“[Young people] are seeing more choice, more freedom and more realistic ways of pursuing lives that fit with the roles they want to fill in society.”
Type A personalities
At a time when women have gained ever more standing in politics and society, they tend to carry additional burdens in terms of family. Some of this is biological. Women are typically pregnant for 40 weeks and then – depending on preferences toward breastfeeding – serve as a primary food source for any number of weeks, months or years. Beyond that, though, women are more likely to manage the daily scrum of life with kids. They take on more domestic chores, including such things as meal preparation, school runs, school meetings and doctor’s appointments.
According to the Department of Labor Statistics, the division of domestic duties in American households is far from equal. On an average day, 83% of women and 65% of men spend some time doing activities such as housework, cooking, lawn care or financial and other household management. Women spend an average of 2.6 hours on such activities a day, while men spend 2.1 hours.
But in a marriage where it is the woman who has the higher-powered, higher-paying job – or at least a job that’s as high-profile as her husband’s – the dynamic changes. Monica McGrath, adjunct professor of management at Wharton and a consultant who specialises in women’s leadership development, says that even women who are in supportive partnerships experience continual strain.
“Many of the women I coach – women who know they wanted a career and who were groomed to have one – are in very supportive relationships, where there is co-parenting. But there are compromises all around,” she says. “It’s not simple, and there is often tension. There is a constant negotiation in their marriage about who’s going to do what and how much.
“I ask the same question of almost every woman I coach: how much of the home front – the cooking, the cleaning and the household management – can you pay someone else to do? There’s a service that can do everything,” says McGrath. “It costs a lot of money to outsource, but for most of these women, it is worth it. They need to take a long-term view of their career challenges. Every phase of their career and their family’s life is different.”
Outsourcing domestic tasks is one solution, but so is dividing them equally between both partners. Interestingly, many professional women struggle with this as well, according to Donald Unger, a lecturer at MIT in writing and humanistic studies, and the author of Men Can: The Changing Image & Reality of Fatherhood in America. “Many women are emotionally split about what they want,” he says. “Women have long been dissatisfied that men don’t do their share in the domestic sphere. [But when men do take charge], there is often a sharp and reflexive: ‘You’re not doing that right!’”
Women in powerful jobs feel this intensely because they tend to have very high standards for themselves and for their families, according to Unger. “They are Type A personalities. They move in circles where appearance and image are very important. These are people who do not find it easy to let things go.”
Putting aside the drudgery of housework, there is the simple fact that many women want, and need, to be a regular presence at home in order to be emotionally attentive to their kids and spouses. But the intensity of top-level jobs – which involve travel, round-the-clock meetings and the expectation from colleagues and employees of near-constant online availability – make balancing work, children and spousal obligations very difficult.
