Deferential Smiling

We’ve read here and elsewhere that women are tied with men when it comes to workforce numbers. We’ve read here and elsewhere, thanks to Maria Shriver’s report, A Woman’s Nation Changes Everything, that some folks think we’ve put an end to the battle of the sexes.

We even may have read somewhere that the women’s movement has gone quietly out of business, a victim of its own success — or maybe failure, depending on your point of view.

What we may not have read often enough, however, is that numbers alone do not equal, well, equality. Katha Pollit, a regular columnist for The Nation, parses it all out for us this week, suggesting that, while it’s not quite a man’s world anymore, it’s hardly a woman’s nation, either. She first cites Shriver’s report:

… for the first time in our history, women are now 50 percent of the paid workforce. And they aren’t working just to buy Christmas presents: four in ten mothers are primary breadwinners (that includes single mothers); among women generally, 80 percent contribute a major chunk of the family income.

Good, yes? Wait for the “but”:

[Shriver's] own polls show women sense much more discrimination, at work and in the home, than men believe exists. But they also show that majorities accept working mothers, and even women earning more than their husbands. And yet, the report notes, although “workplaces are no longer the domain of men,” our society is still organized as if they were, with everything from doctors’ office hours to school schedules to Social Security organized around the outmoded stay-home mom/breadwinner dad model…

All of which points back to a recurring Undecided theme: Career decisions for women have that extra layer of built-in angst. Sure, we have all these  doors open to us. But once we get inside the building, the illusions of choice, of equality — of “having it all” — start to crumble.

And there’s another issue here, too. Money. While women might be half the workforce, they’re hardly taking home half the pay. Back to Pollitt, who writes that gender segregation in the workforce still haunts us: sisters are more likely to be working at lower-paid jobs than their brothers. And this parity we’ve been whooping about? It may indeed have to do with the recession, but not the way you think. Traditionally male jobs — construction, for example — have been hit hard, while “women’s work” has not:

The top ten jobs for women are, in order, secretary, nurse, elementary- and middle-school teacher, cashier, retail salesperson, health aide, retail supervisor, waitress, bookkeeper and receptionist. Men have lost more jobs than women in the recession because the ax has fallen more sharply in heavily male fields like construction and manufacturing than in female ones like healthcare and clerical work. As economist Barbara Bergmann wrote in an unpublished letter to the New York Times, “An important reason for the failure to reduce the gap between women’s and men’s average wages is that little progress has been made in reducing gender segregation in jobs that do not require a college degree.” Interestingly, according to the Wall Street Journal, on the professional end of the workforce, where men and women are more likely to have the same or similar jobs, as many women as men have been laid off.

Pollitt also cites the facts that men are paid more and promoted more and that, once a woman becomes a mother — forget maternity leave — she is less likely to be hired than a woman without kids. And if she takes time off to stay home with them? Ka-ching. For every two years that a woman jumps out of the workforce, she gets docked some 10 percent of her income — for life.

It is indeed remarkable that women are half the workforce, but there’d be more to cheer about if they also earned an equal share of the pay. It may be easier to find a job as a home health aide than a welder, but male jobs tend to pay a lot more than female ones (and, one might add, do not involve a lot of deferential smiling).

The deferential smiling. And doesn’t that just say it all.

Ideology vs. Identity: Of Burning Bras, Sarah Palin, and Health Care Reform

Given the –well, the shitstorm that’s erupted over the attempt to saddle health care reform with the cynical, sabotaging, decidedly anti-choice Stupak-Pitts amendment, it’s fitting to revisit an issue that simply will not go away. Us versus Them.

But first. There’s some awesome, mandatory reading currently waiting for you over at the New Yorker’s website, in the form of a piece entitled “Lift and Separate: Why is feminism still so divisive?” written by Ariel Levy. In it, you’ll get a crash course in feminism’s second wave, beginning with the bra burning that never happened at a 1968 protest against the Miss America pageant that did, and continuing clean through last year’s presidential race, Gail Collins‘ recent book “When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present,” and Republican political analyst Leslie Sanchez’s new book, “You’ve Come a Long Way, Maybe: Sarah, Michelle, Hillary and the Shaping of the New American Woman.”

