Flaming Out and Fighting Back

[Renew Deal]

Next month I will be the proud recipient of two honors: the "Isabel Benham Award" (Women's Bond Club) and the "Woman of the Year Award" (Financial Women's Association). I'm more than usually appreciative. I've held high-profile jobs and delivered impressed results, but I know about banishment and lonely struggle.

Like many working moms I've grappled with a variety of road blocks and "off-ramps." One of my off-ramps was voluntary; the others were forced on me by employers and the marketplace. In the 1980s I lost twins in the seventh month of pregnancy. This loss triggered a protracted struggle on the childbearing front, and it also torpedoed my promotional prospects. The timing was bad (as it often is). I was at the seven-year mark in my career as a college professor and I was turned down for tenure. To quote one of the conservative members of my tenure committee, I wasn't "sufficiently committed" and had allowed childbearing to "dilute my focus."

As I packed up my office — having lost both my job and my babies — it struck me that the peak demand of many female careers, not just mine, clashed and collided in the worst way with the urgent demands of the biological clock. So many of us were trying to have children in our mid or late thirties, before it was too late, and running into all kinds of punishments and penalties.

Despite the bitter disappointment of failing to get tenure, I landed a great job and went on to spend six exhilarating years as executive director of the Economic Policy Council, managing a debate across the political divide and testifying on the Hill on issues from immigration reform to LDC debt. But in my early 40s I hit a second wall. The pressures of my ever-expanding job were crowding out my small children. I was becoming an over-committed wife and mother. How could I help my five-year-old deal with separation anxiety when I needed to catch the 6:30 a.m. shuttle to Washington two out of his first three days in kindergarten? Something had to go. I tried to negotiate some flexibility, but my board was convinced that running an organization required a five-day-a-week, in-the-office commitment.
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http://blogs.hbr.org/hbr/hewlett/2011/04/flaming_out_and_fighting_back.html

[Warpy]

1. Where was her husband

when that five year old was having separation anxiety?

This is the real problem, men don't have to care for their children, that's what they have wives for. They're allowed to be company men 24/7 because they are expected to push all that other stuff off on the wife.

While women are expected to be natural slaves, this will continue.

[Jim__]

2. I don't think you've identified the real problem.

I'm not sure that Hewlett was expected to be, nor that she was, a natural slave. Reading the article, I get the distinct impression that while she had to make some tough decisions, she made those decisions and things worked out quite well. The important point here is that, as she noted, she had options:

... But in my early 40s I hit a second wall. The pressures of my ever-expanding job were crowding out my small children. I was becoming an over-committed wife and mother. How could I help my five-year-old deal with separation anxiety when I needed to catch the 6:30 a.m. shuttle to Washington two out of his first three days in kindergarten? Something had to go. I tried to negotiate some flexibility, but my board was convinced that running an organization required a five-day-a-week, in-the-office commitment.

Reluctantly, I quit my job. I tried to focus on the positives. I did, after all, have options. I had a hugely supportive husband who earned a good living. I could build on the success of my last book and write from home — a work schedule much more compatible with the needs of small children. Still, I felt regret. I resigned the week of my 41st birthday, and as I moved out of my corner office I knew that this was the end of my on track "male" career. Even if I managed to become a successful writer, I would never again be seen as an up-and-comer. But I knew what I had to do. I went home, regrouped, and started a new career as an author and activist. I worked long but odd hours, traveled only rarely, and saw a great deal of my kids.

Men are not so much allowed to be 24/7 company men as they are required to be. It sounds to me like the problems that Hewlett ran into was that same requirement. She had to be a 24/7 company person. Why do we accept that requirement from corporations as a valid requirement? Why do we allow corporations to determine how we will live? It is not a valid requirement in terms of the productivity achieved, nor is it compatible with living the way most people want to live.

The real problem is that we, as a society, allow corporations to require that their employees be 24/7 company drones.