The Golden Arrow

Years and years ago I used to show a video in my business ethics classes called the Story of Stuff. If you haven’t seen it, it’s a (2007) 20-minute film about all of the stuff we have; where it comes from, where it goes, and why our systems of production and consumption are completely broken.

Notice I say “used” to show this video. This is not because anything in the video has been debunked or disproven. It is still exceptional. Unfortunately, every time I showed it in class it made my students upset in a variety of ways. There was sadness because they learned how bad their stuff was for the environment and didn’t know what to do about it. There was horror at hearing about all of the toxins found in newborn babies. There was anger because they loved their stuff and thought the movie was saying they were bad people for having stuff (it wasn’t). Overall it just became a really big bummer. Now I assign other videos from the collection and spread all the sadness throughout the semester. I did try and counteract the sadness by showing an interview with the filmmaker, Annie Leonard, on the Colbert Report (#thisisstuff) but it wasn’t enough of an antidote. 

The Story of Stuff makes so many interesting points, but there is one that just got lodged in my brain. Annie asks: Have you ever wondered why women’s shoe heels go from skinny one year to fat the next and then back to skinny again? I had not. It was just a thing that happened and I had both kinds of heels in my closet so I was set. But she followed her question up with this:

It is not because there is some debate about which heel structure is the most healthy for women’s feet. It’s because wearing fat heels in a skinny heel year shows everyone that you haven’t contributed to that arrow (consumption) recently so you’re not as valuable as that skinny heeled person next to you or, more likely, in some ad. It’s to keep buying new shoes.

Oof. That is some hard truth Annie. What she calls the “golden arrow of consumption” is the heart of our economic system. It is driven by us purchasing things we often don’t need in order to keep up with the trends. But, when you think about it, trends aren’t real. Trends are things companies and “influencers” create and then convince us exist but really they are a way to take money out of our pockets and put it into theirs. Trends are how and why fast fashion exploded (super lame for so many reasons). But we all (🙋‍♀️) fall for trends. Maybe we want the black Lululemon sling bag because we see everyone wearing it looking so sporty and adorable. If we are smart shoppers and unwilling to pay Lulu prices on principle, we find a dupe online for ½ the price because deals are always in style. Perhaps we splurge on a new car or whatever else we think will make us look cool because we want to signal to the world that we know what’s going on. We know we don’t actually need these things but their purchase comes with the added bonus of a little serotonin bump and that’s something in these trying times! So we follow the trends.

The reason I have been thinking about fat heels and skinny heels and trends is because I keep reading stories about how all things 1990s are back. And then I went to campus and confirmed it to be true with my eyeballs. Bucket hats are being worn unironically (acceptable only if you are Jamiroquai). Overalls are back (100% yes) but both straps must be fastened unless you are Marky Mark, in which case, say hi to your mother for me. Butterfly hair clips are showing up again too (I’m on the fence but could get there with a gentle shove). On the surface this is mostly hideous but fairly harmless. But then I started thinking about other 90s trends and the fact that the skinny heel fat heel reference goes far beyond clothing.

I would be remiss if I did not take the opportunity to pay homage to my favorite part of the 1990s (aside from my diet of pizza and beer-RIP metabolism): Britpop. I was a 20-something college student in Pittsburgh but the UK was bringing me the soundtrack of some very good times. Oasis was my low key obsession (🖤 Liam Gallagher 🖤) and you could get tickets to shows for under $30. If your favorite band didn’t come to Pittsburgh, gas to Cleveland was less than $1.50/gallon. What a time to be alive! I will not subject you to a discography of the times but if you want to know what I listened to on my discman I offer you this Spotify playlist. 

EYEBROWS: This is a deeply personal issue. You see, dear reader, I am a woman who went to college in the mid-late 90s. A time when this was our muse.

I followed her lead and the example of the waif-like stars of the times and I made my brows thin. This is a trend you simply do not come back from but we didn’t know that then! We. Did. Not. Know. And now, you will notice the amount of commercials promoting serum to grow back our eyebrows. I lay this travesty at the feet of Drew Barrymore and Gwen Stefani. Then, out of nowhere, giant furry caterpillar eyebrows were the look. This trend was a slap in the face to us 90s ladies. Please note this was not the first time around for bushy brows. They were all the rage in the 80s but came back full force around 2010. Why? What purpose do they serve Cara Delevingne? Are there secrets hidden in those brows? With the resurgence of the bold brow came an entire industry. You could have new brows tattooed on and there were a zillion tutorials on how to achieve the look complete with a new list of products you will need to make that happen. Last year (2022) it looked like the thin brows were trying to make a comeback but I think the collective scream emitted by Gen X halted its progress. 

BODIES: Heroine chic is the terrible name for a 90s look popularized by Kate Moss. Women were shockingly thin and lived on cigarettes and alcohol. Hip bones protruded, silk slip dresses were all the rage (they are back), and cases of disordered eating rose to concerning levels as women tried to attain the look. Then we shifted to a completely different aesthetic. J-Lo’s voluptuous booty was all anyone could talk about and Kim Kardashian entered the chat. Their curves were the envy of women everywhere and since they couldn’t be attained naturally; trips to the plastic surgeon surged. An entire industry dedicated to the plumping of peaches everywhere emerged. Women were spending thousands of dollars to get butt implants, and Brazilian Butt Lifts. But guess what?! The Kardashians decided that curves are so last year. The formerly voluptuous sisters are looking very different these days. Flatter butts, fewer curves and trending towards, you guessed it, heroine chic. This isn’t good. The first time the trend was around social media was not. Now hundreds of millions of women and girls following these women see the change and it is dangerous. 

FACES: The ability to augment our faces is fairly new. Or at least the ease of which you can do it at an “affordable” price point is. So, along with the curves came the plumping of other things. Women were injecting their lips and getting lip implants to get to their kissers looking just so for their selfies. They were also smoothing out wrinkles and making cheeks look more “youthful” with dermal fillers. The goal was pouty and apple cheeked but not anymore!! Keep up! Now we are dissolving the fillers and having our buccal fat removed. What’s that you ask? Allow these photos of Miss Piggy to illustrate. 

You get fat sucked out of your cheeks and you look sunken and chiseled; like Bella Hadid the model named world’s most beautiful person. 

But what happens when a new trend emerges? When Bella and the other influencers and their plastic surgeons and anyone else who makes money from these procedures decides it’s time for a new look? Do they reverse their BBL? Remove their implants? Of course! Plenty of the doctors and clinics that did the initial procedures are ready and willing to reverse them because they benefit no matter what. More filler? Money please! Remove the filler? Money please! Put the fat back into their cheeks? Nope! Buccal fat removal is nearly impossible to reverse and that is where my ethics professor senses start to *tingle.* 

Many people may be thinking that it’s silly to undergo plastic surgery in the first place but I think they are missing the point. Plastic surgery is becoming far more popular and there are many reasons why people decide to go under the knife. I am firmly on the side of women doing whatever the hell they want to with their faces and bodies and whether or not anyone else likes it is irrelevant . *TINGLE*

The consequences for “normal” people who undergo these procedures are real. There are financial impacts and health impacts (i.e. death). Some people suspend their critical thinking while trying to keep up with the Joneses (or, worse, the Kardashians) even though most of us now understand that nothing on IG is real and photos are passed through a zillion filters with insane results. Unfortunately, our brains do not finish forming until our mid-late 20s and there is research showing that IG actually changes our perception of reality. That scary combo isn’t likely on the minds of teen girls and young women while they shape shift their faces to look like their favorite influencer. *tingle*

It doesn’t take an ethics professor to see why these issues exist. Businesses exist to make money.* Plastic surgeons have student loans to pay off. Clinics have bills to keep the doors open. As a result, the customer and their well-being aren’t exactly front and center in the decision making. This is nothing new but it means we have to really think about how and where we spend our money. To do this I have started asking myself two questions before grabbing my credit card:

Is this a skinny heels/fat heels thing?

Who benefits from me spending my money this way?

I first think about if I am falling into the trend trap (ohh that’s catchy!). Let’s be honest, the #trendtrap is tricky, if not pretty darn impossible, to avoid sometimes. So let’s at least fall into it willingly. We can do this by setting limits on how much we want to spend on trendy items and then add your trendy splurge to your budget. I also think about who gets my money when I make this purchase and do they deserve it? I can choose to spend my cash at multinational conglomerate or a local, small business. Finally, I think about what I am actually getting. As in, what are the (actual/tangible) benefits to me from making this purchase. If there aren’t any maybe this is something I shouldn’t buy. I started asking these questions because where we spend our money matters and I want to shift my habits. I don’t want to be driven by trends but this shift in thinking is a process. Please know, I still buy the trendy things sometimes and I’ve been known to spend my money without a thought of where it ends up. But I am trying to do better and I think that is something. Recently, there have been far fewer deliveries from a certain online retailer. I am trying (OMG I’m trying so hard) to not buy any new clothes, and I am slowly investing more in ESG. I think if a lot more consumers started asking themselves these questions before spending we could save a lot of cash, and shift the way business operates. That idea makes my ethics professor heart *tingle.* It probably makes my face tingle too but I can’t feel it because of all of the botox. Kidding!!!**

*Not all businesses are solely focused on the bottom line. I have a lot to say about this. For more on this you can sign up for my Business & Society course, book me to speak, or buy me a coffee.

**Or am I…?!

Superb Owl

As someone born and raised in Pittsburgh, football is central to the culture of the city. People put their newborn infants on the waitlist for Steelers season tickets because the wait can be up to FIFTY years, with the average time of scoring seats at about 25-ish years. That’s commitment. I have been invited to a few games but never actually gone. There is basically nothing in the world I am willing to stand in the freezing cold and blowing snow for several hours to watch; especially if I can see the same thing from a toasty warm couch in a place with no bathroom line. I do have some fond memories of watching games, and like any kid who grew up in Pittsburgh between the 70s and early 2000s, the voice of Myron Cope is forever burned into my brain. Yoi!! Does all of this make me a football fan? It does not.

On my very first date* with my husband he told me that he only watched College football. I was exceptionally happy to hear this. I can handle one day a week involving sportsball but the constant drone of announcers from Thursday night to Monday night is not a thing I am willing to tolerate. He has stayed true to this and I now know more about Cal football than I ever wanted to. Note. I never wanted to know anything about Cal football.

My Pittsburgh roots also mean that I  am legally required to not like the city of Philadelphia. I don’t even know why. Maybe it’s how they pronounce the word water (woodur), maybe it’s our competing sandwiches (Primantis vs. Cheese steak), maybe we are just jealous we don’t have Wawa. It doesn’t matter. It just means that any time the Eagles play I must root against them out of spite and Superb Owl LVII was no exception. But let me be truly honest. I had very little interest in the game and my malice was half-hearted because my focus, per usual, was on halftime.  The Super Bowl halftime show is a spectacle in the best sort of way. It’s over the top, there is usually a sea of choreographed dancers, the outfits are bonkers, and there are surprise guests. What’s not to love?! The 2020 show with Shakira and JLo was one of my favorites. Not only did they absolutely kill it but Bad Bunny and JBalvin joined the show. It was fantastic and it happened right before we knew what Covid was. What a time. 

I understand that no halftime show will appeal to everyone, but something about women taking the stage really brings out the trolls. You will be shocked to hear that many people did not like this incredible performance by two talented, Latina women. Jk. Of course you aren’t shocked. The FCC received over a thousand complaints about the performance. Here are just a few of them:

• It was not suitable for children

• The costumes were too small

• Dance moves were suggestive 

• There was gyrating 

• A stripper pole!!

• Sexy tongue wagging

• Butt shaking: From JLo and Shakira?!?!?! Say it isn’t so! These complaints were clearly from people with very little idea of who these women are. 

I firmly believe that if Shakira wants to belly dance in a crop top and JLo wants to work a pole in little more than sequins, they should 100% do that. Unfortunately, many people disagree with my particular brand of “let other people do whatever the hell they want and mind your business.” The groups spewing their (misguided) rage may change depending on the performers and you can fill in your own descriptors of who they may be. I see them as puritanical egocentrics. These are people who believe that their take on how we “should” behave is the ONLY acceptable way of doing so. Anyone who disagrees with their approach to life is wrong and morally corrupt. Maybe these reactions are all just further highlighting the divide between those who believe in women being able to choose what they do with their bodies and those who think our lady brains explode when presented with options. But who made them the arbiters of morality and why don’t they just change the channel? Why must they yuck everyone else’s yum? And what, pray tell, would an “acceptable” halftime show look like to these groups?

I have some guesses and none of them are  Rihanna’s performance on Sunday! Thankfully, she kept alive the time honored tradition of people having a lot of problems with the halftime show going (not that I was worried). There were accusations of lip synching, hissy fits over there not being a surprise guest, condemnation of her lack of dancing, and general foot stomping by people who, from what I can tell, have never performed a Super Bowl halftime show themselves. Let’s not pretend these criticisms aren’t really rooted in sexism, racism, and a bit of good old fashioned jealousy. I find all of these complaints ridiculous because what I saw was a pregnant, billionaire, from Barbados hovering in the goddamn sky, singing a to a set list of hit after hit. Oh, and she stopped mid-performance to check her makeup and rep her brand. ICONIC. The fact that she opened with “Bitch Better Have My Money” made me love her even more since this is a personal favorite and was the first song I dropped on the Tightroping Spotify playlist. Here is the rest of her set:

• Where Have You Been?

• Only Girl in the World

• We Found Love

• Rude Boy

• Work: If we turned this video on when Leo was a baby he would stop whatever he was doing to watch

• Wild Thoughts

• Pour It Up

• All of the Lights

• Run This Town

• Umbrella: If you have not seen Tom Holland perform this in Lip Synch Battle you must watch it immediately 

• Diamonds

Though sad she did not do Pon de Replay, a song I listened to on the original iPod Shuffle, she offered a bevy of bangers. We have not seen Rihanna perform live since the 2018 Grammys because she has been busy creating her inclusive and award winning skincare/makeup and lingerie lines, and a person (born in May 2022). This performance was hugely anticipated and the one thing that really surprised everyone (judging from the trending searches) was her pregnancy reveal; making her the first person to perform the halftime show while pregnant. Can we just pause here for a moment to appreciate this? If you have been pregnant before you understand what a big deal this is. She is nine months postpartum and is likely just coming out of her first trimester. I had trouble sitting up fast without wanting to barf at that time. 

Some of the loudest criticisms of Rihanna, Shakira, and JLo after their Super Bowl performances (aside from those already mentioned) revolved around the fact that these women are all mothers. How dare they look sexy, be comfortable in their bodies, and wear something that isn’t a burlap sack? The amount of bullshit ideas surrounding motherhood and what it should look like are something I find infuriating (especially when men are sharing them). I am not a different person because I have a child. Yes, I have different responsibilities and priorities. Yes, I often spend Saturday afternoons at parks to celebrate the birthdays of children I do not know. Yes, I say things like “turd burger” instead of what I want to actually say. But I am still inherently, fundamentally, me. I can only speak from my own experience but I did not become a different person after having Leo and that lack of a shift has been one of my biggest struggles as a mom.**

I didn’t have Leo until I was thirty-eight and by that time you have a pretty good idea about who you are as a person. By then I had my PhD, had just gotten tenure, and my career trajectory was essentially set. I worked a lot and I loved it (aside from the grading). Adding a kid into the mix was not an easy transition for me. I loved being productive and getting things done (thanks to #therapy I now realize that was a whole separate thing I had to conquer) but babies do not care what you think you need to do. They need you when they need you so what I realized early on is that being a mom with a career leaves you in a constant state of guilt. If you are doing well at work you feel like you are neglecting your child and vice versa. We put Leo in daycare when he was nine months old. Before he had a spot I couldn’t wait to get that call that his space was open. I would be able to work and he would get to socialize with other babies. Win/win. Except when he did get the space I felt like a complete failure as a mom because I wasn’t back to work full time and could still have him at home and I was now missing time with him I would never get back. Tears and frustration in both scenarios. 

