From Here to Autonomy

Pregnancy Journal Entry #1: Unintended insults by H-band

Really I shouldn't complain--he's been unbelievably supportive. But there are a few zingers:

--Wow, look at that happy trail!

--Linea negra what? No I'm pretty sure that's a happy trail.

--I'll just assume that was one of the "mood swings" they mentioned in the book.

--I thought you started losing hair AFTER pregnancy.

--It's OK, Sweetie. We'll work it off together.

--No really, let ME make the meals when she starts eating.

--I'm not trying to make you feel bad; I'm sure that having gas is perfectly normal. I'm just amazed there's room for so much air in your tummy when you already have a baby in there.

--I'm just enjoying them now, while I have them.

Mother's guilt begins: Contemplating third trimester travel

A few weeks ago I went to my monthly appointment with my midwife, a gal I've moved heaven and earth (translation: moved to a more expensive insurance plan) to keep. Every few weeks, as I get more and more uncovered lab invoices and anticipate the biggie to come--the hospital bill--I remind myself that I chose this situation. I chose this insurance plan because it includes in its network the hospital where my midwife works, and I really, really like my midwife. She's been in the midwifery business for years, she came very well recommended, and when we met I said to myself--SHE'S the one.

So then, why can I not take her advice?

My monthly checkup was about 90 percent complete--baby's heartbeat is fine, my growth is normal, my pee is normal--when H-band decides to chime in with The Question. The question I'd answered for myself a long time ago, but obviously not to his satisfaction:

"You know, Jory's got a blogging conference in New York in early August she's planning on going to. She's been traveling a lot lately, and this would be her last trip, but I just wonder if it's a good idea."

Midwife asks: "How many weeks will you be?"

"Thirty four," H-band says.

"Thirty three," I correct him, "entering my thirty fourth."

Our midwife doesn't even take a second to think it over, "Oh well, you're not going."

"I'm not?"

"Oh no, not at thirty four weeks."

I throw out my defensive measure--the one I'd been resting on."My airline cut-off is thirty six weeks!"

"Airlines don't know what's best for you," she says launching into a very well-meaning discussion about how it makes perfect sense that I would still continue to think like a business person, since it's how I've derived my identity for so long, and how difficult it can be to start thinking like a mom. But starting now, it was time to think differently, make different decisions.

I think to myself, of course I will, but after the conference.

Mentally I cross off a business trip to Chicago and my high school reunion, which would take place the two weeks before my conference. These are the sacrifices I must make as a mom to be. But no. Not my conference.

****************************************************

Women's work?

Part of my experimentation with my new neighborhood involved trying a new place for a mani-pedi. This didn't come with a small amount of apprehension; a good mani-pedi place is hard to find.

I got comfortable in my chair, settling into the warm pool of water at my feet. An Asian man--not older than 35--lifted my right hand.

"What shape?"

"Short and square," I replied.

"This color on your hands and feet?" he asked, holding up the bottle of deep red that I had picked out when I walked in.

"Please."

I watched this man study my cuticles and start trimming away at my nails. This was most certainly a first for me--having a man give me a mani-pedi. I've seen more men come to salons to receive services, but never had I seen a man giving them before.

I noticed my judgements: Can this guy do a good job? Will he bungle the polish? I watched him work, when normally I would sit back and zone out.

But why would a man who's trained to give manicures do a bad job? This incident made me think about work, and more specifically, women's work versus men's work. What kind belongs to whom anymore?

____________________________________________


I hand H-band a piece of notebook paper with a list of tasks.

"For the week," I say to him, dubious that he would internalize my requests.

"Yep, thanks."

"What are you doing today?"

"Got some work out back, some shopping, and a call at lunchtime," he says.

I'm uneasy with his answer, "But what about the list? When will you get to the list?"

I wonder if, since leaving his company, he'll be efficient with his time, or productive. When we both worked full-time we divided tasks accordingly: He did household tasks like the dishes and most of the cooking. I paid the bills and planned things like travel and dinner parties. I gravitated toward things in the future; he handled things as they came up.  Now he was taking on everything at home: the immediate, the planned, and, when the baby comes, the primary caregiving.

