I came across many reactions to Indra Nooyi's interview on whether or not women can "have it all". Among them:
- Sigh!, said some (such as here), not again the whine of being a woman and managing life as a working mother. If they can't manage it, why choose to go for it?
- Oh yeah!? When was the last time MEN were asked the question of how they manage work-life balance?
- What's with all the fuss? Didn't we too raise children and manage our careers without making such a big deal of it either way?
- Barkha Dutt and NDTV made this the topic for one of their We the People discussions, making for an interesting discussion
I remembered having heard about the same milk-fetching incident from Indra Nooyi on a video clip some six years ago when conducting research to understand more about women corporate leaders who made it to the top. In that panel discussion, while Indra Nooyi mentioned this incident, she did not delve much into it. By the end of that interview, some thoughts stayed at the back of my mind: Why didn't she talk more about it? Did she discuss it later with her mother...and her husband...and children? What are other ambitious women facing in their personal lives while they manage their work in a highly competitive corporate world and how are they dealing with the challenges and expectations?
So when I read her article recently, above all, I admired her for her honesty. When she set out to reach where she did in her career, obviously she made choices that have been hers, but kudos to her for being upfront about what that choice has meant for her in her personal and family life. The way I see it, women like Indra Nooyi, Sheryl Sandberg (I would strongly recommend women AND men to read her book, Lean In), Anne-Marie Slaughter (whose article a while back had also generated a lot of discussion ) are only making it easier for so many career focused women to talk about what makes the path to senior corporate positions difficult for women.
So what’s with this "having it all"? Is it exclusive to women?
Ofcourse it is not exclusive to women, but I'd like to focus on what it means for women as it's definitely a controversial and subjective topic. That is mainly because what “all” means for a woman entirely depends upon how she is wired. One thing is clear is that if a woman has great ambitions from her career, it’s best that she forget the balance part of the work-life balance. It's about choosing her priority and in the highly competitive world we live in, if she wants to make it to the top, she should make sure she sets the necessary support systems in place (she’s likely already done that in order to be even thinking about making it to the top), make things clear to all who matter in her family about what her choice means for everyone, and focus on what needs to be done.
But often, the one thing that comes in between a woman's focus and actually having it all is something that actually has no place in this at all - Guilt. And the big (I mean biiig) problem is she’s going to be ridden with guilt all too many times. Now, I don't know if guilt is the exclusive domain of women (there has to be a guilt chromosome that hasn't yet been discovered), but there it is! Looming its crooked head through the years - I left my little child at home with the maid (or in day care)..will she be ok? When most of the other kids have their mothers waiting at home when they return from school, I only get to see them in the evening...often only at dinner time. I missed the mid-week morning PTA. Worse, I missed my child's annual day at school! My kids have to do their own homework! My laundry is pending. Could I have made more variety of food for dinner? At the risk of generalising - you don't find men berating themselves over these issues, do you? So let’s accept that guilt is an exclusive premise of women. Like pregnancy and breast-feeding and periods. But fellow women, the next time we take off on the guilt trip, better not to resist it...instead let's just embrace it. Coz we’re in it together :)
In a nut-shell, if a woman is wired to be thinking big career ambitions, I don't think she can have it all / do it all. For that matter, I don't think men can either. The big difference is women want to do it all / have it all. And are ready to beat themselves to death over it.
Is "life" at conflict with "work" only faced by women? Why are they asked about it?
Yes, it's not right that the same questions are not posed to men corporate leaders (does that sound strange? That's because no one refers to it that way) being asked similar questions about how they manage work and life (where "life" includes managing the household and children (and in cases, ageing parents too). Is it because (1) the women who do make it to the top are so few that they make heads turn in amazement at how they did it, or (2) the question of "work AND life" doesn't arise in the minds of ambitious men who make it to the top, or (3) women generally feel more strongly about these things so naturally they get asked about this. I reckon it is a combination of all three.
For a while now, girls and boys in many families in many countries are being brought up on equal terms - where, right from childhood, girls learn not to differentiate themselves from boys in what they believe in, what they aspire for, and what they seek to do in their lives. With stars shining bright in their eyes, women take cognizance of the constraints to do with the biological clock, but often believe the decision of raising or not raising a family needn't really come in the way of their career aspirations.