The Cliff’s Notes version: Levy is no fan of Sanchez, and her piece frames a compelling argument. She writes:

There are political consequences to remembering things that never happened and forgetting things that did. If what you mainly know about modern feminism is that its proponents immolated their underwear, you might well arrive at the conclusion that feminists are ‘obnoxious,’ as Leslie Sanchez does in her new book… ‘I don’t agree with the feminist agenda,’ Sanchez writes. ‘To me, the word feminist epitomizes the zealots of an earlier and more disruptive time.’ Here’s what Sanchez would prefer: ‘No bra burning. No belting out Helen Reddy. Just calm concern for how women are faring in the world.’

Call me crazy, but it seems to me that the time Sanchez dubs ‘disruptive’ was the time when some serious things got done. Calm, after all, is a close relative of passive.

Levy continues, accusing Sanchez of measuring progress “solely by the percentage of people with government jobs who wear bras.” And what, you might ask, is the problem with measuring our equality by the numbers? Well, in becoming what she calls “identity politics, a version of the old spoils system”–i.e., picking a group to identify with, and joining together to claim your rightful piece of the pie–we have become too focused on getting women into positions of power, but not focused enough on what they should do when they get there. In other words, Sarah Palin.

Consider Sanchez’ dismissal of Gloria Steinem’s criticism of the former Alaska governor, in which she complains that when Steinem wrote in the L.A. Times that “Palin shares nothing but a chromosome with Clinton,” to Sanchez’ mind, she was really saying: “You can run, Sarah Palin, but you won’t get my support because you don’t believe in all the same things I believe in.”

And that’s a problem? So, only men get to vote according to their ideals, and women have to vote according to chromosome? Come on.

Yes, it’s important that we’ve gained representation. But consider, as Levy reminds us:

In 1971, a bipartisan group of senators, led by Walter Mondale, came up with legislation that would have established both early-education programs and after-school care across the country. Tuition would be on a sliding scale based on a family’s income bracket, and the program would be available to everyone but participation was required of no one. Both houses of Congress passed the bill.

Nobody remembers this, because, later that year, President Nixon vetoed the Comprehensive Child Development Act, declaring that it ‘would commit the vast moral authority of the National Government to the side of ‘communal approaches to child rearing’ and undermine ‘the family-centered approach.’ He meant ‘the traditional-family-centered approach,’ which requires women to foresake every ambition apart from motherhood.

And so, here we are. The demise of that bill wasn’t due to in-bickering, but it’s nearly 40 years later. The women are there, but is the woman-friendly work getting done?

As Levy says:

So close. And now so far. The amazing journey of American women is easier to take pride in if you banish thoughts about the roads not taken. When you consider all those women struggling to earn a paycheck while rearing their children, and start to imagine what might have been, it’s enough to make you want to burn something.

Insofar as it relates to the current abortion amendment on the Health Care Reform bill, well, I hate to see lawmakers hedging their bets, pussy-footing around, and doing their best to take a critical right away from women who need it now–or might some day. And I loathe those who are telling those who care passionately about the issue to “Simmer down, honey; that’s not the way politics works.” (Check Kate Harding’s post at Broadsheet for a take that’ll make you scream.) Let me be clear: Fuck the Stupak Amendment. Reproductive rights are critical. But health care reform is critical for women in particular, for a ton of reasons: we’re overcharged, underinsured, more likely to be reliant on our spouse for insurance, more likely to go bankrupt due to medical reasons–and we can be denied coverage on the basis of “preexisting conditions” that include pregnancy, C-sections, and domestic violence. So, while I’d like to reiterate–Fuck the Stupak Amendment–at the same time, considering Levy’s words above, I have to wonder: what would women’s lives look like today if that Comprehensive Child Development Act was part of our world? We were so close, it would have seemed absurd in 1971 to say: Guess what? Come 2009, that’ll be so far from reality, it will seem ridiculous. In 40 years, do we want to be stuck with the same dismal health care system we’ve got now, wondering how reform slipped away?

Decide, Decide, Decide! A Guest Post by Nicole X

Last week I fired up a post that began by asking readers to take a trip in the Wayback machine and revisit what they wanted to be when they grew up: A ballerina? A rockstar? A zookeeper? The first girl to crack the Major Leagues? A Power Ranger? Our Ms. X, a few years post-college and up to her ears in the vagaries of the real world, takes on the treadmill — and finds that if you don’t watch out, you never get off.

Decide, Decide, Decide!

by Nicole X.

Power Ranger? Sounds very familiar But I don’t remember if I said that in class or just thought about it when you asked. Maybe that glorious response belongs to someone else.

