Embracing the Anti-Hero

I work for a company that has over the last year started having very open and brave conversations with women. Recently I was listening in on a meeting with a group of very diverse women spanning the breadth of our organisation, and I was struck by the overriding tone of the conversation, which was about balance, multi-tasking, trying to ‘get to more things’ to keep everyone happy: kids, partners, bosses, employees. In summary, the conversation revolved around everyone and everything other than themselves. I asked a male friend at work what an informal meeting with a bunch of guys would be about, and he mentioned something about golf irons and handicaps and whiskey.

Putting ourselves first

Why is it so difficult for women to admit to wanting things only for themselves? And then to go out and get those things the way a man would? Glennon Doyle suggests that women struggle to admit what they want, or that they want anything for themselves. “Girls are trained to prioritize others’ comfort over their own safety. We are conditioned to honour politeness over our own instincts. We want to be accommodating even more than we want to be safe, or comfortable, or happy, or freaking alive.”

Elise Loehnen, in her book “On our Best Behaviour – the price women pay to be good” explores the roots of the patriarchy via the seven deadly sins, recognising that they underpin much of our behaviour to this day, resulting in a culture of self-denial among women and girls. She writes that it is very unusual to see a woman who puts herself first, and that those who do so are usually ‘reflexively disliked’ by other women.

I grew up with two full time working parents – both professors of medicine. While my dad was out quite literally saving lives, my mom was cooking us dinner between seeing patients, writing academic papers, and ferrying us to our extra-curricular activities. I have distinct memories of her in the kitchen in her 1980s pencil skirts (wish she’d kept those!), doing five things at once, admiring her efficiency but being simultaneously irate that she wasn’t giving her full attention to my drama of the day.

30+ years later with my own kids, in a household with two full time working parents, and the situation is similar. I’m the one standing in the kitchen every night, cooking, making lunchboxes, while finishing work calls and trying to pay attention to the kids’ litany of questions and stories. Of course, I can put a stop to this any day. We can eat an hour later so that my husband – who gets home later – can cook. The kids can make their own lunchboxes. I am privileged enough to be able to pay our nanny overtime to stay later. But I don’t do any of this. I choose to do it all myself, over and over again, without question. Because I CAN DO IT ALL.

And I’m not the only one – my female colleagues and friends are twisting themselves into pretzels every day trying to be everything to everyone. “For me to find time to exercise I’d have to do it at midnight”, one of my friends at work told me last week. “And by that time of night, all I want to do is crawl into bed and die.”

Having the courage to act ‘selfishly’

More recently, as we’ve hit our 40s, I’ve come to know women who have taken what they’ve wanted, personally and professionally, with a ‘damned if I care’ approach. Early on, I found myself judging them hard. How could they put their own (selfish) wants and needs ahead of other people in their lives? How could they expect so much of their husbands? And then, I saw them flourish. Some abandoned corporate life to pursue their own ventures, others went on work trips without a care in the world about what their husband was feeding the kids (Uber eats 5 nights in a row), and a few filed for divorce. Now I recognised that my judgement was rooted in envy. Envy that they had the courage to unshackle themselves from society’s expectations of what a good woman should be, of demanding and bringing into being more for themselves.

I always joke with my husband that if we were on a sinking ship in the ocean, he’d go find an island and rescue himself first – and then he would pull us ashore one by one. I, on the other hand, would have the family climb on my back trying to save them all while drowning myself. I think it’s clear what the better strategy here is (clue: it’s not mine).

Why is it so hard for us to want things just for ourselves without guilt or fear of other’s judgement? To go after what we want at work, confidently and boldly without worrying about being ‘too much’? To insist on true equality at home – every day, not only on our birthday or women’s day or when we’re sick. We are repeating what we’ve been implicitly taught for generations: that women exist to take care of and nurture others. That our role is in the shadows. Quietly we have been carrying the weight of generations on our shoulders. And it is too much.

America Ferreira’s now famous Barbie monologue captures this perfectly: “It is literally impossible to be a woman. You are so beautiful, and so smart, and it kills me that you don’t think you’re good enough. You have to never get old, never be rude, never show off, never be selfish, never fall down, never fail, never show fear, never get out of line. It’s too hard. I’m just so tired of watching myself and every single other woman tie herself into knots so that people will like us.”

Embracing discomfort

As our generation starts to understand the importance of equity over equality and women’s voices from all over the world are making themselves heard, it is important that even within our own microcosms we shake off our guilt and feelings of shame for putting ourselves first. We can’t expect our husbands to step up to the plate at home if we don’t let them and allow things to happen their way (not insist they do things our way). We can’t expect our bosses to throw open the doors to the corner office without telling them – repeatedly – that we want it. And we definitely can’t vilify other women for living ‘selfishly’. In fact, we should be applauding them. By adding more and more to our plates, doing it all and being it all for everyone around us, we are not heroes. Feminism really will become our greatest curse and we will, quite simply, burn out.

I have railed against the patriarchy for years, while actively keeping it alive at home. I have held the women I work with to a higher standard than the men because if I can do it all, so can they. I have judged friends that have chosen a different life path to my own while silently stewing in envy because I wish I had even an iota of the freedom they have created for themselves. I have played an active part in keeping a lot of what I fight against alive.

Imagine what we could achieve if we just stopped. Stopped trying to do it all and be it all. We would be so much more than we are now, and the world would be better for it.?