Ambition is not a Dirty Word

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.

Joining Mom and Pop Good or Bad Business?

Dear Debra: I just finished my M.B.A. I’m seriously considering joining my parents’ business. Advice? –Mixed feelings at 26 

Let’s start with cons to consider:

The Day My Son Almost Died

I make my living teaching women how to unapologetically own their ambition in a society that has a double standard. It’s our prevailing cultural paradigm: ambitious men are go-getters, but ambitious women are the b-word.

I define ambition as that which drives our creative existence, provides an outlet for our talents and passions, defines who we are, and allows us to earn our full worth without apology. I walk my talk.

But just like you I take hits.

In a moment of trauma, I too succumbed to those deeply ingrained cultural beliefs about how women are supposed to behave. It happened to me when my son almost died.

SAME OLD STORY: CLINTON'S CAMPAIGN PROVES THAT THE SCARLET LETTER FOR 21ST CENTURY WOMAN STANDS FOR AMBITION

I'm traveling through the Little Rock, Arkansas airport hours after meeting in New York with a group of women to talk Hillary and women and ambition. Exiting security, the first thing I see, through the airport bookstore's window, is a large black and white poster of a photograph of Hillary, Bill, and Chelsea walking up onto a podium. The caption reads:

"Get Ready to Pary Like It's 1992".

Don't put on your party shoes just yet. There's still a hill to climb. And not just over substantive differences between candidates. Hillary's up against the same old story: it's tough being a working woman--and her campaign proves it, say female execs. They may or may not back her, but successful city women say  Clinton's travails show what they're up against.

Tory Johnson, CEO, Women For Hire, workplace contribitor on "Good Morning America" and anchor of "Home Work" on ABC News Now called a breakfast meeting to talk about what successful working women are saying about Hillary Clinton. Tory's resulting article was originally published in the New York Post, February 25, 2008 and is reprinted with permission below.

SISTER ACT: Tory Johnson (center) talking Hillary and careers with (from left to right) career coach and business psychologist Debra Condren, Working Mother Media CEO Carol Evans, attorney Sara Newman and Hyperion Books publisher Ellen Archer.

Guest post by Tory Johnson, CEO, Women For Hire.

LOVE her or hate her, win or lose, successful working women are talking about Hillary Clinton.

But it's not her politics that have them fired up. What getting under their skin is a laundry list of gender-nuanced issues brought to the fore by  Clinton's run for the ultimate corner office.

Getting High or Getting By?

Cross-posted with HuffingtonPost.com

Women who telecommute, at least part time, tell me, "I have a killer job."

The pièce de résistance of their professional setup? "I can work from home when I need to. I can bend my work schedule around my child's needs."

Turns out, that's a mixed blessing. It's a killer job, all right--and it's killing them.