I remind myself that he's good at this. I come home, and he's made dinner. I know that with our daughter he will do what comes naturally and keep her safe, fed, and loved. But I can't help myself: I plan.

"When will you call the insurance people?" I ask. "Will you hang the pictures today?" "Who are you meeting with today?" I want to make sure he really wants to do this. And I have to ensure he's structured, that he's in movement, that he still thinks of his future.

I need to watch him work because I question his instincts in this realm, even when they are more highly honed than my own.

 

 

Preggers

I saw a line, and a lighter line next to it. I read the box again; negative would be just one line. Any second line, light or equally dark, meant yep--with child. Or with embryo, or multiplying cell mass, whatever you want to call it.

"What's taking you so long?" H-band said, walking into the bathroom. I'd been taking longer than usual to get ready for our Saturday morning stroll for coffee. I handed him the piece of plastic I had been studying.

"We're pregnant." I said, perhaps too casually. I'd said that one time before, and devastatingly it didn't stay true for long.

That was January. I'm now just starting to believe the results. After paranoid judgments that I wasn't feeling sick enough and just didn't look pregnant enough--there couldn't possibly be a baby in there while I could still button my jeans--I'm starting to believe. Perhaps when I went in for the second trimester ultrasound and saw a skull and a spine.

"There are the arms," the lab tech said. I had no idea what she was talking about, I couldn't make out any extremities, but those words helped me loosen my grip on H-band's hand. I had no idea I had been holding it so tightly.

"Two?" I confirmed.

"Yes."

She then confirmed two legs, two lungs, and a four-chamber heart. I was almost back to breathing regularly at this point.

"How about the sex?" I asked.

"The baby's legs are closed," the tech said. I would later learn this is commonly said at second trimester ultrasounds as a CYA mechanism, "I'm pretty sure I can see labia...ninety-five percent sure."

I looked at the mass of white on the screen. "If you say so." I turned to H-band. Perhaps it was because a number of our friends were having girls lately that I had been so sure it was a boy. Or perhaps it was the illogical presumption that I had more Y chromosomes to offer up than X--I always felt like I had a lot of boy in me, despite the boobs and other anatomical indices.

"You happy?" I asked H-band.

"Yep," he said, not very convincingly. He'd told me that he didn't care what sex the baby was, but I could tell he felt a twinge of worry, just like I had over the prospect of having a little boy; a question of whether or not he would be able to understand her. I wasn't concerned; though I felt a little guilty. I grew up in a house of women--we take over.

I'm in the "honeymoon trimester". I feel like myself, though I find it more difficult to pick up things from the floor. My fitness instructor has to give me different instructions when we get to abdominals. People who don't know me just think I have a gut and am naturally well-endowed in the chest. Oh if they only knew.

The first trimester was difficult. I was hardly sick and not nearly as tired as I was warned I would be. But I traveled throughout and felt that the 20-30 percent less that I could bring to things was glaringly obvious; my insistence on a cranberry and soda at cocktail parties an admission. I wanted to say, "Not getting my hopes up too much yet," then I shushed myself. I didn't want to manifest the devastation I encountered last summer. I would do things differently this time, whatever that meant.

I came back from business trips and crashed over the weekend, too tired and icky feeling to get up off the couch some days. Still I was only sick-sick one weekend, during a trip to Mendocino. I'd puke and buy myself some hours of reprieve. I called my friend Lissa and my sister-in-law--both doctors--to ensure things were OK. Both said the symptoms sounded indicative of standard morning sickness. It must be something else, I told them. I just didn't feel sick enough.

I harbored a bit of a complex over not being "Mommy" enough. Moms get ubersick when they are pregnant. They look abundant. They drip with, I don't know, Momminess. But during the first trimester waiters still asked me if I'd have a glass of wine with dinner; no one insisted on helping me with my bags on airplanes. I wondered if I was fooling myself.

The few who knew early on asked me, "How will you do it?" I know people wonder that. I've not exactly been one who has lived with visible boundaries between my work and life. The past five years have been all-in. There was a point where I had to stop asking myself that same question. It had become an excuse to not try for something else.

