The Superwoman complex

It’s time to make sure that a new generation of women doesn’t fall prey to it

Having it all. It has become such a cliché, hasn’t it? Growing up, that was the phrase that was thrown at us all the time by our female teachers and mentors. They may not have had it all, held back as they were by the constraints of a highly patriarchal, traditional society. But my generation could change all that. We could grow up to fully rounded lives, with flourishing careers, well brought up kids, happy families, and perfect homes.

Oh yes, we could achieve all this – and more. We just needed to fix our sights on our life goals, keep a razor-sharp focus, be prepared to work harder that we had ever thought possible and we would be rewarded by the Golden Grail called ‘Having it all.”

Since we didn’t know any better, we fell for that spiel. So, we played by all the rules. We worked hard. We aimed high. We did our best at the workplace. We tried to run model homes. We dutifully helicoptered around our kids. We stayed in shape. We went on ‘date nights’ with our spouses. We looked after elderly parents and grandparents.

And we tried – oh God, how we tried! – to tell ourselves that we did ‘have it all’.

It was only after our bodies began wilting under the combined pressures of sleepless nights, early mornings, long days at work, punishing fitness regimes, endless hours at the stove, and the relentless demands of childcare that we realized that we had, in fact, been conned.

We didn’t really ‘have it all’. What we had was the dubious privilege of ‘doing it all’.

But even after that realization dawned, were we willing to give up on the ‘having it all’ dream?

Not a chance. The conditioning of a lifetime is hard to overcome. So, we pushed through the bone-breaking exhaustion. We struggled to overcome our guilt about not paying enough attention to our jobs/children/spouses. We doubled down on trying to create a ‘work-life balance’. And, in the process, we created the cult of the Superwoman.

I am sure you’ve heard of this mythic creature. She excels at everything she puts her mind to. She is the quintessential Career Woman. She is the archetypal Earth Mother. She is the sexy smoldering girlfriend. She is the devoted wife (who can also do sexy and smoldering on demand). She is the perfect daughter/daughter-in-law. She runs an impeccable home. She can run in stilettoes. And she can do all this while looking like a million bucks (which, of course, she has earned herself).

We may have come a long way from when legendary Cosmo editor Helen Gurley Brown popularised the phrase ‘having it all” in 1982 with her bestselling book, Having It All: Love, Success, Sex, Money…Even If You Are Starting With Nothing. But the phrase still exerts an insidious hold on our minds. And it is exacting an unacceptable toll on both our bodies and our minds.

I was reminded of this yet again last week when I met an old friend for coffee. No, she couldn’t take time off for lunch, even though we had so much to talk about. She could only manage a hurried coffee before she disappeared right back into the swirling vortex that was her life.

Sample this: a typical day in her life. She wakes up at 5.30 to fix breakfast for the family and send the kids off to school with their tiffin. There’s barely enough time for a quick shower before she sets off for work. She works in a large corporation where eyebrows are raised if you come even 5 minutes late – but you are treated as a laggard if you clock out at 6. She gets back home around 8 pm, dead tired, with barely enough energy to eat dinner, let alone make it. And she does this six days a week.

In this, she is far from atypical. Most women of her generation are doing the same insane juggling act, with more balls in the air than they can possibly keep in play. And the saddest part of this scenario is that they believe – despite all evidence to the contrary – that this is the only way to get the most out of life.

Well, if you ask me, we have allowed ourselves to run ragged (in high heels, natch) for far too long. And we have paid the price for it in flagging energy levels, constant guilt, and the feeling that somehow we are still failing.

But while it is too late to save us, it may be time to cut the next generation of women a little slack. Yes, yes, I know that they’re supposed to Lean In and all that (thanks Sheryl Sandberg!). But sometimes it makes sense to lie back as well, and take stock of your life.

Perhaps it is only when we grant ourselves a little down time that we get to understand that there is only one way in which you can really ‘have it all’ – by not having it all at the same time.

So, let’s not burden our daughters with the weight of expectations that we carried on our shoulders. Allow them to make their own rules. Let them choose between family and career if they want to. Give them time off after babies to enjoy motherhood; but provide them enough opportunities to get back on the career track after a break. Encourage them to choose husbands who support them at home and work. And don’t let them feel guilty for putting themselves first on occasion.