This post really speaks to me. When it came time to apply for college, and all through college, just about every conversation I had with my dad was all about what I was going to do with my life. Or more specifically — why had I not decided yet? It was always the same — DECIDE DECIDE DECIDE!!!! And then, since I couldn’t come up with a sufficient and satisfactory answer, I was supposed to go to the career center at my college, take a magic quiz that would tell me what I was supposed to be, and report back. A sort of personality test, if you will. You have no idea how lame I felt going in to the center to ask for that quiz. And guess what? They didn’t have one….

My sister tells me she feels that she just let our Dad pick her college major for her. She said it was easier that way, and she liked what he told her to do well enough. Maybe that’s why he and I got into way more fights than the two of them did?

It took me picking a career path and working full time while going to grad school to figure out that I wanted something different. That the career I had chosen would not be compatible with the life I wanted to lead. My decision had to do with the professional life I wanted — but even more so to do with the personal life I want in the future.

Still, after making the switch from news producer to aspiring teacher, I do sometimes feel like a disappointment for wanting to teach. Not so much from home anymore, because many of my family members are teachers. (Their concerns center around the viability and sustainability of my financial future since my chosen career path isn’t one where I can say to my boss, “Show me the money.”)

Instead, pressure seems to hit when I run into old high school classmates and have the awkward “What are you up to these days?” conversations. One instance went as follows:

After the question, I said I’m finishing my teaching certificate so I can teach high school social studies. The look in my classmate’s eye and the smug grin on her face said it all. That, paired with the tone of her “Ooh. You’re going to be a teacher” seemed to say “Ooh. Wow. I thought you would have done something more interesting. I won.” That feeling of being judged made me want to judge the choices she’d made that led her to a steady, safe and seemingly successful cubicle job.

And as I walked away, I just felt horrible, both for judging and for feeling judged. Isn’t this where we should be uniting as women? What we should be fighting against?

Being supportive, and not competitive?

I’ll Have What She’s Having

Today I came across a review of a recent appearance at East Carolina University by feminist icon/journalist/activist/Playboy infiltrator Gloria Steinem. In her speech, Steinem rightly connected feminism with every other social justice movement, and spoke of the need for reproductive freedom. But what stood out to me was this:

Steinem also spoke at length about what she calls a media myth that many times has claimed that the feminist movement is over, a statement she said Time Magazine has made 27 times.

‘It goes deep, and we are subject to these myths,’ Steinem said. ‘And it’s part of the human condition that the general social myth is so powerful for us that we sometimes think we are the strange exception, when really, we are the majority.’

That got me to thinking, and maybe not in the way you’d assume. Certainly, in terms of whether we choose to define ourselves as feminists, as members of the “I’m-not-a-feminist-but” camp, or eschew the F-word altogether, her remark resonates. But what it got me thinking about was this: in the same way that feeling we are somehow out of the mainstream, the “strange exception,” can affect how we choose to define ourselves, it can mess with the decisions we make, too–and often, the really important ones. The ones that take our lives in one direction or another.

Take, for example, those of us who just want a “paycheck job,” the kind you show up for at 9, leave at 5, and don’t think about til 9 the next day. But we’ve absorbed the idea that it’s not enough, that there’s something wrong with us to merely want a job when we can have a Career–so we kill ourselves to meet some grand milestone we think we should want, quietly wondering all the while: Why am I doing this, again?

Maybe the conventional ideas about the ‘American Dream’ are the ones that tug at us: steady career path, home ownership, husband, kids. Everybody else seems to want those things, right? Surely we must be insane for being more interested in adventure than security. So we opt for the safe path, daydreams of running off to join the circus growing all the more tantalizing with each mortgage bill.

Or maybe it’s the notion of having it all, the Superwoman icon that keeps us quiet. We see other women smoothly managing it all. Or so we think. So we struggle to keep our heads above water, never letting on that we’re one cupcake away from going postal, never even questioning what parts of “it all” we really want, what is really worth wanting for us–because, well, let’s be honest, who has the time?

Back to Steinem’s words: if cultural myths are so strong, so pervasive, how much do such myths infuse our life decisions with the suffocating weight of the “shoulds”? How often do we steer ourselves into what we believe is the culturally-approved path, what we should do, what we should want, simply–even partly–because we assume we’re the oddball exception, rather than considering that we might, in fact, be a part of the great, silent rule? If that is indeed the case, then it seems to me that the best way to deal would be to start talking. Maybe, if we can all summon up the bravery to be a little more honest, we’d realize that we’re actually in good company.