A year or so ago I began practicing creating more space--nothing glaringly obvious. While traveling, I'd stop working before I passed out from exhaustion, taking in a TV show or reading a book before I fell asleep. I came home earlier from work, knowing full-well that I'd get back on email later that night, but at least making it home for dinner. I stopped cramming things into the periphery of my day and letting the things I chose to do stand on their own, without having the less-important accomplishments lean against them like tchotchkes from some garage sale, unnecessary bulk.

Yesterday, after a long day working at home--after two weeks of on and off travel--H-band started in,

"You need to start talking to the baby," he said. "She can hear you."

"I've been on conference calls all day," I said. "She's heard me plenty."

He's been insistent on providing stimuli for the baby, just lately playing this game with my gut, poking my side three times and then waiting for the baby to poke back. She isn't exactly a counter yet, but she's responsive.

"One, two, three."

(pause)

"(Thud)"

"One, two, three."

(pause)

"(Thud)"

H-band gets a kick out of this; it's an indication that she'll be responsive to us outside of the womb. We both want that reassurance that the story we're building in our heads--the one we keep repressing--will, in fact, come true.

No promises, I keep saying to myself, then saying more quietly, but why the hell not?

Where did all my hobbies go?

My business partner, Lisa, passed along a questionnaire from a blogger who will be writing about the working habits of female entrepreneurs. Both Lisa and my other partner, Elisa, had responded; I tried not to read their answers as I approached the questions, but I couldn't help but notice that our answers were eerily similar--with the exception that, as a parent, Lisa spends about 1/3 of her time parenting. Elisa and I try to eak in workouts, books/TV and the occasional cooked meal when we're not working or sleeping.

What amazed me about all of our responses:

--Our hours worked: We tend to put in similar amounts of hours, getting up early to address email, getting in a full work day, and jumping back on our computers to address email/reading after our dinners and activities with friends/spouses/children.

--Our time on email: It's an ever-present thing, even when we're traveling or "offline".

--Our dwindling hobbies: Elisa is a theater buff, and Lisa used to ski a ton. I used to go to yoga class religiously and write creatively. These pursuits were not in our answers, or they were mentioned as rare activities squeezed in while on vacation, or with the words "try to" preceding them, as in, "I TRY to catch a show once a month."

As I was typing my responses to these questions about what I did outside of work--working on a Saturday morning, as I tend to knock out reading I didn't get to during the week--I looked over at my husband, Jesse, embarrassed.

"Jeezus hun! I don't have hobbies anymore."

"You think?" he said, with no small amount of sarcasm.

I love to read profiles of other entrepreneurs, with the voraciousness many have while reading People, In-Style, or some other publication detailing the lives of the rich and famous. I love to hear how they spend their time, down to their commute routines. There's a column in Inc Magazine that showcases a different entrepreneur every month, detailing his/her typical work day. And I marvel at those who do such things as cycle religiously for two hours before sunrise, or who are competitive flamenco dancers on the side. How do they do it and run a business? I wonder.  

I think back to early in my career in New York City, when I worked at several media conglomerates and made it a goal of mine to hit all of the new plays, films, and hot spots I could afford that were listed in Time Out NY magazine. Going through old boxes this past month as I prepared for a move, I found an old collection of Playbills and matchbooks--proof that, once, I did stuff that was not work-related. I found old manuscripts and magazine clips and was amazed at the consecutive hours of creative time it must have taken to write it all. Though I wanted to pare down all the random detritus I'd collected over the years, I couldn't get myself to throw this stuff away.

Jesse and I stole away for a bagel this morning, and I bragged to him that every Saturday, back when I lived in New York more than 10 years ago, I used to walk to a local bagel shop, order one with one of three of my favorite shmear flavors, then stop over at the coffee shop across the street to read The New Yorker or a book I was reading with my book club. I didn't have a mobile phone or a laptop; it was a purely analog pursuit. And I'd spend hours there, enough to get my thoughts swirling. I'd go home and write up a storm.

I used to regularly host friends for dinner, planning the menu days before and often prepping food most of a Saturday afternoon. Or I'd endeavor to bake something I'd never made before.

