"Can Women Have it All?"
Can women have it all?…
As I write this, I imagined Carrie Bradshaw in Sex and the City, sitting in her window, her cursor on the lap top screen and those letters emerging, starting to write her column for the New York Star, as her story unfolds… (perhaps imagining my fantasy of one day writing a column)….
“Can women have it all?” is a headline by the BBC on one of many stories about Jacinda Ardern stepping down as Prime Minister of New Zealand this week. I imagine it sparked a rush of fury too, as it was promptly taken down and replaced by some other judgmental trope - but it’s now etched in the mind of those women who saw it. This by anyone’s standards is lazy click-bait, sloppy journalism and us Brits expect more from our BBC. However, after I made it back to 2023 from 1950 where that headline landed me (and all women), it made me think about the answer to that question: Can women have it all?
I imagine, and it’s just my imagination, that this sloppy click-bait, bull-s$it headline was a dig at Jacinda, who said herself she just doesn’t have enough gas in the tank to continue in her role, and this headline an insinuation she is giving up and can’t handle having it all - a dig that women can’t have it all. Her role of PM, if committed to and taken seriously requires 100%, 100% of the time and a wee bit more super-boost for those really tough times. I imagine she has given that role exactly that over the past few years and so she KNOWS she has, could or will run out of gas, and what the consequences of that could be, for her and her country.
Reading her decision made my eyes well up. I wasn’t sad. I found myself with a clenched fist, shaking it at my screen shouting,” Yes Jacinda, yes!”, with a wee tear and a lump in my throat, that still comes when I write this..
Many appear to be judging her as weak, copping out, jumping ship or having bitten of more than she can chew. I disagree, and here’s my take:
This is not weakness. This is courage. Strength. Emotional intelligence. This is a giant leap for women in senior positions everywhere. A giant leap for our health and well-being agenda and a giant leap that takes emotional intelligence out of theory and into practice. In my head she is shouting, ‘Burnout can get fuc&ed!’.
My take undoubtedly comes from my own experience and wishing I’d had the foresight, self-awareness, self-compassion, self-respect, self-belief and talent that Jacinda is leading with and showing us all this week, before I experienced my own burn out. But, 8ish years ago burnout wasn’t really a ‘thing’, it just wasn’t discussed. I had no idea I was burning out until I was literally frazzled. It’s no joke.
When I look back, I can see it was like being on a see-saw of ‘over-ing’ and ‘under-ing’ and like being a wee toddler on a see-saw it was quite thrilling. Being high in the air, hanging on for dear life, my wee bum popping off the seat, seeing the playground from above and knowing the stomach lifting bump back down to the bottom was coming, ready to instantly pump my wee legs to get back up to the top again. Exhilarating, exciting, and scary – moreish highs outweighed the lows.
I write from being a woman who’s grafted her way to senior positions in big organizations, because that’s my experience. I write this as a woman who’s pushed myself through cracks in doors of male dominated businesses and plonked my bahooky on a seat. As a woman who’s been a chameleon morphing herself into things she thought she needed to be to sit at those tables; fitting in but never belonging. A woman who’s been edified and labelled by those men as, “the bitch” and “the rottweiler”, apparently because I was committed and dealt with the difficult stuff. A women, who found herself on a thrilling see-saw of over-ing and under-ing .
Over-planning, over-prepping, over-thinking, over-caring, over-communicating, over-working, over-eating (the wrong stuff), over-drinking (the red stuff) – over-compensating for so many things I imagined to not be good enough. Under-resting, under-sleeping, under-caring (about myself), under-eating (the good stuff), under-exercising, under-thinking (about the over-ing) – under-standing up for my well-being, my mental health and fundamentally under-respecting my own self-worth, talent and value. Bouncing out of the under-caring to the thrill of over-delivering on that seesaw eventually made me feel very, very sick with a sore ar$e to boot.
