Anne Marie Slaughter and the "Unfinished Business" of work-life balance

[Anonymous]

Rather than throw more rocks at poor Sheryl Sandberg in the other two threads, I thought I'd start a discussion on Slaughter's book:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unfinished_Business:_Women_Men_Work_Family

I will caveat to say that she also reflects a certain kind of privilege, but I do think her book took to heart many of the criticisms of her Atlantic article and tries to articulate a broader cultural problem in how we value paid work that makes things over paid or unpaid care work that takes care of people. I'm not going to link to her Atlantic article, even, because her book makes fundamentally different arguments. If you haven't read the book, here are some reviews (haven't done more than skim many of them):

http://www.latimes.com/books/jacketcopy/la-ca-jc-anne-marie-slaughter-20150927-story.html

http://signsjournal.org/unfinished-business/

Thoughts on her arguments?

[Anonymous]

I truly loathed the Atlantic article. Maybe the title was an editor's fault and not hers, but it pissed me off. "I wanted to have a very high level job as the #2 to a very powerful international person in Washington DC while my family lived 4 hours away but I couldn't figure it out! We can't have it all!"

Um yes, we can, if we don't define having it all like you do. Same thing bothered me when the former CEO of Pepsi stepped down to raise her 3 kids and said the same thing. Again, "you can't make $200 million a year as the CEO of a huge, global corporation that is one of the most recognized brand in the world AND raise THREE kids the way you want? Women are stuck!"

It just seems so silly to define having it all as these jobs that are unattainable to 99.999999 percent of even the most highly educated professionals, whether they have kids or not!

Anyway, I downloaded a sample of the new book but didn't purchase it. I'm sure it's fine, it just didn't seem new or fresh to me. I do think that the our workplace culture needs to change and evolve, and I also think men and women as employees need to do more to change it. Don't want to blame the victim, but employers count on inertia - they count on people not having the guts to pull the trigger and find something new or ask for a different arrangement. When my job became unreasonable, I found a better one. It didn't happen overnight, but within a year, I had a job that let me manage my own schedule, work from home regularly (2-3 days a week) and paid me 20% more. And when I left, I said it was because of the inflexible culture. But so many people stay year after year and don't ask for change or make a move. Or just say, "I get great performance reviews, and I know you value me, I need some more flexibility." I know it's not as easy as 1-2-3 but I do think we need to stand up and advocate.

I also hate how much of a black box it is to find out about a company's culture. I know that companies have their PR talking points and you can come in and find it's BS. That sucks and I wish there were more transparency.

[Anonymous]

Nice book and all, but she's an academic and spent her career in government and academia. Not quite the real world with the same rules as corporate America.
Her concepts are nice in theory, but as a 40 year old corporate manager, I am more interested in current practical applications and solutions than theories

[Anonymous]

PP, thanks for responding. With regard to changing workplace culture, that's what the latter portions of her book are about. But she does say that employers need to step up as well. I think there's truth to that.

[Anonymous]

Hated the Atlantic article too. Sorry, I just can't relate to people who grew up rich and are preaching to people who didn't about how hard everything is.

Necessity is the mother of invention.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Nice book and all, but she's an academic and spent her career in government and academia. Not quite the real world with the same rules as corporate America.
Her concepts are nice in theory, but as a 40 year old corporate manager, I am more interested in current practical applications and solutions than theories

Well, sometimes theories can inform practices. It has to start somewhere. She does seem to be working with an organization that's trying to promote new workplace structures.

[Anonymous]

NP here. I am really sick of people bashing both Sheryl Sandberg and Anne-Marie Slaughter. They aren't speaking for all women. Men write books about business leadership all the time, or about being a world champion athlete.

The question both of these women ask is how the brightest, most talented, most fortunate women can achieve their dreams. These women were not just smart or rich, they were valedictorians at places like Harvard.

No one doubts that a man like this could go be CEO, run a white shoe law firm, be president even and still have a family, even if not being as involved day to day. But could a woman do this? Could *any* woman? This is a valid question even if it doesn't relate exactly to the vast majority of women's experiences. I'm not sure they give the best possible advice, but to claim it's not a conversation worth having is really demeaning to women. When we start having a conversation about how *anyone* can do this then we've won. But no one is having that conversation.

