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Women Can't Have It All, But Maybe No One Can

This article is more than 10 years old.

I've had a little something stirring inside me for a while - as in years - and a few things have happened recently that have really brought them to a full boil.

This past week, Anne-Marie Slaughter, who recently left a position at the State Department under Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, wrote a letter stating that she was unsure if she could manage the tremendous duties of her job or a "high-powered" position with effectively raising a child or carrying on a strong family life. In fact, she just plain didn't want to.

In her letter, Slaughter states:

"I’d been the one telling young women at my lectures that you can have it all and do it all.... I’d been part, albeit unwittingly, of making millions of women feel that they are to blame if they cannot manage to rise up the ladder as fast as men and also have a family and an active home life (and be thin and beautiful to boot)."

She later runs the readers through her daily schedule in that position, one I would never envy (alarm goes off at 4:20 every morning, and she stayed at work too late to make it to any store with "normal" operating hours). Throughout, she references the strong tension she felt between "having it all" and, well, keeping sane.

"Yet the decision to step down from a position of power—to value family over professional advancement, even for a time—is directly at odds with the prevailing social pressures on career professionals in the United States."

She concludes, more or less, that true work-life balance is extremely difficult to achieve, and that "it cannot change unless top women speak out." I encourage everyone to read the op-ed, it's filled with some truly powerful insights.

Meanwhile, Sheryl Sandberg has gained recent attention with her somewhat contradictory suggestion that the modern woman needs to step up, not take no for an answer, and work harder (and, likewise, she needs to be supported in her family life to do so). To not "leave before you leave." While Sandberg herself admits that she makes sure that, at least on most nights, she leaves the office at 5:30 and has dinner with her family (something which I have no problem with!).

There's a lot to commend about this position - working hard, not checking out early (because we're told we're supposed to?) and leaning forward - but it's one still wrought with tension between being successful and having a healthy work-life balance.

This comes after I've spent years being in and around the start-up space, in which people swear that you only need two hours of sleep a night, that you're supposed to feel burnt out or you aren't working hard enough, that your girlfriend or boyfriend should make sure she knows she won't be seeing you too much for the next year while you hole up at a white board on your tenth cup of coffee (and it's only 11am) trying to "make it." And forget about your friends, family or vacation... you might be able to squeeze out Thanksgiving and Christmas... dinner.... but then it's nose to the grind.

It's become a competition, and if it hasn't quite gotten there, it's certainly become a matter of pride.

What's my point? I want to propose that the problem is larger - much larger - than women not getting the support they need to start companies or take high-powered jobs.

While Slaughter feels guilty about making women feel that they are to blame for not climbing up the ladder while still wanting a family life, perhaps everyone should feel guilty about making everyone else feel that they can't be successful and still have a life outside work. Even if men step up and take half (or more) of home duties, they're just going to fall under the same feelings of angst in this "no sleep until death" culture (ok, maybe retirement, but you get me).

It's that everyone doesn't understand and/or accept the value of work-life balance.

While this post sat in draft over the weekend - I was ruminating (and camping) - I came across an article by Dan Oshinsky at the Agency Post about how he took a nap during work. My favorite parts?

"Screw the competitor across the street....Why work in a perpetual state of sleep deprivation? ....The problem was, it resulted in crappy work, which resulted in more work the next day to correct the errors I’d made due to the previous day’s exhaustion.....If there are people out there who can work 18-hour work days and sleep normally, then bravo. You’re the cyborgs who’ve come to make the rest of us look lazy. I kneel before you....You don’t need to work crazy hours. You don’t need to work tired."

Man I love this. And it's coming from a guy. A man!

There was absolutely a time when I fell into the trap of feeling obligated to not sleep, say no to friends, take a phone call on Christmas Eve, eat dinner in front of my computer - every night - instead of in front of my husband. And yes, for me it was a feeling of obligation.... it was the only way I was going to get ahead.