It’s psychological and physical. I didn’t know quite how frazzled I was until I got off the seesaw. Hindsight tells me I had a suspicion that something like burnout was in the post a year or so before, but I ignored it. I ignored it because I thought it would damage my career, make me look weak, shatter my image and render me irrelevant; I had worked so hard to get my bum on that seat. I thought it was like musical chairs and that if I got off, someone would fling my seat away, I’d be scrambling around shoving folks out of the way and I’d end up in a wee heap on the floor. Here’s the irony – I actually did end up like a wee heap on the floor regardless. I fell off the seesaw and fell apart a wee bit. Like Humpy Dumpty, I had a great fall, but unlike him, all my family and friends and I, we, put me back together again, in a very different shape and form, and I live to tell the tale.
And tell this tale I do, and will continue to do, so other women, like Jacinda, like you, like your friend, sister, aunt or mum can develop the foresight or courage to say, ‘Burnout. Can. Get. Fuc&ed!’.
I digress though... I started by pondering, “Can women have it al?l”, which in this case wasn’t just a dig at Jacinda, it was a dig at all women who have worked themselves into senior positions and claimed their seat at the table as well as having a ‘life’. I could rant that there are no headlines asking if men can have it all, but that’s not my point here. My point is: What is, “It ALL?”
Let’s go back to 1950 with that BBC headline. “All” was considered a man, a husband. Kids, a well-rounded family. Home. Your figure. The 60’s and 70’s added a wee job, a circle of female friends, a car, a voice, some independence. The 80’s added shoulder pads, seats at senior tables, women behaving like men; see Iron Lady. The 90’s added the notion of equality and opportunity, working Mum’s paved the way. The 2000’s showed us those that worked harder and harder found cracks in the glass ceiling in a few senior roles. And so, this notion of having it ALL is still the evolution of partner, family, home, senior position, leaning in and working harder and harder and harder.
Frankly, I call bull-s$it on this!
Jacinda said, “The only interesting angle you will find is that, after going on six years of some big challenges, I am human. Politicians are human. We give all that we can, for as long as we can, and then it’s time. And for me it’s time.”. I see ALL as self-awareness, self-compassion, self-belief, self-worth, self-respect. Respect for your own and other’s well-being. Respect for your talent and drive. Respect for those moments that require a super-boost and knowing we are not designed to operate at maximum capacity 100% of the time. At its core I believe ALL is ‘self’ and comes from being an emotionally intelligent human being. The job title and the seat are fancy trimmings, the icing and the cherry. So, humor me in assuming that’s the case: Can woman have it ALL?
Yes, we, YOU, bloody well can!
Like everything that’s worth it though, it takes a bit of work. Not that hard graft of scrambling up the ladder, but work on yourself. When I was putting myself back together again, I talked. Talking was so important. Most importantly I talked to someone who taught me to listen - to myself. To hear my thoughts out loud. I learned to listen to what I knew to be true about me. I removed the mask I felt compelled to wear and become the female human being I truly am. In doing this I found an abundance of self-awareness, self-compassion, self-belief, self-worth, self-respect and talent - so much talent I’d never tapped into. So much passion and desire for things I’d never given myself permission to discover and that brought a longed for feeling of belonging - to myself.
I now work with women in D-suite roles all the time who come to me bouncing on that seesaw, feeling sick and sore and wanting off. They need to talk out loud. In doing so they are finding their soft cushion of ‘Self’ to gently land on. They are working out what’s important, what they want and how to have it. Do not underestimate the value of speaking out loud about how you feel and what you really want to with someone outside your normal life. These women are proactively getting off the seesaw with a softer landing than mine.
I will say, it takes quite a bit of work to leave the bloomin’ seesaw alone, but the benefits are immediate. It takes a bit of work to allow yourself to really hear yourself, but again, the benefits are immediate. It takes a wee bit of work to get used to all this self-awareness, self-compassion, self-belief, self-worth, self-respect and talent, but you’re made of strong stuff – you can handle having ALL of this. I imagine this is the work Jacinda has undertaken in making this giant leap. I imagine many under estimate the strength this work takes.
I finish by saying one is very naive to underestimate Jacinda’s rationale - watch this space! AND I believe it’s truly naive to think for one minute that she doesn’t have it all.
She does.
I do.
You can too.
And just like that… I declare, women can have it ALL. Burnout can get Fuc&ed!
If you need a wee hand getting off your seesaw. I’m here when you feel ready. PM me, Gill x
website: Gill Caleary Coaching.