[Anonymous]

I agree that it has to start somewhere, and it often starts at the top by women with power, influence, and money. They are the ones who will be influencing the policies of large corporations with regard to issues like family leave and childcare, so if you want someone on your side, they are good people to have.

[Anonymous]

I think it is a clear toss up whether Slaughter or Sandberg are more insufferable. Clearly Marissa Mayer wins whatever the prize is, but I really cannot stand Slaughter. Maybe worse than Sandberg for me actually.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:NP here. I am really sick of people bashing both Sheryl Sandberg and Anne-Marie Slaughter. They aren't speaking for all women. Men write books about business leadership all the time, or about being a world champion athlete.

The question both of these women ask is how the brightest, most talented, most fortunate women can achieve their dreams. These women were not just smart or rich, they were valedictorians at places like Harvard.

No one doubts that a man like this could go be CEO, run a white shoe law firm, be president even and still have a family, even if not being as involved day to day. But could a woman do this? Could *any* woman? This is a valid question even if it doesn't relate exactly to the vast majority of women's experiences. I'm not sure they give the best possible advice, but to claim it's not a conversation worth having is really demeaning to women. When we start having a conversation about how *anyone* can do this then we've won. But no one is having that conversation.

You already made their critics' main point so I'm not sure what you are ranting about. Yes a man can be a CEO and have kids. Know why? Because 9/10 he'd have a SAHM. There are still only 24 hrs in a day though so if he's spending 10+ doing work things, how much time is he really spending with his family? No one cares about that because that's still normal to us. A woman could theoretically do the same thing with a SAHH. Two problems with that: SAHHs are less common than SAHMs, even now, and women tend to want to be more involved with their kids than the demands of a CEO role would allow.

There are only so many hours in a day. Everything comes with an opportunity cost. They're complaining about something that cannot be fixed. No you can't have an extremely demanding, high profile government job in a city 4 hrs away from where your family lives and still be an involved parent. Man or woman, it doesn't matter. The very idea is absurd.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
You already made their critics' main point so I'm not sure what you are ranting about. Yes a man can be a CEO and have kids. Know why? Because 9/10 he'd have a SAHM. There are still only 24 hrs in a day though so if he's spending 10+ doing work things, how much time is he really spending with his family? No one cares about that because that's still normal to us. A woman could theoretically do the same thing with a SAHH. Two problems with that: SAHHs are less common than SAHMs, even now, and women tend to want to be more involved with their kids than the demands of a CEO role would allow.

There are only so many hours in a day. Everything comes with an opportunity cost. They're complaining about something that cannot be fixed. No you can't have an extremely demanding, high profile government job in a city 4 hrs away from where your family lives and still be an involved parent. Man or woman, it doesn't matter. The very idea is absurd.

You might want to read Slaughter's book instead of her article. She addresses these criticisms. maybe not as well as you'd like, but she does.

[Anonymous]

I found Slaughter to be really reasonable and likeable in her interview on the Freakonomics podcast. If you're not familiar with her, I'd start there.

[Anonymous]

I can't speak for Sandberg but Slaughter is insufferable in person. She mined gold with an article that spun her departure as a social cause. The emails from/about Slaughter in the Wikileaks dump are (unintentionally) hysterical.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I can't speak for Sandberg but Slaughter is insufferable in person. She mined gold with an article that spun her departure as a social cause. The emails from/about Slaughter in the Wikileaks dump are (unintentionally) hysterical.

Exactly. Those emails undermine the whole "strong woman" persona that she tries to build. The levels of ass kissing were "I am reek" level depraved.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think it is a clear toss up whether Slaughter or Sandberg are more insufferable. Clearly Marissa Mayer wins whatever the prize is, but I really cannot stand Slaughter. Maybe worse than Sandberg for me actually.

Slaughter and Sandbeg have bery different messages. Franklu, I find Slaughter's we need to make changes to the workplace to make it more hospitable to women with children argument more compellimg than "lean in." Dont know about her personality but doesnt seem particularly relevamt to the underlying policy ussues.