Purpose and Soulcraft: You know it when you feel it.

Organizing for America

Sometimes it’s not what you do that matters, but why you do it. Case in point, the video above. (Don’t click on it quite yet.) Someone who has been there, done that sent it to me — this being an anniversary and all — making me wonder yet again whether finding that sense of purpose is the antidote to the choice conundrum. Maybe you’ve been there, too — doing back-breaking work that made your head spin and your neck ache, making you wonder what on earth you were thinking when you signed on — and yet, bottom line, loving every minute of it. Embracing the tangibility of it all.

On the other hand, maybe you’re still searching. In which case, click on the video. You’ll get a taste.

Purpose is where you find it. Sometimes in the strangest of places. A lifetime ago I did a story on a college buddy who, one Christmas, rallied a crew of grown-ups who knew better to spend incredibly long nights building a 60 square foot gingerbread house, replete with lights, moving parts, a chocolate-coated amusement park — including a computer controlled ferris wheel, roller coaster and carousel — hundreds of individually sculpted and hand-painted people, and dozens of chocolate and gumdrop yum-yum trees.

The biggest draw was that there was no real reason for the project — other than to rekindle the Christmas spirit. That, and the fact that once completed, the gingerbread compound was the centerpiece of a fundraiser later that month. But the magic was the soulcraft: the nightly stream of lawyers, doctors, engineers, chefs, writers — clearly folks with better things to do — who rushed in after work, chucked their neckties, their heels, and their briefcases into the corner, and ditched their iconic selves to immerse themselves in something that was literally bigger than they were. As one member of the crew, a lawyer with a loosened tie, said at the time: “The best thing about the project is that it makes you feel that everything else you are doing is less important than this.”

Purpose is like that — whether it’s gingerbread houses or presidential campaigns. It’s something that’s about more than you. You can’t always define it, but you know it when you feel it. Or when you watch this video. Turn it up.

Too Many Choices… In Bed, Part Deux

In the first part of this suddenly two-part series, I talked about the “cautionary matrons” who advise their younger counterparts against marriage–and against staying single.

Today’s post has nothing to do with any of that. What it does have to do with is choices. Lots of them. And easy access to them. At all hours. Frequently via text.

New York Magazine’s current cover story is called “The Sex Diaries,” and was inspired by the magazine’s ongoing (since 2007) online series in which New Yorkers of all walks anonymously chronicle their sexual exploits for a week. In the highly–ahem–detailed  piece, you’ll find excerpts from “The Trader Who Will Fly for Sex” (he meets one couple at a T.G.I. Friday’s before having sex with the wife while the husband watches.); “The Transportation Coordinator Serving Three Partners” (one night’s entry includes booty-call-type texts from each of the three women, all of whom he turns down, and a final entry: “8:45pm: Jerk off”); and “The Polyamorous Paralegal” (a sample: “Fall asleep wishing I had my bed to myself. The One Who Cries keeps trying to cuddle. I want to punch him.”).

Well, what can you say? It is what it is. More interesting, though, was the lengthy analysis that anchored the salacious tidbits, written by Wesley Yang. Here’s a little background on his assignment:

The editors of this magazine asked me to read all 800 pages of the Sex Diaries, and, using them as a source text, develop some kind of taxonomy of contemporary sexual anxieties… So, that’s what I’ve done. Herewith: ten things that seem to be making our playful, amorous youth crazy.

And guess what? The top three have to do with choices.

1. The anxiety of too much choice. A fact so readily apparent that it has escaped reflection: The cell phone has changed the nature of seduction. One carries in one’s pocket, wherever one goes, the means of doing something other than what one is presently doing, or being with someone other than the person one is with…. This is a distinct shift in the way we experience the world, introducing the nagging urge to make each thing we do the single most satisfying thing we could possibly be doing at any moment. In the face of this enormous pressure, many of the Diarists stay home and masturbate.

2. The anxiety of making the wrong choice. A Diarist with any game at all has unlimited opportunity… Identify the single best sexual partner available, or at least the person most amenable to their requirements at the moment… An inordinate number of Diarists find themselves at the brink of enjoying one sexual experience, only to receive a phone call or text from another potential suitor. They become a slave to their compulsion and indecision… This compulsive toggling between options winds up inflicting the very damage it was designed to protect against.

