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Debora L. Spar’s Wonder Women: Sex, Power and the Quest for Perfection (NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2013)  . . . .

As I introduced in my last blog posting, the “quest for perfection” in the corporate or creative or academic worlds often underlies women’s fears, anxieties and choices, reducing our creative energy and work. (e.g.The power cranny affects not only those who stop before reaching the 16% at the top of the pyramid, but also the women who were there [or destined to be there] and who bow out of high stakes corporate America to raise children, often because their husbands’ careers demand it).

Perfectionism isn’t only about society-based pressure, but is also about the internal dialog that results when we take pressures on, in inherently unrealistic and unfair messages and standards.  What creative woman (or man) hasn’t felt, when reaching for a contract that is beyond their experience, “maybe you won’t be good enough to do this”?

One criticism I have of Spar’s book, Wonder Women,  is that while she discusses perfectionism for women, she tends to fall into the old trap of essentializing women’s perspectives and characteristics, saying that we tend to stress “consensus,” to be risk averse, to want to share power and to be liked by our peers and associates, etc.  I’d like instead to argue that our culture has not succeeded in raising girls to be women who feel strong enough and strongly supported enough to want to overcome the 16% “power cranny.”

Having seen their mothers or aunts fight to find a rightful place against the “glass ceiling,” young women (e.g. Generation Ys or Millenials) often settle for less in their careers, and settle early, at that. They see the road ahead to having “more” in their careers too encumbered with difficulties that feel too great to be overcome. (cf recall Sheryl Sandberg saying that young women today too often “lean back,” instead of “leaning in.”) Spar says that some of her own students foreclose their own careers, choosing lesser professional standing in anticipation of having family, etc., long before their lives actually take that turn (if they do, at all.) Put simply, young women expect less than their mothers, aunts and (sometimes) even grandmothers did. And young women today quietly rationalize the loss of those dreams as the reality of not being able to “have it all,” instead of envisioning a culture in which an imperfect but important career and an imperfect and important family could be held in tandem. There, one still “can’t have it all” (no one, including men, can, as Spar acknowledges). But women can nonetheless achieve no less at work and at home than men or than anyone else.

I agree with Spar that the contemporary workplace is still “mired in the patterns of the 1950’s,” with employers being unable and/or unwilling to accommodate working mothers. But Spar also rightly observes that that doesn’t explain why women respond differently than men do, when dealing with tensions between work and family. Why do women bail first? And “jump quickly,” when they’re not passionate about their work?

Women, unlike men, when choosing between compromising a job versus compromising their family, almost always preserve the family, Spar says. It’s an “all or nothing,” a perfectionist pattern of thinking. Meanwhile, men most often choose the jobs that best pay the bills.

The “mismatch” between jobs and commitment varies by time, gender and industry (e.g. women leave in droves in banking, law and consulting, while more stay in academia, medicine, entrepreneurial ventures) (187). If their husbands are large wage earners, women often opt out after having children, or if they feel ambivalent toward their careers, which may have been haphazardly entered into, before they began raising children.

Spar interestingly argues that under US law in the 1970s and 1980s, women’s difference from men has been banished in favour of gender neutrality, in which it’s assumed that “given the  same opportunities, women will behave more or less like men” (193). She finds, on the contrary, that those differences may and may not involve non-aggressive consensus-building, leadership-inspiring, etc. (But see my paragraph above on the risk of essentialism.) She finds that women don’t work or provide leadership like men do.

In fact, Spar rightly calls for investigation into the ways in which institutions are qualitatively run differently by women, which she believes would prove the merits of having more women aboard in top professional positions. But at the end of the day, I agree with her fully that it’s just “common sense” that the 50% of the population that women represent need to participate in the highest professional ranks of our society. As she aptly says: “. . . the issue . . . is not about pulling token women into public places to pretend that their presence is more widespread.  The issue is about making it easier for all women to have the jobs and careers they want, and for all organizations to benefit from the diversity of perspectives that women tend to bring” (199). Continue reading “Gender in the Workplace and Beyond: Re-Writing Perfectionist Narratives for Women’s Inclusion (Part Two). . .”

A colleague and associate of Debora Spar, the President of Barnard College (the all-women’s liberal arts college in NY) contacted me recently, after reading some of my recent blog on Sheryl Sandberg’s book, Lean In: Women, Work and the Will to Lead (2013). This associate promoted another more recently released book, in a similar vein to Sandberg’s—Debora L. Spar’s Wonder Women: Sex, Power and the Quest for Perfection (NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2013). As Spar’s title suggests, the study addresses issues that include the psychology of the professions, including business and academia and the complex role that gender and maternity play in it.

I was impressed by several of the arguments in Spar’s book. So my next two blogs will give a précis of Spar’s study, focusing not on her autobiographical exploration of gender inequality at work (which much of the book discusses) so much as on her analysis of the complex ways that the “glass ceiling” still exists for women in the higher echelons of our culture’s professions. While these blog postings will be academic in tone, Spar makes arguments that are relevant to creative artists (including writers and designers) and to the people who hire them. (In the near future, I’ll discuss some of the writing of the highly successful US copywriter, Dianna Huff, and also of the journalist Mika Brzezinksi, on the question of gender and professional success.) Debora Spar focuses on corporate and academic America; but many of the same arguments bear relevance to those sectors in Canada, as well.

