The Feminist Lie

To anyone reading this, I apologise for the negativity in this post. I do try to blog about happy things, to remind myself appreciate the small things in life and to stay positive. However, I also see blogging as a tool of self discovery and that means I'll be writing about how I feel, and trying to sort out why. Lately I have been feeling quite sad, lost and unmotivated.

I also have a confession to make… I am incredibly clucky. Every time I see a photo of a baby I melt, and I really want one of my own. It doesn’t help that many of my friends are popping out kids at the moment and seem blissfully happy in the process. Every time I see a baby photo on facebook I am so incredibly jealous!

Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t plan on trying to get pregnant tomorrow. I don’t think my relationship with the boy is solid or developed enough. The next step for me is living with him, as we still live apart… and I have a lot of work to do to let him fully into my life.

Work is another story altogether. My choices are as follows:

1)      Go back to a job like my previous one that is intense but will accelerate my development. Work my ass off for at least 2 years there, and then transfer to a firm or company with a more manageable workload and accommodating environment. Work at this more relaxed firm/company for at least 2 more years before taking maternity leave. At this point I will probably be valuable enough to retain my job and be able to return part time if I choose to do so, on a good salary and with prospects for advancement if I am inclined to pursue them. This would give me options, and the prospect of having it all would not be totally out of reach. Whether or not that optimism is misplaced is another question.

2)      Stay in my current job (if I can tolerate the boredom) or move to a similarly relaxed (albeit less boring) job. Work for however long before having kids, but have no chance of solidifying my value to the extent necessary before taking maternity leave. I will no doubt have a job to come back to or be able to get another job, but it will be on a disappointing wage and I’ll be stuck doing grunt work and not really having any real responsibility or respectability. Once I have kids, it will be very difficult to put in the hours and effort required to work my way up the ladder from where I will have been at pre-kids. I will not shine.

Option (1) is depressing because it means having kids is so far out of reach, and I don’t know if I can survive 2+ years of hell to get where I want to. In my previous chaotic job, I could see myself changing as a person (for the worse...) and I was physically and mentally unhealthy due to the constant stress, exhaustion and struggle to have any sort of work-life balance.

Option (2) is equally depressing because it would be a waste of my potential, and I know I would be frustrated at the situation and disappointed at myself. I have always been competitive and wanted to achieve great things, I know that I am intelligent, robust, a natural leader and have great potential... but on the other hand my maternal instincts are tugging at my insides.

This situation epitomises what I believe to be THE question of my generation – can women really have it all? We were brought up being taught that unlike our predecessors in the pre-feminist era, we can now have both a stellar career and idyllic family life. The reality is, depressingly, quite different.

I just have to look around the legal profession and there are no examples of women having it all. You have a small number of female partners, but they are either childless or have children who were or are being brought up by nannies. You have female senior associates but many are part time once they have kids, and then their career progression halts or goes backwards. Hell, even I would invest in their male competition – he’s there more often, more likely to stick around without prolonged maternity leave absences or to give up his career altogether, he can put in the long hours, he can without any notice work until midnight and all weekend… and over time, when he is there and she is not, he gains experience, he accumulates knowledge, he networks, he gains clients… and he becomes partner material. It makes commercial sense to favour him, regardless of whether she is a better lawyer NOW or whether she has greater potential due to her intellect, interpersonal skills or acumen for the law.

Law is a crappy profession for women, but I don’t know if anything else would be much better. Medicine gives women a better earning potential from the get go (this is presumably why my Grandfather pressured me to study medicine rather than law) but the potential to specialise and climb to great heights seems similarly limited. If a women is not satisfied by money (and most human beings are not), but wants the satisfaction derived from challenging herself and leading others, or maybe even commanding widespread respect or admiration, she is setting herself up for disappointment unless she gives up the idea of being involved in her kids’ lives too.  I know that not everyone wants these things, but unfortunately I think they're the things that drive me. I need to be intellectually stimulated but that is not enough, I also like having responsibility, control and being respected. I have always admired and practiced efficiency, and that means I am more suited to a fast paced environment.

There are women who may be an exception to the rule. I won’t name one who comes to mind, because I don’t know or care enough about her private life, nor do I think it is appropriate or respectful to speculate on it. What I do know is that we all have different conceptions of how much is enough time to spend with our children and families, and how much we want to be involved in our children's upbringing. I don’t think that heavy involvement with the kids and a stellar career are compatible. They just don’t add up, as a matter of logic. There are only 24 hours in a day.

Where you have a really successful career woman whose children aren’t brought up by nannies, the only other option in my eyes is that they have a super-supportive like-a-stay-at-home partner. I wouldn’t want this either… and therein lays the dilemma. I want it all, I have been told that I can have it all, and suddenly the reality is hitting me. What I believed and what I have worked towards was all a crock of shit.

It’s a very depressing revelation. It makes me want to throw in the towel on one level, have kids and just hope that my priorities change and I find another reason to live and find meaning through motherhood. My Mum says this is a copout, but what is it a copout from? There’s nothing to copout from if I am not able to achieve what I perceive to be worthwhile anyway. There is a small difference in my eyes between giving up, and working for a few more years, finding my work unsatisfying (because my expectations of myself are unrealistic, and I want to be stellar) and gaining a meagre few thousand on my salary every year.

