comity

You guys better brace up for this. I am going to speak about something serious for a change.

Over the last couple of weeks, an article about Indra Nooyi (the Pepsi CEO) has been doing the rounds on Facebook and other sites. In it, she is quoted as saying : " I don't think women can have it all. I just don't think so. We pretend we have it all. We pretend we can have it all."

I agree with this statement. I don't think women can have it all. I also don't think men can have it all. In fact, I don't think anyone can have it all. There are just too many things in this world and our minds and desires are not limited by trivialities like time,  distance, energy levels, capabilities, talents, opportunities, etc.  But wait, before you think I'm just pointing out technicalities, let me explain myself further. In the article, Indra talks about an incident when she came home around 10 PM (earlier than her usual time of midnight) and was instructed by her mom to go back out and buy some milk for the next morning. When Indra asked her mom why she didn't ask her (Indra's) husband to do the same, her mom responded that he came back at 8 PM and was tired. I  don't know about you guys but coming back home from work at 8 PM makes for a long and tiring day for me. (Of course, I might be discounting the fact that in California folks probably only come in to work after noon :-P) Anyways,  Indra recounts that she went back out and bought the milk like a good dutiful daughter. And therefore women can't have it all. But by the same token, I'd say her husband cannot have it all either.  Indra talks about how a woman cannot be  an ambitious workaholic CEO, a wonderful, hands-on mother, a dutiful daughter and a loving & accessible wife, all at once. She talks about missing out on significant events and quality time in her kids' and spouse's life. All these hold true for a man as well. If a man spends most of his waking hours focused on his job, he might still have a wife and family but those relationships aren't going to be great. She talks about making choices between being a wife, a mother, a CEO. These are choices that every one of us makes as adults - between being a son/daughter, spouse, sibling, friend, achiever, mentor, learner, bum.  Doesn't mean you can only do one but it means that we need to make an effort to balance all these things out. And if we, as women, want to start taking on other roles that we traditionally have not, we need to make space for them. We need to make allowances and prioritize what we can/cannot do, just like men do. Finally, she jokes about how her husband sometimes complains about being at the bottom of her list and she responds "You should be happy you're on the list. So don't complain. (laughing)". I understand that she's kidding but I have a feeling that if a guy said that, all the feminists in the world would be up in arms about it. Needless to say, if C came back home at midnight every day, I would complain. A lot. And I'd also probably starve after a week.

Going back to the feminists - before you get mad at me ( and you are free to do so), do I think the odds are stacked evenly for men and women in terms of having a career? No. I believe this society is much more forgiving on men in some roles. I believe that the expectations are very different from men to women. I believe there are a lot of families and men out there who believe that some responsibilities are solely meant for women ( raising kids, cooking, cleaning, etc) or that a career outside home should only be attempted in free time. I believe that all this has to change and that everyone should have the same rights and privileges that I enjoy in my relationship. I also believe that nature wasn't fully fair to women - what with biological clocks and disparate division of roles and responsibilities. But this isn't about whether women can strive for a similar work-life balance as men. This is about having it all. And that I think is equally un-achievable for both.