Being a working mom is basically some version of this guilt at all times. I often think of a quote from the book Forget Having it All: How America Messed Up Motherhood and How To Fix It that rang true to me and many of the working moms I know: We expect women to work like they don't have children, and raise children as if they don't work. We can’t do that and we don’t want to do that because it breaks us. The unrelenting pressure we put on ourselves, the bonus pressure from society, and the difference in expectations for fathers and mothers is exhausting. Underneath all of that exhaustion is a mom, yes, but also a woman who likes things in life that have nothing to do with being a mom. A woman who was a person before she was a mom. Who has an identity and goals that may not actually be linked to her child(ren) at all. A woman who, god forbid, may still want to feel sexy. So pretending that motherhood is the only remarkable thing about us is insulting and it makes me realize just how much we are no longer seen as complete humans. But  if all we are as people is wrapped up in motherhood what happens when our kids are grown? What is there for us? I don’t know and I don’t plan on finding out. I am going to keep doing my job and having interests beyond my son and I think he will be all the better for it. Kids who see their moms happy and thriving learn from that (no matter what their mom does). I’m going to guess that the kids of insanely famous women like JLo, Shakira, and Rihanna  are pretty happy their moms are such forces but so are the rest of us. We may not be globally recognized superstars but we still deserve to do whatever the hell we want without having to hear a running commentary on our choices from strangers. Next time someone is talking shit to you about the choices you are making as a mother, as a woman, or just a person in general, I suggest you hear it in Myron Cope’s voice. You can’t take anything (besides football) seriously with that and you will feel better. Maybe even get yourself a Terrible Towel to wave at them as a distraction.

*I insist it was a date. He believes it was a screening process. Either way it seems to have worked out. 

**Some of the others being: having someone barf into my shirt, the diaper after I gave him beet juice, sneezes directly into my mouth, and the crippling cost of child care. 

Fowl (Vol. 2)

Okey dokey. I’m back to the chicken coop! 

Writing the word “chicken” makes me think of the Chicken Dance. You know it and you likely hate it. Here are the lyrics:

[repeat thrice]

Da na na na na na na (move your hands like a bird mouth)

Da na na na na na na (flap your arms like chicken wings)

Da da da da (continue flapping your chicken arms, waddle down and then up)

Clap, clap, clap (self explanatory)

[interlude]

Da na na naaa na na na na (link arms with closest person to you and walk in a circle in one direction)

Da na naa na na naa na (now link the other arms and turn in the other direction)

[continue to speed up the pace until someone gets a cramp, the majority of the children are crying, or people lose interest]

I have a soft spot for the Chicken Dance. My Grandma loved the Chicken Dance. I can remember doing it with her at weddings and the annual Croatian Fraternal Union Christmas party. It is a core memory of my childhood. Once at an Octoberfest there was a band playing it and I told Leo it was “the dance of his people.”*

But this post isn’t about my second favorite dance from when I was a kid (the first obviously being the Hammer Dance**). It’s about chicken-based children’s stories that I see playing out in the real world. Today it’s Henny Penny (aka Chicken Little or Chicken Licken). I grew up with it being called Henny Penny and this fable was all about the impacts of overreacting and turning the smallest issue into a major catastrophe (making a mountain from a molehill). As the story goes, Henny Penny is just living her chicken life, picking up a little corn snack from the ground when WHACK an acorn hits her on the head. Henny Penny isn’t one to investigate. She’s more of a jump to conclusions sort of lady so obviously, she decides that the sky is falling. With this information she believes she must tell the king and off she goes. Along the way she meets several animals who believe what she says: Cocky-locky, Ducky-daddles, Goosey-poosey, and Turkey-lurkey (my personal favorite) and they decide to accompany her on her trek to tell the king. Then, they all meet Foxy-loxy and tell him their plan. He is exceptionally helpful because he points out that they are going in the wrong direction but he knows the way and will help direct them there. So helpful! They all walked and walked until they got to a dark and narrow hole. When they said this didn’t seem like the right place…

Apparently there are two completely different endings to this story! I had no idea!

Version 1: Foxy-loxy assured them it was a shortcut to the palace. It was not. It was his burrow. He told all the (sucker) animals he would go first and they should follow one at a time. So in goes Foxy-loxy and Turkey-lurkey follows. Then, Foxy-loxy snapped off Turkey-lurkey's head and threw his body over his left shoulder. Damn! It went really dark really quickly and the carnage continues because it would appear each animal goes in, one after the other, to be dismembered by Foxy-loxy. Prior to his murder, Cocky-lockey let out a “cock-a-do” (he didn’t finish because he was eaten). Waiting for her turn, Henny Penny heard Cocky-locky crow. She assumed that meant it was dawn and time to lay her egg so she left to head back to her nest. 

Version 2: Foxy-loxy admitted it was his burrow but that he wanted to have them over for dinner before they met the king. Chicken-licken took a look around and noticed a lot of questionable decorations (i.e. bones and feathers) because Foxy-loxy was a messy bastard who didn’t clean up after himself. When she saw him put on a big-ass pot of water, and set only one place setting at the table, she realized they were going to be dinner. She came up with a plan. She took out her dust cloth from her apron (so prepared) and told Foxy-loxy he should just relax and that she would tidy up the house while the water heated. He thought that sounded amazing and settled in for a nap. Once he was snoring the animals snuck out of there and back to the farm and ate corn cake at Henny Penny’s. When they were finished they went outside and an acorn fell on Henny-Penny’s head. Once again she made the wrong assumption and freaked out. Her friends showed her that it was an acorn and called her a dumbass. She laughed at her silliness.

THE END

Please don’t think I am just randomly retelling fables here. I see a variety of connections between this story and certain workplace behavior:

Catastrophizing: I talked about this a bit in another blog. It’s when people tend to mentally jump to the worst case scenario. They make a very big deal out of (usually) nothing. Henny Penny turns something that is truly a non-issue into a problem worthy of the king. This is, unfortunately, familiar to many of us. We all work with someone whose default is assuming the worst. Their tendency to go Defcon 1 (Maximum readiness!!! War is imminent!!!!) in the most trivial situations is exhausting and if the catastrophizer *is a manager they end up dragging other people into the situation (Cocky-locky, Ducky-daddles, Goosey-poosey, and Turkey-lurkey) and putting them through a lot of unnecessary trauma and work. 

Crying wolf: Similar to catastrophizing, it makes everything seem like an emergency and this behavior has impacts. First, people start to ignore your distress cries. Things marked “urgent” or the seven emails in a row are now normal and tabled for later. There is a limit on declaring urgent, drop everything kind of situations; especially when you work in a field where actual emergencies are few and far between. Once you reach your limit of catastrophes, you are the little boy in the village. When the wolf shows up (an actual problem!) no one will believe you. Second, working with someone who is constantly crying wolf impacts other people. When people are forced to feel like everything is high priority/emergency status their health is impacted. They have headaches, their cortisol levels are raised, and they have trouble sleeping. Employees who are feeling like this are not going to be able to perform their best. Crying Wolf has impacts beyond the person yelling. 

Naysaying: A delightful offshoot of catastrophizing is often naysaying. Naysayers never met an idea (from you especially!) that they like. Rather than trying to come up with a solution they tell you why things will never work. Trying to improve a process or make something more logical? Not if a naysayer can help it! They will point out every place this change could be problematic. They will drone on about the potential backlash. They make it so annoying that you want to bash your head on the conference table. They cling to their belief that whatever you think will work (no matter how much time you've spent planning) will not. They are the Debbie Downers of the business world. 

The need to always be right: There is no debating that the sky is falling because the Henny Penny’s you work with believe the sky is falling. They are right because they are always right. If you think it’s an acorn and they don’t? Sorry, not an acorn and here is a slow and patronizing explanation of why you are wrong. Unfortunately, believing something is true does not make it true. I know people say we live in a post-truth world but I think the truth is out there. This approach at work is bad for so many reasons. It’s annoying. Humans are fallible and being right all the time is simply not possible. It’s really annoying. It’s much easier to work with or train someone who wants to learn from their mistakes rather than someone who can’t acknowledge them. Holy moly so annoying! It alienates others. Being consistently corrected or “informed of” things gets old. Quickly.

A desire to overcomplicate things: Why solve a problem quickly when you could overcomplicate it and make the solution ridiculous and exceptionally time consuming?! People prone to complexity bias take any request, task, or question and then get to work on a convoluted “solution.” Working with people who have this tendency when you are much more of an Occam’s Razor (#parsimony) kind of person is maddening. Not only are they wasting their time they are often wasting your time as well. 

Lack of research into the problem: Did all of the other animals have to follow her? Of course not! Her panic was convincing and the evidence (to her) was that acorn. But the other animals?! They just assumed it was true and followed her (to their deaths in Version 1!). This is no way to operate. Doing this at work is a great way to get fired. Not everyone has your best interests in mind (sorry). You have to ensure that you have all of the pertinent information before acting. A solid CYA is always recommended. Trust but verify. 

Believing women are too emotional: Henny Penny is giving us ladies a bad name! There was no due diligence, just her flying off the handle and embarking on a lengthy journey void of critical thinking. This reflects poorly on us all because people already belive that women are more emotional than men. This idea is so common it is classified as a “master stereotype.” People of different ages, cultural backgrounds, and even women believe that this is fact. IT. IS. NOT. TRUE. Research shows that women’s emotional reactions are seen as who they are while men’s emotional reactions are due to external circumstances. As in, “oh she is just an angry person” or “she is not capable of controlling herself.” Our emotions are seen as inextricable to us but men get to blame pretty much anything else. That means that men’s emotional reactions can be written off as not actually their own. In the words of my Grandma Flo, “it’s a crock of shit.” 

What I think is crazy is that in both endings, Henny Penny escapes unscathed. What the hell? She created this mess and doesn't seem to learn a damn thing.

Not me! After thinking about all the parallels between this story and real life I wanted some solutions. What I found was a reminder that we can only control our own responses and not how others behave (therapy 🌈 ). That can really be a challenge at work but the first suggestion I found is to take a beat before responding to the “emergency” of the moment. Ground yourself and then respond. I think part of crying wolf is the response the person gets. If everyone jumps into action then the person crying wolf feels important and powerful. Perhaps less reaction from us will lead to less crying wolf? We can hope! What about the people who are always right and revel in correcting everyone? I think we can all agree they are insufferable but the one thing I came across that really struck me was the idea of not trying to prove your case. I think for many of us when someone is wrong and acting like a jerk we want to show them how and why they are wrong. Turns out that’s pointless and will just lead to (more) conflict. You and your evidence isn’t going to sway them because they are right and you are wrong. So the best thing is to ignore them like the cacti I buy every summer and plant in my atrium. The hope is that the behavior will eventually (maybe?) start to die off; like my cacti. Finally, the naysayer. I love the idea that as soon as they start to rain on your parade you ask them what could be done to make it work. You cut off the negativity before it starts. Also, managers need to set some rules to manage these behaviors. Rather than letting the toxic naysayer shoot down everyone’s ideas, create inclusive and respectful parameters for meetings (in particular) and beyond.

The stories of these two little nuggets (see what I did there?) have a lot to teach us and I think each of the animals in these stories have pros and cons. 

The Little Red Hen: Very responsible/prone to burn out. Finds scream therapy an effective way to alleviate stress.

The farm animals: Clear boundary setters/unwilling to help a friend. Would not call 911 if their phone was out of reach.

Henny Penny: Strong convictions/not great at confirming via data. Likely a climate change denier.

Cocky-locky, etc.: Very supportive friends/not the smartest. Will cut off your mimosas before you drunk text your ex.

Foxy-loxy: Talks a great game/murderer. Still quotes the Wolf of Wall Street incessantly.

It may seem like Little Red Hen comes out as the best example to follow. She is responsible. She knows how to do a bunch of cool stuff and she bakes bread. That sounds great. But her story isn’t all good because the animals she surrounds herself with suck. We can blame them for not helping her (even when she asked, which is hard!) but now that she knows how they operate it’s important she not continue to do everything alone. That approach will only sow (farming pun) bitterness and resentment. She needs to find new friends (colleagues) who will support her when she needs it and who understand the importance of contributing. It’s inevitable that we all take on the good and the bad of each of these roles every once in a while. Some days we are a lazy farm animal. Some days we overreact like Henny Penny. Some days we are an evil genius like Foxy-loxy. The important thing to remember is to not let any of these roles define or consume you. Be your own animal. A cool one if possible, maybe a liger.

 *About ⅓ of his people. He is also ½ Mexican so La Chona is the other dance of his people. The remaining portion is a real mezcla: Polish, German, Irish, Swiss, Dutch. All these pasty countries in his DNA means that he has amazing blonde highlights that look like what some people (me) pay to have put in their hair. 
**I dare you to go listen to that song and not want to dance. In 8th grade my best friend and I broke her VCR because we had recorded the video and kept stopping and rewinding it to ensure we had all of the moves down. I also had a pair of Hammer pants. If you are a young person with naturally dewy skin, please do not look at these pants and laugh thinking how ridiculous we were. Hammer pants still exist, you have just renamed them harem pants (don’t like that name one bit) and drop crotch pants. Do I still do the Hammer dance? Yes. Does my husband cover his hands with embarrassment every single time? Correct. Do I care? I do not because I have a mind to rhyme and two hype feet. #schoolsinsuckers

Quicksand

Growing up quicksand was a big deal. The kids who grew up in the 80s were exposed to a lot of quicksand-related trauma as illustrated by this one minute montage and this article. If you have personally never been victimized by a serious fear of quicksand and are wondering what the hell I am talking about please listen to this excellent episode of Radiolab. They get it. The thing about quicksand that was always most scary to me was that the harder the person tried to extract themself, the further they sank. Quicksand disregards your efforts. Quicksand doesn't give a shit. Quicksand has you and it’s not letting go. Also, quicksand always looks kind of gloopy* and sticky and that, if you were able to get out it would be a real bitch to get off of your clothes and person. 

Quicksand popped into my brain the other day because I am a bit stuck. Not in actual quicksand (whew!) but I still don’t like how it feels. Here’s the deal. I have never been very excited to write because it was never really fun. I wrote essays in college** but those were on assigned topics with prescribed formats. I wrote a master’s thesis on a topic of my choosing, political corruption in Mexico (#lamordida), but was limited in how I wrote about it. Then I started doing academic writing in my PhD program and that was lame. I was limited in pretty much every way. Academic writing is formulaic, dry, and lacks an opportunity to swear or include photos; though I do enjoy a good footnote. Writing this blog is different. I enjoy it and I want to do it because I actually like it and not because I have to. The problem is I am running out of hours in the day. When I started doing this in August I promised myself two posts a week and I did that. Now it’s January. Classes are about to start again and sabbatical is over. In addition to my normal professor job I am still Department Chair, North American Editor of the Journal of Business Ethics Education, and a boatload of other things to other people so I am trying to be realistic (gross).  I want to do all of the things but I can’t and it’s bumming me out. I do not like feeling disappointed (I’m guessing nobody does) and am trying to get my head around how to let some things go in order to do all of the things I need to do. I started reading about how to deal with disappointment and found some great suggestions. First, we have to actually acknowledge it. 

