How #MeToo is making the “working women” conversation about more than motherhood.

The new “She-conomy.” That was the title on the powerpoint deck that showed up on my desktop Monday morning from a client who shall remain unnamed. Women, it told me, are being allowed to make more purchasing decisions than ever, and have more control of their finances than in the past. Women, it said, spend their money in all kinds of ways, from beauty to homegoods to fashion. Women, it elucidated, are “more difficult to sell to.” Than whom, it did not say, although I assume it was referring to “regular humans,” AKA “men.”

Nowhere in the many pages of mansplaining (I am assuming this deck was authored by a man) did it mention equal pay, or gender imbalances within leadership roles at major corporations leading to a lack of consideration for female needs in the design of mass-market consumer goods, or the lack of economic support for emotional labor that is disproportionately handled by women, or even the pink tax. Nor was there any mention of Lady Doritos. However, I received this deck about 2 hours BLD (“Before Lady Doritos”) so that’s to be expected.

But I digress.

As I dug through my lesson in she-conomics, it inevitably and unsurprisingly fell into the trap that almost all writing on women’s economic power does; a trope as irresistable to the Evangelical Right as it is to the pseudo-feminist think pieces and “women in the workplace” panels of the Left: the conflation of womanhood and motherhood as one.

The truth is, for way too long, when the conversation has been about women, it hasn’t really been about us. It’s been about our kids, our families, and the people for whom we disproportionately carry the burden of care. The companies we work for seek to recruit us and retain us with maternity leave and flex time (if we’re lucky). They assume the reason we drop out is the strain on the families we may or may not have, and our desire to stay home with them more.

But when women were asked what would convince them to stay at a job, the top answer wasn’t flex time. In fact, that didn’t even crack the top three. The thing women said they wanted more than anything? More money and more opportunities for promotion. Sounds just like men, only men are more likely to actually get it.

So why do so many conversations focus on giving women benefits that primarily benefit motherhood? Eli Lilly offers after school programs for their employees’ kids. That’s a start, but let’s be real: this should honestly be attractive to parents of any gender. Meanwhile, Carol Robinson, a chemist at Oxford, is quoted by Science magazine as stating that when it comes to recruiting women into STEM fields, female leaders “should be careful not to seem so driven that they put off younger colleagues… I believe that the onus is on women who hold top positions, and have family responsibilities, to celebrate the work–life balance it enables; be vocal about the positive benefits, such as the freedom to attend school events; take your family to international meetings; and [be] supportive of younger colleagues.” That feels… less nice. And then there’s Apple and Facebook offering to pay for employees to freeze their eggs — an extreme solution that makes it clear that when it comes to helping women in the workplace, most companies are attempting to solve for the wrong problem. They approach the issue of hiring and retaining women from the perspective that motherhood is problematic when, in reality, the far bigger issue at hand is the prevalence of corporate cultures that make one of the core biological functions of the female sex feel like a liability. And so, offering to help women undergo dangerous, time-consuming procedures in order to work longer hours seems to actually make sense. Meanwhile, the companies that undertake these initiatives get to collect some good PR while they continue ignoring the one thing that might actually address why women really drop out: the growing necessity of making meaningful changes to correct for their overtly masculine internal cultures. Companies don’t like that approach, though. It’s complicated, time consuming, and probably means pushing out some of their guy friends at the top.

But the conversation has begun to sound a bit different in recent months. Talk of office daycares have faded into the background as #metoo has women coming forward. And with organizations like Time’s Up turning the moment into a movement, one of the radical side effects is the pulling back of the curtain on a secret that 51% of our society already knew: that motherhood is not the only thing keeping women from succeeding the workplace. For maybe the first time in our culture, the conversation around women in the workplace is actually focused on the experiences of all women — the young, the old, the rich, the poor, the Hollywood elite, the woman you kinda know from Facebook, the cis, the trans, the black, the brown, the white, the management, the c-suite, the entry level, the single, the married, the divorced, the childless, and yes, the mothers, too. The trick now is not allowing the conversation to stop at sexual harassment. Instead, we need to embrace this as a chance to open up the discussion about the complex set of issues that depress the careers of women at every level, and discourage them from pursuing more.