I used to take classes on such things as fiction writing, winetasting, boxing, or improvisational acting, and attend book readings after work.

I feel slightly wistful, but hardly regretful, of the changes; I'm more mindful of them. On the other side of the coin, 10 years ago I yearned for more adventure out of my work, and to do more than read manuscripts and edit articles eight hours a day. I wished I could travel more. I wished that I could work for myself and maybe even support a family with my work. I wished that the time I did have wasn't spent wishing for more.

I may have no hobbies, but in that last respect the grass is most certainly greener today.

Real Advice on Public Speaking

I got a kick out of reading Tim Ferriss's post on how he prepares for a public speaking gig. Ironically Ferriss, author of The 4-Hour Workweek, could take up an entire four-hour work week with just his recommended prep alone.

Still, I appreciated his no-nonsense approach to getting things done, and in this post his candid admission, despite much acclaim and speaking opportunities, of not being a natural public speaker. I can totally relate. People who know me probably think that's disingenuous coming from me, an extrovert, a Gemini, a communicator. But it's true. Sure I love to talk, but talk in an organized, engaging manner? That takes practice.

Five years ago, if someone asked me if I had a strategy for public speaking, I would have said something about winging it and going with the flow. I am oddly more comfortable with being asked to share something off the top of my head than a practiced response with chunks of sound bites. Unfortunately for me these days that ain't realistic. So I did what I had to, built a speaking prep routine.

Over the past few years I've established best practices that work for me, and maybe for you:

The Rush: An entrepreneur's inevitable making

Becoming a woman wasn't something I looked forward to. Despite having read every Judy Blume book that existed, the thought of sprouting boobs and menstruation terrified me.

When the time came I was getting changed after gym class. I felt "the rush", and I panicked. I threw on the rest of my clothes and ran to my drama class.

About a fourth of the way into the class, right before we were to break into groups to practice a scene, I realized that I couldn't hold off any longer. I had to handle this--this new truth that I was hoping to hold off.

I approached my drama teacher, Mrs. Clooney, not sure of what I was going to say,

"Ummm, I think I just got my period," I said.

She looked at me like I'd just won the lottery.

"Congratulations!" she said. "Why don't you head on down to the nurse's office."

The feminine product I would receive was an albatross--the first of thousands to come over the course of my reproductive life. I wasn't excited or relieved to have made the transition so many of my friends had been anticipating excitedly for themselves. I was scared.

I wasn't fully aware of why I had dreaded this moment. Looking back I think I dreaded all that it implied; namely that I was meant for much headier endeavors, like being an adult, like motherhood. I anticipated choices that I would encounter that I could no longer say were never choices.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We said goodbye to a well-regarded employee last week. He's decided to stretch his enterprising muscle and build a writing practice around his passion for everything related to food. His goodbye was as charming as his many hellos after weekends he spent cooking or experiencing food; he came to the office bearing homemade cannoli--an aunt's unorthodox recipe that just worked. I must confess, I will miss his treats.

He stopped in my office to say goodbye. And while he had no "job" to go to per se, I was excited for him. I recall my own decision six years ago to leave my office position to explore things that beckoned but were yet unclear--when my excitement overshadowed any fears I had about making a living or permanently denting my career. When you've veered too far from your real path, blowing up your current one isn't such a big deal. Leaving my job to start my own amorphous "thing" was no longer a choice but a forgone conclusion.

Still, I knew that anyone on this journey can't help but question himself. Even if he decided to come back to W2 employment, he would be forever changed. He would find it difficult to extract purpose out of jobs he didn't create. Anything that he hasn't generated himself won't be as worthy. He'll want to forever create the recipes, even if his job is to simply follow instructions and make the food.

"Congratulations!" I said, hoping I didn't sound too excited that he was leaving. Fact was, I was excited, for reasons he wouldn't yet understand.

It's so easy to congratulate someone from the other side, like a drama teacher who exclaims to an adolescent girl that she is entering the next, inevitable phase of her purpose. You, the young woman, know that this outcome is likely, yet there's bound to be moments, maybe even months or years, of struggle and false starts. Moments when you think this isn't for me, or that you must be going crazy. There's an intuitive understanding that purpose is in the making, but you fear how much material stuff and identity will have to be let go in the process.

