A New Direction in Women's Liberation

My family thought I would be different than the other Neal women. I was born in 1979: disco was waning, hip-hop was burgeoning, and punk was morphing into New Wave. The dust was settling on many revolutions. It was a period of coasting on the waves of all that was won for the women before me.

I took advantage of the opportunities afforded to Gen X women. I moved around the country at will and without care. I was the first in my immediate family to earn a bachelor's degree and then the first to receive a graduate degree. I've sat in rooms with corporate executives; I have my own stock portfolio. On paper this is all fantastic—so why are my female peers and I discontented?

After my stint in the corporate world, I realized I didn't want to be a #girlboss after all. Working 60+hours a week, constant travel, relentless competition, and a family whose bonds were breaking under the weight of leaning in made me decide to lean out. Society allows us a seat at the table, but the elitist rigging of our capitalist system means our labor is devalued year after year and our dollars afford us less and less. What are we getting in return if we lose ourselves? 

In Lean Out: The Truth About Women, Power, and the Workplace, Marissa Orr exposes the empty promises of a corporate feminism that demands that women change to fit the system and sacrifice well-being for success. A former Google and Facebook employee, Orr shares her own struggles with identity and achievement in an environment not designed with her in mind. She challenges corporate America to accept women as they are, not mold us into a paradigm shaped by men, for men. Orr shares, “We’re at an incredibly sharp inflection point. Our systems of organizing employees, evaluating performance, and motivating people were built by men, from a male worldview, with the intention of making their male employees more productive. They were built to serve an economy that’s long gone.”

We are struggling to have healthy households. The pandemic shed light on the myth of egalitarianism in most modern American households. Women at home face the dual demands of domesticity and the workplace. In many cases women were expected to either be the ones to sacrifice their jobs or continue to work and do the unpaid labor of home management. But the second scenario is the status quo even in normal times. The joke's on us because entering the workforce for many means they are operating as a stay-at-home mom and a full-time laborer. All the Rage: Mothers, Fathers, and the Myth of Equal Partnership by Darcy Lockman is an insightful look at the failure to achieve household equity. Lockman cites her marriage counselor’s assessment that “the way we actually live seems to have not caught up with our relatively new ideals.” If men don't see that sharing financial responsibility means also sharing domestic responsibility, then what have we gained except more demands?

Eve Rodsky expands on the truths laid out by Lockman and offers a guide to conflict resolution in Fair Play: A Game-Changing Solution for When You Have Too Much to Do (and More Life to Live). Rodsky proposes a plan laid out in a game of 100 actionable, collaborative steps between partners. She emphasizes four key takeaways for the women involved; All Time Is Created Equal, Reclaim Your Right to Be Interesting, Start Where You Are Now, and Establish Your Values, which provide a framework for redefining worth when women feel they are only valued for servitude in their home.

We are lonely and longing for real love. bell hooks’ Communion: The Female Search for Love explores self-love as an empowering tool that helps women craft more meaningful relationships in all aspects of our lives. She writes, “Powerful women reveal psychological wholeness when we refuse to embrace any type of thinking that suggests we should or must choose success over love. Powerful, self-loving women know that our ability to take care of our emotional needs is essential, but this does not take the place of loving fellowship and partnership.” hooks’ words run much deeper than the often-misinterpreted, commercialized call to self-care she has become famous for; she is speaking about caring for our souls in a truly intimate, self-actualizing way.

Women’s incomes are increasing and we are less likely to be the victims of violence or exploitation. Quantitative analysis says we are doing great. The metrics of success are swinging in our favor. But quantitatively we are unhappy—I don’t have to look at statistics to know this. New fights are creating a new direction in women’s liberation. Until we have genuine co-partners, until our needs are accommodated in the workplace, and until we are unquestionably loved, we have not come far enough. I hope we get to be satisfied soon.