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When Work Doesn't Work Anymore: Women, Work and Identity
For many women who work, the workplace no longer offers the satisfaction and challenge it once did. Committed to careers they frequently have spent years building -- careers that generally go to the very core of their self-definitions -- these women find that they are becoming less fulfilled and more exhausted. Their lives are out of balance; a happy mix of personal and professional, spiritual and material eludes them. In an era that celebrates women "having it all" they are finding that they don't -- and, sadly, coming to the conclusion that they are somehow at fault.
The fact is, there is nothing wrong with today's working women. There is something wrong with today's work culture. Immersed in a structure designed for a different generation of men who had wives at home to take care of life outside the office, today's working woman struggles to meet two opposing sets of demands and expectations -- professional and personal -- and two opposing equations for success -- as a feminine woman and as a valued worker. In truth, she can't win. The result of her attempts to do so is a crisis of values, not lifestyles: the question is not one of work vs. home, but, rather, what price are women paying to "fit in" with a culture that does not share their values or respond to their needs.
Enter Elizabeth Perle McKenna. In her groundbreaking and timely new book When Work Doesn't Work Anymore: Women, Work, and Identity, McKenna draws on interviews with hundreds of women--from housewives to CEOs to such familiar and respected women as Gloria Steinem, Anna Quindlen, and Letty Cottin Pogrebin--to illustrate the deep rift in the lives of many of today's working women, and the critical need for a new professional culture. McKenna shatters the myth of having it all, and shows that a life out of balance is never a path to success, but a profoundly dissatisfying route to unhappiness, self-doubt, and isolation. She knows from whence she speaks. McKenna spent eighteen years in the publishing profession, working her way up from the ground floor to the top of her field as associate publisher at Bantam and publisher at Prentice-Hall, Addison-Wesley, and William Morrow/Avon Books. At the height of her success, she realized her work wasn't working for her anymore. The cost of success to the rest of her life was steep. She was miserable. Feeling she had to make a choice between her life and her work, she left Morrow and, without her work identity, everything fell apart.
Through her own and hundreds of other women's experience, McKenna shows that women "stopped the revolution too soon." They may have approached parity in the work world but they've stopped short of changing a culture utterly at odds with the realities of their lives. When Work Doesn't Work Anymore examines women's complex relationships with their work--both through their need and desire to work, and the cost to their lives of doing so--and urges them to bring their values of home and family, friendship, community, and meaning to the workplace. Wise and provocative, McKenna encourages women to reassess and change a work culture that has never fully embraced the way they live, to seek a balance between professional and private spheres, and to strive for more integrated lives by recognizing the importance of building lives around personal value systems.
With wit, insight, and fierce intellect, Elizabeth Perle McKenna has written an enormously important book that will pave the way for transforming the workplace into one where women can lead more satisfying lives -- and be happier, more productive employees.
The fact is, there is nothing wrong with today's working women. There is something wrong with today's work culture. Immersed in a structure designed for a different generation of men who had wives at home to take care of life outside the office, today's working woman struggles to meet two opposing sets of demands and expectations -- professional and personal -- and two opposing equations for success -- as a feminine woman and as a valued worker. In truth, she can't win. The result of her attempts to do so is a crisis of values, not lifestyles: the question is not one of work vs. home, but, rather, what price are women paying to "fit in" with a culture that does not share their values or respond to their needs.
Enter Elizabeth Perle McKenna. In her groundbreaking and timely new book When Work Doesn't Work Anymore: Women, Work, and Identity, McKenna draws on interviews with hundreds of women--from housewives to CEOs to such familiar and respected women as Gloria Steinem, Anna Quindlen, and Letty Cottin Pogrebin--to illustrate the deep rift in the lives of many of today's working women, and the critical need for a new professional culture. McKenna shatters the myth of having it all, and shows that a life out of balance is never a path to success, but a profoundly dissatisfying route to unhappiness, self-doubt, and isolation. She knows from whence she speaks. McKenna spent eighteen years in the publishing profession, working her way up from the ground floor to the top of her field as associate publisher at Bantam and publisher at Prentice-Hall, Addison-Wesley, and William Morrow/Avon Books. At the height of her success, she realized her work wasn't working for her anymore. The cost of success to the rest of her life was steep. She was miserable. Feeling she had to make a choice between her life and her work, she left Morrow and, without her work identity, everything fell apart.
