What is attractive?

Posted on by
Reply

Have you ever noticed how models on glossy pages of fashion magazines and clothing catalogs look at you with their mouths open? I’m not talking lips a tiny bit parted, I mean like really open. And it always makes me cringe a little bit because, to be honest, it really doesn’t make them look very intelligent.

I always think why do they do that? I supposed they, the photographer, the ad agency, whoever thinks that it makes them look attractive and sexy. It’s a bit wasted on me, however, because I think intelligence is much more attractive than gaping mouths.

Well of course this is no surprise. Women and girls are more often than not depicted sexually in the media. I read a very insightful book on the subject and it is actually a bit depressing reading. It also a very interesting read and definitely a book I recommend to anyone, but especially to those of you who have daughters: The Lolita Effect: The Media Sexualization of Young Girls and What We Can Do About It by M. Gigi Durham.

In a nutshell, the book argues that media, television and film not only reflect existing social patterns but also shape culture which makes them very powerful, setting the standard for what women and girls should live up to. But not only does the media depict girls as sexual objects, the sexual ideal for girls is one lacking authority; that is girls are taught to be sexy, and to attract boys, but at the same time to resist boys’ advances rather than express their own desires. I quote, “These powerful narratives … are repeatedly circulated in various ways in our culture, to the point that they seem natural and not constructed by outside forces.”

But what’s scary is that the female and sexual ideal becomes younger and younger. Women are encouraged to wage a life-long battle against hair and strip their bodies of all hair, except what grows on their heads, making them look like prepubescent girls. Which really, if you think about it, is quite disturbing. (See my previous post ‘On ageing’ for more thoughts on the cultural contradictions of women, youth, and ageing.)

I remember reading a feature in a magazine once about a woman who followed her dream and became a professional gardener. She talked about how she was always awkward as a girl and didn’t really have any fashion sense. She was never popular and was uncomfortable at parties and in other social situations. However, after she found her passion – gardening, and apparently especially apples – she was surprised to realize that all of a sudden she was attracting so much male attention at parties when she would, cheeks blazing, launch into an animated conversation about apples. She realized that it didn’t matter that she wasn’t thin, she wasn’t wearing the most fashionable clothes, and that she didn’t have a swanky hairdo. She was attractive because she felt passionate and that made her interesting. It made people – both men and women – want to spend time with her.

Knowing this, it makes me a bit sad to know that so many girls and women worry about trying to live up to one-dimensional social ideals. And I have to say I agree with the gardener. Talking to people who are passionately interested in what they do is usually very engaging. Their energy is contagious and, unlike blank looks and gaping mouths in magazines, that is attractive.

On ageing

Posted on by
1

This week I’ve been thinking about ageing. For the past few days my Facebook newsfeed has been filled with pictures of a young person who died of cancer in the very first days of the New Year. I didn’t know her personally, but many of my friends did.

I also read something quite wonderful. A friend of mine posted on Facebook, that she feels lucky to have the opportunity to age, as not everyone does. That wrinkles, grey hairs, aches, and pains are actually quite a luxury.

It’s interesting – or no, not interesting, it’s actually quite horrifying – the attitude we have towards ageing in Western society, and the obsession we have with youth.

In organizations today we see a lot of ageism. I often see research on top executives’ desperate attempts to stay young and virile, and to what ends they will go to do this. Everything from running up the stairs to the office on the 9th floor in order to give the right impression to actually getting major work done – I’m talking about plastic surgery.

In his book The Corrosion of Character, Richard Sennett writes, “For older workers, the prejudices against age send a powerful message: as a person’s experiences accumulates, it loses value.” In the current corporate climate, it is more about potential. What you have done is no longer important; it is what you will do next that counts.

A couple of years ago I read an article about a Finnish IT company that claimed to value elders and their experience, and hired a corporate granny. Granny came in a few times a week, made coffee, and was available to talk to, lending a sympathetic ear to stressed IT workers. According to the article, having a maternal type around did wonders for the atmosphere. As it happens, this granny was a recently retired career woman, but from the article I didn’t get the impression that she was expected to dish out business advice, she was rather valued for her warmth and her life wisdom. Which is great of course, but I’m sure she also had a lot of know-how, although her employers perhaps didn’t recognize that.

