Happy Mother’s Day! We mothers have been trying to define ourselves in relationship to our work forever. In the last 50 years, we seem to struggle and then gain more of an identity, then struggle and gain, little by little.
In 1963, Betty Friedan’s watershed book, The Feminine Mystique, defined the “problem that has no name,” to the great relief of American women. Women living the middle class American dream in the mid-1900s should have been thrilled with their roles as suburban housewives and mothers. The problem was, Friedan revealed, that many felt dissatisfied and longed for something more meaningful than maintaining homes and caring for their families.
Then, in 1971, Gloria Steinem launched Ms. Magazine, and along with actively campaigning for the Equal Rights Amendment and founding many organizations and projects to amplify the voices of women and mothers, rose to national fame as a feminist leader. “Sex and race...have been the primary ways of organizing human beings into superior and inferior groups...there will be no roles other than those chosen or those earned.”
Since Gloria, abortion has become legal and the leaders Bella Abzug, Margaret Thatcher, Hillary Clinton, and others have been role models of how to “do it all,” but there have been no major movements to improve the lot of mothers and women. A recently published book, Lean In: Women, Work and the Will to Lead, just may be the next big push. It could be the latest consciousness raising on how women can really make it to the top, whether they be mothers or not.
Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook COO and author of the groundbreaking book, has been all over the press, on talk shows, giving speeches and has also created LeanIn.org, a nonprofit Web platform to bring all women in to share their stories. The book seems to be somewhat of a feminist manifesto in which she encourages women to pursue their careers with more rigor, to engage more energetically in the corporate world and to lean in to the opportunities and challenges of becoming a boss. It just may be the most ambitious mission to reboot feminism and reframe discussions of gender since the early 1970s. Could this be the shot in the arm the women’s movement needs?
Sandberg says we have stopped making progress at the top in any industry anywhere in the world. Women have had 14 percent of the top corporate jobs and 17 percent of the board seats for 10 years now. Ten years of stagnation is no progress. Yet, women are getting more and more of the graduate degrees, more and more of the undergraduate degrees, with still no progress at the top.
What is holding women back, she feels, is “stereotype threat,” which means that the more we are aware of a stereotype, the more we act in accordance with it. We are concerned with being nice, we lack self-confidence, we don’t raise our hands, we pull back. This may translate into a law associate not shooting for partner because someday she hopes to have a family, or not asking for what we’re worth financially or passing on any new opportunity leading up to the time of motherhood. Then, when re-entering the workplace after childbirth, we never quite gain back the fulfillment, use and appreciation that lead to the top.
Sandberg recommends never scaling back until we actually have the baby, realizing and enlightening both men and women about how females are held to different standards of success and likability (she cites a very interesting study about this), and giving up on the need to have it all – it’s impossible. She believes that if women in the workplace lean into and go for the very best outcomes for themselves, we can change the power structure of our world to expand opportunities, and also have men leaning into their families and households more.
She is talking to a specific audience here, one that is very involved in the business world and often has children at home. But she is also encouraging women and mothers to be their best, push up, don’t be afraid. This is good advice for all of us, and I think, fits into the dilemma of how we want to define ourselves.
Do we want to be stay-at home moms? Do we want to be out in the workplace as soon as we can after childbirth? Do we have to be for financial reasons? Do we want to work part time to bring in some income, yet allow more time with our families? Do we have the financial means to even have these choices?
Lean In is controversial, and it brings up many issues we are all dealing with, whether we are in the workplace or not. As my daughter-in-law put it, “I don’t want to lean in or lean out; I just want to stand up straight to have balance in my life.” Well said!
Martha McClellan has been an early care child educator, director and administrator for 36 years. She currently has an early childhood consulting business, supporting child care centers and families. Reach her at mmm@bresnan.net.