The conflict between life and work really comes up because a woman even today is essentially breaking a mould where she has played the role as primary care-giver at home for generations and generations of human existence, influencing society and homes in more ways than one. And although increasingly, girls in each new generation are seeing themselves differently, the larger social context in which they grow in isn't entirely sure how to deal with what that equality means for everyone. So when girls and boys grow up and raise their own families, it is far more likely that reality bites in the form of men and women not knowing anymore how to handle their increasing individual ambitions, and the increasing demands of their family life. This often translates into women resorting back into their role as primary care giver for children (and often later, ageing parents). All too many times, what gets termed as a woman making a choice to stay at home rather than pursue her career, is not so much a matter of choice. This is because the choice that needs to manifest itself into better support systems and child care facilities, equal paternity leave, complete spousal support and strong encouragement from family is often missing.
In recent times, perhaps driven by husbands who are far busier than the earlier generation, and / or getting married to men with much higher resources, an increasing number of well-educated, talented and high potential women in my generation have dropped off their career early on or mid-stream. I read that 60% of Indian urban women give up the career mid-way. These also include those who had set ambitious career goals for themselves while growing up and pursuing higher studies and starting work.
Another alarming pattern has been that somewhere between my mother's generation and it was time for my generation to be mothers, the idea of parenting, and mothering in particular began to see a change. Perhaps this had also increased the guilt quotient for mothers who've chosen to work outside the home? In my childhood, my mother or my aunts (who were working outside the house) as well as my aunts and friends' mothers who stayed at home did not spend as much time as mothers do now in getting the kids to do homework, study for exams, pick up and drop for various classes, monitor their activities etc. Having seen this around me for many years, I was impressed when, in Sheryl Sandberg's Lean In, I came across this:
In 1975, stay at home mothers spent an average of about 11 hours per week on primary child care (defined as routine care-giving and activities that foster a child's well-being such as reading and fully-focused play). Mothers employed outside the home in 1975 spent 6 hours doing this activity. Today's stay at home mothers spend about 17 hours per week on primary child care on average; while mother who work outside the home spend about 11 hours. This means an employed mother today spends about the same amount of time on primary child care activities as a non-employed mother did in 1975.
A similar study by the University of California at San Diego cites college-educated mothers are spending more time with their kids than ever: an extra nine hours a week since 1995. That's the equivalent of an entire extra workday women spend as their children's soccer-watchers, snack-selecters, flashcard-flashers, all-seven-volumes-of-Harry-Potter readers, college-essay editors and Candyland rivals (not necessarily in that order).
I do not have access to parallel statistics for India, but an increasing number of mothers in my generation find it critical to be involved in their children's lives on an hourly basis, if not minute to minute basis. Whether that leads into stronger, more resilient, independent children or actually is detrimental to their growth is a topic of continued research today.
Why work life balance should matter to both men and women
Irrespective of how high career ambitions are, it is important that women build their lives to be financially independent. A big push for it comes from the need of a society where in many parts of the world, horrific ills such as female infanticide, dowry, domestic violence continue to exist. Because girls as still viewed as a burden to the family. Even among the urban educated girls who "choose" to leave work when they get married or have children, how many of them wish they could get back to work by the time the children start school. How many of them are able to find work of their choice or what they were earlier qualified to do? How many of them find themselves divorced and having to start to fend for themselves from scratch, or worse, trapped in a marriage only because they cannot fend for themselves.
There are societies around the world, where another problem is faced bringing into focus an entirely different social and economic dimension. People have been choosing not to have children at all due to work-life imbalance. In the race to dream for bigger things - be it material riches or glory or fame - families and society are left imbalanced. So the important question looming ahead of us is how can we, men and women, help each other out to strike a balance that works for both. Maybe that will dispel the myth and both men and women can actually have it all.
Girls education and women's financial independence helps to pave a way out of social injustices through attitudinal shifts. But attitudinal shifts cannot happen only with girls. Even today, how many men are asked the question of how they manage work and life. But men need to be brought into this discussion. Preferably, at as early an age as possible. Because if we desire a society where true gender equality needs to play out, the onus of thinking about work and life is not just women's alone but equally, men's. So while mothers and fathers nurture and encourage leadership traits in children irrespective of their gender (such as Ms. Nooyi's mother has been known to), they also need to question if they are placing a much larger share of care giving responsibilities on their daughters than they are on their sons and future sons-in-law.