Through her own and hundreds of other women's experience, McKenna shows that women "stopped the revolution too soon." They may have approached parity in the work world but they've stopped short of changing a culture utterly at odds with the realities of their lives. When Work Doesn't Work Anymore examines women's complex relationships with their work--both through their need and desire to work, and the cost to their lives of doing so--and urges them to bring their values of home and family, friendship, community, and meaning to the workplace. Wise and provocative, McKenna encourages women to reassess and change a work culture that has never fully embraced the way they live, to seek a balance between professional and private spheres, and to strive for more integrated lives by recognizing the importance of building lives around personal value systems.
With wit, insight, and fierce intellect, Elizabeth Perle McKenna has written an enormously important book that will pave the way for transforming the workplace into one where women can lead more satisfying lives -- and be happier, more productive employees.
- GenresPsychologyWomens
304 pages, Hardcover
First published August 11, 1997
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June 23, 2017
Yes this book is 20 years old, really from an entire work generation in the past.
However, the author is only one year older than I am, so the larger work world she was in was the same one I was in.
A big difference between us: She liked the subject matter of her job, she worked in publishing, while I really didn't like the subject matter I had to deal with, the law.
Interesting how she quotes Gloria Steinem explaining that the Women's Movement of the 1970's DID NOT tell us young women that we could have it all, i.e. family AND career. Gloria points out, that she herself, did not have children.
A little sad to learn this, because I did feel that the energy of the movement was that one could have it all. Yet Steinem is the one who best knows her intentions AND she actually lived the philosophy of choice between work and kids rather than trying to have it all.
However, even if I had been told that having it all was not possible, back then, I would not have listened. I completely embraced the ability to work, hated baby-sitting so could not fathom a life focused on kids 24/7. At the same time, though, could not fathom not having a child. That was too important a life experience, bypassing it was not something I would ever have considered.
Like the author I eventually left my initial career, though earlier than she did. First off, unlike her, as mentioned, I did not like the subject matter of my job. Second, also unlike her, I could not bear to wait as long as she did to have a child. Thirty-eight! My goal was the kid before thirty or you were a geriatric mother. And I didn't quite make that being 31 and 2 1/2 months when my daughter was born.
I had to smile, at times, while reading. Here the author had a job that she really did like but was feeling the stifling that comes from doing the same thing for years and years with few breaks, feeling the effects of mergers and down-sizing and working in a society with a mindset not ready for women in the workforce. Her faith that things could improve is endearing.
But then here we are in 2017 when her former profession has gone through even more downsizing, the Internet gutting publishing and journalism and retail and many other formerly fun career paths. And if those WWII era men were sexist, at least they had an excuse having been largely raised by stay at home moms. Yet today we hear how few women are being allowed to to break into the tech world--that is run largely by YOUNG men, many of whom probably had working moms--and the sexism the women who do make it in, often feel.
This book was really revelatory for me, and freeing. She explains how, for us baby boomers, men and women, we were raised on the belief that to truly work is to work the old-fashioned 40 hour week that is really not possible without a stay at home wife and even then, such a work schedule leaves little room for life balance. (In fact, not enough room.)
She also talks about the office politics necessary then, and now, to do the traditional work schedule. And, the need for an old-fashioned company that cares about its employees, and one that does not down-size, to keep hold of a traditional job.
The revelatory and freeing part of all this, is that she explains that the problem for many baby-boomers, like myself, is that we cause ourselves great grief by having internalized the value of the necessity of working a traditional career, or feeling a failure.
