Unfinished Business by Anne-Marie Slaughter

Left to nature alone, the population on earth would be give or take 50% men and 50% women, according to what's become known as Fisher's Principle. But look at the statistics: US has just 15% women in C-suite, only 20% senators or law firm partners. Women surgeons represent only 21% of surgeons. For all those who believe that women are more than adequately represented in the teaching profession, remember that only 24% of full time tenured professors are women. How do we explain this?

Anne-Marie Slaughter has been one of those super successful women. Her husband is a full time tenured professor at Princeton. She is a full time tenured professor at Princeton (actually, she is the dean of Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs) where she “teaches a full course load; writes regular print and online columns on foreign policy; gives 40 to 50 speeches a year; appears regularly on TV and radio and more. All this was before she was invited to be the first woman director of policy planning at the State Department, in US working with Hillary Clinton. And then she quit to be with her two sons who were pre-teens. Why did she quit? For that you need to see this video.

A video circulated in the spring of 2014 that purported to show people being interviewed for a position called “director of operations.” It involved working all the time, with no breaks for holidays, lunch, or even sleep, and required “excellent negotiation and interpersonal skills.” The position was unpaid. The candidates responded to the job description by balking. “That’s inhumane!” they cried, “That’s insane!” Then, at the end of the video, the interviewer told them that someone actually holds this job already—in fact, billions of people. “Moms,” he tells the job seekers, who laugh and thank their mothers.

How is this book any different from Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In? (Sandberg’s key idea summarized). The fate of their careers and their families is within their control. “If you lean in too much you will tip over” says Anne-Marie poking a tongue-in-cheek jibe at Ms Sandberg’s argument.

According to Unfinished Business the solution is different. “We need to remodel our workplaces so that our employers no longer assume that a lawyer or a businessperson can be available 24/7 to answer email or that a restaurant worker or clerk can be available 24/7 to staff a sift.” Framed that way, the focus is on redesigning the work and workplace norms and take it beyond gender. She starts the book by debunking three major myths why women are not represented in larger numbers.

Myth 1: If you are committed enough to your career…

Myth 2: If you marry the right person …

Myth 3: Sequence it all right …

Unfinished Business examines these arguments that assume that you have to forget life outside work and be available 24/7 if you are aspiring to a top job. If men can do it – so can ambitious women. If you focus on life beyond work, that is evidence that you are not committed enough. So marry someone who will play an active role and share your domestic chores. And tuck the life events around career commitments.

Unfinished Business goes on to question this model. The three myths do not factor in late or no marriage, divorce, infertility, a fluctuating economy, unsympathetic bosses who do not believe in supporting your life events etc. Why should having a career mean that you can’t see your children? All the men who hold successful executive jobs have a spouse who is the primary caregiver at home – whether to tend to children or aging parents and ailing family members. Men with wives at home rarely ask for reduced hours. Men have always known that choosing to work from home or telecommuting can slow down careers. For women often this is not a choice.

We straddle two opposing behaviors: Competing with others where we put our self-interest first. Caregiving where we put the needs of others first. Today caregiving is not valued as much as competition. Hence the breadwinner has economic status as well as social status which means many caregiving roles like teaching etc are not paid well enough because we assume just about anyone could do that.

The role of a parent as a caregiver is not just about feeding and clothing the child but also about teaching discipline (holding the line between tears, threats and curses), coaching, encouraging, problem solving and character building. Certainly role-modelling. You think that is easy to do it well?

That is what makes this book a compelling read. And perhaps a fresh take on the diversity. Until caregiving is valued over competition, we will always undervalue the caregiver’s role.

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