Still, you really can't avoid the rush when it happens. Mrs. Clooney was onto something: You might as well celebrate.

Death of an Entrepreneur

Somewhere around age 45 my father decided he didn't want to work anymore. He didn't tell anyone this; he may not even have told himself. He'd started his own business about ten years before and had worked like crazy. Dad's experience was in automotive print advertising sales and he'd developed a client base among local car dealerships. When he left the corporate world he had a network of clients ready to hire him to promote their dealership sales events. Some people say my Dad could sell anything.

Dad was successful initially through sheer force of will. Though his job was primarily in advertising and promotion, he personally touched every piece of the sales funnel--placing ads in the local papers, orchestrating mass mailings, being the voice of God in local TV and radio ads, donning his tuxedo on Saturday mornings and welcoming people into his clients' dealerships, and even at times selling the cars. At night, he'd come home exhausted, usually not having eaten all day. He'd loosen his tie and fix himself a drinkie winkie. Mom would ask, "How many?" Sometimes it was a number in the twenties, sometimes it was more.

For several years Dad sent out these massive mailings for his clients. He wrote and designed the materials; picked them up from the printer and then personally dropped off boxes of mailers, envelopes, and reams of names and stamps at the homes of my mom's girlfriends. They would hand-address, stamp and stuff, making maybe 40 bucks per job. For particularly big jobs my Dad employed his kids. It took a while before I was allowed to write on the envelopes--Dad wanted the writing to look professional--but eventually I got my own lists. I felt proud being trusted enough to help.

After several years Dad became more efficient. He printed labels for the mailers, which saved time and looked better. Still I think he did things the hard way. His business didn't have nearly the scope of one that would necessitate funding, but I don't think Dad thought along those lines anyway--of borrowing money to make more money, or of hiring staff in order to free him up to do more high-level thinking. His only "employee" was his unpaid bookkeeper, my mother, who admits her only qualification for the job was an ability to balance a checkbook. My father was a quick learner, but I do wonder now if things would have been different if he'd consulted others as he grew.

Why I don't care that low numbers of women are receiving VC funding

My first semester in college I went with some sorority sisters to a set-up (these were small parties that paired a sorority with a fraternity, and for which you were often "set up" with a date from that fraternity. The concept seems almost ludicrous to me now, given the potential room for mis-matches, but I digress). One of my pledge sisters asked me if I had a problem "being set up with a black guy."

The question threw me. I'd noticed, shall we say, homogeneity among my corn-fed, flat-accented, Midwestern sisters. But I'd gone to a racially diverse high school where I had African American friends, and interracial dating was quite common.

"Of course not," I said. I was above such foolishness. I silently prayed he was hot.

"Good," my friend said. "I mean, I would do it but my brother (who was white and even in the same fraternity as the black pledge) would kill me. You're so open to stuff like this; I knew you'd be a good sport."

I recall being offended, not for myself, but for my date. Did he know how his supposed peers felt about him? I resented the assumption that by agreeing to go out with someone of color I was somehow agreeing to take one for the team. And I questioned where I'd settled socially. Did these women accept me because they thought I saw the world like them?

I ended up having a fine, but not earth-shattering, time. My date was shy, even a bit standoffish. After my friend's comment I couldn't help but notice that he was the only black man in his pledge class. I wondered if he was aware of comments said behind his back, like the one my friend made, or if he was oblivious. He seemed restrained, even a bit false. He wore the same preppy clothes as his fraternity brothers; the same garden variety frat boy well-worn baseball cap. I also wondered if I was judging him as fake because he seemed "too white". What if he identified as being white? Was there anything inherently wrong with that?

At some point we started talking about our backgrounds, and he shared that he had been adopted as a baby by a white couple. He admitted to me that he didn't "feel" black and even referred to black people as "them." I felt sad. I felt like he was trying to say to me, "See, I really do belong here."

I wanted to tell him, "You don't really want to belong here. Believe me."