For women, ageism is especially pertinent. But not only that, this whole question of age, and what the right age to be is, is rather ironic. A woman is never the right age. Either she is too young and inexperienced, or she is in the childbearing risk group, or she is simply too old. When women get older and their faces and bodies finally show signs of experience and wisdom, they are pressured to do whatever necessary to look young and inexperienced. I find that quite ironic.

Manufacturers and advertisers are dependent on and target especially women and girls as consumers. Through advertising they create myths, images, and body ideals that are impossible to achieve, but that also ensure that women and girls will keep trying to achieve them, and will therefore keep buying their products.

In contrast to our cultural ideals, when I looked in the mirror this morning I felt quite happy about the wrinkles I have started to accumulate. My wrinkles speak of life and health and of the experiences I have had – both good and bad – that make me who I am. And, of course, of the years of experience I have as a professional.

Control

Posted on by
7

I find opting out a fascinating topic, which I suppose is to be expected, as this is what I wrote my PhD about. But what is perhaps more interesting than the things about society, culture, and expectations that propel people to opt out, is what it is they choose to do instead – what they opt in to. The new solutions they create and the lifestyles they adopt potentially tell us a lot about how people want to live their lives and how they want to work, what they think is important, and what it is that makes them tick.

In a world of quick fixes and short-term wins, where the constant downsizing means no one is safe, and where it isn’t unusual that people change jobs every or every second year, I’d say knowing what makes people tick in order to figure out how to get them to commit to any goals, not to mention long-term goals, is pretty strategic.

Considering all the great technological breakthroughs and how cutting edge many corporations are in their fields, it’s actually quite surprising that they just haven’t kept up when it comes to career models and work solutions.

When people opt out they opt in to a number of different lifestyles and types of work. While they basically all opt out of the same thing – the corporate models and ways of working that leave them stressed, exhausted, and without the ability to create a coherent narrative of their lives and work – they opt in to a myriad of different ways of living. Some downshift and move to less hectic areas, some don’t. Some make a complete career change and retrain in another area, some don’t. Some leave the corporate world altogether, and some don’t. Some start doing research, like me, and some become entrepreneurs. The point is, just like we are all diverse with our own personal preferences, people opt in to a way of living and working that is right just for them. Maybe that is the point, through their opting out journeys they create ways of life that are tailored to their personal needs and don’t follow some corporate norm.

There is, however, one thing that is the same for everyone who opts out and in: control. In their new lifestyles, those who opt in, create a lifestyle where they have more control over their time and thus over their lives. This control gives them a sense of coherence and authenticity, and it allows them to do what they love, to lose themselves in their work, without the stress of not knowing how to make time for all their other responsibilities. It seems that control (corporate leaders, pay attention now!) is actually the key, the secret behind how to engage and commit people.

And knowing this, it’s frustrating to see organizations that, for example, have a policy for working off-site, but when asked about it admit that they don’t usually allow their employees to do so, because how can they then be sure that they actually work (yes this is true). We have all these policies like flexible time to make life more flexible and manageable, especially for employees with care responsibilities. But research has shown that flexible time actually makes us feel like we have less time. So all these policies strike me as window dressing without actually changing the way we work or making an impact on our lives. Instead of measuring how much we work – quantity – how about focusing on what we get done – quality? Who cares where we work and how we do it if we get the job done? The thing is, while it shouldn’t matter to our employers (results are results, right?), it matters a great deal to us. We want to have more control over how we work, when we work, and where we work. That really shouldn’t be too much to ask.

2014 in review

Posted on by
Reply

Not bad for my first six weeks as a blogger! I’m especially proud to have readers in 30 different countries!

Happy New Year 2015! May it be a year of love, happiness, health, and prosperity. And success – however you define it!

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2014 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 1,000 times in 2014. If it were a cable car, it would take about 17 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

Season’s Greetings

Posted on by
2

I’m taking a short break over the holidays but will be back with a new post right after the New Year.

In the meantime, have a Very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year 2015!

“To dare is to lose one’s footing momentarily. Not to dare is to lose oneself.”

― Søren Kierkegaard

The irony of work-life balance

Posted on by
4

People seem to be very interested in work-life balance. I guess that’s because it is something many of us lack and don’t know how to get. There are numerous studies on the topic, and on the strategies people use in their quest to find it, but still, many have so little of it.

