Netflix’s Running Point and the Pressures Women Face at Work

The new Netflix series “Running Point” may be a comedy, but the central premise is depressing as hell. In the pilot, when Kate Hudson's character Isla gets the opportunity of a lifetime to be president of the Los Angeles Waves basketball team (the story is loosely based on Lakers president and co-owner, Jeanie Buss), her very next exchange brings up an ugly reality.

Ali, Isla's chief of staff and close friend played by Brenda Song, follows up her immediate congratulations and assurances with, “Also, you can never fuck up.” She goes on to explain, “You know, when a guy gets a big job he can fuck up a budget and it's them getting their ‘sea legs' or some shit? But women have to be perfect right off the bat.” When Isla balks, complaining that she's still in celebratory mode, Ali doubles down. “As you should be! But on behalf of all women, don't ever make a mistake. Looks bad for all of us.”

It's an experience that nearly any successful woman knows all too well: With major opportunity comes major pressure to be perfect. In an interview with Tudum by Netflix, Buss herself admitted that breaking a glass ceiling came with a multilayered burden. “Not only am I trying to do well by myself, I'm carrying the hopes and dreams of all women in professional sports or the entertainment business,” she said. “It's hard enough to be successful, but with that kind of weight placed on you, it's a scary task.”

This need for perfection may be especially apparent in a male-dominated field like pro sports. But it's pervasive across all kinds of fields and professions. Throughout the working world, women's mistakes are more likely to be noticed, and their successes are more likely to be attributed to luck, as legal scholar Joan C. Williams pointed out in her 2014 book “What Works For Women at Work.” What's more, one McKinsey report found that while men are often promoted based on their potential, women are evaluated on their performance. They're typically asked to prove themselves — over and over — with their achievements in a way that men simply are not.

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Manna Jones has a decade of experience in developing strategies for diverse and equitable hiring. Jones is currently the manager of DEI and racial justice for Girl Scouts of the USA.

“If a woman doesn't go in and be a badass and knock it out of the park, mistakes can cost a lot,” Manna Jones, a diversity, equity and inclusion strategist, tells PS. She points out that women's blunders are often seen as unprofessional or due to a lack of skill rather than part of the learning process. “That immediate sexism is going to come into play: We gave a woman a chance, but, see — women can't do the job well.”

In “Running Point,” Isla is consistently underestimated, with her colleagues and her own family questioning her competency and whether she knows what she's doing. Players tell her to her face that they don't take her seriously. She's warned against earning a reputation as a toxic “Girl Boss” as she realizes that those who work for her just want her to shut up and do what they tell her.

And, yes, whenever a sponsorship falls through or a PR crisis unfolds, fingers are quick to point in her direction. Isla's tasked with fixing it not only to save the team, but to prove she has what it takes to be president.

Of course, this experience isn't unique to women; anyone from a marginalized community who's gotten a “big break” has felt the pressure to be the shoulders that others can stand on. The series even acknowledges this in a later episode during an exchange between two Latino men: “People like us are held to a higher standard.”

At a time when many DEI initiatives are being eliminated, this otherwise lightweight comedy is highlighting an important truth: Even in 2025, many people still assume that anyone who doesn't look like the stereotypical boss isn't actually built to lead, and that giving them a chance is just doing them a favor. So they're expected to mess up, and whenever they do, it “confirms” they didn't deserve the job.

At one point, after the team loses a pivotal game, Isla apologizes that her life isn't a good sports movie. “The heroine who's underestimated, punched in the face, would have won the big game,” she says. But that's not how life always works. Even the best teams lose occasionally, and even the best leaders fail at times. Maybe highlighting that reality — rather than only telling fairy tales about underdogs who do everything perfectly — is what we all actually need to see.

Jennifer Heimlich is a writer and editor with more than 15 years of experience in fitness and wellness journalism. She previously worked as the senior fitness editor for Well+Good and the editor in chief of Dance Magazine. A UESCA-certified running coach, she's written about running and fitness for publications like Shape, GQ, Runner's World, and The Atlantic.