I want to be able to change what satisfies and drives me, but I don’t know how. I think that a large part of it is in my personality - I have always been stubborn, driven, bossy and intense. Another part of it is a result of what my generation has been taught and what I have until now believed. Every endeavour I have participated in has fostered that belief – even where I wasn’t the best, I was solid at academics and sports and there was always the potential for me to work hard, improve and shine. In sport my physique and injuries were self-limiting, but on the academic and leadership front I always had the option of reaching for great heights. School and university studies came easily to me, and I wasn't the best not because I wasn't capable, but because I was more focused on an efficient use of my time and what I wanted to do other than study. Now, the rational view seems to be that the option of succeeding is no longer there, unless I am willing to sacrifice something that my genetic instincts are guiding me towards.

Either option seems hopeless, and I don't know what to do or how to change my hopes, dreams and expectations.

Week Two Starts Now

Today officially brings us to week two of my new job. It honestly feels like I have been here for so so much longer. They said in the interview that they would be throwing me in the deep end, and they weren't lying. There is certainly no shortage of work here and it's clear that the expectation is that lawyers put their work before anything else. None of the young lawyers here have children, or any other commitments for example sporting.

Last week went like this:

Day 1 (Monday) was boring. I spent the morning doing training in their computer systems, and the rest of the day experimenting with them. No one gave me any work so I took a full hour lunch break and had a nice walk in the sun.

Day 2 proved that day 1 was an anomoly never to be repeated. Work was heaped on me, and it was the first of the standard day there where there is no time for lunch. I was still lucky enough to be able to leave the office at 7pm. My supervising partner was annoyed that I hadn't had email access set up on my smartphone yet as "you need 24/7 email access immediately".

Day 3 saw me getting to work at 7:15am for an early teleconference. I left at 7:45pm, which seems to be the regular end time on a good day for most lawyers there. 

Day 4 saw me arriving at 7:30am and leaving at 9:45pm, after being stuck in a 4 hour meeting all afternoon which didn't allow me to finish my other tasks that were due the next morning. When I got back from the meetings at 7pm, there was a note on my desk from a support staff asking me to bring in my computer the next day to have remote access set up (at the partner's request). I need to organise to have frozen dinners in the freezer there as work doesn't provide meals (unless there is a major deal on and everyone is in the office all night).

Day 5 (Friday) saw me arriving at 7:30am and leaving at 7:30pm. The Partner called me in the discuss some research I'd done and it turned out I was wrong and had missed the point of what I was supposed to be looking for. Felt dumb. Most people leave then or earlier on a Friday night if possible, but will be in on the weekend to work anyway. I got remote access set up on my laptop as I had work to do over the weekend from home too.

I am exhausted and not sleeping well because I have bad dreams about work related stresses (which is to be expected). I feel really stupid because it's a new area of law for me and I am highly inefficient (and have to research everything because I don't even know the basics). Again this is totally to be expected, and I'm working on riding the wave and not getting upset (although I struggle with this!). I'm going to be working very long hours regardless of how busy my area is for at least the first few months, because it's a very steep learning curve.

So... if you don't see many blog posts from me, it's because I don't have time during the week to write. I have been reading your blogs but last week at least I didn't have time to comment much. At work I am flat out and by the time I get home I am ready for dinner, shower and bed. Even this post is prewritten on Saturday morning (I know, aren't I the efficient one...)

Who knows whether I'll survive in this environment and if so for how long!

Things that have made me chuckle lately...

It's all about the fuzz...

 

Source: An image shared on Facebook

In the spirit of Obama's visit to Canberra, someone sent me this "only in Japan" photo:

Yes they did - it's Obama face shaped sushi. You know you're a pop culture sensation when you're made into sushi. Source: Forwarded email.

 Sesame street always provides a laugh:

To the tune of the rap song "everyday I'm shuffling..."

Source: An image shared on Facebook.

This IT Help flowchart was sent to me by a colleague when I was having issues with my computer and the IT department at work kept telling me to "restart it", even though this hadn't helped previously (Click to enlarge):

Source: Forwarded email. 

Myer gave me a laugh with their poor grammar in these large banners that were put up in stores across Australia. "Early Bird Get's the Right Size = Early Bird Get IS the Right Size". Oops.

Source: Herald Sun

Finally, in the spirit of Xmas, this one is for the lawyers out there. If you aren't a fellow lawyer, you probably will not find this greeting funny at all, so please disregard it. I'm not sure exactly who wrote this- if the email I received it in is to be believed, it was written by a guy at Gadens in NSW. Not sure if he just forwarded it on though:

Sent: Friday, 23 December 2011 7:55 AM
Subject: FW: Merry Christmas
Importance: High

Dear Regulation Super Humans

It's been a very busy and sometimes difficult year coping with the pace of regulatory change. At Gadens, as usual we are ahead of the pack and have developed an appropriately worded Xmas card for the regulatory aware.

Please accept, with no obligation, implied or implicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low stress , non addictive, gender neutral celebration of the summer solstice holiday practiced with the most enjoyable traditions of religious persuasion or secular practices of your choice with respect for the religious / secular persuasions and / or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all .

I also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2012, but not without due respect for the calendar of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make our country great ( not to imply that Australia is necessarily greater than any other country ) and without regard to the race, creed, colour, age, physical ability, religious faith or sexual preference of the wishee .

By accepting this greeting, please be advised that you are accepting these terms :

This greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawal. It is freely transferable on the proviso that there is no alteration to the original greeting. It implies no promise by the wisher to actually implement any of the wishes for her / him or others and is void where prohibited by law, and is revocable at the sole discretion of the wisher. The wish is warranted to perform as expected within the usual application of good tidings for a period of one year or until the issuance of a new wish at the sole discretion of the wisher .

Best Regards ( without prejudice )

Name withheld ( Privacy Act)