I am in the valley of disappointment because I can’t spend all of my time writing fun things for the blog. 

Next, we have to accept things as they are. This is not easy. I will try:

I have a lot of obligations. Some are fun and some are not but I have to take care of them all. The blog is not an obligation but it is an outlet and I know that is also important. I will likely need to write less for fun in order to take care of everything but I am not willing to stop writing it altogether. 

To combat disappointment we can consider the opposite. Instead of letting it fester, flip it on its head. Take a look at this awesome wheel of emotions. The thought is that you may be able to counterbalance the disappointment with a feeling from the opposite side of the wheel. 

After acknowledging the disappointment (which falls under grief), instead of wallowing in it, you try on a little joy. What is making you happy right now? That doesn't eliminate feeling disappointed but it takes the edge off a bit. Here’s mine:

The other day a woman I have never met messaged me on IG to tell me she loved my blog and that it made her laugh. She found it because one of my friends who lives in the UK posted a link to it on a moms with PhDs Facebook group. That is amazing and random and how social media works and exactly why I am doing this in the first place. Knowing a woman somewhere read this and resonated with it; that’s all I want.

Speaking of joy, I started a new thing this year. Every day I write down one thing that brought me joy. I am never going to have a gratitude journal. I will never have any journal of any kind. But I can write two words a day about what made me happy. My thought was that, when things are feeling shitty, I can flip through all those little moments of joy and get back on track. 

I really like the idea that you are disappointed because you are passionate about something. I am. I am passionate about helping women (and myself in the process) extricate themselves from this shell game we are forced to operate in (#patriarchy). I am passionate about building my force field and helping other women do the same. I am passionate about women knowing they are not crazy; that all the “little” slights, comments, looks, and suggestions are happening, are not acceptable, and that there are solutions.  

I’m also learning that disappointment can lead to success (even HBR says so!) which isn’t something I had considered. I was so focused on the icky side of the feeling that I missed what comes next. What comes next for me is that I’m going to keep writing the blog when I can and I am going to move past the disappointment that I can’t dedicate more time to it right now. I have a long list of topics I want to write about and it keeps growing because insane things continue to happen in the world. I am looking at you Missouri House of Representatives. The success I am hoping for is that women continue to find the blog. That it helps women feel seen. That it leads to conversations that lead to connections that lead to me getting in front of even more women and that, together, we revolt. 

If you want to help me keep the blog rolling please share it far and wide + send me topics you think I should write about. I am not (yet) past feeling bummed out but I have a lot of joy too. I have new research in the works with fun co-authors that will allow me to remain a qualified Scholarly Academic (the blog does not count as “scholarly”). I have an air fryer. I made it into Dandayamana Janushirasana on several occasions recently and it would appear that feeling stuck in quicksand offers time to reflect in ways I don’t normally. Rather than what I would do normally (struggle!!!) I’m going to follow these actual suggestions for getting out of quicksand because most of them seem helpful for life in general. I’ll let you decide which ones work for you and if I see any of you walking around barefoot with your arms in the air I will know what’s up.

*Not goopy. I do not want to use any word that could possibly be confused with a mention of the brand name Goop. Gweneth Paltrow is a scammer. Goop’s “wellness” products are snake oil. $525 for a gray turtleneck sweater (G. Label by Goop) inspired by what Gweneth wants to wear is both a crime and eye-roll inducing. You can either get “luxury-grade investment pieces at direct-to-consumer price” (barf) or an equally cute sweater from Everlane ($100) where they ethically source materials and transparently share their costs and supply chain. Oof. That was a bit of a rant. Gwyneth really bugs me.

**I once took a summer class at the University of Pittsburgh on political history. I was not excited about that class. I didn’t proofread my first essay so I did not realize that my printer had not printed every other line. I turned it in. For my second essay I wrote about Karl Marx except I spelled Karl with a C!!! Carl Marx. That professor probably told his friends about me. I don’t know how I passed that class. I’m a professor now. Dream big kids!

Scrub

Do you enjoy being naked with strangers? Does having the top several layers of your skin removed sound like a good time? If not I would HIGHLY advise against visiting a jjimjilbang.

A jjimjilbang is a (gender segregated) Korean spa with hot tubs, saunas, interesting rooms, and relaxing spots to drink tea. There are several in San Diego. 

If you asked me these questions before I started my PhD program I would have made a mental note that you were clearly a voyeuristic masochist, but now this has become part of my annual, what I guess I could call, maintenance. A long time ago I decided that I wanted to start my year with a literal clean slate so when everyone heads back to the first day of work after the holidays I head to the jjimjilbang for a scrub and a massage. 

If this sounds appealing to you I want to offer some pointers. When you get there you put ALL of your stuff in a locker. You will be naked aside from your locker key. This is not optional. Next you take a shower before doing anything else. Will the shower be private? No, it will not. It will be in the same room with the hot tub and a number of other naked people. If you opt for a scrub you will lay on a table covered in plastic (it always gives me Dexter vibes) and bowls of water verging on boiling will be thrown on you. Then it gets real. A woman will start to scrub every inch of you and will remove any last shred of dead skin and dignity. You will be flipped over like an egg, told to lay on your side, and likely almost slip off of the table and onto the floor. Don’t worry. They will catch you (but they will also laugh at you). After you are possibly bleeding just a little but very smooth you will be told to shower (again). You head back to the table but now it is dry and there is a towel to lay on. Normal back massage stuff (normal = exceptionally firm pressure veering into pain at times) is followed by what can only be described as gentle-ish face slapping. It’s good for circulation! Then a thin piece of muslin is placed over your face (like a shroud but for alive people) and that is covered with a mystery mask of some kind. While that marinates the rest of you gets massaged and your hair is washed. This is not a gentle wash but it is certainly through. Hair rinsed, your shroud is peeled off and you are told to sit up. Your back is heartily clapped and then, then you are doused with milk. Surprised? So was I the first time I went!!! Why am I being covered in dairy?! Did I order this? Am I being filmed? Anyhoo you are then told to splash your face with milk (which you do because you are afraid to say no to this exceptionally strong woman) and sent on your way to enjoy the rest of the facilities at your leisure. Totally normal Tuesday morning.  

I started doing this way before we were talking about the importance of self-care. Something about parts of me from the previous year being physically removed always felt so good that I decided to purposely make it my own tradition. While sitting in the Himalayan Salt Sauna (pictured!) I started thinking about some of the other traditions and rituals I have that make me feel good. Three immediately popped into my head. 

Every evening I wash my face (obviously!). But it is a process. When I say “I’m going to wash my face” my family knows I will be gone for at least 15 minutes. I don’t know when this became so involved but I love it. I get a bit of time to myself, listen to a (murder) podcast, and turn off my brain. Ok so here’s the daily breakdown: Micellar water, cleanser applied with face brush, pat dry with towel and savor the moment, toner, serums (these vary day to day), moisturizer, gua sha, eye balm, and finish off with some lip balm. Very low key and not at all ridiculous. I have a working theory about why I do all of this. When I was younger I had terrible acne. It made me self-conscious and it was exceptionally frustrating because there was nothing much I could actually do about it except try to cover it which only made it look worse. I had to take antibiotics for years to finally get rid of it (sorry to you my gut biome!). So now I do many things in hopes of never having to deal with that again. I also think it’s an opportunity to momentarily escape what can sometimes be the most stressful time of the day (i.e. danger brain) while also ensuring my face doesn’t look like shoe leather (my ultimate goal in life). Sure I could splash water on my face and call it a day. That would save loads of time and money but that’s not the point. I do this routine because it makes me happy. It is relaxing. It smells good. And, according to research, routines are comforting and they are good for our mental health. So clearly this is a must. Please let me know if I am missing any crucial steps you enjoy. I am always up for new steps in the process!

Every Sunday I do my nails. To me there is something about having my nails done that makes me feel like I have my shit together even when I most certainly do not. I grew up in the era of Dynasty where the most sassy and powerful ladies always had amazing nails. Do you think Alexis Carrington would have been caught dead without a manicure? She would slap you for thinking such a thing. Also, I talk with my hands (a lot) and our hands are all about expression and emotions so having to glimpse undone nails makes me sad.

I usually use nail polish wraps (I am slightly obsessed) which are basically stickers* that come in a zillion prints and colors. Each week Leo is in charge of picking my wraps. He asks what I have to do that week to get a feel for what he thinks will work. Once I was doing a panel on women in business so he picked ones with dinosaurs because “ladies are strong like dinosaurs.” That kid ❤️

I was surprised to find articles linking manicures to improved mental health and the fact that the practice of adorning nails dates back to Cleopatra! I thought this was just sort of a frivolous thing I did but taking time to do or get your nails done is a way to reclaim some space in your life and an opportunity to check out for a bit.** Manicures are being used to empower women and the mere existence of the industry has dealt with classism, racial discrimination, politics, and human rights issues. So people can think this is silly and a waste of time but (to me and many others) it’s way more than surface. Surprisingly some students even notice. I’ve had students that check the weekly selection of color/pattern and my nails have been mentioned in my teaching evaluations. I once had a student ask if I was ok because he noticed my nails weren’t done (I was not ok. It was a bad week). That guy and his keen observation skills are going places! If you are still skeptical just try it once and see if you feel better!

I listen to Big Pimpin’ by Jay-Z on the way to work when I need to get my head right. I do not feel good about this. Much like Roxanne Gay, this makes me feel like a very bad feminist. The title alone is suspect and the lyrics are deplorable aside from when people are told to read a book (you illiterate son of of bitch). It’s misogynistic, borderline abusive, and generally gross. And yet… something about the beat and turning it way up helps me get ready for whatever is coming at me that day. Maybe the song is tied to some amazing memory and I don’t realize it. All I know is that it works and it has for a while because Big Pimpin’ was released in 2000 (OMFG). This song has clearly been cemented into my personal traditions but it is not one I will be sharing with Leo. There are other songs that I love and that make me feel great but they simply aren’t the same. Tons of research discusses the benefits of music in our lives and shows that music can relax the mind, energize the body, and even help people better manage pain. 

A 2010 study of 36,000 people around the world conducted by Adrian C. North of Heriot-Watt University found that people who liked certain genres of music tended to have high self-esteem. Specifically, fans of classical, pop, jazz, and—this may surprise some people—rap.

So maybe I’m onto something with Jay-Z when I need a confidence boost. Fortunately there are many other song suggestions that may work for you. If you want to add to or change your own rituals here are some options for things to do in the morning, things to do throughout your day, and things backed by science. if you’re looking for some new traditions you can draw from around the world. If you still really crave 90s rappers in your life but have a child may I suggest Doggyland? Snoop Dogg has come out with a children’s album. This is a real thing. I will leave you with the Affirmation Song so you and your kid can tackle whatever the day brings.

[Intro: Snoop Dogg]
Affirmations are a positive statements that help bust a challenge and overcome
When you not feeling good and have negative thoughts, so repeat after me, come on everyone

[Verse 1: Snoop Dogg & Doggyland]
There is no one better to beat than myself
There is no one better to beat than myself
Today is going to be an amazing day
Today is going to be an amazing day
My feelings matter
My feelings matter
I get better every single day
I get better every single day
I choose to feel happy
I choose to feel happy
My family loves me so much!
My family loves me so much!
I care about others
I care about others
I learn from my mistakes
I learn from my mistakes

[Hook]
Affirmations are fun and cool
They help us heal and they help us grow
If you love to learn and wanna keep feeling good, let's say some more
Follow me, let's go!

[Verse 2: October London & Doggyland]
I am responsible
I am responsible
I get better every single day
I get better every single day
I'm surrounded by love
I'm surrounded by love
Every problem has an answer
Every problem has an answer
I deserve to feel good
I deserve to feel good
Anything is possible
Anything is possible
I believe in myself
I believe in myself
I can control my own happiness
I can control my own happiness

[Outro: Snoop Dogg]
Now we know some new affirmations that we can choose, and learn to say
So next time you need a little inspiration to help you more have a positive day (positive day)
Affirmations
Affirmations (affirmations, affirmations, affirmations)

*In elementary school we had sticker albums! I had one that was pink and puffy and I once left it at my friend’s house on the picnic table outside and it rained. It was a true tragedy. Some stickers were scratch and sniff, some were fuzzy, some had googly eyes. All were amazing. Before Pokemon cards there were sticker albums. After sticker albums there were the Garbage Pail Kids. It was the 80s. It was a weird time. I had this sticker →

**Unless you are one of those people who talk on their cell the entire time they get their nails done, in which case you are a monster. If you have the other person on speaker or FaceTime I have no words for you. Just contempt.  

Resolve

Well. We made it. It’s 2023 and do you know what that means? Do you??! Can you tell me because I honestly have no idea. I know it means we have all survived another year of absolute fuckery. I also know that at some point over the last twelve months people have started to refer to the year I was born as having happened in the “nineteen hundreds” which is exceptionally offensive though technically true. Beyond these things I feel like the only other thing this particular week of the year means is that we are supposed to set resolutions for the shiny new year ahead. Usually my resolutions don’t actually matter to my life in the greater scheme of things. In fact, I can’t even remember what I resolved to do this year if that is any indication of how little they mean. So heading into 2023 I decided to take a different approach. I’m not really making a resolution. I am not adding anything to my list that I need to learn or do or change. Instead I am resolving to do less. To focus on me. So in essence, I guess I am my own resolution? I swear I have not completely lost the plot. I have just had a bit of extra time (#sabbatical) to think about what is genuinely important to me and it turns out that protecting myself, my time, and my energy is what I want most. Maybe it’s because I have been thinking so much about tightroping, maybe it’s all the yoga, maybe it’s the therapy. Whatever it is, I am going to work on creating a bullshit deflecting force field around myself. 

Did you know that we actually have a force field around our bodies? It’s (neuro)science and it’s bonkers. Also, I still haven’t decided exactly what kind of force field I need. Should it be like the one in the Hunger Games? More like the one in Star Wars? I’ll need to work on this. Suggestions welcome. 

I have already started and would say that what I have now is more a bubble than a force field. Sometimes it works and whatever the annoying thing is,* I can just pause, take a breath and move on; no big deal. Other times the bullshit is just too strong and it pops that bubble so I fixate on the thing and give it far more attention than it deserves. I need to move to a place of virtual un-popability; hence the force field metaphor. I know that creating this barrier will take work and that no matter how hard I try there are still situations and people that will really test me. I have decided that am ok with this for several reasons:

Nothing is constant. I’m not trying to get all Eckhart Tolle on you here. I just mean that nothing works all of the time. Some things are going to make it through the force field no matter how hard I try so I need to accept (not necessarily like) it and move on.

I have choices. This simple phrase is one of the most memorable and useful things I have learned in therapy lately. You may read that and think “of course you have choices, dummy!” and you’re right. But I often don’t pause to remember that so I simply react. I let my brain gremlins (can I trademark that?) get the better of me. Over the last few weeks I have been reminding myself that I choose how I react, when I react, if I react (and a lot of other things) and I am finding it is making a difference. So I have that in my back pocket and it’s awesome. 

In a similar vein, I have choices for the ways I work. I know that I am exceptionally conscientious and competent. I also know that other people are not and they could care less. I have observed enough times that the most incompetent blowhards float through life missing deadlines, shirking their duties, playing the fool, and thinking only of themselves with little to absolutely zero consequences so why am I constantly busting my (competent) ass? I’m not saying I am going to quietly quit but I am saying that tasks and people outside of those I deem truly important to me don’t actually deserve 100% of my effort. 