I’m particularly interested in Spar’s writing on “perfectionism,” the noose that threatens professional people in every industry, and women, in particular (cf my blog on Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In). I’m ultimately arguing that the only way to deal with the demanding creative work of writing, editing and design is to cut oneself free from that perfectionist “noose”—more particularly, from the fear-mongering and unrealistic expectations (whether internally or externally directed) that compose it.

But first: who is Debora Spar? Earlier in her career, she was one of the youngest female professors to receive tenure at Harvard Business School. Raised after the “tumult” of the first wave of feminism (e.g. Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem), Spar, like Sheryl Sandberg (CEO of Facebook), thought that “the gender wars were over” and that “we thought we could just glide into the new era of equality, with babies, board seats and husbands in tow.” But it didn’t work.

Spar does not dispute that the “first wave” of feminism in the 1960’s enabled women to enter into the labour force more than any other cultural movement. She cites that in 2008 in the US, 47% of the labour force was women. 34% of lawyers that year were women and 30% of doctors. 61% of accountants and auditors were women, and some 25% of architects (174). This is hard-won gender participation. But fifty years after Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique, Spar argues, women are still underrepresented at the “top of the pyramid,” where they glass ceiling persists. We are, as she puts it, still “stuck” below it. Continue reading “Gender in the Workplace and Beyond: Re-Writing Perfectionist Narratives for Women’s Inclusion (w. Debora Spar), Part One”

The rising psychologist and educator Dr. Angela Lee Duckworth (Department of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania) gave a TEDtalk recently that appealed to my interest in the emotions and psychology behind creative work, whatever work that may be (from business and marketing, to the arts and academia and so on). Whether you’re a client receiving copywriting or editing services, or a service-provider, we can all benefit from thinking about the psychology of creativity.

Duckworth spoke about “Grit,” which she defined as having the passion and perseverance one needs to attain long-term goals. To have “grit,” one has to have stamina enough to keep working (or studying) for years at something: she says that it means working hard to make the future a reality.

She makes a strong case that in the West we have done very little scientific (or pedagogical) study about grit. Having talent does not give you grit, she argues, since the concepts are “unrelated or inversely related.”

She defines the “grit mindset” as having an ability to learn that is not fixed to any topic; being able to change one’s response to address a challenge; and having the strength to persevere through failure, because one does not view failure as a permanent state. Continue reading “We Need “Grit,” not Intelligence, to Succeed Creatively”

“The only solution is to start today, to start now, and to ship” (Seth Godin)

“What would you do if you weren’t afraid?” (Sheryl Sandberg)

In this blog posting, and in my writing business, I’m exploring the necessity of acting or working despite one’s own fears. I’m not talking about a high-pitched fear that lasts for ages—that would be a red flag that something is seriously wrong. But I am thinking about the anxiety or discomfort that one feels when taking on “yet another” contract in an already busy schedule. (You could want to take the work, because this new client recognizes your value, and so pays better or  takes particular interest in your work.) Or the fear associated with interviewing for an ongoing freelance (or retainer) contract, when you can find excuses to “make do” with the list of clients you’ve already got. And on and on it goes . . . .

The ability to act in the face of this kind of (daily) fear is absolutely necessary, if a writer is to grow. It’s perfectly normal and understandable to feel fear when reaching to fulfill a more demanding assignment than you’ve done before. And it’s natural to be nervous when you  agree to a due date that falls sooner than feels comfortable, as the condition of a new contract. In a much earlier blog, I reviewed Jonathan Fields’ book on the subject, Uncertainty (Portfolio Penguin, 2011). Fields discusses how to turn fear and doubt into fuel for the kind of risk-taking that yields “brilliance” or success.

I’ve found even more purposeful Seth Godin’s brilliant insights, in Linchpin: Are you Indispensable (Portfolio Penguin, 2010). Godin writes extensively on the “lizard brain.” That archaic part of the brain always seeks out comfort, safety and avoids any kind of risk. Continue reading “Just in Time for Hallowe’en: On Fear in Doing Creative Work . . .”

In my last blog posting, I reviewed and critiqued Sheryl Sandberg’s insightful and sensible arguments on women’s need for greater equality (at work and at home), as she argues in Lean In: Women, Work and the Will to Lead  (New York: Knopf, 2013). Today, I’m concluding that assessment.

On finding a truly equal partner:

Establishing that women need to work their way to “sit at the [boardroom] table, Sandberg sensibly advocates that women need to find partners who will meet them half-way with childrearing and homemaking. Her most practical comment is that women need to become less perfectionist in raising kids and keeping house:  treat your husband as an equally capable partner and he’ll become one. If you let him learn how to diaper the baby himself, instead of insisting that there is a “right [i.e. perfect] way” to do it, he’ll learn just fine. And letting children be comforted by their fathers, even though men don’t lactate, enables children to grow up, taking comfort and consolation from their fathers, too.

Finally, no one can have/do it all:

Sandberg concludes by debunking the anti-feminist myth that women “can do it all,” or “have it all,” when in fact “done is better than perfect.” She cites Mary Curtis in The Washington Post as saying that success means that “women and men [must] drop the guilt-trip . . . . The secret is there is no secret – just doing the best you can with what you’ve got” (139).

Gender inequality certainly does persist in leadership and for the reasons that Sandberg mentions—women not sitting at the table; not working out equal relationships with their partners; and women thinking that they can and should “have it all,” when no one does or can. Continue reading “Conclusion: Sheryl Sandberg’s insights in _Lean In: Women, Work and the Will to Lead (2013)_”