So this is my third installment of a series I"m doing that reflects on my first year as a tenure-track professor. The third installment has turned into a series of its own about how we define success. The first post in this series about success attempted to get you thinking about your own definition of success and the costs of how we approach it. My final post, next week, will share some of my own personal and specific definitions and practices of success. This post will briefly touch on an extremely compelling article by Anne-Marie Slaughter (professor at Princeton, director of policy planning in the State Department for two years) in The Atlantic Monthly entitled "Why Women Still Can't Have It All." Slaughter's article addresses some personal concerns for me, as a woman in a professional career field, but her solutions to the obstacles women face are in some ways gender neutral (if there is such a thing) because they are focused on revising many of our notions of "work" and "success." It's well worth the read.
Aside from my dismay that women are the only ones that outwardly struggle with the difficulty of balancing work and family (and indeed are almost expected to struggle with this or something must wrong with them, despite the fact that men are also part of a family), Slaughter does make some refreshing points in that she does not solely focus on what how women need to change their approach to careers, but rather on what we all need to change about the system of work in America. The main problem Slaughter identifies with our work culture today, what she calls "The culture of time macho,” is the theory that work must be done in the office and that the sign of a good worker is one who is in the office all day. That this myth still holds so strongly today is a rather depressing fact for Slaughter: "a relentless competition to work harder, stay later, pull more all-nighters, travel around the world and bill the extra hours that the international date line affords you—remains astonishingly prevalent among professionals today." Slaughter's solution is to begin changing the perception that work must be done in the office and in person.
Another major problem is the hypocrisy of claiming to value families in this country when in reality family is considered a liability in the workplace. She provides two amazing examples comparing the perception of a marathon runner and a parent and someone who strictly observes time off for religious reasons and someone who tries to do the same to spend time with their family (I encourage you to read this section, "revaluing family values," for a fuller account of these examples)
And finally, the last and perhaps most provocative problem she identifies is the singular narrative we have for the arc of the successful career path, which entails staying with the same company (or University) and climbing the hierarchical ladder of rank steadily and quickly. Slaughter suggests that in today's culture of 1) switching jobs, 2) starting a family in your mid to late 30's instead of early 20's, and 3) working well into your 70's, we need to "think about the climb to leadership not in terms of a straight upward slope, but as irregular stair steps, with periodic plateaus (and even dips)."
Slaughter's article, in conjunction with the spirit of the Olympics this summer (which I'm obsessed with) has really gotten me thinking about our maniacal pursuit of success, a success defined by climbing in an upwards (rather than say lateral) direction and measured in how many hours we put into the job. Did Ahab and his whale teach us nothing?
At the same time, I am deeply moved when I watch an Olympic athlete, who has devoted years of her life to pursing nothing but the dream of a gold medal in a specific sport that requires a very specific set of skills. Why is that kind of dedication so moving? And is that the same kind of dedication we should pour forth in our careers, or is the cost of such dedication that at the end of our life we only wish we hadn't worked so much? (Slaughter cites this from Bronnie Ware's book, The Top Five Regrets of the Dying, in which she found the second-most-common regret was “I wish I didn’t work so hard.”)
I think success and hard work go hand in hand, and I think hard work is admirable. But have we somehow fooled ourselves into thinking that hard work has to displace other important values? In my final post I will look at my own struggle to achieve success in my first year at tenure track while also having a life outside the walls of the ivory tower.