_____________________________________________

A few weeks ago I read several pieces that evoked anger, empathy, even silliness about the lack of venture-backed women entrepreneurs. Some focused specifically on Silicon Valley, tech-related businesses. One piece indicated "hidden biases" of VCs toward younger, male entrepreneurs who presumably have fewer distractions (read: families, concerns about hygeine) than women to worry about. This later led to discussion in the comments arguing for and against women's innate suitability as primary caregivers. One commenter, Carla Thompson:

...As long as a good-sized portion of the population, both male and female, believe that women are the only gender genetically predisposed to adequately nurturing and raising children, this problem will persist.

I knew that these blog posts were, indirectly and yet directly, about me, but I didn't know how I felt about them. In the end, I felt confused--certainly not inspired by comments of women who, despite biological realities, could claim to have managed it all--there were none of that sort offered. And I couldn't say that I have felt the back hand of bias in these matters. My partners and I had a business with a revenue model that was working in a growing industry and several years of experience to back us--that's what has mattered to our investors. Story told.

Have I felt marginalized as a female entrepreneur in Silicon Valley? Made to feel less worthy of funding because I have ovaries and may put them to reproductive use? No. Can I say that because I haven't experienced bias that there isn't a problem? No.

So I backed away from writing on the topic. I didn't feel I had a strong enough opinion either way.

I asked another female entrepreneur if she had read these recent pieces, and what did she think of them?

"What's to say?" she responded. "None of these writers asked actual female entrepreneurs in the Valley how they've felt."

"What would you have told them if they had?" I asked.

"It's a non-issue. Women can have babies and run businesses. Get over it."

I found myself wanting to verbally sweep my penchant for drama under the rug,

"Exactly," I said. "What's the big deal?"

Why do people make a big deal about these inequities when clearly there are women who are making things work? Why do we feel compelled to constantly pull out the data showing the lack of women being funded when, perhaps, most women simply don't want the life of a tech entrepreneur?

Why do I keep thinking of that set-up, my Freshman year in college?

___________________________________________________

Just this week I happened to be back in New York the day that my sister, Julie, did a signing for her new book, The Madame Curie Complex. I've browsed the book and read every review that currently exists on it, but embarrassingly have yet to read the damn thing. When people asked me what the book is about, the PR flak in me comes out:

"It reveals how some of the most acclaimed scientific discoveries made by men were actually made by women," I say, then wait for the oohs and ahhs one reserves for books that out Presidents and get you on Oprah.

Fortunately my sister is amazing at Cliff-noting herself at these events--I need to remind her to stop providing so much value at her readings, lest people think they can learn nothing more by buying her book. And she's entirely too noncontroversial. I realized that I've woefully oversimplified the premise of her book. It really has nothing to do with men taking credit for women's brilliant work, but rather women's brilliant work not being seen as brilliant, because it is women's work.

The Madame Curie Complex is a term meant to describe a standard women scientists often set for themselves (and is often perpetuated by men, to be fair). My sister writes in her book:

"No doubt, [Curie's] work helps to make the case that science is made to be manly rather than being inherently so. But Curie’s myth haunts these pages and the psyches of succeeding generations of women more completely than her real-life example, for it has both empowered and stigmatized women, liberated and constrained them, often at the same time. The historian Margaret Rossiter noted an inferiority complex in women after Curie’s tours of the United States in the 1920s, and for generations the Curie complex has continued to allow men to disqualify women -- and women to disqualify themselves -- from science. Women scientists have felt as though they cannot measure up to Curie, and of course how could they, when this mythical measure of female competence has morphed in the American mind over and over again? It’s like trying to hit a moving target."

It occurred to me: women scientists, women entrepreneurs, same freaking difference. How effing sneaky, Julie, Wrapping your latest work up in a geeky little package to get your science-averse twin sister to not think you were onto her. Isn't the Madame Curie Complex what we women in "male" industries perpetuate when we back away from asserting our femininity? When we undermine it? We look at what we do in the world and say under our breaths, "Yeah big whoop ... did I put the milk back in the fridge this morning?"

Because even when we take on "male" industries, we do it in ways that are seen as much less impressive than men, or we do it just like them--both of which approaches are equally alienating and in many cases ineffective.

