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

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[quote=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. [/quote]

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