6 comments:
I found this post really interesting Kristen! A couple of things: You say that women are the only ones that outwardly struggle with the balance between work and family. I'm not sure what you mean by "outward." Is this a synonym for "obvious"? If so, then yes, I agree. . . men somehow do not manifest their struggles as clearly as women do, but it's important to recognize that they do struggle too. It seems to me that for some men, the struggle for work/family balance is just as difficult as it is for women. They are expected to contribute much more at home than they did thirty or forty years ago, but they are also expected to NOT take time off for family, etc. because that's still looked down on much more than it is for women. Soooo, I'm not disagreeing with you or Slaughter that home-work, or work that's NOT done in an office (like academic work) is still not valued as much as office-work, etc. but I want to make the point that these days, a lot of men struggle to figure it all out too. You also make another good point about how admirable Olympic athletes are for striving the way the way they do. I am also awe-struck by the Herculean work efforts they have to put forth to get where they are. At the same time, I sometimes think that the mono-maniacal life that is required of Olympians is not very psychologically healthy. And if we compare that to striving for success in an academic job, I think it warrants a similar conclusion (which I don't think you disagree with). Just a few thoughts. . . thanks for the post!
Thanks for some great points Rae Ann! I think by "outward" I meant more vocal. I have had several conversation with personal male friends who were indeed vocal about the difficulties of balancing family and work, but I think on a cultural level its women that carry out this conversation, not men.
I'm glad you pointed out though that this is changing for men because they are expected to do more at home and yet still feel the cultural pressure to be the primary provider. I think men could really help change this, though, if they would start talking more overtly about their struggles with family. Right now I think as a whole our culture still imagines this as solely a female struggle. Many of the conferences focused on women in academia, for example, include many, many panels and keynote addresses about balancing family and work at a ratio that I expect is much higher than you would find at a male-dominated conference.
I feel conflicted about Olympic athletes for the very reasons you stated. I think this is why I find it curious that I am so moved by their dedication. I suppose I'm wondering if that is a culturally prescribed feeling because I've been taught that that kind of mono-maniacal pursuit is good, or is it something more innate as a human, perhaps connected to our will to our survive?
thanks for your thoughts!
What's up buddies!! I wanna jump in and say that avoiding a more traditional work environment in order to have the freedom to spend time with my family was a primary motivation for me in going into academe.
But I agree that, on the whole, men don't seem to broach this subject as a common topic of conversation. Then again, I haven't had many conversations with women about balancing work/home responsibilities outside of the obvious commitments involved with pregnancy. Perhaps this is because most of my female friends are in the same profession as me, a profession that tends to delay establishing a family by requiring an extensive amount of education.
I'm pretty lucky now to be at an institution that places an extremely high value on family, but this is probably the exception and not the rule.
I wish I could see both of your families right now! Jai is 2 years old today!
I agree Kristen, that men can help change it by being more vocal. That is right on. About the possibility of innate striving which might be connected to our will to survive: I'm not sure it's innate. It seems to me that if it was, many more people would be striving in the way that Olympians or successful academics like you and Matt do. As it goes, though, I think you all are the exception and not the rule and that's why I think it's more cultural than innate. There are individuals everywhere who strive this way, but there are lots of individuals who do not. . .who kind of 'go with the flow' of life rather than work to get what they want. I hope that doesn't sound cynical; I don't mean it to, it's just been my experience with lots of people (students, acquaintances, even some family). And Matt: Hey! Happy Birthday to Jai!! I think your experience with having time for the family BECAUSE of your academic job is totally opposite of what I would expect! Marty works 8-4 every day and is able to come home and spend the rest of the evening with Sammy and me (when I'm not teaching at night). I, on the other hand, work random hours according to my schedule, and feel a constant pressure when I'm at home to be doing academic work, which kind of leaves my mind divided when I'm caring for my son. I don't like that. Marty's got an office and although he sometimes worries about work, he is able to leave work at the office. My work, on the other hand, follows me around at the schools where I teach, at home, even when I'm on vacation. In fact, we're going on vacation this week, and I am SO looking forward to getting some work done. Why do you think our perceptions of work time and family time are so different? BTW, Congrats on your job! I'm glad they value family--you have an amazing one!!
I'll be curious to hear what Matt says in response to your question Rae Ann, but I do think an academic job is usually much more congenial to child-raising than other jobs, even other teaching jobs. I have some friends who teach or are in administrative jobs in middle and high school and they get to see their young children about 2 hours a day, if they are lucky. I think Marty's 8-4 job is probably not typical (go Marty for landing that kind of job!) of most office-type jobs.
