This story originally appeared in HuffPost’s Books newsletter. Sign up here for weekly book news, author interviews and more. When I think of some of the early forces that shaped my concept of work , and more specifically women in the workplace, it was actually MTV’s hit reality show “The Hills.
” The “unscripted” series, which aired in 2006, focused on Lauren Conrad and her newfound Los Angeles life as an intern at Teen Vogue, a job that appeared to me as an impressionable young viewer to be the epitome of working-girl success and the ultimate culmination of career ambition. Week after week, I tuned in to watch Conrad continually struggle to find the balance between her personal life and the growing demands of her professional one. It didn’t take long for me to form the lasting belief that gaining and keeping a successful career as a woman (at Teen Vogue no less) meant missing out on birthdays, time with loved ones and weekends spent working.
Thus, the “girlboss” became embedded in our collective consciousness, well before the term had ever been coined. Despite “The Hills” being an entertainment show of questionable validity, much of what it seemed to reveal about what it takes to be “on top” is surprisingly accurate and something that author and former executive editor of Teen Vogue, Samhita Mukhopadhyay , is very familiar with. In her newly released book , “The Myth of Making It,” Mukhopadhyay details her glitzy beginnings at the fashion magazi.
