Misstropolis

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Work. Family. Sanity. Can Women Have it All?

by Terri Rutter

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Can we have it all? As long as women have tried to manage being moms, wives and workers — all at the same time — they have asked themselves this question. And countless women have tried everything they can think of to make the answer be affirmative. At the third annual Massachusetts Conference for Women, held in Boston on December 11, more than 100 speakers and panelists tackled that question along with others concerning the state of affairs for women in the workplace today.

“We’re socially trained to be good girls,” says Genevieve Bos, owner and founding publisher of pink, a magazine dedicated to working women, whose motto is, “A beautiful career; a beautiful life.” But, she continues, “playing it safe has not served women well.”

Being nice and being safe, says Bos, is what keeps women from taking risks, including negotiating for higher salaries, better jobs, just more in life. Women need to learn to be their best advocates, she stresses. They need to know their value in the marketplace, and then they have got to learn to be comfortable with conflict.

“Men look at business as a game,” she says. “Women take business too seriously.” She advises women to have more fun. “Treat business as a game to be enjoyed.”

Of course, many women choose to leave the workplace altogether, either completely or for periods of time. One session, called the “Opt Out Revolution” looked at this issue in depth and from varying perspectives. Carole F. Cohen, co-founder of a company called iRelaunch, which helps women re-enter the workforce after taking time away and works with companies to create programs that help women come back to work, argued that many more companies are opening up to the idea of seeing time gaps in resumes and, in fact, are welcoming these returning workers.

Kim Khazei is a great example. After 19 years in broadcast journalism, Khazei left her job as a news anchor at 7NEWS in Boston and stayed home for six years to care for her three children. Then one day, she “snapped” and knew she had to go back to work. She returned to her job as a co-anchor for the news. “I love the role model that I am for my daughters,” she says.

Khazei’s story, however, says Leslie Bennetts, contributing editor at Vanity Fair and author of the book “The Feminine Mistake: Are We Giving Up Too Much?,” is unique. “I hate being the skunk at the garden party,” says Bennetts. “But the reality is most women who want to return to work have a very discouraging outcome. The gap between the cultural mythology and the facts is incredibly dangerous.”

Bennetts’ book, which is based on numerous interviews, is filled with some tough statistics. Among them: the average age of widowhood is 54; 50 percent of marriages end in divorce; and one-third of women alive today can expect to live into their 90s. Once women give up the opportunity to generate money for themselves and for their children, she argues, they put themselves at enormous risk.

“We don’t look at the facts,” says Bennetts. “The majority of women who choose economic dependency are going to fall on the other side of the odds. All but 20 percent are going to lose this bet.”

“Women can have it all, but not all at the same time,” says Suzy Welch, a mother of four and a contributing editor at O magazine. Welch also writes “The Welch Way,” for BusinessWeek magazine, with her husband, Jack; and a column for The New York Times syndicate.

Ronna Lichtenberg, president of the management consulting firm Clear Peak Communications and author of the book “Pitch Like a Girl: How a Woman Can be Herself and Still Succeed,” says that the traditional idea of “having it all” is the notion that one can do everything in a single day she needs to do —and do it perfectly. “No, you can’t do that.”

“You have to focus on mission critical,” says Bos. Women need to “let go of perfection in every aspect of their lives” and focus on “working smart.”

Khazei, who has tried having it all at work and at home, says her message is, “As women, we can do anything. But we can’t do everything.”

Welch agrees. “Own your choices,” she says. “There are no good choices and no bad ones. They are your choices.”