Dr. Misty Heggeness, a professor at the University of Kansas and former Census Bureau economist, released an analysis last year showing that mothers with young children were leaving the workforce after pandemic-era gains. It was a wake-up call that women with young children had benefited from the remote work–friendly policies and that some of the changes made by the Trump administration, like sweeping federal layoffs, had hit women hardest.

Heggeness had used long-available data from the Current Population Survey for her analysis, but took a unique perspective to understand what was happening to women in particular. Now she’s published a book that does the same. In Swiftynomics: How Women Mastermind and Redefine Our Economy, she replaces the economics discipline’s idea of a rational “Economic Man” with a rational “Economic Woman” to show how our economy is impacted by the care that women provide, the choices they make for their families, and their perseverance despite sexism and discrimination. And yes, her muse on this journey is Taylor Swift.

I spoke with Heggeness about why ideas presented with a girly aesthetic—the book’s cover is purple, and the title is presented as a friendship bracelet—can and should be taken seriously, as well as how to get more women into economics and why the backlash to women’s progress actually makes her hopeful.

Monica Potts: The book has a purple cover, and I think you even talk about Taylor Swift being a woman who likes cats and glitter. I wondered why it was important to you to write a serious economics book embracing this kind of girly aesthetic.

Misty Heggeness:  I’m in a profession that is just so dominated by white-men-in-brown-loafer perspectives. If you go to the econ meetings, it’s just a sea of white men with khakis and brown loafers. There’s such a tradition in my profession to not want to stick out, to really fit within the mold that exists. And if you want to be taken seriously, that’s what you need to do.

And I’ll tell you, just generally, I do feel like some of the reaction I get out in the public, and within my academic........

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