{"id":19558,"date":"2013-03-23T09:32:04","date_gmt":"2013-03-23T14:32:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=19558"},"modified":"2014-07-22T10:06:08","modified_gmt":"2014-07-22T15:06:08","slug":"having-it-all-versus-being-happy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2013\/03\/23\/having-it-all-versus-being-happy\/","title":{"rendered":"“Having it all” versus “being happy”"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the Globe and Mail<\/em>, Margaret Wente<\/a> talks about the tension many women feel in trying to lead full lives, both professionally and personally:<\/p>\n

Sheryl Sandberg, the billionaire COO of Facebook, is everywhere these days. Her new book, Lean In<\/em>, is a smart, strategic guide for women who want to succeed. Be more assertive, conquer your fear, manage your guilt, don\u2019t sabotage yourself.<\/p>\n

All good advice, in my view. But these days, a lot of smart, highly educated thirtysomething women are having an entirely different conversation. They\u2019re not talking about leaning in. They\u2019re talking about leaning back.<\/p>\n

[. . .]<\/p>\n

Given the realities of the modern workplace, the mystery isn\u2019t why there aren\u2019t more women at the top but why so many want to get there. \u201cTo reject a high-flying career \u2026 is not to reject aspiration,\u201d Judith Shulevitz writes in The New Republic<\/em>. \u201cIt is to refuse to succumb to a kind of madness.\u201d<\/p>\n

Most women, if they have the choice, are happy to trade long hours and money for flexibility and control. This explains why nearly a quarter of women who have MBAs and children have dropped out of the work force 15 years after graduation, according to a U.S. study. When these findings were released, they produced much hand-wringing about the failed promise of feminism and lingering discrimination in the workplace. But what they really reflect is women\u2019s stronger preference for a balanced life.<\/p>\n

High-achieving younger women don\u2019t think this is going to happen to them. It takes them by surprise. They get an MBA or law degree, a demanding job and an equal-opportunity husband. And then they have a baby and \u2013 wham. As one young mother in her early 30s puts it, \u201cI had no idea I\u2019d be so crazy about my child.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I suspect a lot of the frustration young women encounter is that they’ve been lead to expect that they can cope with both a full-time, active, fulfilling career and<\/em> raising a child simultaneously. The reality is that for most women, it’s a binary choice: you get either<\/em> the job or<\/em> the family, but not both. When this realization hits home, it can feel like a betrayal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the Globe and Mail, Margaret Wente talks about the tension many women feel in trying to lead full lives, both professionally and personally: Sheryl Sandberg, the billionaire COO of Facebook, is everywhere these days. Her new book, Lean In, is a smart, strategic guide for women who want to succeed. Be more assertive, conquer […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[831,28],"tags":[374,987,95,375,43],"class_list":["post-19558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business","category-media","tag-children","tag-feminism","tag-jobs","tag-parents","tag-women"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-55s","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19558"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19558\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19559,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19558\/revisions\/19559"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}