“Competence is wearying. It tricks me by funneling my time into “useful pursuits” rather than “frivolous amusements.”

I want more frivolous amusements! I don’t want to get better at things that are “useful.” I want to not be stressed out all of the time. I want more joy. I want more sourdough bread. I want more champagne for absolutely no reason other than I am alive. These are all attainable things and they definitely fit inside of the force field. 

Kick ass women who shall remain nameless but are pure fucking magic. This small but mighty group gives me courage, love, hard truths, and memes. What more could one ask for?

So I guess what I’m saying is consider this my notice. I’m entering my Summer of George. I will no longer be at the beck and call of people who do not actually value my time or my personhood (Leo aside 😂). I will not be bending over backwards to accommodate the needs and desires of people who are unable to recognize the world beyond themselves. I will do my job and I will do it well but I will not allow it to consume me. Will I feel guilty about not going above and beyond? Probably! But a lot of research shows that this guilt is unnecessary and misplaced. My job is not my entire life and I am not my productivity so I am going to spend this year channeling the vibe of this song.* 2023 is me for me (sipping Topo Chico) and building that  forcefield. 

*The fifth email in the same day from the same person harping on some inconsequential minutiae (just an example of course…).

**The Tightroping playlist on Spotify just keeps getting better!

Wrap it up

It’s the end of the year as we know it and I feel pretty good.* The time in between Christmas and New Year’s always feels so weird to me. I never know what day it is, rules don’t seem to apply (Candy with lunch? Sure! TV in your room? Absolutely! Consume 37 pounds of cheese? You bet!), and everything is just a little removed from reality. This year it also marks the unofficial end to my sabbatical. When Leo goes back to school, I go back to my email and lose the (slight) buffer sabbatical offered in terms of how I spent my time. That is a bummer but I did have an opportunity to do some things I have never done before: 

• Write a blog

• Make several gallons of hot chocolate at once

• Decorate a classroom door ➔

• Play bingo in Spanish with a bunch of first graders 

• Read for fun

• Create a book proposal

• Go to Joshua Tree right before Thanksgiving

Now that it’s back to “normal” I thought I should revisit what I hoped to accomplish this semester. Back in August I laid out some fairly specific goals with the caveat that I was going to cut myself some slack (not my norm). So here is what I had on my list and the results:

Weekly or bi-weekly blog posts on academically-adjacent ideas about the invisible burdens on women @ work and tightroping: This is my fortieth blog and the only time I didn’t post on my Tuesday/Thursday schedule was Thanksgiving. I strayed a bit from work as a topic at times and went into parenting, mental health, why Elon Musk is terrible, teaching, and other random topics but it was fun. Hearing from people I have never met that a post resonated with them was honestly the highlight of this process. 
Monthly blog posts where I rant about how Sheryl Sandberg sold us all a lie and that leaning in is a bunch of bullshit and/or stories about my son: I really only went in on Sheryl once (#noshitsheryl)** but I feel like there was consistent Leo content. That kid is a content machine. After taking him to the KSB holiday party a few weeks ago I said “Thank you for being my plus 1 to the party tonight.” He replied, “You mean your plus FUN!!” That’s golden. He should have his own blog. Once he learns how to read and type-watch out!! 

Six or seven completed book chapters: Well… I spent a lot of time editing the three that are complete and started three other ones but they are nowhere near complete. I did more research. I outlined stuff. But they are a very far cry from complete. 

An additional dog: Mango San Carlos has been with us for several months now. He has learned to bark at anyone who dares walk on our street or deliver anything to our house from his brother Mr. Crenshaw Sniffers. They are the best of buddies and play bitey face all day long. 

A book contract with an actual company so that I don’t have to make hard copies of what I write to give as gifts: Did not happen. I had a few nibbles. I spent a lot of time figuring out who publishes what I am working on, if they are accepting queries, what information they want, and then tweaking my proposal accordingly. It felt a lot like applying to college. Everyone wanted something slightly different. All in all I sent my proposal to six agencies and nine agents. Some were kind enough to say no thank you but many went into an internet black hole. Sigh. 

In revisiting my goals I also realized the things I accomplished that I didn’t plan to: 

Almost done writing a case study on the mezcal industry in Oaxaca. I met with an editor at Ivey Publishing who thinks it would be a great fit for their case collection and asked that I submit it when it’s finished. 

Wrote and submitted a proposal to a conference about how to discuss cultural appropriation in the context of a business ethics class via an exercise/project.

Worked with the amazing April Cash to raise $$$ for the students in the majors and minors in the Management department. We talked to alumni, students, and random passersby during the Homecoming tailgate hyping all the awesome support we offer our students. 

Started a new research project on Egoism with my favorite co-author Ed Love that will yield at least one paper (and maybe more). It will also likely anger philosophers who refuse to measure anything.

For a while I was sad and disappointed in myself because I couldn’t make the book happen. The day of three rejections was particularly shitty. But then I had to step back and think about why I wanted to write the book in the first place. What does a book actually get me? In my mind a book was a checkmark in my favor to the world outside of academia. It was a thing you can buy/hold that represents a publisher seeing enough promise in my work to fund it; thus giving me credibility. But then I remembered that I actually have credibility! At the moment it doesn't happen to be in the “right” places (i.e. industry) but that is something I can work on. I guess I realized that the book wasn’t the point. The book was a means to the end of reaching women and addressing things that matter to them. A book gets me into the literal hands of women which (hopefully) gets me into the doors of their companies to have conversations that drive change. But maybe the blog can do that too? You can’t hold it (unless you print it but please don’t do that because that’s not environmentally friendly at all), but you can forward a link, and maybe that link ends up with someone who wants to have a conversation, and maybe that conversation leads to me getting into those doors and in front of more women. There are a lot of ways to get to the same goal so I’m going to keep doing what I am doing and see what happens. Please know that if someone emails tomorrow with interest in the book I wouldn’t say no (!) I just now have a bit more clarity that a book is only one way to have an impact. 
Over the next few days I need to figure out what’s next for #tightroping and the blog. I also need to think about the bigger picture for 2023 and how everything fits together. I can say for certain that this is the most fun I have ever had writing and it makes me happy. Plus, I still have a running list of topics and general angst and they all need an outlet! Now I just have to figure out how to make it all work. I also need to remind myself (like I did in August) to cut myself some slack. Right before the holidays there was a great HBR article on Self-Compassion. It revisits some of the things I said back in August. Mainly that we can be really hard on ourselves. We hold ourselves to levels of perfectionism that are simply unattainable and then beat ourselves up for not reaching them. I don’t want to do that anymore. That approach sucks the joy out of so many experiences. For this last post of the year I want to leave you with the three elements of self-compassion. We all deserve to treat ourselves as well as we treat those around us.  

Feeling pretty psyched about 2023. Happy New Year!

*Yes, that is a play on the spectacular R.E.M. song It’s the End of the World as We Know It from 1987. Here is the link to the song but I highly suggest you take several minutes of your life and watch the truly chaotic video. Yes, I still know every word. Also, I had this poster in my room in high school. My grandma yelled at me about it because she thought it said “fuck” and not “Buck.”  

**I had mini stickers made with this on them. Email me and I will send you some. Seriously. 

Weighed down

The number of things my brain tracks and considers over the course of a week is bananas. Running in the background like an annoying little hamster* is a constant list of things that need to be bought, organized, washed, packed, replaced, noted, picked up, folded, prepped, dropped off, cooked, and generally taken care of. Most of this isn’t even written on my actual to do list(s). It just lives in my head. No one can see it but I assure you that it is there. This (and a lot of other stuff) is the mental load that women and mothers carry. It’s nothing new. Women have certainly been carrying it since forever but the pandemic highlighted just how unfair it is. I saw a quote in an interview with author Brigid Schulte that described the problem in a truly excellent way. She said that, “the pandemic has laid bare the ‘grotesque inequality’ that exists within many families.” Grotesque. That’s not a word you often hear describing everyday life and I think that is an indication of just how bad it is.

The idea for this post started last night while I was in bed. Want to guess why? Because I was mentally preparing for the week ahead and was thinking:

Who needed to go where and when? 

Do we have anything on the calendar out of the ordinary?

What am I going to bring for the white elephant this weekend?

How early do we need to leave on Saturday for the classmate’s party? What should we get her?

When are we going to LA? Who will watch the dogs when we go?

Can I move some faculty around on my Spring semester schedule? Will they be mad if I do? 

What workout do I have in the morning? What time? Where? 

Did Leo bring his fleece jacket home from school so he can wear it if it’s cold tomorrow? 

Where can I get a flu shot? Can I take Leo with me to get his? What will I bribe him with to get said shot?

Where can I buy Leo pants that actually fit? How do I get him to wear pants if I find some that actually fit? Will the same bribe for the shot work?

Do I need to go to Target to get the things Trader Joe’s didn’t have? Can I wait a few days to do that? Did Target have pants that fit or did I have to return them? 

Will Leo eat anything at the restaurant I am taking him for a PTA event? Should I pack snacks? 

Why can’t I fall asleep?

This may seem totally normal to many reading this post but I really don’t think it is. My husband can go from having a full-blown conversation with me to snoring in less than two minutes (that’s a high-end estimate). I spent at least that much time considering which Squishmallo the kid from his class would like! Please know I am not saying my husband never thinks about this stuff! I know he does.** But I am saying that he doesn’t spend nearly as much time doing so. Some people might just attribute this to anxiety, and I don’t doubt that is part of it, but it goes beyond being anxious. Much of the mental load we shoulder is for chores/activities that are essential to everyone having a great day/life. We (try to) ensure that everything happens seamlessly. That kids aren’t left places, sent to school in their jammies on the incorrect day, or we run out of crucial dinner ingredients (pasta). 

For a specific example of this, let’s return to our friends, the Squishmallos. Last year I purchased a stash of them from Costco. I added them to my present cabinet. A present cabinet you ask? Yes. I guarantee many women (especially those strapped with multiple children’s birthday parties a quarter) reading this are nodding in understanding right now. The present cabinet takes many forms. It may be a closet, under the bed, or the back of the car. Whatever form it takes it has a crucial role to play in the family. My present cabinet is where I stash the following: duplicates of toys my child already owns, adorable things I found on sale that someone may like, multiple of the same item in case we need to go to a birthday party for twins, things that would be potentially popular at a gift exchange at various price points, something for someone I don’t know that well but need to attend their birthday dinner and feel obligated to bring a gift, small Lego sets, and fun mugs (wine too but that stays inside). Mine also contains the gift bag collection and the tissue paper

The present cabinet doesn't just appear when you are a woman of a certain age with particular responsibilities. I had to create it. Each addition took thought + time but these things are often overlooked when it comes to the mental load. Here’s why. First, no one can see us thinking about all these things so they are hard to quantify. At some point we will be at the store anyway so grabbing a gift is no big deal. True, it isn’t. The big deal is that all of these little things add up over our days/weeks and bog us down mentally and emotionally. Women’s time is valued differently. There is a book that came out right before the pandemic called Fair Play. I read it as part of my research and because I wanted to know what Eve Rodsky’s solution was. One of the points she made that really stood out to me was:

“Society views women's time as infinite, like sand, and it views men's time as finite, like diamonds.”

We do not value things we perceive to be infinite (ex: the planet we currently inhabit). I, however, am keenly aware that mine time is NOT infinite so I wanted to see what changes could be made to remove some of the mental load. One thing we started doing was using a shared shopping list app with lists for different stores. I am the grocery shopper and always hated having to survey my family for what they needed/wanted. Now we each put stuff on the lists. If it’s not on the list it’s not making it home with whoever stops at that store. I realize this is not earth shattering but it is something. Other suggestions I came across included making a list of everything that needs to happen and trying to balance that out. This is similar to Eve Rodsky’s Fair Play game method. The key here is actually identifying ALL of the tasks: seen (taking out the garbage), unseen (birthday party RSVPs), those that happen every day (the dishwasher), and ones that only need to happen every once in a while (holiday cards). Making a family run smoothly is a slog so deciding who does what in terms of these categories cuts down on the mental load. Pre-planning things you need to do on calendars with reminders is also a suggestion. No one needs to remember that your sugar-addled child needs to book a dental appointment in six months if you put a reminder in your calendar now. Across all of the things I read, apparently just sitting down talking about this stuff was the thing most often suggested. Gross. I know. If you are carrying the mental load and you don’t talk about it your partner will not know. If you are carrying the mental load, talk to your partner and they don’t care I think it’s time to dump his ass.

Like so many things, I think we (as women, moms, general magic makers) just want to do a good job for the people we love and that isn’t always easy. We need help. We need to ask for that help (which can be very hard to do). We need partners who offer that help. The goal isn’t eliminating the mental load because I don’t think that is possible or desirable (#tabularasa). I do think lessening the burden is possible though and am willing to try any suggestions that chip away at the burden. I am also willing and able to continue to stocking the present closet with adorable things for all occasions. I look forward to you stealing the gift I brought at the next white elephant!

*I had a hamster when I was about 4 years old. It apparently had some sort of lump on it’s throat and my Dad didn’t want me to get “hamster pox” so instead of taking it to the vet he murdered it (a cost effective solution to be sure). True story. I did not know this until much later in life and lived many happy years assuming he was in hamster heaven. 

**He does MANY things to keep this family running and house spider/bug free! He is great.

It’s oh so quiet*

Well friends, it was bound to happen. More things are happening “quietly” at work. This time it’s quiet promotions. That sounds like a good thing but IT IS NOT. Like all of its quiet predecessors (quitting, firing, more quitting) this practice is a reflection of the general state of the world: it’s shitty. A quiet promotion is when you are given more work and responsibility for absolutely zero additional compensation and probably not even a title change and it is happening a lot. This isn’t anything new. It’s just another catchy rebrand of an existing practice. Employees have been offered promotions without raises since forever. The  shift is that Great Resignation, people quietly quitting, and generally overworked and burned out employees are making it far more prevalent. If I were to guess, I would say a great many of you reading this (are there even a “many” people reading this?!) have been quietly promoted. 

When I first read about this I thought of a story a friend from my PhD program told me. Before going back to school he was working in a Silicon Valley startup that was floundering. People around him kept getting let go and he kept being given their jobs (in addition to his). He said he knew it was time to quit when he had three desktop monitors; one for each of the full time jobs he had at the company. He was not paid more for any of these additional jobs. All that new work was just him being a “team player.” This is a prime example of how being a team player in situations like this is a scam. 

Sure, there are times where we may need to pitch in a little extra and suck it up for a limited amount of time. That is understandable, especially as so many businesses are facing employee shortages. However, quiet promotions are not a long-term solution to whatever issues an organization is facing. Continuous asks of your time and skills for zero extra compensation simply isn’t ok. In fact, I’d go so far to say it’s unethical. One of the key tenets of the social contracts between employees and employers is that fair compensation should be offered in exchange for work being done. I won’t get into what is fair or who determines that here because that’s enough for five more blog posts.** Of course there are always exceptions but generally speaking: you go to work, you do what you are supposed to, you get paid the salary that was agreed upon when you were hired, your salary increases over time and with additional responsibilities. 

