Too Bossy Book Club #1: The Ambition Penalty
Working in tech has become harder in 2026.
AI. Teams shrinking. Workload increasing.
In this landscape, we women have locked in.
Stepped up our game. Hit every target. Automated our workflows with AI. Earned new certifications, on weekends. Led our teams through reorgs. Started building things outside the job.
And yet… becoming measurably better at our jobs doesn't necessarily mean we're seen as more capable, or more valuable.
The data agrees:
Women who use AI at work are less likely than men to be praised for it (Lean In, 2026).
Women engineers who use AI are rated as less competent than men, even for identical code (Harvard Business Review, 2025).
Women get better performance ratings than men, but are 13% less likely to be promoted (American Economic Review, 2026).
Can getting more skilled actually work against us?
In The Ambition Penalty, journalist Stefanie O'Connell shows that women aren't held back by a lack of ambition, but because of it. She explains why all that upskilling hasn't paid off the way we were promised, why "be more confident" was never the real fix, and what it really costs women to want more.
Grab the book, give it a read, and join us to talk about being ambitious as a woman in tech, and how it's working out for you.
📖 https://www.amazon.es/-/en/Ambition-Penalty-Stefanie-OConnell/dp/0349448221/
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ABOUT THE CLUB
The Too Bossy Book Club is Barcelona's first English-language book club for women in tech, reading women in tech.
It's a new, safe space to read about other women's experiences in the industry, talk honestly, and figure out how to navigate tech in 2026, so we stop leaving at such an alarming rate.