I do think the worst part of our job is carrying it around with us all the time, something I myself and really guilty of. But its not something we have to do, and I know my own personal goal is to get better at separating out work hours and "life" hours. Many of Tanya's posts on her blog, Get a Life PhD are geared toward insisting that academics be better at leaving their work at work so to speak. It is a bit of cultural myth in our field that we have to work so many hours a week (though I do think working only 40 hours a week may not be realistic). I sometimes wonder if one way we justify the importance of our job is to act like we have to be constantly working. Is this a self-perptuating climate we've created in higher-ed so that now to be successful, or to be perceived as successful, we really do have to work all the time?
Sorry for the slow response. I've been on vacation and not doing any work! I'll stay semi-vacationed for the rest of the entire month, which for me means working until lunch every week day and playing all afternoon.
To some extent, I think of my job in the exact same way that you describe Marty's, Rae. During the year that I spent writing my dissertation, developing my job materials, and going on the market, I can honestly say that I may have worked after 5pm a handful of times, and I only worked on the last 5 weekends leading up to the final pre-defense draft. And I maintained that regiment while teaching 4 classes per semester at two different institutions separated by an 88 mile drive.
I am not superhuman. One thing that helped was that I only did one conference in 2011 and one in 2012, but the most important thing that happened was that I became a daily writer in the literal, non-hollow, non-platitudinous sense of the term.
A good writing day was anywhere from 500-1000 words, and I tended to average in the low 700s. Here's the thing, when you write for, say 2 hours and produce 800 words, you can stop because you know without a doubt that you will write again tomorrow and get somewhere in the same range. If you do that 5, or in my case 4, days a week, you end up producing A LOT of prose.
This principle can be applied to grading, course prep, and (I'm hoping) administrative duties, although these seem to pose unique challenges. If I'm getting ready to take up 50 essays, I'll set a realistic return deadline, usually 7-10 days, and then just do the math. 50/7 is roughly 7 essays a day...and that's what I'll do write after I finish writing each morning.
Here are three blog posts from three amazing work, time-management role models who have helped me develop my own unique methodology that has worked quite well:
http://calnewport.com/blog/2008/02/15/fixed-schedule-productivity-how-i-accomplish-a-large-amount-of-work-in-a-small-number-of-work-hours/
http://getalifephd.blogspot.com/2012/03/whats-matter-with-forty-hour-work-week.html
http://prosedoctor.blogspot.com/2009/12/eight-hour-day.html
To address Rae's question directly, I have more freedom to spend time with my family as an academic because I have flexibility in my work day. When writing the diss. I taught in the afternoons two days a week and all day on Fridays. So, Monday-Thursday I would write from 8-11am roughly, and then go home and spend at least an hour and a half with Jenny and Jai. I'd go back up for an office hour and to teach on M and W, and go back up to prep for classes or read, etc. on T and R. When you know you'll do it EVERY DAY, you don't have to work for more than a few hours at a time. And being in the thick of things every day also keeps you in good intellectual shape!
Now that it's summer and I have no classes to teach, which I recognize may not be the case for everyone, I can take an entire week totally off here and there (usually 2) and the other weeks I can work until lunch and then play in the afternoons, sometimes working longer or shorter depending on what all I need to accomplish.
Someone with a more traditional 9-5 certainly can't do that, but then again, we went to school for a dozen years or more, so I don't feel guilty in the least!
My friend recently tried to give me a hard time when I told him I was going to my in-laws beach place for the entirety of July, calling me a "one percenter" (as if that's a bad thing!). I had a three-part response: 1) what's wrong with people who work hard and earn wealth? 2) I may have a one percenter summer, but I still have a ninety-nine percenter salary! 3) if you want summers off and a flexible work week during the fall and spring...go to school for 12 years!
Ha! I hope you're both well and I would be happy to continue discussing!
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