In this month's Atlantic cover story, Anne-Marie Slaughter writes about stepping down from her "dream job" in order to be more available to her teenage sons, and concludes that "women still can't have it all."
Many of us remember a similar cover story from about 10 years ago -- Lisa Belkin's New York Times Magazine article on the "Opt Out Revolution."
Here's the problem: stories like Belkin's and Slaughter's about women dropping out, ramping down or finding they just can't combine career and family get great media real estate. Articles about women making it work do not.
Women, who now make up half the workforce, are making it work -- and many are doing so in ways that leave them deeply satisfied. Some of those deeply satisfied women are entrepreneurs, some have full-time jobs at companies with enlightened work-life policies, some have spouses who are the primary caregivers. Some find that with quality childcare and connection to community, dual full-time careers with decent hours work just fine for their families.
Why aren't we reading their stories?
One simple reason is that editors believe that headlines that scare people sell magazines. The conventional wisdom says that a negative headline such as, "Why Women Still Can't Have it All" sells better than a headline like, "10 Ways to Have it All."
But I think there is a second, deeper reason we don't see those stories on magazine covers, and it has to do with our culture's continuing inability to make visible, to celebrate -- to even witness -- the satisfied woman.
"Powerful women" aren't just those who have mega-jobs. A woman who feels satisfied, who feels deep, full-bellied satisfaction with her life and her choices? A woman who feels she is enough, who feels at peace with her mothering, her bank account and her thriving career? Where is she in our cultural discourse?
She is powerful and empowered. She carries the energy of her own happiness. She is not constantly sapping her own contentment with self-critique and guilt. She is strengthened by confidence in her own choices. She's got the satisfaction of knowing her skills and talents have value in the world, and can bring her and her family economic security.
Try and picture a magazine cover story about her -- the deeply satisfied, happy-with-herself woman. It's hard to even imagine, because we never see her in our cultural theater.
I don't see images of the women happily combining motherhood and career on magazine covers, but I do see her in my own life.
I think of my mother-in-law, who raised three children -- all of whom are now happy and productive adults -- while working full-time as a pediatric nephrologist. I think of my best friend's mother, an award-winning historian who worked a demanding tenure-track job during her daughter's childhood. Mother and daughter had lots of "study dates" together, working side by side, planting a deep love of literature in my friend, who is now a professor herself. I think of many other friends who run their own businesses and have the flexibility to be present to their families in the ways they want to.
None of these women would say it was a cakewalk, but they'd say that no area of their lives -- marriage, caring for aging parents, finances, dealing with health issues -- was a cakewalk. Why should this area of their lives be?
Slaughter's article wasn't about women working in these kinds of jobs, of course. Her central point, that many top leadership positions are structured in such a way that makes them inaccessible to anyone who wants to be an involved parent, is a critically important one. But it's also critically important that media cover the the story that is unfolding in so many women's lives -- a story of women contributing to the larger world while raising children, combining work and family in ways our society has never seen before, creating new possibilities for women, men and families.
It's time for media to fairly cover women's lives, our mothering and our work. Doing so means sharing stories of women making it work -- not merely the stories of women who found they couldn't.
The charge for women as consumers of media is to keep asking ourselves the following questions:
What truths about women's careers, leadership, and lives are being ignored in the stories I'm reading?
Is what I'm reading sound and sober -- or is it meant to invoke panic or guilt?
Is what I'm reading consonant with the women's lives I see in my "real life" -- and if there's a gap, what is it?
Perhaps most important: What narrative is the media selling me about the level of satisfaction I can expect to experience in my own life?
It's time for all of us to step way back and look at the big picture of what we've been taught. It's time for us to reflect on what has it done to all of us to have the happy, satisfied, guilt-free woman, the woman thriving as mother and professional -- absent from what we see in the news. What has it done to girls to never see that? To boys? To men? To women?
Tara Sophia Mohr is a writer, teacher and coach who helps visionary, change-agent women play bigger in their careers. The creator of the Playing Big women's leadership program and the author of 10 Rules for Brilliant women, Tara received her MBA from Stanford University. Visit here for Tara's free resources to help you play bigger in your work.
Follow Tara Sophia Mohr on Twitter: www.twitter.com/tarasophia
That phrase "full-bellied" contains layer upon layer of meaning in relation to women's empowerment.
A woman's belly is the site of her pro-creative power—her power to promote creation not only through childbirth but also in any dimension she chooses. Being full-bellied, a woman knows she embodies source energy kin to the Power of Being that creates, sustains, and transforms the world.
(Of course, our culture's prejudice against women's bellies indicates just how subversive the culture considers women's power to be.)
Just imagine women being "full-bellied" in how we speak, move, act. Empowered women indeed!
We are many brave unstoppable women - and I am proud to be of this generation.
My own take is that IT ALL needs to be redefined in ways that free both men and women from the confines of culturally determined roles. Like Tara Sophia, I know more and more couples who have an Upside Down Inside Out relationship. He subsumes his career aspirations so she can achieve hers. He wants to be the at-home. She wants to contribute outside the home gardens. All of it is fine and lovely and fun and very exciting.
