Double binds for working mums!
Hi Dorothy – I was recently taken to task by my manager for telling a new business contact (not commercial) via email that I had been busy because it was “back to school” time. I then overheard a male colleague say exactly the same thing with no comment at all made. What do you think? Is that fair? Sonya, Washington
Hi Sonya There are a couple of issues here. If you are working in education, or an education-related sector (school supplies or services, for example) or if you are a student yourself, then clearly the upturn in workload experienced by the start of the academic year could meaningfully be shared. However, I have the impression you are not.
From my point of view, your personal/family routines and schedules (this is not an emergency) should not really be relevant professionally, unless you know the contact socially and have the sort of established relationship where the sharing of personal news is part of your business interaction. If it’s a new contact as you say, it may not have been appropriate. It’s certainly not relevant if used to explain, or cover, a business delay or other professional issue. My observation is that women can get into “mummy mode” very early in a business relationship and for some people this can mean over-sharing.
Subconscious bias
If the feedback is not related to the fact that the contact is new, but more connected to the double-bind of the “daddy syndrome” where your male colleague is concerned, then no, I don’t think it’s fair. Men who show they are actively engaged in childcare activities tend to be viewed more sympathetically than women with the same or even greater childcare roles. This happens ironically even when men deal with women. I experienced this myself recently when male and female service providers could not make appointments because of issues with their children. I was aware of registering almost automatic sympathy with the man (ahh… so cute) and I try to be mindful of these biases.
Do I think this is right? No – it’s just another sub-conscious bias that is part of our everyday lives. I would suggest raising the issue with your boss, to establish what was behind his comment. In a relatively lighthearted way, I would also remind him of what happened with your colleague so at least there is an awareness that it’s going on!
Good luck!
By the time I had children I was already the owner of my own business.
I quickly discovered if I said “I am having Friday off to be with the kids” clients would call and interrupt me for quiet low level things. If I said “I have a meeting on Friday that lasts all day” they would only contact me in the direst of emergencies.
I learned that I was having meetings with my kids.
The boundaries between work and private life are very flexible these days, but I don’t necessarily want to know about everybody’s private lives and arrangements when I am just trying to buy some print from them or something like that.
Some women do seem unable to separate work and private life and in some professional contexts it can make them look like little housewives rather than power players. Men just don’t do that.
The boss (and the client) likes to imagine your focus is with them during working hours. True or not, it pays to allow them their illusions.
Annabel I agree. After receiving that email I became very aware of the number of times in the last weeks, women with whom I had a very superficial business relationship, referenced their childrens’ activities. It was almost as if they were going to school/college, chosing exam subjects themselves. For me that sort of over-sharing can run the risk of a woman being defined early on in a business relationship as a mother rather than a business professional.
Clearly with people I’ve been doing business with for years I know all about my client’s family situations
I have been thinking about this issue. I remember when my children were small that I tended to be at work, but thinking about them (and often guilty I wasn’t there) and when I was at home I was worried about work (and often working).
The result was I talked about my kids a lot at work and convinced my colleagues that motherhood had made an airhead mummy of me and yet at home I talked a lot about work and convinced my family I was career obsessed.
A lot of this conversational disclocation was because I was not mentally in the physical space I was occupying. My mind was often on my ‘other role’, whichever way round it was.
At some point I worked out this was a lot to do with guilt and the myth of multi tasking. I started to be completely at work when I was at work, and completely at home when I was at home and the conversational dislocation cured itself.
Now I see it as wearing hats – I put on my work hat, my domestic hat, my social hat – they are all my hats, but I don’t wear my favourite hats for dancing to work (fascinators not being high fashion in the board room). They are all my hats, they are all expressions of elements of me, but I don’t try to wear everything I own everywhere I go.
Hi Annabel – thanks for your comment. I use the hat metaphor myself and find it helpful. It’s important for professional women to be seen as such in the workplace and not to dilute their presence and image with ” Mum-speak”!