Jamila Rizvi is by no means ‘just lucky’. She has forged a stellar career in federal politics and the media by using her formidable intelligence and working ridiculously hard. Of course, luck has played an important role, and she’s the first to acknowledge the impact of being born into the privilege of a comfortable middle-class upbringing. However, Rizvi argues that too often, women attribute their career success to luck, when really they’ve won their achievements by being talented and working hard.

Rizvi’s ambition for her ‘feminist career manifesto’ is to change the way women who are just starting out in their careers approach their professional lives. Informal and highly readable in style, Not Just Lucky outlines with brutal clarity the disadvantages women continue to face in the workplace. Rizvi then provides practical tips on building confidence and overcoming the fear of failure. She is absolutely clear that this does not mean acting more like a man. Rather, she wants her readers to be aware of the ways they might be subtly undermining themselves in order to meet traditional masculine expectations.

This is not a book about changing the system, but rather a toolkit for survival within it. While Rizvi doesn’t specifically critique capitalism, she points out that traditional workplaces are built for men and that large, male-dominated corporations control the majority of wealth. Refreshingly, she also writes about the importance of unionisation and solidarity: concepts that often get lost in a type of modern, hollow feminism that focuses on the individual over the collective.

This book is for young professionals, rather than working women in other types of paid or unpaid work – but Rizvi does not pretend otherwise. Crucially, her chapter on the importance of mentoring is not simply about how to find someone to help you climb the career ladder, but emphasises the importance of being a mentor at any stage in your career, reaching out to other women who may not be in as privileged a position.

Kara Nicholson