So let’s not abandon the push for parental leave and flex time, and let’s continue to put pressure on sexual harassers and the companies that employ them. But let’s also talk about some other stuff. I’ll start:

• Let’s talk about the effects of “cultural fit” as a hiring metric in reinforcing monocultures hostile to women and people of color. When companies that are overwhelmingly white and male look for people who “fit,” they overwhelmingly hire people who are also white and male. See: Google and their pursuit of employees who exhibit “grit,” “emergent leadership,” and yes, “Googleyness.” Yes, they state they look for diversity, too, but as one infamous memo tells us, their desire to hire people that remind them of themselves isn’t exactly accomplishing it. Even if this isn’t the intended outcome, and even if they don’t realize they’re doing it, unconscious bias is real, as is the fact that we tend to, often unwittingly, hire people who remind us of ourselves. That’s why progressive companies are already beginning to phase out cultural fit as a hiring practice. Any company that says it’s serious about diversity should consider doing so, too.
• Let’s talk about how even when companies do hire women, they’re often placed in “nurturing” and support roles. My old boss, Laura Fegley (who I should note, is brilliant and badass) once wrote an article for Campaign in which she extolled the joys of working in an advertising agency creative department that was made up of 50% women. And indeed, it was an awesome thing that is, unfortunately, still too rare. But when it comes to empowering women in the workplace, it can’t just come down to a numbers game. As more and more companies like to tout their increasing numbers of female hires, it’s far more difficult to find specific numbers regarding how their roles are allocated. If my anecdotal evidence from a decade in agencies and startups is worth anything (and, well, it’s anecdotal, so YMMV), it looks like this: male-dominated creative departments, helmed by male leadership, sometimes supported by women at the junior level, all supported by female account supervisors and project managers. And if you’re not into anecdotal evidence, perhaps this number will convince you: As of 2016, only 11% of agency leaders were female. That’s a sharp increase from 3% in 2012, but still isn’t exactly brag-worthy. If we really want women to thrive in the workplace, we have to break down the myth of the brilliant male leader, elevate women, and give them jobs that can’t be colloquially described as “office mom.” They need to be be seen as thought leaders, and put in positions to do the kind of work that gets people promoted and recruited. They need to be given “a shit ton of money” (Cindy Gallop’s words, not mine). And they need to not just be responsible for taking care of and cleaning up after male leaders, because quite frankly, nothing will burn a woman out faster than being forced to be mean mommy to a bunch of adult men who get paid more than her.
• Let’s talk about equal pay. It’s 2018. How is this still a problem?
• But seriously, let’s also talk about what’s causing the disparity in pay. It’s as much about the types of jobs women traditionally do as it is about the incredibly outdated myths of male breadwinning and brilliance that companies use to justify paying their female workers less. Let’s go back to the example of the female advertising creative (sorry, it’s my truth). If she’s anything like me, she’s generally given assignments on traditionally female accounts. But most awards shows are judged by men — and they’re more likely to award typically masculine creative ideas and humor. Awards are how creatives in advertising get promoted. When you don’t win awards, it becomes that much more difficult to get a bump in title or pay. She will most likely get paid less than her male counterparts because her accounts are seen as less likely of generating buzz (and therefore business) for the agency. Or maybe she actually makes the same as the men at her level, but those men’s “award-worthy work” will get them promoted much more quickly, therefore increasing their lifetime earning potential as a result. This type of dynamic doesn’t just apply to advertising. It’s rampant in every field — even the traditionally female ones.
• Let’s keep on this fair pay tip and talk about another type of labor that goes completely uncompensated: family caregiving. “Wait,” you say. “Taking care of an aging parent or a young child is the right thing to do. Why in the world would you pay someone for that?” That’s not unfair. But it’s also not the point I’m trying to make. As of 2015, 66% of family caregivers were female. The average caregiver is 49 years old and provides 20 hours of unpaid labor a week. And even when men do assist, it’s estimated that women spend about 50% more time caregiving than them on average. During those hours, she is unavailable for other paying work, and the limitations on her availability mean that most high-earning jobs are unavailable to her. It will also decrease her retirement savings by $40,000 in comparison to male caregivers, decrease her Social Security by $324,044, and make it less likely that she can retire altogether. While it may be difficult to provide a paycheck for family caregivers, there’s no reason that any developed country shouldn’t be able to offer extended guaranteed paid family leave and tax credit for them. Except, well, Republicans.
