Sorry, Not Sorry: #RadChicks February Book Club Primer

At the start of every school year, on the dozens of forms parents have to fill out regarding contact information—whom to call in an emergency, whom to call if a kid gets sent to the nurse or gets lost on a field trip, etc.—I put my husband’s name and phone number first. I clearly indicate that he should be the one the school calls before they call anyone else, myself included. He is simply more readily available and therefore the better resource in an emergency. 

Guess how many times the school has actually called my husband first? 

Never.

They see our kids have two parents and automatically assume mom is the one to call. Which is, of course, just a microcosm of an issue that’s been dogging women since the start of time. We are the caretakers, the fixers, the ones who can and will drop everything to solve someone else’s problem; never mind our careers or that we may have priorities aside from the ones society continues to blindly, blithely assign us. 

“I’m at work right now,” I calmly say whenever my kids’ school calls during the day with an issue. “Please call my husband.”

There is always a beat. “Oh,” the school employee says. “The husband. Okay.” 

I know I can’t be the only mom who isn’t listed first on her child’s contact form and yet the clear implication here is that this is highly unusual, calling a dad first. People simply expect that mom will be there. 

There was a time when I let myself feel bad about it. This time was brief, but real. Should I be the one to drop everything? Am I shirking an essential duty here? What does this say about me as a mother, if I’m delegating this so often to my partner? 

The answer? Nothing. Nothing of significance anyway. If anything, it says, “This is a successful, productive woman over here who knows she can’t leave work on a moment’s notice to fetch her kids, so she’s letting her husband handle this one—capiche?” 

But this is such a hard mindset for many of us to fully adopt, especially those of us juggling careers and marriage and motherhood. The patriarchal gender expectations sometimes feel rooted in our DNA. It’s taken generations to begin to break free from the stereotypes. And even though things aren’t exactly as dire as they were, say, in 1950 when it comes to women and expectations and traditional gender roles, let’s not fool ourselves—it’s still not great. 

According to LeanIn.org, women comprise less than a quarter of C-suites across the U.S. It’s not hard to figure out why: Women are statistically less likely to be hired or promoted to managerial positions. It’s hard to break a glass ceiling when we’re stuck in a cubicle and less qualified men are being promoted. Even harder when we’re silently judged for having kids, then not staying home with those kids, or for not having kids at all. It can leave us feeling in a tangle. How can we figure out what’s best for us when we’re always worrying about what’s best for the world around us? We think we should put ourselves first, speak out, speak up, forge ahead, but that niggling voice of doubt lingers. Our default mode seems to be to worry more about whether we are fulfilling societal expectations rather than our own, and to never quite feel worthy of our aspirations. 

For many of us, these insidious voices began to make noise in our earliest days of school, when we were taught—expected—to be well-behaved, quiet, polite, and deferential, while the boys were free to be aggressive, rambunctious, and competitive. Who among us doesn’t have a memory of the same boys repeatedly being called on during class to answer questions, even though our own arms ached from staying raised almost constantly? 

This trend doesn’t change much in college. Data has shown again and again that, especially in STEM classes, professors have a bias against female students. (Which may explain why so few women become STEM professors themselves.) After spending more than half our lives receiving the message in a million small but powerful ways that we don’t matter as much as our male counterpoints, it’s no mystery why we fall into a trap of telling ourselves we don’t deserve the success we secretly desire, or that whatever path we feel calling our name is probably not the right one.

This month’s book club selection, “Girl, Stop Apologizing” by Rachel Hollis, delves into the excuses and habits we all make too often and know too well: 

• I’m not goal-oriented
• I don’t have enough time
• I’m not enough to succeed
• I’m terrified of failure
• What will they think?

And so on. 

Sound familiar? Yep, here too. The good news is, Rachel has answers and ideas and instructions for overcoming all of those tired-but-true mental obstacles. On Wednesday evening we will mix it up, spill our guts and talk not only about Rachel’s thoughts on these issues but what hurdles we struggle with the most, the fears and beliefs that hold us back, and how we’re trying to overcome them. 

Together, we can push the unrealistic and outmoded expectations women are judged against out of our own heads and maybe, just maybe, out of the lexicon of society forever. 

SOURCES:

https://leanin.org/women-in-the-workplace-2019?gclid=CjwKCAiA1rPyBRAREiwA1UIy8LkELcGBvpYKhG7rHHm2mclpr4rx8cvEanplf3WmPC4OhaeNjLJo5hoCIl8QAvD_BwE

https://www.pnas.org/content/109/41/16474