3. The anxiety of not being chosen. Among active Diarists, the worry that they will make the wrong choice is surpassed by the fear that they may find themselves without one. To guard against this disaster, everybody is on somebody’s back burner, and everybody has a back burner of their own, which they maintain through open-ended texts, sporadic Facebook messages, G-chats, IM’s, and terse emails.

Remove the sex for a second (or don’t, we are nothing if not a world of multitaskers), and ask yourself: sound familiar?

While Yang makes the case that, at least in the sexual realm, much of the current landscape is colored by our wildly connected lives, what comes across loud and clear is this issue of too much choice. Analysis paralysis (Note how he concludes Finding #1). Opportunity cost (why commit to a night with One Who Cries if there’s a possibility that One Who Makes Me Laugh might text later? and what about One Who I Haven’t Met Yet But Might Like Better Than Either OWC or OWMML?). And the pressure to keep all our options open, the scattering of energy that’s required to keep that back burner lit, just in case.

Consider, as Yang puts it “One carries in one’s pocket, wherever one goes, the means of doing something other than what one is presently doing.” That makes me think. And it makes me think that the question is: in our modern, interconnected, always-on world, is all of this choice, or maybe more importantly, this illusion of limitless, constantly available choice, the modern person’s dilemma? And does it mess with our heads in every realm? Is this why, say, when we’re working one job, we spend our time daydreaming about all the other things we could be doing? Or why women beat ourselves up over not being all things to all people at all times? Or why we sometimes find ourselves wishing for a life with no options at all?

And that last idea, of longing for the good ol’ days, was, unsurprisingly, picked up and riffed on by the New York Times’ David Brooks. Check it out:

Once upon a time–in what we might think of as the “Happy Days” era–courtship was governed by a set of guardrails. Potential partners generally met within the context of larger social institutions: neighborhoods, schools, workplaces and families. There were certain accepted social scripts. The purpose of these scripts–dating, going steady, delaying sex–was to guide young people on the path from short-term desire to long-term commitment.

Over the past few decades, these social scripts became obsolete. They didn’t fit the post-feminist era…

[People] are free agents in a competitive arena marked by ambiguous relationships. Social life comes to resemble economics, with people enmeshed in blizzards of supply and demand signals amidst a universe of potential partners… If you have several options perpetually before you, and if technology makes it easier to jump from one option to another, you will naturally adopt the mentality of a comparison shopper.

Okay. And while my stomach kind of turns at his description of  ”guiding young people on the path from short-term desire to long-term commitment” (Date around before settling down? Horrors. Read Tracy Clark-Flory’s take on his spin for a good laugh.), I do agree with one thing: that the reality of the modern world, the messaging (both societal and, well, textual), has left us approaching everything from the mentality of a comparison shopper. Listing pros and cons. Building cases for and against. Weighing our options.

It’s exhausting. And has it all done nothing more than leave us as a world of neurotic, over-stimulated commitment-phobes?

I don’t know. But I do know one thing for certain: The Trader Who Will Fly for Sex kinda freaks me out.

Fire Up the Treadmill!

Quick! Stop what you’re doing for just a second, and take a seat in the wayback machine. Try to picture what you wanted to be when you grew up, back when you were a kid.

A ballerina? A rockstar? A zookeeper? The first girl to crack the Major Leagues? A Power Ranger? (True story: That’s what one young woman answered when I asked this question in class one day.) I wanted to be a back-up singer. My husband wanted to be a bus driver.

My husband is a lawyer. I can’t carry a tune in a bucket. My point is that it takes a while to figure out your dreams, your goals, your life plan. And for all but the very few, it doesn’t take shape until we’ve got some life under our hats, till we’ve played a little trial and error. Until we’ve done some growing up.

And yet. Just last week, I came across a piece — call it an advice column — in the New York Times entitled “Helping Teenagers Find their Dreams.” Clearly, it was a parent who was asking for help. Not a kid. Made me want to take drugs.

The response rightly started out with an admonition that parents not force their own dreams on their unsuspecting kids. Cool. But once that was out of the way, the column kicked into overdrive with a double-dose of exercises and whatnot you can do with your teenagers to help them find their bliss. Or whatever.