• Let’s talk about intersectionality, and how the odds become that much worse for women of color, women with disabilities, non-gender-binary persons, and women who identify as anything other than straight. A study by Ascend found that “white women made meaningful progress and moved from 12% below executive parity in 2007 to 17% above parity by 2015. All minority men and women remained below parity, their Executive representation less than Professional representation during the nine-year period.” The EEOC’s nine designations of protected classes are treated as discrete, in spite of the fact that often, when they overlap, the chances of discrimination rise exponentially. Much of the conversation around women in the workplace up until now has primarily focused on the concerns of straight, white women (and, admittedly, this is my own experience, so I speak from this privileged perspective as well). But creating workplaces that work for women means thinking about all women, and the large spectrum of needs that encompasses.
• Let’s talk about being interrupted in meetings, then told you need to speak up more in your annual review.
• Let’s talk about stamina, and how women are often accused of not being able to hack long hours. I assume it has never occured to the people who leverage this accusation that if we are, indeed, exhausted, perhaps it’s from having to work twice as hard to get half as far.
• Let’s talk about the oft-lamented dearth of talented, qualified women with vertical ambition. I have worked for enough mediocre men to know first-hand that it’s not a lack of ambitious, qualified women that’s elevated them to the c-suite. Meanwhile, as David Krupp writes for Adweek, “female entrepreneurs were found to be 19 percent more likely to be running billion-dollar companies than men.” And in case that isn’t clear enough, please refer to this Business Insider article by Seth Archer named “Companies with women in leadership roles crush the competition,” and this Forbes article by Tonya McNeal-Weary called “Companies with lots of women are actually more successful.”
• Let’s talk about the fallacy of Lean In, and putting the onus of solving a problem caused by men on women. Or maybe let’s not. Enough people have already talked this to death.
• Let’s talk about the co-opting of feminism by capitalism, and whether they’re compatible. I, for one, would argue no but I’m always game for a spirited discussion.
• Let’s talk about the fact that the pipeline theory is bullshit, and has been academically debunked, yet still seems to persist in the imaginations of those who think recruitment efforts without retainment efforts are enough.
• Let’s talk about the fact that I’ve heard numerous intelligent, empowered women in my life express fear that #metoo has gone too far. That it could mean they won’t get hired because men would be afraid of saying something and getting into trouble. That it would kill fun. That it would mean they’d get left out of the room even more. Let’s talk about the fact that women report sexual harassment to HR and are told they need to be careful because they’re worried about the legal ramifications that could arise from getting rid of the accused. Let’s talk about the fact that even when we speak up as we’re told we should, the institutions that are supposed to protect the innocent are still more concerned with shielding the guilty.
• Let’s talk about men, and having difficult but necessary conversations with them. Let’s talk about how we’ve fucked up in the past, and will probably all fuck up in the future. Let’s hold each other accountable but create space to learn from our mistakes.
• Let’s talk about institutional sexism at a cultural level, because that’s really where this all starts.
• And let’s keep talking about what it means to be a working mom, too. Senator Tammy Duckworth is poised to be the first U.S. congresswoman to give birth. She will be forced to choose between caring for her child and being present for some very important votes due to Senate rules barring children on its floor. It’s an example that somehow feels totally unrelatable (most of us are not one of the most powerful women in Illinois), and yet completely familiar to any mother who’s had to go back to work before she’s ready to leave her kid. As long as motherhood is treated like an inconvenience, every woman capable of motherhood (whether it’s in the cards or not) will be treated as a liability.

I’ll stop there for now. I could go on! You probably think I already did (hey, women be talking, right?). But I know I’ve missed a lot, and my perspective is that of only one fairly well-off straight white woman. So what do you want to talk about?

(If you say “men’s rights,” you’re fired.)