There was a point in Julie's talk where she spoke about "the numbers," as in: "Why the big stink? Look at all the women MBA's and women who got into MIT." In science academia women are as well represented, if not more so, than men at top institutions. "We need to stop worrying about the numbers of women in science," Julie said, "Numbers aren't the problem."

But, she pointed out, often women scientists are relegated to "female" forms of science--think of those soft mushy behavioral sciences. After all, as Lawrence Summers would posit, those cold, hard facts are just so difficult for us ladyfolk to grasp. Or our more holistic approach to such serious subjects as science, tech, and business have often been dismissed.

For instance, Jane Goodall was relatively untrained in the traditional (read: male) technique of studying primates. Rather than measure their toenails, count their bowel movements, and call it a day, she watched them and took notes, often in narrative form, and often giving the primates' interactions a storyline. Initially this more intuitive approach was seen as amateurish and dismissible, and yet it's now much more indicative of how scientists today frame this sort of research. Goodall proved the worth of a "female" perspective in science.

I think of my own industry and of BlogHer: We didn't invent computers, or the Internet. We didn't invent blogging; but we provided a larger context for its importance, particularly to women. I guess by some definitions this is a girly-girl approach to technology, akin to Goodall's approach to her science. But is it any less valuable; any less illuminating or fundable?

Do I care if so few women are being funded in Silicon Valley? No. I care that women's approach to business is so underfunded, and hence undervalued. I care that those women who are succeeding in it are seen as doing so DESPITE who they are, rather than because of who they are.

I think of that black man I was set-up with 20 years ago, content, silent, and numb. 

The Back-Up Parent

My sister teaches college history in NYC. From the looks of it she has one of those dream jobs that allows for full-time employment and flexibility. Twice a week she comes into the city early to teach class and meet with students, and the other days she works from home, where she works full-time. The days she is in the city her husband drops the kids off at day care and the school bus stop, but she comes home early to pick them up, make dinner, and most times bathe them and put them to bed.

Her husband's job is demanding. He's an attorney and often has to spend long days at the office and work on weekends. When he gets home the kids are often in bed. He gets up early to help get them ready in the morning. I wonder how he manages on so little sleep.

"That's just the way it is right now," my sister says. My job has more flexibility so it makes sense that I'm the default for picking up the kids from school, taking them to appointments and soccer practice, staying home with them when they are sick."

Many couples I know have a similar arrangement: the spouse with more flexibility is the default child chauffeur, preschool pageant volunteer, dinner maker. The job that yields more income is protected by both parties.

"I just couldn't imagine Chris having to leave the office in the middle of the day with all he's got going on," she said, then joked, "but me--I'm always backing toward the exit while people are still talking to me. I'm always in a state of having to be somewhere else."

She doesn't tell me this to complain. It's just more of an observation she's had lately. Her new book is out, and though she's tickled by the PR and attention it's getting, she's had to rethink her intricate weekly regime. A panel discussion at Princeton, a book reading at night in the city, an interview during the dinner making hour. These are things that require rearranging, booking sitters, and asking favors of neighbors. Her husband has been more than willing to take days at home and rearrange his schedule to support her. But she still seems uneasy.

"It's great that he helps out when he can," she said. "But he's not the back-up. I am. I'm still the back-up."

I want her to take in the rewards of her hard work. To spend a day contemplating her next project uninterrupted. To prepare for an interview without worrying about what needs to thaw in time for dinner. I want her to be able to say, "It's all covered," and then embark on a U.S. book tour. Most of all, I don't want her to always be in a state of leaving when she's at work.

And for me, I don't want to always be in a state of leaving when I'm at home. I feel like I'm learning a new skillset from her--someone who once could never put her work down. It involves thinking linearly--picking up the kids, making dinner, running the bath. It involves fewer phone calls, perhaps not even checking messages in the evenings. It involves waking up early not to catch up on email but to make lunches and help little people pick out their outfits. It involves deriving less identity from one's career and more from somewhere else. My sister's been at it for years, and it hasn't come naturally, but she's become a pro.