A quiet promotion is not a badge of honor. It’s extra work being given to you because people assume you will do it with little complaint and (likely) do it well because that’s the kind of person you are. I think this ties into something I have had many conversations about, the “curse of competence.” When you are a competent employee you tend to consistently get asked to do more (often with the same resources or even less). You become the default for tasks that don’t technically fall into your job description but that others know you will complete. Why? Because you’re a team player! You are also likely a people-pleasing sucker who is afraid to say no to these extra responsibilities because (you think) it may negatively affect you at some point in the future. Many of these “competent” people are women. Want to guess why? Because we spend so much extra damn time going above and beyond in order to be given the same amount of compensation/recognition as our male peers that we are easy targets for quiet promotion. We are given more work because it is expected that we won’t complain, we will just get it done. Personally, I get it done because I care. Even when I don’t want to, I do. I don’t want to feel like I have let people down or dropped the ball and I like where I work. Unfortunately that “liking” can be an Achilles heel. Years ago there was a job posted at another San Diego university in exactly what I do. I felt weird about checking it out and called my PhD advisor for advice. I told him I felt bad (#Catholicguilt) even thinking about applying and his response has always stuck with me. He said, 

If you could be replaced by someone as good as you for less money they would do it and not feel bad in the least. 

That stung but it is true. Organizations do not care about people. Organizations are not real. In the (2003) documentary The Corporation they asked people on the street what kind of person certain brands would be and one woman said, “General Motors is a kind old man.” I’m sure there is at least one kind old man working at GM but, at the end of the day, GM exists to make a profit. They are currently doing so through some enlightened rhetoric on their website but let’s not kid ourselves about what their purpose really is. 

So what do we do about quiet promotions? The organization is the problem here so we need to highlight where things are going wrong to those creating the quiet promotions. Here are some suggestions I found:

•  Keep a spreadsheet. How are you actually spending your time? What are you doing that is inside and what is outside of your job description? Seeing this laid out makes it harder to discount. A side by side of your job description and current duties can be a powerful tool to highlight what you are actually doing. 

• Assess the situation. What have you taken on and why? The spreadsheet will help with this! Ask yourself if this additional work is taking you in a direction that you want to grow your career or are you just doing the crap no one else wants to do?

• Figure out what you want. Are you willing to do the extra work for a limited time? What is reasonable? Can you get that commitment in writing? If you are willing to stick it out for the time being, can you time your request properly and parlay this quiet promotion into an actual promotion?

• Create an exit strategy if it just isn’t going to work anymore. Don’t just quit! You have bills to pay!!

All of the above suggestions put the responsibility for trying to fix the situation on the employee but what can organizational leaders do? First, they can recognize that they are burning their employees the hell out and then actually do something about it. Here are the signs:

• Unfair treatment at work

• Unmanageable workload

• Lack of role clarity

• Lack of communication and support from their manager

• Unreasonable time pressure

Companies are spending so much money investing in employee mental health and well-being (which is wonderful) but they aren’t addressing the underlying issues. I was surprised to see that one of the key drivers of burnout is a toxic work environment but boy does that make sense! Toxic environments just wear you down so adding that feeling of being ground down with more work and no additional pay and you have a lot of very unhappy employees. To manage this there are some pretty straightforward ideas.

• Recognize the work that your employees are doing. This goes a long way. Explaining that you see what they are doing, that you understand that it is more than normal, and that you are trying to fix it makes a difference (this is assuming you are actually trying to fix it). Remember, they are people!! 

• Talk to your employees. Yes, have an actual conversation. Face-to-face if possible. Ask them what they want and truly LISTEN to what they are saying. Would a half day off be more valuable to them than a holiday party? Could a more flexible schedule help mitigate their burnout a bit? Don’t dismiss their ideas.

•  Look up the chain. Have you been quietly promoted too? Are you passing along work because you have too much on your plate? Time for some real talk with your boss. 

After thinking about and writing about all of the quiet stuff, I think it’s time for a new social contract at work. Employers are owed what you are paid for. They are not owed your evenings, your weekends, or your vacations. Your promotions should be loud celebrations not sneaky additional tasks. I know (I really, personally, truly know) how hard it is to push back on requests from people at work so help myself do better I have been watching videos of the general differences in saying no at work. I need to work on my Gen X vibes. Maybe I’ll go put on my overalls and rewatch My So Called Life as a start (Jordan Catalano + Buffalo Tom = ❤️).

*That’s the title to a fantastic and chaotic Bjork song that is pretty darn great. This is the link if you would like to put it in your ear holes. 

**What I will say is that minimum wage ≠ living wage. The fact that the last time Congress voted to increase the Federal Minimum Wage (currently $7.25/hour) was over THIRTEEN years ago but they have voted for pay raises (cost of living they say!!) for themselves every year is a crime. Last time I checked, the cost of living increases impact everyone and not just out of touch elected officials. 

Still haven’t found what I’m looking for

I just got back from Joshua Tree. That place is otherworldly. It looks like a Dr. Seuss* fever dream. 

In middle school I remember listening to the CASSETTE of U2’s The Joshua Tree in my friend’s room. Her very cool older sister let her borrow it. At the time I didn't know Joshua Tree was a place. If you haven’t listened to this album in a while (or ever) it’s super! It stands the test of time. If you are like, who is U2 I beg you to listen to this playlist curated by the band. To clarify, U2 is a band from Ireland. A band from the nineteen-hundred and seventies. They once put an album on your iPhone whether you wanted it or not. Their lead singer is Bono. He’s fine or whatever but my 90’s heart belonged to Larry Mullen Jr. the drummer. I saw them in 1992 in the imploded Three Rivers Stadium and lost my voice from screaming. Simpler times. 

I went to Joshua Tree because I needed a change of scenery and Leo’s school is closed for the week. Part of why I needed a change of scenery is because I do not think I am doing sabbatical well and I needed to clear my head. I feel like history is repeating itself. On my first sabbatical I was pregnant (NO I AM NOT PREGNANT). I spent a great deal of time on the couch watching The Only Way is Essex (TOWIE if you know what’s up) and trying not to barf.** It wasn’t productive in an academic sense but I did make a person so that is something. On this sabbatical I remained department chair (for a variety of reasons) and this was a stupid and largely unavoidable choice. As a result, I (tell myself) that I can’t totally check out because I still want to make sure everyone in my department has what they need when they need it. But here’s the thing, if I take a few days off no one will die. No harm will come. I am not the head of a surgical team. I do not drop food supplies for the UN. I check email. I do other things but email eats up a CONSIDERABLE amount of my time. I am not saying that (some of) these emails aren’t important or that what I do isn’t valuable but not checking email for 3 days will not result in any harm. This I know for an actual fact because last year we went to Maui, I didn’t look at email for a week, and it took me less than 2 hours to deal with my inbox when I returned. Everyone was safe and sound. 

I think that part of the reason I have such a hard time stepping away from work is that I often make things bigger and potentially more problematic than they are in my head. I think of all the things that could go wrong. Turns out that’s a thing. It’s called catastrophizing and it is when your brain tends to default to the worst case scenario. Guess where I learned about it? Therapy!! Assuming the worst with no proof or, in this case, actual proof that it isn’t a big deal is the result of my good friend, anxiety. I see that more clearly now and am trying to manage it with baby steps because I am in charge of my time and I don’t want email dictating my day. Here’s what I am doing at the moment: 

• No work email on my phone

• No email notifications anywhere (no pop-ups, no sounds, no nothing)

• Trying to answer emails and then close that tab in my browser so I don’t see if anything new comes in

• Setting aside an allotted amount of time for email each day

• Created a “later” folder to stop me from immediately responding to certain tasks so I can do them in batches when I am ready. The good people at HBR say this wastes time but they are not me.

There are many other suggestions of how to manage your email but none of them are foolproof. I still find myself in my inbox wondering how I got there but these changes are helping a bit. I am realizing that many issues solve themselves over the course of a few hours and that some people just really love to send emails. I am also trying to accept that I deserve a break. I don’t need to earn it; especially on sabbatical! With just a few weeks left and the semester winding down I am desperately trying to do a better job at being on sabbatical. I am enjoying novels, volunteering at Leo’s school, taking extra HPF classes, and reading anything that isn’t Dr. Seuss with Leo. I’m going to try and be more like @brianacalli.

I’m a ghost!

*If you aren’t up to date on your Dr. Seuss news, six of his books are no longer being published due to his racist imagery and he had a history of drawing racist propaganda cartoons. 

**I didn’t for 99.9% of the time. The Tom Kha soup Leo demanded got me. It wasn’t pretty.

Oompa

Growing up in Pittsburgh I listened to a lot of polka music.* My grandparents were big fans. In fact, I was once on the evening news doing the polka with my Nanny (Grandma). True story. When I was four we drove from Pittsburgh to Alaska in a 24-foot Winnebago (yes, DROVE) and the only available music was polka and the Annie soundtrack.** The other day I was feeling nostalgic and went to listen to my childhood playlist which includes a lot of polka. The lyrics to these songs are WILD. There is an entire song about a stolen blood sausage and one detailing that you better drink all your beer on earth because there isn’t any in heaven. The real kicker is that a personal childhood favorite of mine was called the Too Fat Polka. You heard that right. I loved this song and can remember singing it at the top of my lungs with my family in my grandparent’s basement. I can see the carpet, I can picture the chair I sat on. These are core memories. But the actual lyrics? Prepare yourselves:

Here's a silly ditty,
You can sing it right away
Now, here is what you say
So sing it while you may

Here's a silly jingle,
You can sing it night or noon
Here's the words, that's all you need
'Cause I just sang the tune:

Oh, I don't want her, you can have her
She's too fat for me
She's too fat for me
She's too fat for me
I don't want her, you can have her,
She's too fat for me
She's too fat
She's too fat
She's too fat for me

I get dizzy
I get numbo
When I'm dancing
With my Jum-Jum-Jumbo

I don't want her, you can have her
She's too fat for me
She's too fat for me
She's too fat for me
I don't want her, you can have her
She's too fat for me
She's too fat
She's too fat
She's too fat for me

Can she prance up a hill?
No, no, no, no, no
Can she dance a quadrille?
No, no, no, no, no
Does she fit in your coupe?
By herself she's a group
Could she possibly
Sit upon your knee?
No, no, no

We don't want her, you can have her
She's too fat for me
And she's too fat for me
But she's just right for me
We don't want her, you can have her
She's too fat for me
Yeah, she's too fat,
Much too fat
But she's just right for me

She's so charming
And she's so winning
But it's alarming
When she goes in swimming

We don't want her, you can have her
She's too fat for me
She's too fat for me
But she's just right for me
So I sure want her, you can't have her
She's just right for me
But she's too fat!
She's not too fat!
She's just right for me!

She's a twosome,
She's a foursome
If she'd lose some
I would like her more some

I don't want her, you can have her
She's too fat for me
She's too fat for me
She's too fat for me
I don't want her you can have her
She's too fat for me
She's too fat
Much too fat
She's too fat for me
Hey!

Part of it was sung in what I thought was Polish but could be Slovenian. I am not entirely sure, but the point is that this song is whack by today’s standards. It was originally released in 1947 but the version I grew up with was by Frankie Yankovic (no relation to Weird Al) and it was from 1968. I realize things were “different” back then but this song has a generally shitty message. As a little kid I can’t imagine I considered what the lyrics were actually saying. It was just a song to me. But as I got older the message was received: Fat = bad. It wasn’t just from this song. Although we didn’t have the hellscape of social media in the 80s, it was clear what the optimal look was as a middle school girl: not fat. That was unfortunate because right around fourth grade I became what would kindly have been referred to as “chunky.”  I had to wear the clothes that came in ½ sizes from Sears. At the same time I had braces and headgear (two types!). It wasn’t a great time for self-esteem but it sure did provide lots for the bullies at school to work with. I made it through and now, according to my therapist, use humor as a coping mechanism in stressful situations. She is not wrong. 

School bullies will always exist because children are monsters to each other. There are many reasons why kids bully but what about adults? It’s not just little jerk kids that bully people. Bullying in the workplace has become increasingly common. 

In many countries, trade unions, professional organizations, and human resources (HR) departments have become more aware over the last decade that behaviors such as intimidation, public humiliation, offensive name-calling, social exclusion, and unwanted physical contact has the potential to undermine the integrity and confidence of employees and reduce efficiency. People who have been bullied report that it affects them physically and mentally, with stress, depression, and lowered self-esteem as the most common complaints.

Bullying and harassment are often used interchangeably but they are not the same at work. The Equal Employment Opportunity Council (Est. 1965) was created to ensure that employees are protected from discrimination and bullying becomes harassment when it is directed at a protected class of individuals. These categories are race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, sexual orientation, or gender identity), national origin, age (40 or over), disability, and genetic information (including family medical history). Unfortunately, the EEOC only (sort of) works when people go through the (lengthy) process of reporting a complaint. If you look at their data, complaints filed have decreased in all categories over the last several years. That seems great but all that shows us is that reporting is down. These declining cases may be due to the process and not an improvement in how we treat each other at work since it’s estimated that over 60 million people are impacted by workplace bullying. That’s unacceptable. So what do we do? There are suggestions for the person being bullied like attempting to manage your reactions and making eye contact. There are also suggestions for how others can intervene, but none of this deals with the actual bully! These are just ways to help the victim while the bullying is occurring. We need to go to the source and make changes there and there have to be consequences for workplace bullying. Unfortunately that is where the disconnect usually happens. Organizations and their leaders are not always willing to make the cultural changes or create the necessary policies to support the victims; thus empowering the bullies. 

When thinking about solutions I realized the options I think will work to address bullying are the same ones I think we need to end tightroping. This quote is from my article about Luisa from Encanto and it works here too:

No more excusing ridiculous and unprofessional behavior. When someone makes a comment to a woman about what she is wearing, cracks a sexist joke, takes credit for her work, or talks over her it needs to be addressed immediately and in public. No more justifying bad behavior by saying, “Oh, that’s just how he is!” giving excuses, or having discussions behind closed doors about problematic behavior. Leaders need to create an environment where these things are publicly addressed. It’s not easy and it can definitely be awkward. But if nothing is done the message to us is loud and clear: keep on tightroping. Because the real you won’t be protected. 

It’s not easy to shift cultures and implement new rules but the alternative is lawsuits and employees who don’t feel supported. While organizations are trying to figure out how best to do this we can continue to intervene. One successful intervention strategy that is often mentioned is to change the focus of the conversation or to do something that is distracting. And you know what’s distracting? The polka! Looks like those skills continue to come in handy.

*Polka originated in Bohemia which is actually where my Great-Grandma was from (it says it on her birth certificate and everything). You have likely heard of Bohemia because somehow this central European country turned into a whole aesthetic.

**I am willing to bet I still know every word of that soundtrack. I dressed as Annie for at least two Halloweens in a row. Also, I don't think I really understood the concept of orphan. 

Burgled

A while ago I took a fabulous woman trip (not a girls trip) to the Madonna Inn in San Luis Obispo. My friend Kym and I were doing 2 nights in this kitschy wonderland and staying in the Paris Violets room. It was everything we wanted. Ridiculous decor, no kids, a pool, libations, and good food. The trip started off magnificently. We had a lovely dinner on Friday. Saturday morning I checked off an item that has been on my bucket list for a long time: GOAT YOGA. I downward dogged while tiny baby goats ran under me. Dreams do come true. Then we laid by the pool drinking grown-ass lady drinks and fell asleep as grown-ass ladies do. We got up and got ready for dinner because we had early reservations for Alex Madonna’s Gold Rush Steak House. It’s so amazing I needed to actually use the picture here so you don’t miss out. I was afraid you might not click the link.

Take it all in. Especially the carpet. They make a robe out of the same pattern. I bought one. Worth every penny.