Its almost magical: Its all about the mindset, what we tell ourselves. Yes it is INCREDIBLY difficult to operate in contrast to the prevailing values, but only by doing so can we be free and because this is a mindset thing, freedom is always with in our reach.
She goes on to discuss the Gen Xers, and how their attitude is different. They did not intend to give their lives to a job. Now, twenty years later, we see the Millennials living lives that bring in more balance, even if not completely by choice.
However, the author is only one year older than I am, so the larger work world she was in was the same one I was in.
A big difference between us: She liked the subject matter of her job, she worked in publishing, while I really didn't like the subject matter I had to deal with, the law.
Interesting how she quotes Gloria Steinem explaining that the Women's Movement of the 1970's DID NOT tell us young women that we could have it all, i.e. family AND career. Gloria points out, that she herself, did not have children.
A little sad to learn this, because I did feel that the energy of the movement was that one could have it all. Yet Steinem is the one who best knows her intentions AND she actually lived the philosophy of choice between work and kids rather than trying to have it all.
However, even if I had been told that having it all was not possible, back then, I would not have listened. I completely embraced the ability to work, hated baby-sitting so could not fathom a life focused on kids 24/7. At the same time, though, could not fathom not having a child. That was too important a life experience, bypassing it was not something I would ever have considered.
Like the author I eventually left my initial career, though earlier than she did. First off, unlike her, as mentioned, I did not like the subject matter of my job. Second, also unlike her, I could not bear to wait as long as she did to have a child. Thirty-eight! My goal was the kid before thirty or you were a geriatric mother. And I didn't quite make that being 31 and 2 1/2 months when my daughter was born.
I had to smile, at times, while reading. Here the author had a job that she really did like but was feeling the stifling that comes from doing the same thing for years and years with few breaks, feeling the effects of mergers and down-sizing and working in a society with a mindset not ready for women in the workforce. Her faith that things could improve is endearing.
But then here we are in 2017 when her former profession has gone through even more downsizing, the Internet gutting publishing and journalism and retail and many other formerly fun career paths. And if those WWII era men were sexist, at least they had an excuse having been largely raised by stay at home moms. Yet today we hear how few women are being allowed to to break into the tech world--that is run largely by YOUNG men, many of whom probably had working moms--and the sexism the women who do make it in, often feel.
This book was really revelatory for me, and freeing. She explains how, for us baby boomers, men and women, we were raised on the belief that to truly work is to work the old-fashioned 40 hour week that is really not possible without a stay at home wife and even then, such a work schedule leaves little room for life balance. (In fact, not enough room.)
She also talks about the office politics necessary then, and now, to do the traditional work schedule. And, the need for an old-fashioned company that cares about its employees, and one that does not down-size, to keep hold of a traditional job.
The revelatory and freeing part of all this, is that she explains that the problem for many baby-boomers, like myself, is that we cause ourselves great grief by having internalized the value of the necessity of working a traditional career, or feeling a failure.
Its almost magical: Its all about the mindset, what we tell ourselves. Yes it is INCREDIBLY difficult to operate in contrast to the prevailing values, but only by doing so can we be free and because this is a mindset thing, freedom is always with in our reach.
She goes on to discuss the Gen Xers, and how their attitude is different. They did not intend to give their lives to a job. Now, twenty years later, we see the Millennials living lives that bring in more balance, even if not completely by choice.
September 27, 2019
Ok so reading this as someone who has worked in early childhood (she devotes half a sentence to this...just saying that privileged women like her should get free childcare...so many problems with that I can't even start) and the rest of it is about fabulously wealthy women who are married to even wealthier men in capitalist jobs exploiting everyone else. And turns out they are not all happy all the time. Boo hoo hoo.
I mean. I actually don't think they should keep on stepping on each other to climb the greasy pole or whatever...but I also think the idea that you can just drop out or change your hours and be OK is an extremely privileged one. I didn't relate at all...I have had the luxury of some choices in m life but not to this extent. In a lot of places the author observed some inequity and ALMOST reached a real break-through but did not have the intersectionality to go further than rich people moaning. I mean there was even a chapter on "What about the (wealthy) men" FFS but no interrogation of her own whiteness and privilege.