Let’s change the meaning of ‘having it all’ for their generation. And let’s quietly kill off Superwoman while we’re at it.

Like a boss

Why ban the word ‘bossy’ when you can own it?

So, Sheryl Sandberg doesn’t like the word ‘bossy’. The Facebook COO explained why in an op-ed piece she recently co-authored with Girl Scouts CEO Anna Maria Chavez for the Wall Street Journal. The word ‘bossy’, she wrote, is used disparagingly to describe girls who exhibit leadership qualities, while the boys who lead are described as ‘strong’ and ‘determined’.

Sandberg herself grew up being called ‘bossy’ and the use of that adjective made her feel bad about herself. So, she is now using the might of her non-profit organization Leanin.org to push for a ban on the use of that word so that girls like her can grow up feeling better about themselves.

To put her message out to the world, Sandberg also recorded a video starring such female role models as Condoleezza Rice, Diane Von Furstenberg, Jennifer Garner and Jane Lynch. This public service announcement ends with musical megastar Beyonce staring into camera and saying, “I’m not bossy. I am the boss.”

Well, in that case, just what is so wrong about being called ‘bossy’? All it really means is ‘like a boss’. So, why treat it like a dirty word? You can bet that if young boys were called ‘bossy’ they would wear the label like a badge of pride and not treat it like an insult. Why should young girls, then, treat it as some of sort of slur?

Words do matter. But what matters more is what we make of them. Treat the word ‘bossy’ as if it was an insult and soon it will come to mean just that. Accept it as a compliment and it will soon become one.

There is this one episode in Friends that comes to mind. Monica is complaining to Pheobe about how her mother makes her feel bad about herself. Every time I do something wrong, she explains, my mother calls it ‘pulling a Monica’. Well, why don’t you change that, asks Pheobe. The next time you do something right, call that ‘pulling a Monica’.

That’s exactly what we should be doing with words like ‘bossy’. We should be embracing them as something positive, a validation of our leadership skills, rather than a negative comment on our assertiveness.

Sandberg clearly doesn’t see it that way. For her and Rachel Thomas, co-founder of Leanin.org, the use of the word signals the beginning of a slippery slope. “We too were called bossy as girls,” they write, “Decades later, the word still stings and we remember the sentiments it evoked: Keep your voice down. Don’t raise your hand. Don’t take the lead. If you do, people won’t like you…As girls become women, the childhood b-word – bossy – is replaced by the b-word adult women face – along with aggressive, angry and too ambitious. The words change but their impact doesn’t. Women are less well liked when they lead, and all of us are affected.”

Aha, see, right there is the problem. And it’s not the word ‘bossy’. It is the fact that women want to be ‘liked when they lead’. Men, on the other hand, don’t give a damn about how much they are liked or disliked so long as they get to lead. And that, in itself, gives them an enormous advantage over their female counterparts. On one hand, you have a gender that has a take-no-prisoners attitude when it comes to wielding power. On the other, or so Sandberg would have us believe, is a gender that is so fragile that just the use of a single adjective is enough to make its members curl up and die.

It is this sub-text that I find truly troubling: that even powerful, successful, ambitious achievers like Sheryl Sandberg feel the need to treat young girls like fragile flowers who must be protected from the hails and storms of a misogynistic world. And the belief that women are somehow still wary of taking the lead on things because they fear being seen as less feminine and more of a threat.

The only thing that gives me cause for optimism is that I suspect little girls are not half as fragile as Sandberg seems to think. Well, let’s take Sandberg’s own case. She tells us that she grew up being called bossy, and those memories still hurt. And maybe they do. But take a good look at her now: the little girl who grew up being called ‘bossy’ is the woman who’s now the big boss at Facebook. So, what harm did that b-word do to her? None, as far as I can see.

I suppose this is where I confess that I grew up being called ‘bossy’ as well. And, truth be told, I still have the b-word thrown at me by most of my friends and family. Does it hurt? Not a bit. Would I like it banned? Not a chance. I would much rather own it.