dakota Cara Mund—the pageant's winner—said Trump was wrong to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris climate agreement. Fortune

• Mowins' Monday. Last night, Beth Mowins called ESPN's "Monday Night Football" doubleheader, becoming the first woman in 30 years take the microphone in an NFL game—and the first for a national broadcast. CNN

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

• Not a guy-girl thing. While plenty of research shows that women negotiate for higher salaries less often than men do, a new study finds that the hesitation to ask for more—and the backlash for doing so—is less about gender and more about clout: The potential to negotiate higher compensation is reserved for "higher status" workers, with male workers of lower status far less likely to push for more money. Of course, when it's mostly men at the top—less than 5% of Fortune 500 CEOs are women, for example—status and gender remain strongly correlated. Harvard Business Review

• Wonder Woman will return. Patty Jenkins has closed a deal to direct a Wonder Woman sequel. Gal Gadot has already signed on to return in the title role. The film is slated for release in December 2019. Variety

• Charney hasn't changed. Despite being ousted from his own company over "sexual misconduct," Dov Charney, the founder and former CEO of American Apparel, still insists that having sex with coworkers is par for the course: "Sleeping with people you work with is unavoidable," he says. The Guardian

• A model wife? The Internet is divided over model Miranda Kerr's relationship advice: “My grandma taught me that men are visual and you need to make a little effort...So when [Evan] comes home, I make sure to have a nice dress on and the candles lit. We make time to have a nice dinner together.” Kerr recently tied the knot with Snapchat founder Evan Spiegel. The Edit

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