But I realized several things:

  1. I wasn't functioning to my fullest capacity because I wasn't resting. I didn't let my brain rest. The brain has to rest.
  2. Even when I was working, I was working so fast that I was thinking a lot less, and losing out on what I now consider a huge part of my success, which is brainstorming, high-level strategy and looking long-term.
  3. I wasn't doing many things that make me happy - playing music, hiking, spending time with my husband, reading a book, sometimes even reading the news (which really makes me feel terrible). When I didn't do these things over a long period of time, a hole did develop and that doesn't go away.
  4. But much more alarming was that I was doing this because I felt I had to. I had been surrounded by this unhealthy mentality for so many years that I felt guilty not working under this pressure. Was this actually necessary?
No. At least in my mind, it's not.

I am not suggesting in the least that hard work is not necessary to get ahead. I work very hard (and always have), and I work more than the average person (and always have). I have late nights, skip lunch often, leave my office well after colleagues have left, and so on.

In fact, I will be the first one to tell you that if you think strolling into work when everyone else does and leaving when everyone else does, and being an "average" employee is going to get ahead, it's not. If you think you can really move your career forward, get ahead of your peers or start a business without putting in some blood, sweat and tears is going... in most cases, you're not right. You'll be on the same trajectory as everyone else just putting in their time.

BUT, there is a middle a ground. There has to be a middle ground.

In many industries - in my world that means tech, start-ups and places like Silicon Valley, in Slaughter's world it means high government positions - the current state of the workforce is unhealthy. It is an unhealthy perception on success and what it means to make it. *And it's unhealthy for both men and women.*

MY PROPOSAL: The idea of becoming successful only if you spend all of your waking hours working is not only wrong, but irresponsible and very misguided. We need to change this, for everyone.

Firstly, we all need to understand that living these extreme lifestyles does not lead to your success. In fact, for most of us, it will actually detract from your ability to function well, think straight, and stick it through.  Very few people actually "thrive" on this type of life, despite the many who make that claim.

While people are living this lifestyle, they're often giving up the things that make them sane, make them smart, make them happy and give meaning to life....all of the things I feel are needed to be successful at your job. This could be anything from just losing sleep, to losing time with your family, to being able to unwind and shut your brain off, to not playing piano or paint or write or whatever is may be.  Keeping these things relevant is vital to success.

Secondly, experienced entrepreneurs, funders, mentors, or successful, hardworking and experienced people - many of whom know better - shouldn't be suggesting to newcomers of their fields that the only way to success is through not having a life.

Lastly, everyone needs to do a gut check on what it means to be successful. What does a full, successful life look like?

Personally, I'd like to continue saying that I work my butt off. That makes me proud. I've been lucky enough to make large changes in the world because of it (which has always been a core life goal of mine, and one I won't give up). And I assure you I'll keep working my butt off because that's who I am.

But I also take pride in the fact that I work hard at having a healthy work-life balance, and that it hasn't detracted from me being successful (though I won't lie that I'd love an extra hour or two of life here and there!).

Being successful to me means enjoying the non-work parts of my life that touch me to the core, keeping my personal relationships strong, stopping, thinking and breathing, because without these things, frankly my life would suck - both in the short-term but more significantly in the long-term - and I'd consider it a failure.

Back to how this effects women. I do agree that women have been put under a different set of expectations in terms of having a job and having a family, and I'd like to see that evened out. I'm lucky that I have an incredibly supportive husband that I know will share everything with me equally no matter what it is, but that may not be the case for some women.... I hope this mentality can shift in general.

However, when it comes to "requiring that more places accomodate for the difference in roles and expectations," this is missing something.

What needs to happen is that more places/people/employers/professionals/industries/etc need to recognize the fundamental importance of a healthy work-life balance, and that having that doesn't mean you're less successful than someone who doesn't sleep until 2am every night (poor guy!). Many places are starting to do this, but a heck of a lot more need to step up.

This is the philosophical conundrum that women have found themselves victim of.  There is a constant, unhealthy mentality that they are subjected to in a higher degree.  In addition to being held to traditional family roles, simply the fact that they exist in a world that thinks extreme professional activity is the only path to success automatically disqualifies them because they have had such a focus on the personal side of life.

And so I submit, let's change THIS.