I know it’s been since March, and while I kept meaning to get back to this, I’ll admit I was sidelined for a few months, mainly trying to ponder the next move in this game of transition chess.
You see, I had reached a point where something had to give. Like almost everyone, everywhere, life kept piling on more responsibilities, more expectations, and it was getting harder and harder to see a few moves ahead. And the end game?
Well, it was largely non existent. There was simply no space to look at the board from above to see where it was all going, divine what my opponent had in store, and imagine how I wanted this game to end, where I wanted to be when the game was reaching its last few moves. And so, I’ve stepped back from the board a little.
I’ve decided to leave work for a year to focus not only on my family, but myself. To explore how I fit into the game board and what pieces I truly want to carry with me.
Surprisingly, it wasn’t an easy decision and it’s had me thinking lately about the expectations that women face, to have a successful career, a well-kept home, successful children. I’ve been wondering about the expectations our mothers, grandmothers faced. I expect they were no less difficult, but given societal mores at the time, they would have been different.
My next letter then, is to Ms. Betty Friedan, author, feminist and the first one to really suggest out loud that women’s mental health depended on their ability to fulfill all aspects of their lives.
Dear Ms Friedan:
It has been 55 years since the publication of The Feminine Mystique, the book that challenged our blithe acceptance of gender roles and asked fundamental questions about whether women could indeed achieve fulfillment by reaching the perceived societal pinnacle of wife and mother.
In that book, you postulated that societal constructs after WWII – everything from advertising to education – reinforced the ideology of women as home-makers fundamentally limiting the ability of women to pursue careers. My grandmother’s generation was the target of your analysis and commentary. Women who had moved into new roles during the Second World War, and found themselves facing a return to societal gender norms. But it was my mother’s generation who took up the mantle. Frequently home makers themselves, they nonetheless expected that their daughters would be educated and have different options.
And so, here we are, 55 years on. I am a highly educated professional woman who has spent 20 plus years building a career. I went after the brass ring pursuing, and completing, a PhD. I rose into an executive position and established myself as a career woman.
At the same time, I married and had kids. You see, my generation is supposed to be the one that has it all. I am supposed to be able to play with the big boys in the corporate boardrooms and bake a perfect cake for my son’s class party. I should easily handle juggling soccer practice with a conference call, home cooked meals with project deadlines, and at the same time, stay healthy and fit so my husband still finds me desirable. At least, this is what the women’s magazines tell me.
But here’s the kicker… I can’t.
I can’t juggle late nights at the office and prepare evening meals for my family. I can’t keep focused on the project needs and help my daughter through the latest teenage angst. I can’t run 5 kms a day, maintain a skin regiment, make a perfect balanced dinner and ‘lean-in’ at the boardroom table.
And yet these same magazines that told you and my grandmother how to keep pretty for her husband and keep a perfect house, are telling me that I should be able to do all of the above and more. Not only that, they tell me it’s simple. If I just use the recommended cream, organization tips, read the right books, go to the right university, be docile or aggressive enough, care about my appearance more, stop obsessing over my appearance, and a million and one other things that I should, shouldn’t do.
I fear Ms Friedan, while I completely agree with your argument that women should be able to pursue careers, that society has warped this idea by maintaining the same standard that women should at the same time, be able to be the perfect wife and mother with the exact same expectations that our mothers and grandmothers faced. We are still expected to be the care-givers. We are still expected to put effort into our appearance so that we are attractive to men whether on the soccer sideline or the boardroom table. We are still asked to have lovely homes and gardens, and perfect children.
Conversely, even though women are more present in the boardrooms and executive tables, societal expectations on men vis-a-vis the home front have not significantly shifted. It is still not really broadly common for men to take parental leave (though it is shifting a little), statistics show that men still do less of the house work and child care duties, and corporate culture is not accepting when a man needs to leave work to take care of a sick kid.
There seems to be a fundamental disconnect. Women are expected to be the same home makers and mothers that they always have been, as well as, strive for a career and push the boundaries of corporate acceptance. But it hasn’t quite gotten there yet.
According to the Gender Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion: Business and Higher Education Perspectives (2017) from the Conference Board of Canada, women obtain 56 per cent of bachelor’s degrees and 51 per cent of master’s degrees. They also make up a majority of college graduates, at 58%. What’s more, the participation rate for women in the workforce is 74%.
And yet, despite these high levels of education, and making up 48% of the labour force, among Financial Post 500 companies, the proportion of board of director seats held by women was only a little over 20% in 2016. And based on recent data, it is clear that even these women can expect to make less money. Expanding the story even further, according to a Harvard Business Review article published in January, 2018, 43% of highly-qualified women with children are leaving careers or taking a career break.
It’s an odd picture to consider. Women are getting the education, getting into the labour market at comparable rates to men, yet more are being paid less and choosing to leave the labour market, even temporarily, to make things work.
Given these numbers, I can’t help but wonder if women in my generation have been set up to fail. Ms Friedan, I think your arguments opened the door for half the equation. Women should have equal access to education and the labour force and to some degree this has been achieved (though women are disproportionately engaged in part-time work and still remain relatively few in the STEM fields).
The problem is that the equation was stretched on one side only. There is an expectation that has developed that women do indeed need to be part of the workforce to be engaged and promote their well-being, but somehow, nothing has changed with respect to the traditional expectations of the gendered domestic roles. Anecdotally, those who reach the upper echelons rely more on 3rd party help – nannies, cleaners, gardeners – and balance the additional expectations by carefully outsourcing some aspects of their lives. But not many have the means for this, and rely on a better balancing with their partners.
That’s not to say that there haven’t been changes – men are more engaged with childcare, more involved in aspects of domestic life – but the change on that side of the equation has been nowhere near as fast, as the statistics point out. And more detrimentally, like it or not, it is less acceptable for a man to side step work responsibilities for home ones.
Ultimately, what these statistics mean to me, is there are more like me out there. More families for whom, when it came time to decide who would leave work to help us get better balance and meet life goals, it was more acceptable – financially and culturally – for mom to leave the labour force. And what’s more, it was my preference as well, because those same “societal” expectations are ingrained in me.
Maybe someday, we will have a better balanced equation, but for now, we’ll make the moves we have available to us, and hope for the best.
Median Mama 