This place was amazing! There was an actual band playing music that people (octogenarians) were dancing to on an actual wooden dance floor and we were seated at a lovely table for two right next to it. We were so relaxed, had just opened a bottle of Chardonnay and had not even taken a sip when I got a text. It was a text from my bank asking if I was trying to use my credit card to make a large purchase at a Target in San Luis Obispo. I was not. It took a second to register and then I grabbed for my purse on the back of my chair and it was there. Whew! But then I opened it. My (brand new) wallet was gone along with my driver’s license, $200 in cash (which I NEVER carry), and all of my credit cards. If you have had this happen you know it is an utterly shitty feeling. Once I canceled all my cards and let my bank know I sat back down with Kym and had my first sip of wine. We told the waiter what happened and he called over the manager who very kindly went through security footage. A few minutes later he came back and told us, “Yeah we saw him.” Saw who?! Turns out that while we were happily chatting, a man sat in a chair at the table next to ours, sidled up to the back of my chair with a jacket over his arm so my purse was out of view, and grabbed my wallet.

A few things here. The purse had a very strong snap that closed it so I don’t know how he got it open without me realizing. Kym and I were totally sober. If it were late in the evening and we had a few martinis in our systems I could have understood not noticing but that wasn’t the case.

The cameras caught him burgling me, tracked him to his car, and less than ten minutes later he made a $400 purchase at Target and tried to buy several hundred dollars worth of gift cards at another store. The employees told us he was clearly a professional but that didn’t make us feel better. Kym and I spent the rest of dinner feeling absolutely insane for not noticing. How did we not see him? Are we idiots?* How did I not clock someone that close to me? Even the waiter was perplexed because he didn’t see him either. I just kept thinking, if a man can be inches away from me and take something, what else can happen?! Turns out that is a fairly normal reaction.

Psychologists have looked into the emotional, behavioral, and psychological impacts of being robbed. The most common reactions are shock, disbelief, fear, anxiety, guilt, and unease. Unease was definitely a great description of how I felt and it just sort of stuck around for a while. I was fortunate that it eventually went away, but for some people the experience of being robbed is so traumatic that they suffer from PTSD. Most women operate with a low-level of unease at all times because it’s scary out there. Those of us with anxiety crank that unease up a few levels as our baseline. We worry about our physical safety, if someone is following us, if our drink is safe. In fact, there is a famous list of all the things women do to stay safe while out in public. It’s long. I usually opt for the keys through my fingers like Wolverine when walking to my car alone but it tuns out that won’t actually help me. Interestingly, when men were asked what they do to stay safe the overwhelming response was: Nothing, I don’t think about it. Sounds delightful. 

For me this unease coupled with feeling creeped out, violated, and generally pissed off morphed into some good old-fashioned self doubt. Self doubt is all about not feeling sure of yourself. Self doubt tries to convince you that you are incompetent. Self doubt caused me to take a situation that had absolutely nothing to do with my intelligence or abilities and turned it into something that. Self doubt is a real jackass and it underlies imposter syndrome; something many women face at work. 

In graduate school my friends and I used to joke about the “smoke and mirrors” we were using to succeed. The idea was that we had accidentally been admitted to the doctoral program due to some sort of computer glitch and that we were succeeding due to insane amounts of luck (not the endless cycle of reading, writing, over preparing, and crying). This luck then allowed us to continue to trick everyone around us into thinking that we knew what we were doing but one day we would be found out. Just like the Wizard of Oz, the curtain would be pulled back and we would be revealed for what we truly were: idiots. That’s imposter syndrome in a nutshell. 

Imposter syndrome makes us think we are a fraud and every smart, accomplished, poised, confident woman I know has felt it at one time or another. I used to feel like a complete charlatan teaching Business Ethics classes even though I have a PhD in Business Ethics! It doesn’t have to make sense to make an impact. Initially called Imposter Phenomenon, the first paper written about it was by two female psychologists. That’s no coincidence. They studied high-achieving women and found that certain types of family dynamics combined with societal stereotypes about women contribute to an, “internal experience of intellectual phoniness.” This propensity to underestimate our abilities happens so frequently we may not even realize we do it. We are prone to perfectionist tendencies, experience greater levels of self-doubt, and tend to have lower self-esteem. You don’t say…This lack of confidence in our abilities has consequences as we move through life. Women are less likely to apply for jobs unless they have 100% of the listed qualifications compared to their male counterparts. When things go wrong we take the blame (because it must have been our fault!) and when things go well we credit everyone else (because how could silly little me have accomplished this?!). Unfortunately, since the initial study on imposter syndrome took place in what we can call less enlightened times (1979), the women studied weren’t a diverse group as highlighted by Ruchika Tulshyan and Jodi-Ann Burey in their awesome Harvard Business Review article:

The impact of systemic racism, classism, xenophobia, and other biases was categorically absent when the concept of imposter syndrome was developed.

The complete picture of what drives our feelings of imposter syndrome weren’t fully explored but now we are starting to get it. It’s not us, it’s the frameworks in which we have to operate so we need to stop talking about fixing women at work and start thinking about fixing the places where women work.

You know what we also need to fix? The purse situation at restaurants!** Since that clearly has not been addressed I ended my trip with no credit cards, no I.D., and no money (but Kym spotted me some $$ because she's the best). I flew to San Luis Obispo. On a plane. Which requires I.D. to board. I had to make several calls to the local police department who told me to call TSA at the airport who told me they would “try” to help. Very comforting. I arrived at the airport three hours early and the TSA guy was ready for me. He said he would have to call a “central clearing house” run by Homeland Security and that they would ask me several questions. If I answered them correctly I was good to go and if not (insert actual shoulder shrug by TSA agent here). Luckily I aced the questions and made it home without further incident. I still think you should go to the Madonna Inn and drink out of one of their goblets. It’s not their fault some people do bad things. I also think you should be kind to yourself. We are all working in and against systems that are problematic and make us doubt ourselves every once in a while. It’s normal but it sucks. Just like having your wallet stolen. 

*We are not.  

**When we go to Oaxaca we get a cute little stand for all of our stuff and it is in full view right next to the table. Genius. Can we make that happen here please?

Tina

The summer of my freshman year of college I went to France and I bought a poster.* There was just something about it that I loved. It “spoke to me” as the people say. It hung in dorm rooms and apartments and somewhere along the way it disappeared (perhaps into the void that is my Mother’s basement?). I totally forgot it existed until I was going through some old pictures (below). Seeing that poster made me think, “Yep. That checks out.” 

The poster is a photograph taken by a French photographer named Bernard Matussière in either 1984 or 1990 and from what I can tell the photo is titled, TINA. I don’t know Tina, and I don’t know why her name is in all capitals, but I love her. That complete and utter “fuck you” that she is giving that shadowy guy. Fantastic.

How great is that shirt? I no longer have it and looked it up online. Want to know how it was described? VINTAGE. Devastating. Please enjoy the cordless phone in the background sitting on my 6-disk CD player.

It checks out because even 26 years ago (how is that possible?!) I had a particular attitude that Tina embodied. She seemed completely no nonsense and willing to tell people to “fuck right off.” Additionally, she is rocking the hell out of a pencil skirt and that is a look I love. So Tina is my attitudinal muse. In the last blog post I was talking about how you can change your behavior which got me thinking about the parts of us that don’t change and it turns out attitudes (usually) fall into that category. Theoretically I think we all know what an attitude is but if we are going to get all social psychology up in here the official definition according to the American Psychological Association is that an attitude is: 

A relatively enduring and general evaluation of an object, person, group, issue, or concept on a dimension ranging from negative to positive. Attitudes provide summary evaluations of target objects and are often assumed to be derived from specific beliefs, emotions, and past behaviors associated with those objects. 

My attitude about how life should work and how I should be treated has not drastically changed since then. Fundamentally I am the same. Psychologists wanted to understand why attitudes don’t really change and they came up with the Tripartite Classification of Attitudes. They found that attitudes actually have three components and other researchers started describing this as the ABC Model. It  explains that attitudes are created by a combination of these three components (in any order) directed at a certain “target.” The target can be a person, idea, place, object; we can form an attitude about anything. Once the attitude is formed our behavior aligns with it. 

A = AFFECTIVE (feelings/emotions): I love sourdough bread. It makes me feel happy.

B = BEHAVIOR (actions): I eat sourdough bread any time the opportunity arises. 

C = COGNITIVE (thoughts/knowledge): I like sourdough bread because it is delicious and doesn’t make my tummy hurt. 

This relationship between attitude and behavior can be stronger in some cases than others, but generally speaking there is a great deal of consistency between our attitudes and what we do. When I was looking around for some examples that related to work one really struck me. The U.S. Department of Labor had an article about how attitudes impact the ability for people with disabilities to obtain jobs.** They discussed that attitudes from three groups (job seekers with disabilities, employers/co-workers, service providers) need to change in order to increase the job opportunities for people with disabilities. But how? If attitudes are fairly consistent this seems really challenging. The Office of Disability Employment Policy (ODEP) approached this by creating informational campaigns. You might be thinking: WTF is that going to do? Well, if attitudes are based partially on our cognition, starting there makes sense. Perhaps people have negative attitudes about employing people with disabilities because they have the wrong information. The ODEP is combating that with useful information and facts to change cognition. They also created a video series. This gets at the feelings part of the equation. It’s possible that many people with these negative attitudes simply have not interacted with someone who has a disability. Seeing individuals tell their stories is likely to impact their feelings. Combine those two things and changing the behavior should follow. It’s not guaranteed but their approach is great and something I think companies could consider. An informational campaign to combat current (incorrect) cognitions may kick-start affective change. Worth a try!

If you have an attitude you want to change there is a specific thing you can do. You can change your behavior! Our brains like consistency. When you are doing something that is no longer in line with what you want to be doing you experience cognitive dissonance and that’s no fun. For example, your (original) attitude is that eating healthy is a waste of time but you realize that you haven’t been feeling great lately. You decide to start buying healthy snacks and stocking your fridge with fresh fruits and vegetables consistently (behavior). After a few weeks, you start to feel better. Your skin is glowing, you aren’t tired and the only change you made was the kind of food you were eating. You read some articles about the impacts of healthy diet changes (cognition). You eventually decide that eating healthy might not be a waste of time after all (new attitude). Added bonus: you feel happy (affect). I realize this is a simplistic example but it makes the point. If you can get yourself to change the behavior the attitude will likely follow. In no way am I saying this is an easy process but I think it is worthwhile. There are definitely attitudes I am working on changing at the moment but my Tina-ness is not one of them. In fact, to remind me of this I have a small framed copy of her next to my desk at home and at work. I’m glad she came back into my life. If you ever see the poster please buy it for me! I will Venmo, Zelle, or Paypal you!                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

*I did more than buy a poster. I went to Manchester and Paris and met friends and then spent several days in London alone. It was when I discovered just how awesome alone time can be. If Leo tried to fly to Europe alone at 18 I would lose my mind.

**Please note the Americans with Disabilities Act passed in 1990 and this is still an issue. The Equal Pay Act was passed in 1963. We need to do better. 

Middle Ages

Every once in a while I read a story that gets me FIRED UP. This happened recently when the fantastic Dr. Kristine Ehrich texted me this: Stereotypes of middle-aged women as less ‘nice’ can hold them back at work. This article is based on research by UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business professor, Dr. Jennifer Chatman. Like a lot of great research, this project was inspired by something Jennifer was experiencing in her own life. Since hitting her 40s, she saw a decline in her teaching evaluations (and so have I). This seemed weird to her because her knowledge of the field, comfort in front of a class, and all the other things (theoretically) necessary for great evaluations were better than they had ever been. What the hell? Turns out that the problem was that she was a woman over 40 who wasn’t matching up to her students’ expectations of how she “should” behave towards them. You see, there are descriptive and prescriptive stereotypes regarding gender. The descriptives are about what men/women “typically” do while the prescriptives are about what we SHOULD do; this is where issues arise in the classroom and at work. The prescriptives are not based on how women ACTUALLY act and that disconnect is where women get dinged in their teaching evaluations, performance reviews, and ability to advance in their careers. The general expectation (stereotype) is that we should be warm (definition = enthusiastic, affectionate, kind) and caring so when we do not act in accordance with that, people don’t like it and we are punished. When women enter their 40’s we start getting hit with gendered ageism; the super cool combination of being discriminated against for being both “old” and a woman. In society we disappear from TV (yes, there are exceptions but they are few and far between), movies show us as the grandmothers, and advertisers ignore us. Once you hit your 40s the world has very few acceptable options of what you can do with your life because, OMG you guys, that is so old!! Since being 45 makes me an expert in this topic I have made you a list of your options ladies:

Settle in under a pile of cozy blankets you knitted, never show your (wrinkled) face in public, and wait for the sweet relief of death. 

Sweetly and earnestly encourage the hopes and dreams of everyone around you (because yours are dead you hag!) and then use all the time you have no longer trying to achieve anything to bake cookies for everyone around you. You are now basically Mrs. Claus but without that weird bonnet. Unless you are into bonnets-those are actually ok if you are over 40 because no one is looking at you. 

Retire, move to someplace warm that isn’t Florida with your besties, wear caftans, have afternoon cocktails on the lanai, do puzzles, die.*

Spend the majority of your time ensuring that everyone around you is comfortable. This is most easily done by taking care of all the pesky things no one actually wants to do. You can clean up after everyone, make tasty/healthy meals, run errands, maybe mow the lawn. Definitely make sure that nothing you do brings you any joy or fulfillment. You are too old for that, you selfish monster. 

Start a coven. Cast spells. Wreak havoc. 

Become invisible and literally just disappear because your thoughts, feelings, and ideas no longer matter. 

Men and women are seen as more effective and capable as they get older. Makes sense. But only women are seen to be less warm as they age. So, when talking about teaching evaluations the perceived lack of warmth translates into complaints about their female professor’s personality which turns into lower teaching evaluations. This is something because I have met some male faculty with truly terrible personalities who maintain great teaching evaluations. Put simply: it’s not fair. Women are judged more harshly than their male counterparts based on these stereotypes. According to the research, the peak (or rock bottom) of our lack of warmth/inability in the classroom comes at age 47. Can’t wait!

Student evaluations are flawed in so many ways. They are biased against women and minority faculty and when you add in pregnancy it gets worse. Additionally, the people evaluating our teaching (students) don’t actually know the subject matter so evaluating our ability to teach it to them seems problematic. What this means is that teaching evaluations are often more of a likability measure. Research has shown that the most important characteristics of a professor include getting to know students, being seen as a life-long learner, and being a role model. Additionally, most students prefer the teachers who are not strict with their classroom rules and who are pretty generous when scoring student work. Cool so the “measure” of whether I am good at teaching has absolutely nothing to do with my teaching and is more about learning their names and being an easy grader. A logical response would be to either try and fix them or get rid of them all together but this is academia so neither is going to happen! The big issue here (aside from the overt discrimination) is that these evaluations are used to evaluate faculty performance. Every year our teaching evaluation scores, research productivity, and service activities are taken into consideration as the basis for our pay increases.** 

I have a theory of why all of this is happening. It’s because, by the time we reach our 40s we, as women in academia and beyond, are simply sick of your shit.

Truly. Fed up. Over it. No longer willing to entertain it. This feeling of not engaging with ridiculousness is what started the idea of tightroping in the first place. We don’t want to change the behavior that (finally!) feels right to us. Personally, I started feeling my “warmth” fade after I had Leo and went back to work. There I was (age 38) trying desperately to be all the things to all the people. I was juggling my career and being a Mom and not dropping any balls ever yet I had students (very earnestly) telling me that they couldn’t get their assignments done on time because they had a formal to attend. I’m managing all of my responsibilities and keeping a human alive and you would like an extension on an assignment that has been on the syllabus for months? No. My willingness to excuse unprofessional behavior and engage in general nonsense had simply vanished by that point and this is where I believe the concept of warmth gets twisted and used against us. To students, warmth is doing whatever they need in the name of “caring.” Warmth is moving deadlines, spoon feeding, hand-holding, and generally bending over backwards. To me, warmth is caring about them and their ability to succeed. Letting them blow off deadlines because they didn’t manage their time properly isn’t helping them and it’s certainly not setting them up for success. Unfortunately, as soon as our versions of warmth don’t match up and we stop conforming to sexist standards things get dicey for women in and out of the classroom.