I once saw a TV documentary on how to find happiness. Barbara Ehrenreich (whose books I can recommend, especially Nickel and Dimed) was interviewed as an expert on happiness – or rather the cultural obsession with happiness. What she basically said was that you’re not going to find happiness if that is all you are looking for. She talked about the importance of meaning in what you do and quoted Freud, saying that really it’s about losing yourself in your work, and when you do that then you can feel content and fulfilled, and in other words happy.

This really resonated with me, and I saw parallels to the search for work-life balance. Work-life balance is symptomatic of something else, and as we try to fix the lack of balance in our lives, we’re not actually getting to the root of the problem. The problem is the structures, working cultures, and corporate norms that are prevalent today. They make it hard to have a holistic view of life and career and to combine work with other areas of life.

After I opted out, I no longer so acutely felt a lack of balance in my life even though I was working a lot and at all hours of the day (and night whenever I had deadlines to meet). I could really lose myself in my work, and it automatically solved my lack of work-life balance. And yes, in case you are wondering, I still sometimes feel a lack of balance when I have too much to do or I am feeling stressed, because opting out does not obliterate all stress. But when I do feel a lack of balance, I know it is only temporary and not a chronic problem.

This is also closely related to time management.

Every once in a while I’m asked if I can recommend a good book on time management. I know nothing about time management, nor do I know of any good books on the subject. I have a vague recollection of being offered to take a course in time management a long time ago in my previous career. Needless to say I didn’t take the course. I remember having the feeling that no matter how many time management courses my colleagues took, or how many books they read on the subject, they still didn’t have enough time.

However, I do know enough about time to know that time management, like work-life balance, doesn’t actually get to the root of the problem. The experience of not having enough time doesn’t really correlate with there not being enough time, nor of not being structured enough in one’s use of one’s time. It’s a symptom of something else.

People feel they don’t have enough time when they don’t feel they have control over their time, and in today’s hectic working culture this is often the case. People don’t feel like they have control. In my research I have seen that the feeling of not having enough time becomes less of a problem when one can create a lifestyle where one can decide over one’s time and how one uses it. After opting out, people often create lifestyles and ways of working where they have more control over their lives and the use of their time (for example when they work and when they spend time with their children or doing other things, not necessarily how much time they spend doing all this). This feeling of control is, in turn, closely related to a sense of coherence, which then leads to a feeling of happiness and contentment.

So no, I have no books on time management, but I do have a good book on time that I can recommend:

Unwinding the Clock: Ten Thoughts on Our Relationship to Time (original title: Tio tankar om tid) by Bodil Jönsson

Opt Out or Lean In?

Posted on by
2

Many people seem to think that leaning in and opting out are opposites – either you lean in, or you opt out. I’m here to tell you that it doesn’t have to be either or, you can do both.

In her book Lean In, Sheryl Sandberg writes, “I have written this book to encourage women to dream big, forge a path through the obstacles, and achieve their full potential.” And then later, “I hope they [my children] end up exactly where they want to be. And when they find where their true passion lies, I hope they both lean in – all the way.”

Now that sounds an awful lot like what the women who opt out do. They opt out in order to opt in to a way of life and working that allows them to be who they are and to work to their full potential on terms that work for them.

I have talked to women who have opted out of jobs or career paths that hold them back. Women are still discriminated in the workplace (although now-a-days it’s generally harder to detect than it used to be) and still get bypassed by their male colleagues. I have talked to women who feel they just can’t be themselves in a corporate environment where they have to keep parts of themselves hidden. It’s ok for work to spill over into the private sphere – we’re expected to answer emails when we’re at home with our kids – but ironically it doesn’t go the other way. Women are expected to keep whatever issues they may have at home or with their children invisible in the workplace.

While Sandberg calls on women to lean in and make a difference, many women don’t feel the effort of trying to change a workplace or working culture to suit them and their needs is worth it, nor do they want to take the risk that it may entail. Not only do they think it’s a lost cause, but they are also genuinely worried that it would harm their careers and their reputations.

One might think that they therefore choose opting out as an easy solution, except that opting out is never easy. It’s a path these women have been compelled to take in order to create a working environment where they have more control over their professional lives, where they can work to their full potential, while seamlessly combining work with other areas of life. In other words, they do this so that they can lean in all the way.

