Beyond 9 to 5: The Narrative of Anti-Work Empowerment

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These days, many of us might hate our jobs or simply spend a lot of our working hours daydreaming of a life without a career.

If you’re either of these people, you might have heard of the anti-work movement. Anti-work is changing the relationship many people have with their jobs by redefining the concept (and necessity) of work.

Anti-work is a labor movement focused on people being treated like humans rather than just labor robots, and embracing ideals that place their priorities on being fulfilled outside of just getting a paycheck. The pandemic brought this concept to light for millions of people for the first time.

While some of us aspire to have fulfilling careers, these careers can often be fraught with everything from combating overwork in a world that wants you to be a “girlboss” to imposter syndrome. After all, in a world where women have only recenlty been allowed to meaningfully contribute in the work economy, it seems foreign to trade that to deprioritize working. However, the anti-work movement promotes reclaiming your time and labor for yourself vs giving it to an employer that won’t even appreciate your efforts, the main reason why it is so popular in the first place.

The platform for anti-work is mostly an online movement, most prominently represented by the subreddit r/antiwork. The now-popular community was hovering around 100k people in a pre-pandemic world only to balloon to a present-day presence of 2.1 million people.

While r/antiwork is serving as a big platform for the movement, it’s important to note that it’s not without its chaos. Originally a lesser-known concept, anti-work has been a source of controversy with who has been chosen to represent (or misrepresent, depending on who you ask) the community to mainstream media, making it a sore topic for those who have adopted its ideals over the years.

Defined in its community description as “A subreddit for those who want to end work, are curious about ending work, want to get the most out of a work-free life, want more information on anti-work ideas and want personal help with their own jobs/work-related struggles,” r/anti-work is actually filled with everything from stories of workers fighting back against abusive employers to some telling their resignation stories with glee.

Though the community aims to meet its ultimate goal of “unemployment for all, not just the rich,” it’s a decent resource for those new to the concept of working to live vs living to work. Like with all things on the internet though, it’s always good to balance these concepts being presented by strangers on an online platform with parts of the movement that benefit you as an individual. Using this concept to refine your relationship with work to make you your best self is the goal here.

Anti-work is also gaining traction outside of the internet, primarily in redefining the conversation about how people approach work. With companies struggling to maintain employee retention without giving in to more equitable approaches to work like offering everything from better benefits to hybrid/remote work schedules that didn’t exist before the pandemic, we’re seeing a shift in workers owning their value to employers. While this can’t be only attributed to anti-work, the conversations certainly carry a lot of value to those in the movement, and the effects of these concepts are being seen in places that may not even know the movement itself exists.

So next time you’re thinking about your next career move, consider how your job impacts your life and make adjustments to ensure that it is making you the best version of yourself possible. While most have to work and maintain careers to satisfy the material needs in our lives, there’s no harm in letting work be a necessary evil vs it being the focal point of your life. That's what the anti-work movement has managed to bring to the table.

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Have you ever met someone who seems overly confident, self-centered, or even downright rude? Maybe they constantly talk about themselves, disregard your feelings, or even manipulate situations to their advantage. And, if you're anything like us and countless other Latinas, you might've thought, is this person just a purebred a**hole, or are they a narcissist?

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Image by Sayuri Jimenez.

Nathalie Molina Niño has never been one to shy away from breaking barriers, and now, she’s focusing her attention on a new mission: demystifying corporate boardrooms for women, especially Latinas. Molina Niño is the President of Known, an asset management and financial services firm, a veteran tech entrepreneur and builder capitalist, and a board member at the iconic lingerie Brand, Hanky Panky, and others.

Like many corporate boards, Hanky Panky hadn’t publicly disclosed its board composition until recently. After the brand survived the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, Molina Niño decided it was time for more women, specifically more Latinas, to know what it means to be on corporate boards.

Coincidentally, the decision to finally be more vocal about this topic aligned with the start of Hispanic Heritage Month, which served as the perfect kick-off to the work.

"Something that rarely gets talked about and I think almost gets kept opaque by design is boards,” she explains in a recent Instagram announcement. “[This Latinx Heritage Month], that’s what I’ll be talking about.” Her goal? To equip more Latinas with the knowledge they need to navigate onto for-profit boards, where they can thrive and build multi-generational wealth.