None of this is ok. Everyone’s work should be evaluated by performance, not their ability to conform to stereotypes. Though I don’t have a surefire solution to these issues, I do think that women refusing to tightrope can help us start making a shift. We don’t have to be “warm” to be good at our jobs. We don’t have to smile. We don’t even really have to be nice (how many male jerks have you worked with?). What we have to be is competent, prepared, and ready to execute the tasks our job requires. Nothing more. Nothing less. Now that I think about it, maybe pay equity and gender parity might help warm up our our old, cold lady hearts!

*My preferred scenario

**Tee hee. What is a pay increase?

Trolling

There are a variety of trolls out there. The cartoon kind that sings and dances, the very cool kind you find under a bridge in Seattle, the kind from Frozen, and the ones from the 70s that are truly terrifying.* Each of those types of trolls has their merits, but guess who doesn't? Internet trolls. I can’t say I have spent a lot of time thinking about internet trolls. The one troll story that sticks in my head was told by Lindy West. She had a troll that, in addition to spewing hateful comments about her, her body, and her beliefs, stole her deceased father’s identity (you read that right) to abuse her online. You can’t make this shit up. Unfortunately, I was reminded of the existence of internet trolls while writing an article about She-Hulk for Fast Company. The Disney+ series premiered in August and my delightful friend and colleague Dr. Alison Sanchez texted after the first episode to say, “She-Hulk is tightroping!” And boy was she right. She-Hulk (aka Jennifer Walters) was dealing with a bit of a situation. She was in a car accident with her cousin Bruce (you know, the Hulk), got infected with his blood and you can pretty much guess what happened from there. Normally when we find ourselves tightroping it doesn't involve trying to hide the fact that we just became a massive, green, giant who exploded out of her clothes. It’s a bit more nuanced. Throughout the season, the show offered so many great examples that mirrored the lives of us regular, non She-Hulk, women. 

In addition to presenting the frustrating parts of being a woman at work in a way that was entertaining, the writers of the show also took the opportunity to really troll the trolls. You see, after the August premiere, there was a ridiculous amount of vitriol spewed at the show by trolls.

My favorite part of all of this is that She-Hulk IS NOT REAL. The Marvel Cinematic Universe IS NOT REAL. NONE OF THIS IS REAL LIFE. 

The show got what is apparently called “review bombed” which means that thousands of people took time out of their lives to give it the lowest rating possible on sites like IMDB so that they skewed the ratings in hopes of others not watching it, thus making it less likely to be renewed for a second season. Their list of grievances against the show was long and I ventured into some dark corners of the internet to see what they had to say.** Here are a few general comments:

Women can’t be Hulks 

Too “woke”

Feminist bullshit

Jennifer Walters is a narcissistic bitch

The CGI isn’t believable

In response to all of this, the writers included a plot mocking a men’s rights group named the Intelligencia. The season finale highlights just how upset all of these men were about the existence of a female Hulk. Spectacular. I will totally admit that I am not as passionate about anything as some people are about their superhero franchises. I have gone to Comicon strictly to people watch, I do not know who is a member of the MCU and who is not, and the only one of these types of movies I have ever purposely watched was Deadpool and that was last week and only because my husband swore it was funny. It was.

I can’t think of anything that would make me so upset that I would take to my keyboard to insult, intimidate, or threaten a stranger. Since I don’t do this it’s hard for me to understand but social science is here to help! Researchers have been thinking about this for a while and they offer a bunch of different reasons that may explain why people troll. In addition to doing this for attention or just to be mean I think they also do it because of the amount of “space” they have between them and their target. What I mean is that it would take a lot of work to figure out who and where they are so they just lob hate grenades and go on with their lives. But how do they sleep at night? That is the part I really can’t comprehend and the one thing that popped into my head to explain it is Moral Disengagement. This is the idea that we are able to justify certain behaviors by sort of tricking ourselves into thinking they are ok by using one of the following mechanisms (aka mental gymnastics). 

This handy chart is taken from one of the first papers on the topic and the book by an OG of Social Psychology, Dr. Albert Bandura. He thought that moral disengagement was one of the only ways we could explain atrocities like the My Lai massacre. I think we all morally disengage from time to time, it’s human nature, but not to the point of murder or a willingness to destroy someone online. While I was researching this, I came across an article that links moral disengagement to adolescents engaging in cyberbullying. One of the conclusions from the author is that we need to reduce the use of the moral disengagement process but HOW? I found some articles with suggestions. Unfortunately they focus on interventions in the classroom by trying to catch kids while they are a captive audience in school. They also encourage individuals to set aside their self-interest (unlikely!) and for organizations to talk about ethics so employees know it’s important to the company. I don’t think any of this is going to work but I also have no idea what will. Can we send them our extra Catholic guilt and see if that makes a difference? 

This whole thing reminds me of teaching evaluations. I can go an entire semester with a class that is mostly delightful to interact with and then I read their evaluations and, surprise, some of them really hated me. They hid their real feelings until they were given the anonymity of the evaluations (space) and then they really go for it. Some highlights over the years include being called a “communist” (false), a student noting that I have a “smart mouth” (true), and that I am a “feminist who loves talking about wage gaps” (also true).

I wish I had some useful, breakthrough solution to eliminating internet trolls but they have been around forever. They used to write anonymous pamphlets, the internet just made this kind trash easier! I think ignoring them is probably the best option because they thrive on engagement. I know ignoring them isn’t what we want to do. We want to yell and tell them how terrible they are but there’s no point. It’s like angrily hanging up a call on your cell phone. Without that old school slam it’s just not satisfying (I am dating myself) and neither is going on a tirade to address their tirade. I think the other thing we can do is attempt to counterbalance their hate. I’m going to do that by trying to raise a kind kid, be as nice as I can when I can, and encourage empathy towards myself and others. The internet is where we go to look up how old the actors are in the show we are watching, to Wordle, and to buy shoes. Maybe take a break from yelling at people in their happy place trolls and go watch a show. If She-Hulk wasn’t your thing maybe give the new season of The Handmaid’s Tale a try. Dystopian future stuff; you will totally love it. 😉

*There are likely more types of trolls but I am not a troll expert so this is as far as my troll-based knowledge extends. 

**Did you know there is a Reddit MensRights section? I refuse to link to it.

Freaking bats

The other day I came home from yoga to Leo screaming “Crenshaw bit my face!” Clearly my zen immediately disappeared and I was like WHAT THE ACTUAL HELL IS GOING ON HERE??? Turns out my husband had already washed his face off and put Neosporin on what looked like a scratch but Leo was still really embracing the drama of the situation. After things calmed down we tried to understand what happened.* We eventually figured out the scene:

Crenshaw had recently come into possession of a deer antler. The most primo of the things to chew.

He was happily chewing on it and Leo got in his face. 

Crenshaw gave a growl and showed his teeth.

Lego ignored this and took the antler.

Crenshaw acted a fool.

Don’t freak out on me here. Clearly we were not ok with the fact that our dog bit him but I also know that would not have happened if Leo wasn’t being a menace. Leo was a mess all day because he thought that we would have to give Crenshaw away. It was constant “I love Crenshaw sooo much” and “I’m sorry!!!” We had no plans to get rid of Crenshaw but we didn’t immediately tell Leo that because we are jerks. Jerks who wanted him to reevaluate his behavior. Parenting is weird. 

The next day I was out running errands and listening to a random episode of Radiolab from early September. It was a story about a healthy fifteen-year-old girl who started getting sick but no one could figure out what was wrong with her. First she had a tingle in her arm and double vision but her symptoms just kept changing. Things got so bad that she ended up in the hospital because she could no longer walk on her own and was likely going to end up in a coma. Her pediatrician came to visit and was really worried about how badly her condition had deteriorated in the two days since he last saw her. They were trying to brainstorm what could be causing this and her mother mentioned something she thought was inconsequential: her daughter was bit by a bat a month earlier while trying to rescue it. The pediatrician immediately knew what it was and sent her to a different hospital for treatment. She had rabies. RABIES. 

The episode went on to explain that there is a vaccine for rabies and that if you contract the disease from a bite and get the vaccine you are totally fine. If you don’t get the vaccine the disease slowly migrates to your brain and you die. That’s it. They were talking about non-treated (vaccinated) rabies cases having a 99.9% mortality rate. Rabies deaths in the United States are fairly uncommon these days according to the CDC but the disease causes about 59,000 deaths a year around the world!

If you know me or are a parent you may know where this is headed. I freaked the fuck out. My gut told me that there was a reason I ended up listening to an old episode of the show and that I should pay attention. I pulled over, immediately started googling, and called the pediatrician’s office. The nurse on call said any dog bite should be seen at urgent care ASAP. This did not make me less frantic. I drove home, picked up Leo, and headed directly to urgent care. He felt fine, was in a great mood (though concerned there may be a shot involved), and I promised him boba after the appointment if he kept it together. All good. The doctor came in and checked him out. She (that’s right-a lady doctor!!) was amazing and gave me the rabies run down. Turns out that when the dog is up to date on its rabies vaccines and the kid is up to date on their Tdap vaccine, contracting rabies is extremely rare. Whew. We were good on both fronts. I was able to relax knowing that we had a situation that only required Aquaphor and additional sunscreen to avoid scarring. My gut was wrong but OMG what if it hadn’t been and I didn’t take him to urgent care? I would have never forgiven myself. 

She also told me that the majority of rabies cases come from wild animals, mostly bats. Bats are so likely to carry the disease that she recommends people get a rabies vaccine if a bat has gotten into your house. Not that you touched the bat just that you were near it! As if bats weren’t creepy enough already. Stay safe out there!

What I really appreciated about the doctor, aside from the fact that she actually took the time to talk to us, was that she said she was a mom and would have done the same thing. That was awesome to hear. There are so many situations in which moms/women in general get completely dismissed when they raise medical concerns. We are seen as overreacting and our pain is dismissed.** Much has been written about cases where women were told they were “imagining” their pain or that it was nothing to be concerned about only to be diagnosed with endometriosis or cancer. 

The word “hysteria” comes from the Greek word for “uterus” and it used to be an actual medical diagnosis. Hysteria served as a catch all explanation for women’s health concerns ranging from heart palpitations to stomach pains. The treatments were heinous and did not address any actual medical issues. 

Interacting with a female doctor made me feel heard because she understood where I was coming from. I’m not sure that a male doctor would have taken the extra time she did to chat with Leo and talk me off the ledge and I’m certain I would not have left feeling the way I did. There is something about knowing you have been seen as an actual person and listened to with care. This difference isn’t something in my head either. Research shows that women report feeling more empathy than men because our brains process some things differently. We get into others' shoes and make decisions from there. There is an entire moral theory called the Ethics of Care that addresses the differences between men’s and women’s moral decision making. It highlights that men (often) make decisions based on ideas of justice while women (often) make them based on interpersonal relationships. We are different. It’s not good or bad. It’s just how things are. Knowing these differences exist adds to the argument that women need to be represented in every field. We have all heard “if you can’t see it you can’t be it.” That is important to inspire younger girls but for us grown ladies, interacting with other women in these situations is equally important. You know what else is important? Avoiding freaking bats. 

EMPATHY is the ability to recognize, understand, and share the thoughts and feelings of another person, animal, or fictional character. Developing empathy is crucial for establishing relationships and behaving compassionately. It involves experiencing another person’s point of view, rather than just one’s own, and enables prosocial or helping behaviors that come from within, rather than being forced.

*Since adopting Mango the puppy in September, he and Crenshaw have been playing constantly. They growl, chomp each other's ears, yip and act generally unhinged. We have told Leo MANY times that he is not to get in between them when they are playing. We have explained ad nauseam that even though both Crenshaw and Mango are sweet and snuggly they are still animals and you need to pay attention to what they are “telling” you with their behavior. 

**I find this particularly rich. Any of you who have dealt with a man cold know exactly why I feel this way. 🙄

Beauty must suffer

I spent a lot of time with my Dad’s parents growing up, my grandma in particular. I called her Nanny and her friends called her Flower Annie. She always wanted a daughter but only had a son so I was her big chance. She took the opportunity and ran with it, turning me into a bit of a dress up doll. There were little socks with lace, patent leather shoes, hair bows, hand embellished overalls, and a new fur coat every year.

Here we are in the winter of 1980-ish. I would like to apologize to all of those bunnies. We were stupid and had terrible taste back then.

Every weekend we had a specific routine:

Friday night: Arrive, stuff self with junk food, watch Hee-Haw

Saturday morning: Watch cartoons while eating breakfast, get dressed, board the bus to downtown Pittsburgh for bargain shopping and lunch

Saturday evening: Bath, beauty, snacks, Dallas, Falcon Crest

Sunday morning: Church

Sunday evening: Epic dinner. If I was really lucky it was triple-breaded chicken that was fried and then baked.

Each part of the weekend had its merits but Saturday evening was my favorite. After watching Solid Gold it was bath time. Nanny’s bathroom was entirely pink. The tub, sink, toilet. PINK. In fact, the background of this website is the exact same shade of pink because it brings back such good memories. Next up was the beauty process which took place while eating candy and watching shows entirely inappropriate for children:

Step 1: “Grease your face.”  Translation: Slather face with Revlon’s (tragically discontinued) Moon Drops lotion. Nanny was a huge proponent of face greasing. She was ahead of her time. She was a slugging pioneer. 

Step 2: Get out the tangles by force and a wide toothed comb.

Step 3: Section hair, generously coat each section with Dippity Do gel, roll in foam rollers with plastic sides, repeat over my entire head.

After this it was time for bed. Every weekend I complained that sleeping on the curlers hurt my head and every weekend Nanny told me, “beauty must suffer!” She was not kidding. In her mind, looking “put together” was important and that involved curling your hair. Looking put together showed that you cared about yourself. She was always put together. Accessories on point, everything matching, her appearance was well thought out. I have to assume that a lot of this was a generational attitude. She was born in 1922 and had a very different experience growing up, but I also fault the Miss America Pageant for her low-key appearance obsession. Nanny loved watching the pageant because those women were the cream of the crop when it came to being put together. When the pageant was on we ate 100 Grand Bars and took in the spectacle. One year while watching, Nanny decided that my time had come; I should enter a pageant. Yes, me. In a beauty pageant. She convinced my mom to sign me up for one in Harrisburg, PA and the preparations began. I needed a sporty outfit, a bathing suit, a costume, and a talent. I have vague memories of the bathing suit and sporty outfit but I do remember practicing a jaunty swing of my jacket over my shoulder. The costume I definitely remember. Nanny decided I should be a mermaid and that we should have a seamstress make it. It involved many sequins, a tail, and I had a lot of trouble walking in it. My talent was gymnastics. I did a routine that involved doing tricks/flips on a giant wooden drum Pap-Pap made for me (he was a carpenter) while dressed in a spandex outfit with a red feather headdress.* We spent all day at this pageant in a sad hotel. At the very end everyone was called in to hear the winners and do you know how many times my name was called? None. Not even an honorable mention. I was an utter failure in the pageant world. I think that is what is often referred to as a character building experience. 

I have a seaweed hair accessory. That was 100% a Nanny idea and a testament to her commitment to a look.