All the women I have talked to have been ambitious and have wanted their work to be meaningful. They want to lean in, but on their own terms. After opting out, these women did not necessarily work less, nor did many of them spend more time with their children. The difference was they had more control over how and when they worked, and how and when they were with their children. Having more control, in turn, entailed less stress. It allowed them to feel passionate about their work, and being passionate about what you do tends to automatically make you want to lean in.

So by all means, do both, opt out and lean in!

What is it about mothers today?

Posted on by
1

I remember being at a dinner party a few months ago and I was sitting with a group of women who were my mother’s age. We were talking about motherhood, work-life balance etc., when one woman wondered out loud why it is that women with young children complain so much now-a-days, why do they think their children are such a nuisance? She was wondering whether people who have grown up in the 70’s and 80’s aren’t used to working hard, if they just don’t love their children as much, or simply don’t like being parents as much anymore.

This is definitely not the case. It is not that mothers or parents don’t love their children as much as they used to, or that they aren’t prepared to work hard.  There is actually research that shows that parents today spend much more time than previous generations playing with their children. There is also research that shows that professional life is much tougher than it used to be and that people work longer days. It may be true that mothers today complain more than before. One reason may be that it is no longer taboo to talk about how hard being a mother really is, and that is a good thing. But there is more to it.

Women today, especially if they are juggling both a career and children, are drawn between the individualistic world of work on the one hand, and the self-sacrificing world of motherhood on the other. The irony here is that both worlds crave 100% dedication and devotion. At work, you are expected to be completely dedicated and available 24/7, and as a mother you are expected to be completely devoted. Simple math will tell you that two times 100% simply doesn’t work no matter how you look at it. But not only that, the past decades have witnessed a professionalization of motherhood where simply being a mother is no longer enough. In addition to being a mother, you’re supposed to also be your child’s nurse, nutritionist, personal trainer, coach, tutor, teacher, child psychologist…you name it. You’re supposed to be well read and if you don’t live up to it all (like making everything from scratch in order to protect your children from sugars and additives etc. while also holding down a fulltime job), all the recommendations and hype going around in the media and on the internet will certainly make you feel guilty, not to mention the pressure we get from each other.  (Have you ever thought about how you present yourself and your life on Facebook for example? There is material in that for a whole new blog post…)

However, women are not only pressured to be perfect mothers, we are also supposed to be perfect women and have perfect homes. I at least tend to get stressed by the lists of things you need to do that circulate. What you need to eat, and how much of it you need to eat every day; how much water and other fluids you need to drink everyday; what kind of exercise you should be doing and how, and how often you need to do that. And while you’re busy remembering all this, you need to take care of your body, make sure to wax and use the right cosmetics, not to mention your hair and nails. Is there enough time in the day to do all this? On top of all that, there needs to be time to work and to be a mother, not to mention a wife, daughter, sister, aunt and friend. And somehow I get the feeling that if we eat and drink everything we’re supposed to, and in the recommended amounts, we would end up over eating.

There is also a greater sense of risk in society today. Through media we can take part of all the catastrophes that take place in all the corners of the Earth and people perceive life as much more dangerous, especially for children, than it was say 30 years ago. We need to constantly protect our children from these dangers, which sometimes can be very stressful, not to mention tricky – like protecting children from seeing horrible things on the internet, or internet bullying.

And on top of that there is of course this whole hectic culture in which we live. The job market is insecure.  With all the restructuring and downsizing no one is safe. What you have accomplished does not really count anymore; you’re only as good as your next thing.

So maybe it’s no surprise that mothers have a lot to complain about. Being a mother in today’s society can really be quite overwhelming.

If you’re interested in reading more about the contradictions of motherhood, see:

Competing Devotions: Career and Family among Women Executives by Mary Blair-Loy (Harvard University Press)

The Cultural Contradictions of Motherhood by Sharon Hays (Yale University Press)

Imagining it is the first step towards change

Posted on by
4

I was at lunch the other day with two good friends of mine, and over sushi we had a conversation about what is considered an acceptable way to work – acceptable not only by society or according to organizational norms, but what we ourselves consider acceptable. We talked about how this may hold us back from creating a lifestyle that we truly want and can live with.

