Ambition is not a Dirty Word

How Not to Go AWOL (Absent Without Leisure)

Dear Debra: I get so stressed out planning to leave work for vacation and check in so constantly while I’m gone that by the time I finally unwind, vacation’s almost over, and then of course when I get back to the office I’m snowed under the pileup.  How can I make leaving and returning to the office after vacation less stressful?

Exciting News from Carol Jenkins

We have some exciting news we want to share with you, a member of The Women's Media Center extended family: the WMC has acquired SheSource.org, the online database of over 500 women experts. This makes the WMC the definitive source for women analysts and experts -- and meshes perfectly with our intensive media training program, Progressive Women's Voices.

Click here to read more about WMC and SheSource.org

WMC Demands Apology from O'Reilly for Helen Thomas Insult

We urge you to join The Women's Media Center in sending an official complaint to Fox News about Bill O'Reilly. His sexist and ageist comments about legendary reporter Helen Thomas require an apology.

PROTECT YOUR PASSION IN 2009

It has been said that "the surest way to keep a man in prison is not to let him know he's there."  And the surest way to keep a woman from embracing her pure career ambition is to make her believe she's already done it. 

Don't believe it. 

Heading into 2009, we women still are not advancing in our careers the way we should.  We're not getting the fulfillment we desire or making the money we deserve.  And this time it's not men who are holding us back.  This time, sisters, we're doing it to ourselves, because ambition-for us-is still a dirty word. 

Do you unconsciously buy into our prevailing cultural paradigm, that double standard that says: ambitious men are go-getters, but ambitious women are bitchy, greedy, cold, arrogant females who attract enemies, repel lovers, make rotten mothers, live lonely lives and, in one way or another, miss out on fulfilling lives because of their ambition? 

Are you not advancing in your career as quickly as you'd like?  Are you not making the money you deserve and getting the fulfillment you desire?  Are you afraid of what you might have to sacrifice if you pursue your big goals? 

YOU'RE NOT ALONE.

Balance or Not, You are Normal

Dear Debra: I ordered pizza for dinner for my kids twice this week-and last; the house is a wreck, I brought home a mountain of work last weekend and barely made my daughter's school play.  What's wrong with me?  Does everyone else have their act together?

Here's the truth that no one tells us, especially glib work-life balance evangelists: Once you get out into the world of work (and even before that-in college, for example) you should just expect that your day-to-day life simply isn't always going to flow smoothly.

Taking Credit Isn’t Rocket Science—or a Pocket Rocket

During research for my book, Ambition Is Not A Dirty Word, I e-mailed queries to thousands of high-achieving women and always received a flood of responses. But after sending this one—“What advice do you have for other professionals, and what works for you when it comes to the art of taking credit at work?”—my inbox remained conspicuously empty. 

I might as well have asked, “Who has a vibrator in her bedroom nightstand and for those of you who do, do you mind if I use your real name in this book and include a photo of you holding your special friend?”

Working Moms Look Back with Mixed Emotions

By Maya Dollarhide Lucca. CNN.com. July 14, 2008

• Story Highlights
• Decision for moms to work or stay home is fiercely debated, rarely easy
  
• Psychiatrist: Children who are put in day care feel a real loss
• Author Dr. Debra Condren: Keeping yourself from your own ambitions can be "soul destroying"

Is It Honorable For Women To Give Up Their Ambition? Part II: Let's Get Real

 

When it “sunk in that mainstream schools shortchanged her severely autistic son”, Amy, 39, closed her thriving medical practice to help start charter school. For a long time, it seemed to be working out. “Then I found my husband in bed with a woman on the school committee. We went through a horrific divorce. I had to try to revive my career; at 49, it’s finally starting to take off again. But at my age, with everything I had to deal with, it was f_­­_g hard.” 

 

What If? Could this be you?

Is It Honorable For Women To Give Up Their Dreams?

Debra: You preach ambition for women. Aren’t you forgetting something? What about life balance? Mothering? –32, with better values than “just career”

Say your ambition is to be a great wife, mother, friend, or fair-minded coworker who refuses on moral grounds to educate herself about office politics. That doesn’t bother you, does it? No, because that’s socially sanctioned ambition. You’ll likely regard the following women as having chosen “honorable ambition”.

When Joining Mom and Pop Is Good Business

Last week we talked about the cons of joining the family business (review my CONS advice at www.AmbitionIsNotADirtyWord). Now let’s talk pros.