That was my first and only pageant but I often wonder what impact it and  the weekend beauty routine with Nanny had on me. For example, I am obsessed with skincare. Leo often hangs out with me while I do my (8-10 step) nighttime face routine and says that I have a lot of lotions and potions. He is not wrong. I own many lip glosses in what would appear to a normal person to be the exact same shade (lies!), and I am very proud to have mastered curling my hair with a flat iron. There are so many possible underlying reasons why I love these things. Off the top of my head: societal norms around appearance, the insane power of the $535 BILLION beauty industry, insecurities, chapped lips,** capitalism. 

Is all of this me tightroping? I spend a lot of time thinking about this (while doing my hair) and I’m honestly not sure. It is possible that I do all of these things because I have been completely programmed by societal standards. But I like these things! In a vacuum maybe I would not get pedicures or slap on a hydrating face mask because I wouldn’t even notice my dry-ass skin, but pedicures and face masks are freaking fantastic and I love them so who cares? The entire point of not tightroping is getting to behave in ways that make you feel most like yourself. You get to stop sinking your time worrying about what other people think, embrace your own awesomeness, and do what makes you happy. I will likely keep thinking about this. In the meantime there will be days when I go all in on the fancy lady vibe and days where I look like a troll and I’m ok with that. I’m still not ok with sleeping on curlers though. That is never happening again, sorry Nanny. 

*I know. It’s very cringe. Cultural appropriation was not a thing we understood in the 80s.

**After years of extensive research I have decided that the Rosebud Perfume Company’s Rosebud Salve takes the cake but ONLY the one in the tin (even though the packaging is horrible). The tube is different. I will die on this hill.

TRICKS but no treats

The other day an article appeared in my feed about a woman who “raised two successful CEOs and a doctor” and her thoughts on parenting. I’m down for a parenting article every now and then so I clicked. It was written by Esther Wojcicki who is a journalist, educator, and author of a book titled How to Raise Successful People. Her daughters are the CEO of YouTube, the CEO of 23andMe, and a Berkeley educated epidemiologist with a PhD in anthropology from UCLA, an Undergraduate from Stanford, and Fulbright recipient. That last one wasn't a mistake. Her third daughter is all of that. These are three insanely successful women. Having one of these women in your family would be amazing but all of them? Imagine holiday dinners! Who do you think Esther likes best? I feel like Susan at YouTube is at a disadvantage here. The other two sisters are sequencing our genes to tell us what % neanderthal we are* and studying the impacts of obesity in high-risk populations

Esther’s book is all about what you should do as a parent to raise kids that are resilient, respectful, and self-driven. I like it! Definitely components that lead to success. She uses the acronym TRICK (trust, respect, independence, collaboration, kindness) to lay out her approach, but I think she forgot a letter. “S” for serious privilege. These women who became CEOs and PhDs grew up in a home where their dad was Professor of Physics at Stanford with an undergraduate degree from Harvard. Their mom went to Berkeley for her undergraduate, teaching credential, and Master’s in journalism. She also has an M.A. in educational technology, and earned an M.A. in French and French history from the Sorbonne in Paris. The Sorbonne for goodness sakes! These two people are brilliant!!! They combined their insanely intelligent genes and made babies with an immediate leg up on the rest of the world. No one can fault the Wojcicki sisters for where they were born or what their parents did for a living, that is all pure luck. The issue for me is the idea that if you use Esther’s TRICK your kids are bound to be successful. That’s simply not the case. Esther’s daughters were set up for success for reasons that go far beyond TRICK (though I’m sure it helped). Straight out of the gates (so to speak) they came into the world with a great many advantages. This was their reality:

• Palo Alto, California (United States of America)

• Caucasian

• Two parent home

• Women (JK!!! That’s not an advantage!)

• Exceptionally educated parents with thriving careers and an impressive network

• Access to the best education

In addition to those things, they also had access to the very basic necessities to thrive and become successful:

• Healthy food

• Consistent shelter

• No threats of violence

• A support system

• Healthcare

• Access to any education

Esther’s kids did not have to worry about that second list and that is a massive advantage. They may not have noticed it, and many of us are immune to it too, but without all the things on that second list your likelihood of being successful is very slim. One in six kids in the United States lives below the poverty line (poverty according to the U.S. Government = $26,500 for a family of four). One in every thirty kids in the U.S. is homeless. One in every fifteen kids are exposed to intimate partner violence. Every kid needs a squad, someone in their corner, an adult who cares for and about them (#framily), but not all kids get that. Without a support system, who is going to get them health insurance? And who is going to make sure they go to school (especially during a pandemic)? You can’t learn when you are hungry, or tired, or living in fear so the kids who don’t grow up with all of the things on the second list are immediately behind those that do. Many of these kids have the same potential as the Wojcicki sisters but without that serious privilege things don’t play out quite the same. Pretending that socioeconomic, race, and other factors are irrelevant ignores the reality of the situation. We can’t talk about success without also talking about equity.

Let’s take the example of access to a college education. We know there are measurable benefits to completing college. It opens the door to better paying jobs with opportunities for advancement, it provides access to a network of alumni who may hire you, it (in theory) teaches you how to think critically and fend for yourself. These are all exceptionally useful things but college isn't an option for many Americans. In fact, the majority of people ages 18-24 in America do not attend college and that number will continue to increase as tuition rates rise. But cost is not the only barrier to college. When your parents didn’t go to college you are less likely to enroll in challenging courses in high school. When you don’t take those challenging AP classes in high school (because the ability to offer them is impacted by your school’s budget) your chances of getting into college are impacted. Then there are racial and ethnic disparities in the admissions process (especially at elite schools) that are also a massive issue. With all of these hurdles before even starting college it’s clear where and why serious privilege comes in handy.

Raising kids with trust, respect, independence, collaboration, and kindness is amazing. Let’s also add the ability to recognize the barriers in place for those without advantages like the Wojcicki sisters and a desire to do something about it as part of what it means to raise a successful person.

*Less than 2% which is apparently 80% MORE neanderthal than all of the other people using 23andMe. I have a lot of questions.

So long, farewell

I’m going to be totally honest, in all of the many times I have watched the Sound of Music I have only gotten through the whole thing once. It’s a long-ass movie clocking in at 2 hours and 52 minutes! The other night my amazing friend Laura Bohlin was watching it at the Hollywood Bowl and posting clips and it made me feel, as the kids say, some sort of way. I have memories of watching it with my family (recorded on a VHS tape from the TV), I owned the soundtrack on cassette, and the image of Maria twirling in her skirt and apron in the mountains is iconic. I really hadn’t thought about the movie in years, but now that I am it’s a whole lot of YIKES. I’m not alone on this. There are a variety of general criticisms of the film as well as ones specific to  Austrians. Now, before anyone gets all “but it was made in a different time!” on me, I know (#noshitsheryl). The movie was released in 1965 and (theoretically) things are different now. But it's a classic and one of the top grossing films of all time. The American Film Institute ranks it as the fourth best musical in movie history (coming in behind Singin’ in the Rain, West Side Story, and Wizard of Oz) and it was remade as a live TV special in 2013 with Carrie Underwood as Maria. What I am saying is that people are still watching it and it’s sexist and a little creepy so let’s at least talk about it. 

There was a twenty-five year age difference between Maria and Captain Von Trapp. That isn’t insignificant. The power differential between the two of them was huge. Maria came to the house as a governess (employee) on a break from the convent. SHE WAS A NUN! Granted, she was not a great nun because “underneath her wimple she wore curlers in her hair”* but still. A nun. The Captain had money, a fancy house, a sassy Baroness who was really into him, and powerful friends. Maria had a guitar and the ability to sew clothes from curtains. 

It may also promote some problematic parenting approaches. In the movie Captain Von Trapp uses a boatswain WHISTLE to summon his children. Upon hearing it they run into the house, line up in age order, and stand at attention because the Captain was into obedience and yelling. In real life he was the most successful Austro-Hungarian submarine commander in World War I and that military precision carried over to his house and children (seven in the movie, ten in real life). We know enough about parenting now to realize that scaring the shit out of your kids isn’t a great approach. The good news here is that the real Captain was apparently much nicer but he did actually use a whistle. He said that he used it (with a separate call for each child!!!) to get their attention when they were spread out around the house and gardens. Ok. I guess. 

But meet me by the gazebo because that’s where things really go off the rails for me! Hormone filled sixteen-year-old Liesl and seventeen-year-old traitor bicycle messenger Rolfe rendezvous and break into the song Sixteen Going on Seventeen. The lyrics are something. 

[Rolf:]

You wait, little girl, on an empty stage

For fate to turn the light on

Your life, little girl, is an empty page

That men would want to write on

[Liesl:]

To write on

[Rolf:]

You are sixteen going on seventeen

Baby, it's time to think

Better beware, be canny and careful

Baby, you're on the brink

You are sixteen going on seventeen

Fellows will fall in line

Eager young lads and roues and cads

Will offer you food and wine

Totally unprepared are you

To face the world of men

Timid and shy and scared are you

Of things beyond your ken

You need someone older and wiser

Telling you what to do

I am seventeen going on eighteen

I'll take care of you

[Liesl:]

I am sixteen going on seventeen

I know that I'm naive

Fellows I meet may tell me I'm sweet

And willingly I believe

I am sixteen going on seventeen

Innocent as a rose

Bachelor dandies, drinkers of brandies

What do I know of those

Totally unprepared am I

To face the world of men

Timid and shy and scared am I

Of things beyond my ken

I need someone older and wiser

Telling me what to do

You are seventeen going on eighteen

I'll depend on you

Run Liesl!!! You don’t need a man telling you what to do (and also he will try and have your entire family killed!). The gist of the song is that Liesl’s life will only truly begin when she has a man tell her how the world works (old school mansplaining?). Because Liesl has grown up wealthy and sheltered, she thinks Rolfe is worldly and knows what's up. The crazy thing to me is that he is one year older. He has absolutely no idea what he is talking about yet he is so confident that he does. In all honesty, no eighteen-year-old has any idea about anything. Half way through the song it starts to rain and they take shelter in the gazebo. They are now damp and decide to break out into a dance. There is a lot of leaping and dress twirling and at the end of the song they kiss. That chaste kiss was such a big deal that Liesl is convinced that her future is basically set after one duet. Girl, that is insufficient! If you don’t remember this part of the movie here it is and if you want to see an even better version, Saturday Night Live recently did their own. 

There has been a lot of talk about cancel culture in recent years and some great pieces written about its history. I didn’t write this because I think The Sound of Music or all these other shows that have been “canceled” should never be watched again. Instead I think we should use them as discussion points. Acknowledge why they are problematic, celebrate the progress we have made, and recognize that still needs to change. Turner Classic Movies recently decided that the best way to handle showing “classic” movies with racist, sexist, and homophobic themes was to include thoughtful introductions and discussions after the movies aired. I love this. I love that TCM is  exposing an audience who likely never took issue with any of these things to the ways in which society is evolving. Writing this made me think I need to add Sixteen Going on Seventeen to my Women in Management required listening. Hearing how young women view this now would be a great discussion. I would also like to note that though this movie is filled with a lot of garbage if I hear the Lonely Goatheard song you better bet your ass I will yodel right along (even though those goats are what nightmares are made of). 

* That is a lyric from the song How Do you Solve a Problem like Maria.

Nene, the OG

Gender role conformity is no joke. It is the result of the societal systems in which we live (patriarchy, capitalism) and creates an idea of how men and women are “supposed” to behave. There are many reasons to not be ok with gender role conformity. One of the largest is the assumption that there are two genders and that you are either female or male. Clearly this notion is outdated, incorrect, and problematic. Research shows that children start identifying their own gender and the gender of others by eighteen months and that automatic stereotyping starts around age five and it set by age eleven. That means that by middle school kids have a variety of specific (but very incorrect) ideas about the roles people play in the world.

A great example of gender conformity can be found in the toy aisles of any store. The girl’s area is an explosion of pink, babies, and cuteness. The boy’s section is jammed with superheroes, race cars, and video game characters.* The assumption is that this is simply what boys and girls will gravitate towards and what will sell but from my experience they are missing out on a lot of $ by creating these divisions. My son loves pink things, sparkly things, and unicorns. These are all seen as “girl toys” and it is a hell of a slog to keep up the narrative that all toys are for all kids when you take a trip to Target and the sections are very clearly divided by color and (supposed) interest.

Allow me to share one of my favorite stories about being a mom. For my son’s first birthday I got him a baby doll similar to ones I saw him playing with at daycare. I wanted one that looked like him and found one that the company described as “Hispanic.” I don’t exactly agree with that assessment but at least the doll wasn’t white and blonde. He was so excited and immediately decided the doll’s name was Nene which means “baby” in Spanish so it worked. Nene immediately became THE toy. Nene came wearing white footie jammies with a purple collar and purple flowers. The jammies became such a thing that only certain people were given permission to touch them. This was an honor bestowed upon very few people and one that could be removed for the smallest transgression. If you were not one of Nene’s anointed and you were asked to help find or get Nene you were specifically told to only hold Nene by the hands or head (feet were off limits because they were in the jammies) and if this was disobeyed; chaos. 

We were given permission to wash the jammies several times but Oxi clean and elbow grease can only get you so far with polyester handled by a toddler every day. About a year later I saw a new Nene in the store! This Nene was wearing the exact same jammies. It felt like winning some sort of weird lottery. I hid new Nene in the clean jammies in the linen closet because the plan was to switch the jammies and then have New Nene as a backup in case some terrible fate occurred to OG Nene. Randomly, my son ended up opening the linen closet. He saw New Nene, immediately named him Josè, and said he was Nene’s cousin. He also declared that Josè was the sole responsibility of my husband. 

Nene didn’t get those clean jammies but did reunite with family so I guess that’s good. Fast-forward another year and I spot a different Nene in the store. This one had a pink version of the jammies and was very white but the jammies would fit and it would all be great. Unfortunately, before I had a chance to figure out how I would convince my son to put these new pink jammies on Nene, my family took my car somewhere and New Nene 2.0 was in the back seat. When they came home, my son ran into the house with New Nene 2.0. Anyway, that’s how we met Rose. She is related to Nene but her exact connection is TBD. No one was assigned responsibility for Rose. 

Toys are for everyone. Nenes are for everyone.

L-R: José, Nene,** Rose

Please note, I would have never been able to pull off switching Josè for Nene. I was informed that Nene has a “squishier” body and his face was “more shiny.” This is a lesson to all parents: if your kid is obsessed with something IMMEDIATELY go buy more before the company makes it squishier or different in some way you won’t notice but your eagle-eyed kid certainly will.

Now, you may not be taking your Nene to work (unless you are as a way to personalize your space), but you are taking your gender roles. They are one of the largest components to tightroping because they impact so much of what we think and do. We are constantly managing these roles to ensure our “fitting in” at work. How we speak (and don’t speak), dress, and crack jokes are all impacted by perceived gender roles. Sometimes we even reinforce these stereotypes ourselves without realizing. To try and make the shift away from tightroping, one of the best places to start may be by looking at how we treat and interact with others at work. Do you assign gendered tasks to certain people (like the Party Planning Committee on The Office)? Do you assume all women are mothers? Here are some great suggestions to start taking notice and changing your behavior. It’s not easy but it will start the move to put everyone on equal footing.

*In 2021 CA mandated gender neutral toy aisles!

**Since initially writing this post Nene was the victim of a vicious puppy attack. Mango ate several of Nene’s fingers. In Mango’s defense, what is the difference between a plastic doll hand and a Kong toy…?