For-profit corporate boards often feel like an exclusive club. And in many ways, they are, especially for Latinas, who hold the smallest percentage of board seats in Fortune 500 companies compared to other racial groups. According to the latest report from Latino Board Monitor, while Latinos hold 4.1% of these board seats (compared to 82.5% held by white people), only 1% go to Latinas. Molina Niño, a first-generation American of Ecuadorian and Colombian descent, is part of this boardroom minority.

When asked about her experience as a Latina board member during a recent Zoom interview, she said, “It’s been lonely. There’s not a lot of Latinas on boards.” She went on to explain that even serving on boards of Latina-founded businesses gets lonely because, “A lot of the times, people who serve on their boards represent their investors and, as a result, [...] you still don’t see a lot of Latinas on those boards.”

This lack of representation drives Molina Niño’s determination to increase Latina presence in corporate boardrooms. By sharing her insights, she hopes to give Latinas a roadmap to claim their seats at the table. “If you don’t know where to go, it’s impossible to figure out how to get there,” she says.

The Road to the Boardroom

Getting onto a for-profit corporate board isn’t an overnight achievement, but it’s not an unattainable dream either. People often think you need to be a CEO or have a certain type of background, but that’s one of the biggest myths about boards in Molina Niño’s experience. What they’re really looking for is expertise — whether that’s in finance, marketing, sustainability, or even technology. If you have that expertise, you’re already an asset. It’s simply a matter of which road you should take.

Understanding what boards are and how they operate is key to unlocking opportunities. For-profit boards serve as the governing body for companies, overseeing direction and financial stability, and guiding CEOs and executives in decision-making. But Molina Niño emphasizes that not all for-profit boards are created equal.

“There are two kinds [of for-profit boards] [...]. There’s the publicly traded business board and then, on the privately held side, there are, I would argue, two types of boards [...] the traditional business board and the venture-backed business board,” explains Molina Niño. Traditional businesses are often family-owned or long-established and may only form boards to meet requirements, like securing financing or transitioning through an ESOP. Venture-backed boards, on the other hand, are typically filled by investors who hold major stakes in the company.

According to Molina Niño, understanding the difference between them is how you can create a successful strategy. With publicly traded business boards, the whole world is privy to them, so, “The way that you get in there is a little bit more transparent. Sometimes those publicly traded companies will hire a recruiter to help them find new board members,” explains Molina Niño. For private companies, on the other hand, there’s no legal requirement to make announcements. As a result, most people don’t know anything about them or their inner workings.

“Usually what happens in traditional businesses that don’t have venture-capital investments is that the Founders, Executives, or the board members, if one existed already, they usually go to their friends,” and people they deem experienced to fill board seats. In other words, it’s the founder’s decision, and that’s an entirely different approach than hiring recruiters. When it comes to venture-backed business boards, the seats on the board are filled by whichever investor writes the biggest check.

This is why an understanding of the different types of boards and acknowledgment of their own strengths is what will help Latinas define a sound strategy. Whether that’s working with a recruiter, networking and connecting with founders to build trust, or making the biggest investment.

The Path for Latinas

For Molina Niño, the key to getting more Latinas into corporate boardrooms is education. Knowing what a board looks like and how it functions is how you can position yourself to get on it. In openly talking about this, without the mystique it’s usually shrouded in, Molina Niño is providing women, especially Latinas, with invaluable insights. “If we had Latinas understanding what are the three types of for-profit boards I think that, on their own, they would be able to figure out what their best chance is and adjust their careers to make themselves more competitive,” states Molina Niño.

When asked about the impact of increased Latina representation in boardrooms, Molina Niño flips the narrative. “Boards don’t help Latinas by offering them seats; Latinas help businesses thrive by being on their boards,” she says. “The whole point of sitting on a board is that you have experience and expertise, and as Latinas, you also have some cultural experience that everyone wants. [...] At the end of the day, we [Latinas] have to realize that we have a ton to offer and we have to be selective about where we put that expertise,” she explains.

As demand for access to the Latina consumer rises, Molina Niño predicts that more Latinas will find themselves recruited into boardrooms. But she’s not content to sit back and wait for that moment. By openly sharing her journey and insights, she’s making sure other Latinas know their worth and have the tools to claim their place at the table. “I realized that quietly being on boards that helped me personally is not helping other Latinas. [...] I was lucky enough to have friends who could advise me and share their experiences, so that’s why I’m doing this,” she stated.

With Hispanic Heritage Month as the backdrop, Nathalie Molina Niño’s mission is clear: “My goal is just to give Latinas enough information so they can make a plan for how to eventually get on a board that they’re paid to be on and that will eventually help them build generational wealth.”

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