Older and in Charge!

“Women, we’re nurturers, that’s what’s expected of us. We have our children, we have our husbands if we’re lucky enough, and our partners. But we have to find personal fulfillment. We have to follow our dreams. We have to say, “I can do that, and I should be allowed to do that.”

 

Glen Close famously said that in her Golden Globes acceptance speech last Sunday. She is just one of a growing group of successful women over 60 coming into their own power in this present moment. Think Nancy Pelosi, Maxine Waters, Susan Zirinsky who was just named the head of CBS News.  This is a demographic of women who are sidelined and silenced no more.  But why now? A recent NY Times article points out a few unique reasons that 60+ women are taking center stage:

 

  • The overall aging population is staying healthier and working longer than ever.

 

  • The #metoo movement forced a reckoning with power dynamics and unfair gender structures that have historically kept women from reaching the top.

 

  • Women who started working in the 70s and 80s are now at the height of their power and success… as their male counterparts are dealing with the fall out of their poor behavior.

 

The rise of women as a political, cultural and professional force can’t be ignored. Let’s hope it spreads and companies fill their leadership roles with older, experienced women. The pipeline of female talent to senior level roles is depleted because, according to Pew Research,  39% of mothers say they have to take time off to care for family and 42% reduce their hours. This is a fact that is talked about a lot about in articles, conferences and summits but there are very simple answers:

 

  • Hire and promote more women
  • Create family-friendly policies including fluid parental leave,  flexible hours and remote options.

 

The more the workplace changes to accommodate the needs of women early in their careers the more women will remain engaged, rise up the ranks and take home the ultimate prize– power!

 

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Motherhood Misogyny

Once upon a time, back when Gina and I were first hatching the idea for The Second Shift, we spoke to everyone we knew about our idea. One of our early meetings was with a very well-known and successful Public Relations strategist who gave us her time and advice. One thing I remember clearly from the meeting is she told us not to use the word “mom” because the perception of the word undervalues the expertise and professionalism of the women in our member community.

 

I thought of this today when I read an opinion piece in the NYTimes by Hillary Frank, a journalist and creator of the podcast “The Longest Shortest Time” about all things motherhood. In the op-ed she writes that she hit invisible barriers to success because the topic of the stories she tells revolve around mothers and children—and this is on NPR!!

 

“ I met rejection after rejection…. One guy put it more bluntly: who wants to listen to this except for moms?”

 

I have been asked if The Second Shift is a company for Betty Drapers who want to work in between rounds of golf. I have been told by a male investor that he can’t envision who are our members are because he would never hire his wife or her friends. What I have found is the minute you bring motherhood into the story the tone changes and you have to start explaining and qualifying when, the truth is, as Gina eloquently explains, “you are not doing them a favor and hiring our members because they are mothers. The only reason they are available for you to hire is because they are mothers.”

 

Luckily, in the past few years the public conversation about women and parenthood has dramatically changed for the better: increasingly companies are understanding how and why parents need flexibility in their schedules, and parental leave for both genders is becoming more common. Companies like Twitter have 20-week leave for primary caretakers and work with The Second Shift to fill those leaves because statistics show it can improve employee retention rates by 50%. Progressive companies like JP Morgan, American Express, Microsoft and others are offering external childcare partnerships and benefits like IVF reimbursement and career mentorship. Businesses like Babycenter, Hatch and Care.com are proving that motherhood has become a big business. Where there is money there is power and that will ultimately change the “mom” PR problem forever.

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“Momism” in Journalism

Recently NY Times writer David Leonhardt made the case that prejudice against women with children, or “momism,” in the field of journalism is the main reason why men are disproportionately represented at every level in the media workplace.  

 

“Women do almost as well as men today,” Jane Waldfogel, a Columbia University profession, has said, “as long as they don’t have children.”

 

This story is incredibly personal for me because it mirrors my own. I started out in journalism as a wide-eyed intern at World News Tonight with Peter Jennings hoping to be the next Christiane Amanpour. Over the years I worked my way through internships and local news affiliates finally earning a master’s degree in journalism at Columbia University. Amongst other freelance work, I worked in booking at Good Morning America, as a reporter/camera operator/editor at a local news channel in the Bronx, and as a producer and talk show host at Plum TV.

 

Journalism is a cutthroat career with a relentless and punishing schedule. There were very few role models for how to have a successful working marriage, family and career. At each stage of my career the signposts were not pleasant for working mothers: Not one of my female bosses or professors were married or had children. It was incredibly disheartening to look around a newsroom and not see anybody whose life you wanted to emulate, career yes, personal life no.

 

Leonhardt quotes from a recent article in Poynter, “The news business is unfair to journalists with children…” it continues, they “say they have few role models in management who demonstrate what it means to have a viable balance between work and caregiving responsibilities.”

 

When my children were born I made the decision to pivot my career to a different field. It wasn’t only the lack of role models that inspired this decision—my husband had just launched a start-up and the intensity of that endeavor upended our family balance, but equally important, the television news business had changed and was a decidedly less exciting place to work crazy hours with little monetary reward.

 

It turned out that transitioning my skills and experience was not easy, and the struggle I faced inspired me to co-found The Second Shift. There are many women like me, who want to continue working but need a way to remain engaged and useful when the path they are on is no longer an option. That is what The Second Shift solves—we offer a way for the workforce to retain talented women by providing a path in and out of the full-time workforce without completely giving up their careers.

 

To this day I am a die-hard news junkie; I have profound love and respect for the hard work of journalists and the media. I have deep admiration for my friends and colleagues who stuck it out and managed to keep their careers going while having multiple children and somehow balancing it all (you know who you are and kudos!) My hope is that women coming up in their careers will have different options open to them and a world that is more forgiving and offers more flexibility. I miss working in the news world and telling stories that affect society at large. However, I know that through The Second Shift I am making a difference in our member’s lives and changing the landscape for all working women.

 

– Jenny Galluzzo

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