In organizational culture, there is a relatively narrow view of what a good or successful career path looks like. Mainstream careers are still quite linear and as an employee you are expected to be committed, constantly available, and to want to advance according to a certain pattern and timetable. I, as well as others, have argued that the career models that prevail in organizations today haven’t really kept up and don’t necessarily correspond to how contemporary individuals want to work, nor do they accommodate our needs.

However, talking to my friends made me realize that, not only do prevalent career models and working cultures hold us back, we also do it ourselves. A person may opt out of a certain job or lifestyle that isn’t working for him or her, simply to opt back in to more of the same because we have been taught, and are conditioned to believe that we need to follow certain norms and ways of working. We may feel guilty or pressured by this hectic culture in which we live to follow these norms, instead of investing time, and perhaps money, in creating the lifestyle that we really want. We need to allow ourselves to slow down, even when we are expected to rush off and be busy, in order to create the new lifestyle we want.

In her book Lean In, Sheryl Sandberg, talks about how people are individually responsible for setting a pace at work that they can live with. She says you need to just say no if it’s too much, because your employer won’t. Your employer will always ask for more. I have argued that it can’t only be the employee’s responsibility; the employer must also take responsibility for not working their people into the ground. Not everyone is as senior and established as Sandberg, and saying no may feel like a big risk.

But Sheryl Sandberg also has a point. Maybe it isn’t only the outdated, and for many people inadequate, career models that are holding us back from leading lives that are balanced and that give us energy. Maybe it’s also us. We’re so conditioned to work in a certain way – to have a certain work ethic – that it’s hard to break out of that pattern. However, there is hope.

According to philosopher and social theorist Cornelius Castoriadis (and his work on the social imaginary), people have a capacity to imagine something new that does not already exist in society. And if you can imagine it, you have already enabled the change. So that’s what we need to do. We need to continue imagining what our lives should be like, and then ignore possible inner voices that tell us that it isn’t good enough.

How do you decide to opt out?

Posted on by
1

Researching opting out has been incredibly inspirational for me in many ways. It’s been a very personal project – I opted out of my own business career in 2009. But it is also because of all the interesting and exciting discussions I’ve had on opting out over the past five or so years. I don’t think I’ve met a single person who didn’t have at least some thoughts or opinions on opting out. When people find out what I do, they often want to talk about it. They either know someone who has opted out, they might have done it themselves, or they just wish they could do it too.

However, even though they may want to or dream about it, most people don’t opt out. If so many people want to opt out, why aren’t more doing it? I don’t think the main answer here is money. Yes, money plays in, and quitting your job is a risk. But we have to remember, according to my definition of opting out, opting out means opting in to doing something else, to another way of working or living. One opting out myth is that it is only women with rich husbands who opt out. The truth is, most people who opt out need to be able to support themselves and continue to do so after having opted in to a new lifestyle. Many of the women I interviewed were married to husbands who could support them if needed, but I have also interviewed single moms, women who are single and don’t have children, and women who were the main breadwinners in their family before opting out.

No, there is another reason, and that is that opting out is a huge change, it is stepping out into the unknown and that is scary. It is hard to imagine anything other than the way of life you know. In my research I have found that people don’t opt out until they have some sort of defining moment – a crisis of some sort – that pushes them to take the step. It can be health problems, a conflict of interests at work, an identity crisis, a death, anything really, but it is a moment when they realize they can’t go on this way. There is a sense of urgency and they opt out without having any grand plan, and figure it out as they go.

People ever so often ask me for advice on how to opt out. Opting out is romanticized in the media, you often see stories of happy people who have changed their lives and started doing something completely different. There is no shortage of self-help books on how to change your life, how to find your authentic you, how to be happy, and there is a huge market for life coaching. But still, people don’t know how to opt out, and I can’t very well tell them to go and have a crisis and the rest will figure itself out…

A friend of mine posted a quotation on Facebook a while ago: “Never be afraid to fall apart because it is an opportunity to rebuild yourself in the way you wish you had been all along.” – Rae Smith.

I find this worrisome, how can you glorify falling apart? A lot of people who fall apart don’t manage to put themselves back together. How can it be that you need to have a crisis in order to create a life that you can live with?

What if we lived in a culture that didn’t make us want to opt out in the first place? What if working cultures allowed us to be ourselves and embrace who we are, and to combine work and other areas of life in a way that felt meaningful? What would that look like?