Ugh. I can’t help wondering if these poor overly-guided teens are the same ones who grew up with (the now discredited) Baby Einstein series or some such. Or teens who, a few years prior, were like a young girl my daughter ran into once in Starbucks. Wearing grade-school plaid and drinking a double-latte, the little girl was working with her tutor, powering through a Kaplan-style prep course for her high school entrance exam. (And, for some reason, no one even questioned the caffeine.)

Or teens currently working with college counsellors, making a mile-long list — and checking it twice — that ranges from “reach” to “safety.”

Which brings me to a more recent piece in the New York Times on “The Whole Applicant”. Now even public universities are looking beyond the numbers to the “holistic student.” No longer are AP course, high GPAs and test scores enough. Now, selective public universities are focusing on the “what else?”

In some respects, this is a good thing: giving special consideration to students who have overcome hardships, are first generation college kids, or those who have done well despite a high school curriculum that offers few, if any, honors classes. But still, there’s the whole issue of the value added: Play the oboe? Start your own cyber-biz? Pitch until your arm gives out? Kick ass at the high school Moot Court competition? Stick that kid on the top of the pile.

All of which plays havoc with the normal scheme of things: the self-direction that most of us need to figure ourselves out. It’s great if kids are doing what they want because it’s what they love. But what I suspect is a recipe for indecision ten years down the line, when kids who’ve been riding the treadmill since before they hit puberty, are finally on their own, in a position to deal with their own choices, on their own terms. I can’t help thinking that many of these angsters are young women, too, raised to grab the options their moms never had.

The knock on American culture (maybe Western culture, in general) is that childhood has been compressed. Partly the media is to blame. And consumer culture, too, that tricks little girls into dressing like mini-grownups from the time they’re ten. But the treadmill carries weight as well. And here’s the irony: adolescence — that period when your job in life is to define your identity, not to mention your dreams — lasts longer than ever before, with some experts suggesting that late stage adolescence now carries on till the late twenties.

I see these driven kids in college — and beyond. I recall one recent college grad, finally on her own and trying to make her own decisions, who once confided that she wished she had been born into a culture where everything from spouse to career had been chosen for her. Or another student, soon to graduate, who reflected on the great expectations that were riding her back. She felt that she had to do something amazing with her life — when all (all?) she really wanted to do was teach little kids.

The treadmill to blame? Could be. But about that last kid I mentioned above? Last I heard, she was teaching little kids. In Japan. I hope that’s true.

There is No Balance, Only Choices

This ever-elusive work-life balance thing we’re all so fond of talking about? Well, what if the cold, hard truth is that there’s just no such thing?

I know, I know. Telling a woman who works and also has a life that there’s no such thing as work/life balance is pretty much on par with telling a little kid who’s foregone all manner of enjoyable mischief in the hopes of quality returns come Christmas morning that there’s no such thing as Santa Claus. Yet that’s just what author Fawn Germer suggests in a recent Huffington Post piece. And she might be onto something.

In “Work-Life Balance? The Mantra That Balances What Matters,” she tells us of her own experience:

Years ago, when I was still married and working as a newspaper reporter, I was drowning in an investigative project that stretched for ten brutal months. It was the most challenging and important work I’d ever done, but as that series became more consuming, I kept moving the mail and my junk to the guest bedroom where it amassed itself into a giant pile of unresolved clutter. One evening, friends gathered at our home before we all went out to dinner. Imagine my horror when my then-husband opened the door to the guest bedroom and said, “Look at this!” before exposing my secret mess.

Been there? Yeah, me too. Gerner continues:

In the midst of some of my greatest accomplishments as a journalist, I was exposed for the one failing that trumped everything. I’d failed in my traditional role as wife. I don’t think it was his intent to land that kind of blow on me, but I felt that, if I wasn’t a good housekeeper, I was not worthy. I was humiliated and I was crushed.

That, though, that one hits pretty close to home. The guilt she alludes to, the being judged, the need for approval, but even more: that “failure” on one scale can trump all our other successes. It’s a familiar feeling. And it makes me think. Is it a uniquely woman kind of a thing? How many men do you know who consider their successes at work irrelevant, or even slightly diminished, because they don’t vacuum as much as they should? Why are we so hard on ourselves?

I’ll get to that in a second. But first, back to Germer. She suggests that, ultimately, in our search for balance, what we find instead are choices.

Of course, if you come by my house today, you will see that my office doesn’t look much better than the guest room did on that particular occasion. I’ve grown into my identity and balanced myself out by making decisions that let me define success and failure, rather than tradition or guilt. That is how you achieve life balance. You do it consciously and on your own terms.