While we are re-examining our assumptions about work, career and home, it is also helpful to take a long look at our assumptions that She is always the best parent for any given situation, with any child, at all stage and ages. I've learned that often HIS perspective is the one the child most needs, even if is isn't the one most wanted. For a more in depth view of the issues in this comment, you can read the editorial at http://3plusinternational.com
Additionally, what about the low-income single mom who has to work full-time and raise her children? Those are the women we should be talking about. We should be examining the factors that have led them to be in this situation and determining the best ways for society to help these mothers so that they too can raise happy, productive children.
Quite frankly, the women who are trying to balance "power" jobs or even a nice, middle-America career with the lives of their family have more priveledge than most. While balance is certainly a day-to-day struggle, I hope that all of us can step back and have immense gratitude for the comfortable lives we are living. Particularly in comparison to most.
None of the current models are sustainable... a powerful and busy mother is also exhausting. The change won't come from WOMEN, but has to come from the expectation across our culture to WORK LESS and to work to live instead of the other way around. That's life in much of Europe, but I doubt we will see this change here soon.
I don’t disagree that there are success stories but I think many people are missing the point that the author is still a success story. She did what was best for her and her family and was still happy but others tried to make her feel like she had failed somehow.
I think her article is important in that it doesn't blame women for not being capable enough of doing everything but points to the extreme difficulties of having it all as defined by our current culture.
When I wrote my response, I commended Slaughter for speaking out about the challenges women face. My take is that if we get more authentic and honestly talk about the reality, then women will be better prepared. Being a mom, whether you work outside the home or not, is hard and it’s helpful to other women to know that they are not alone.
As a surgeon, wellness expert, speaker and mom, I would say that for the most part I do have it all. But that doesn’t mean it’s easy and it’s a constant struggle to be the best in all my roles. I’ve made decisions that have temporarily limited my career but I’m focussing on what’s most important at the moment. I think the key to having it all is defining your own personal definition of success.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/carolyn-anderson/why-women-still-cant-have_b_1628352.html
If we actually achieve a modicum of contentment somebody's profit margins suffer :/
This is what I have been hearing my whole life. Your article is a disservice to the main point AMS is trying to make. We can do it, of course we can, but do we want to, and should we? These are the choices modern women have to make, and they are not easy. I think AMS was brave to blow the whistle and you are distracting us from the truth in the reality. It is still hard to find this balance in the highest echelons of our society. If you think you are happy then sorry, you just are important enough. Try to live a week in her shoes then reconsider.
However, many believe that women have a dysfunctional relationship with money and lack financial competency. This societal brainwashing impoverishes the imagination. The cultural narrative is reinforced by a marketplace which disregards women’s perception of worth and satisfaction, and by financial institutions indifferent to what women value.
Women do have a rational, sensible and functional relationship with money. Look around you, we really do know a lot about money! Women manage household budgets, fund their children’s educations, negotiate pay raises, and do the financials for small businesses or corporations. Women proactively plan for life's pivotal transitions and create forward-looking spending plans to finance their dreams too.
Women are fully engaged and participating in effectively managing their economic lives. They are focusing on what they have to contribute rather than how they need to change. They are aware of their conditioned beliefs and their liberating wisdom. Many thoroughly enjoy who they are and what they have. Most understand that financial wealth alone does not bring happiness. We celebrate these women at The Feminine Face of Money.
Women are positioned pursue what’s next with confidence. Witness us test a new narrative in these uncertain economic times and thrive.
Abundant regards, Dianne Juhl - Founder, The Feminine Face of Money
the cultural idea of 'mother' is that we should be self-sacrificing, to some degree, and that this makes us good parents. but a resentful mother is not a good one. it can be so insidious we don't even realise it's how we feel. we even think it's normal, an inherent part of being a mother. it's not! now i think a good mother is one who follows her true dreams wherever they lead her, because that fills her with love that she can share with her children. a mother who puts her own dreams first teaches her daughter that when she grows up, SHE is allowed to put herself first and follow her own dreams too. this mother is an inspiration and a role model if she loves and enjoys her children as fiercely as she loves her work and life.
i think we should be striving for that. less guilt. more dreams - big or small. less interference, less trying to 'mold' our children into effective citizens, more acceptance and gratitude for their natural talents. being there for them when THEY need us, not when WE need to feel like we're doing our 'job' properly.
if more of us did that, i think we would see more of what you've written about, tara - heart-centered, diverse, unconventional, HAPPY lives for mothers who can pass on that possibility to the next generation.
I was fascinated by the TV shows of the late 50's and 60's in which the mothers happily worked at home while the fathers went off work. It seemed nice and everything but that wasn't my reality. Because all the women I knew worked (my mom was a schoolteacher) not only at a "job" but in their communities and churches. Everybody in the family had to pitch in to make life work. My dad knew how to comb hair as well as my mom did. He also was a pretty good cook. Whoever made it home first typically started dinner.
Then as we got older we began to take on some of the cooking and the cleaning. Both parents contributed to the bank account. They were in it together, equal partners. As kids we learned that everybody was a valued member of the family unit. We all had jobs.