The first few chapters were very repetitive and went around in circles, then it went to "What about the men" and at the end there was a laughably unconvincing disclaimer entitled "Why this is important to more than the upper class" which was about a page and a half of wealthy white liberal feminists being quoted as saying that all their poor friends agree with this (noone thought to actually ask a working-class woman though did they?). Then the conclusion was about how by dropping out of work she hates to do what she wants (write for money) she is teaching her son great values even though his father still works full time. I am sorry but I am not seeing the liberation.
I am inclined to cut some slack considering how old this book is and yeah I know women...all women...even fabulously rich women faced huge obstacles to literally get ANYWHERE. But I am disappointed by this book because I got it from the book exchange at university so I thought it was going to actually be theorising "women's work" (ie the exploited careers) which is an interest of mine. Somewhere this book calls itself "research" but it actually isn't. It's a bunch of anecdotes and quotes from someone called "Marie Wilson" who I wanted to look up but she isn't referenced properly so I have no clue why I should see her quotes as significant. I know who Gloria Steinem is and I don't hate everything she ever said but again she does not speak for most of us.
I know it is impossible to speak for all women but the length and depth of ignorance about most women or their work was pretty stunning. What percentage of women do this sort of work or have these sorts of choices to make? Even most middle-class women don't have it quite this easy in my experience. The "poor men" stuff was just silly...though I can remember trying to reframe feminism that way to bring men with us in the 90s and at the time I suppose I collaborated with that way of thinking too.
I may be biased because of some recent personal stuff but this to me was just an entitled stereotypical boomer ranting. She wants to smash a small corner of the patriarchy so she can be a wealthy wife to a wealthier man. MEH.
I mean. I actually don't think they should keep on stepping on each other to climb the greasy pole or whatever...but I also think the idea that you can just drop out or change your hours and be OK is an extremely privileged one. I didn't relate at all...I have had the luxury of some choices in m life but not to this extent. In a lot of places the author observed some inequity and ALMOST reached a real break-through but did not have the intersectionality to go further than rich people moaning. I mean there was even a chapter on "What about the (wealthy) men" FFS but no interrogation of her own whiteness and privilege.
The first few chapters were very repetitive and went around in circles, then it went to "What about the men" and at the end there was a laughably unconvincing disclaimer entitled "Why this is important to more than the upper class" which was about a page and a half of wealthy white liberal feminists being quoted as saying that all their poor friends agree with this (noone thought to actually ask a working-class woman though did they?). Then the conclusion was about how by dropping out of work she hates to do what she wants (write for money) she is teaching her son great values even though his father still works full time. I am sorry but I am not seeing the liberation.
I am inclined to cut some slack considering how old this book is and yeah I know women...all women...even fabulously rich women faced huge obstacles to literally get ANYWHERE. But I am disappointed by this book because I got it from the book exchange at university so I thought it was going to actually be theorising "women's work" (ie the exploited careers) which is an interest of mine. Somewhere this book calls itself "research" but it actually isn't. It's a bunch of anecdotes and quotes from someone called "Marie Wilson" who I wanted to look up but she isn't referenced properly so I have no clue why I should see her quotes as significant. I know who Gloria Steinem is and I don't hate everything she ever said but again she does not speak for most of us.
I know it is impossible to speak for all women but the length and depth of ignorance about most women or their work was pretty stunning. What percentage of women do this sort of work or have these sorts of choices to make? Even most middle-class women don't have it quite this easy in my experience. The "poor men" stuff was just silly...though I can remember trying to reframe feminism that way to bring men with us in the 90s and at the time I suppose I collaborated with that way of thinking too.
I may be biased because of some recent personal stuff but this to me was just an entitled stereotypical boomer ranting. She wants to smash a small corner of the patriarchy so she can be a wealthy wife to a wealthier man. MEH.
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