Though it seems so much easier said than done, I can see what she’s saying. And I think perhaps there’s a gem in her logic, a gem that should, in theory, help make our decisions easier: Do what you like; skip what you don’t. (For me, that means read, write, run, cook; as for making the bed and blow-drying my hair? Never, ever again.) All we need is to take an honest look at our lives, what we enjoy spending our time on and what we don’t; from that, we should be able to glean a little wisdom as to what really is most important to us. And then, we can use that to help us prioritize, to make our choices a little easier.

It’s a sweet idea in theory. But, it seems that, for women, often it just is not that simple. Suddenly opting to drop the balls that don’t matter as much to us as the others? That’s contrary to all the messaging we’ve heard for years: have it all, do it all. Be all things to all people. Friend, employee, wife, mother, daughter, office mom, domestic goddess, sexual superhero, kitchen queen, triathlete who can speak intelligently on any number of important subjects and tackle the Sunday NYT crossword puzzle in pen. On some level, we want to, we feel like we should be able to be superwoman, even while we call out that unholy icon as bullshit.

And so we keep those balls in the air. And we watch our sisters, with all their balls in the air, and think to ourselves: Well, if she can do it, I should be able to do it, too. What’s the matter with me? Rather than: I bet she’s as overwhelmed as I am. Why are we doing this to ourselves again?

(Not to mention the sad, not insignificant fact that if we were to blow off all the stuff we’re not so fond of doing, there is no bed-making, laundry-folding, hair-drying fairy waiting to swoop in and pick up our slack.)

But maybe, if we could decide to throw caution to the wind and let a few of those balls drop, maybe we’d find ourselves a little happier, our sisters a little less stressed out by the juggling act they’re trying to pull off, our lives perhaps a little less balanced, but tilted more in our favor?

Is such an idea way too good to be true?

I don’t know. But I’m going to mull it over in a minute. Just as soon as I make the bed.

Let’s Hear It From the Kids: Your Money or Your, um, Life?

So, on Monday I posted a rant in response to Lamar Alexander’s Newsweek argument in favor of a three-year college degree. Got some good responses, including this one from tk:

The three year concept completely baffles me. Especially when Alexander makes reference to no summer breaks. Let’s see, three years plus three summer breaks. Hmmm! It sounds to me like four years. Without the opportunity to get a paying job in the summer and leading to more debt for the students. Some plan!! It may help the colleges pay costs in the summer, but it makes for more debt for the students. Not a good recipe…

I am an attorney, and have been one for almost forty years. My career has been rewarding and fulfilling for me. Without a wide ranging college experience, I would not even be a lawyer because I was a math major, and the math and science requirements alone would have left me no time to explore the humanities, without which…….?

Colleges are NOT simply trade schools. And education is much, much more than training. Core courses provide a context for whatever career we choose. And, context counts. I, for one, am tired of doctors who are science geniuses and devoid of understanding and personal skills. I detest techies who think that the world begins and ends with engineering, and who require mathematical solutions to human problems. And I think we have no more need for business majors to whom the bottom line of their companies is mkore important than their impact on the real lives of real people.
The three year solution will lead to a less educated college graduate, when what we desparately need is a more educated one.

But, let’s face it. He’s been there, done that. Me, too. I wanted to hear from the kids, the ones who are racking up the loans and writing five-figure checks.   So yesterday I sent my Intro/Journalism students out onto the campus to find out what students who would be affected by such a plan thought about it. Their money — given the hefty cost of tuition at our university — or their, well, life plan. Following is a sampling of what they said (I’ve left out names. Hope that’s not a problem). The majority emphasized that, despite the high cost of higher education, the full four year plan is a major factor in their development and growth.

“You learn more about yourself when you try other things, are exposed to new and unique ways of thinking, become more open minded and increase the capacity to understand others,” said one junior woman.

A couple of engineering students said that with a three year plan, they would only be able to focus on engineering classes, leaving them no time to explore other subjects and become well rounded students.

One first year student said that the three-year plan seemed like a more efficient and practical way to save money — and some others agreed, given the cost of tuition. But most of the students who were interviewed voted no. Two sophomores said that they valued the extra time spent as an undergrad, deciding their career path and major. Another described how taking a philosophy course spurred an interest that otherwise would have gone completely unnoticed. One first year kid wondered: “Maybe you find out you don’t like your major — and then you’re stuck.” With the thee year plan, he continued, “you don’t have a chance to experience different courses in college. I’m not a big fan of that idea.”

An accounting major agreed: “I think it’s better to have college students attend for all four years. You need that additional year where you’re still developing your professional skills, your personal skills and social skills. A fourth years would be very critical in working towards your independence.”

All of which was echoed by — okay, not a student — the director of the university’s Career Center: “School is an opportunity to explore what’s important to you, what you’re interested in, and/or passionate about. It’s not learning for its own sake. College allows you to grow in more ways than just taking math, science and English.”

Possibly the best perspective came from a recent grad, who took six years off between high school and college, touring with a punk band and working low-income jobs before returning to school and finally graduating at age 28. “I think it takes most 18 and 19 year olds a few years to decide what it is that they want to do. three-year programs will be sending 20-and 21-year olds out into the workforce when they might not be mentally invested in what they are doing.”

Truth, said one sophomore. “That would suck if you’re only here for three years — then you’re out at 21.”

The Office Mom

And then, reader, there’s this.

Allow me to reference a piece titled “The Office Mom,” which ran on Forbes‘ web site Tuesday with the slug:

Women are ditching the stereotype of the imperious, tyrannical boss in favor of the nurturing “office mom.” Is that a good thing?

According to writer Laura Sinberg, it is a good thing indeed. Sinberg writes that, as women now hold 49.9% of jobs, it’s high time to rework our image of the working girl. (Which is to say, to ditch the big haired, shoulderpadded image concocted by the Melanie Griffith’s costume designers for her role in the film Working Girl. Ditto for Meryl Streep’s soulless ice queen in The Devil Wears Prada.)

In a way, it’s as though she read my mind. (Or my post from Tuesday.) Consider:

“For such a long time, people thought emotions had no place in the business world; you’re either emotional or rational,” says Kristin Byron of Syracuse University. “That dichotomy doesn’t exist.”

Byron’s research has found that female managers who were better able to read emotions were rated by employees as more supportive and informational, and by supervisors as more effective.

…The rewards range from feeling wanted, trusted and liked to something more tangible: The office mom “makes people willing to go the extra mile, be more loyal to you,” says Carol Smith, senior vice president and chief brand officer of Elle Group. It can also pay off in terms of promotions, perks and pay.

But does this then relegate lower-level working girls to the job description Office Daughter?

“My boss gives me personal advice all the time,” notes 27 year-old Karen Granit, who works in sales for Godiva Chocolatier. “Because of that, I work harder for her not just because she’s my boss, but because I feel closer to her, more connected to her.”

And would we then feel compelled to add goodie-baker to our list of responsibilities?

Women, for example, more often than men, tend to value being accepted and will engage in behaviors like bringing goodies into the office. Smith notes that when it comes to cupcakes at weekly sales meetings, “It isn’t the guy who does the buying, you can be sure of that.”

And maybe that’s true. I myself have been known to enjoy a cupcake or two. (Hell, back when I worked at the Independent and noticed attendance dwindling at the weekly editorial meetings, I instituted a sage policy: treats. Someone different–men included–responsible for the sugar fix each week. Problem solved.) And I’ve been quick to point out that women and men are different, insisting that to recognize this shouldn’t be problematic.

But parts of Sinberg’s piece inspire the devil’s advocate in me. I wonder about boundaries between bosses who dispense personal advice and their underlings on the receiving end. I wonder about the pressure to prepare yet another batch of cupcakes. Might that of the perfect Office Mom become yet another iconic self, yet another thing at which we must be perfect, another ideal to which we must aspire? I wonder about this blurring of the lines, of making the office a home away from home–and what it means for work/life balance. And then there’s the issue of stereotypes: what, exactly, was the problem with the assertive working woman? That she wasn’t being true to who she was–or that it was simply too much of a stretch to ask the working public to deal with a woman who wasn’t “womanly”? Are we more down with the Office Mom because we expect women to kiss our boo-boos, to give us a cookie when we’ve been good?

On the other hand, though, according to Sinberg at least, the Office Mom isn’t taken less seriously because she isn’t hard-edged and cranky, she’s getting ahead because she isn’t. And if the Office Mom is someone who’s simply secure enough in who she is and her position that she can thumb her nose at everyone who wanted women to check their female-ness at the door and be who she is, then maybe this is all a healthy move forward.

Pass the cupcakes, please.