Nobody can have it all -- so why are women alone so earnestly warning other women about not having it all?

I heard with a sinking feeling that PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi has added her voice to the chorus of successful, high-earning women opining that women can't have it all, but even I was not prepared for the level of incredulity felt when I actually read her interview. I struggle with her message not because I believe that women can have it all – I don't; I don't believe men can have it all either – but because I wonder why women, even successful women, are so quick to blindly reinforce that "women can't have it all." Why can't high-profile women turn around and ask the better question – the right question: why is all this angst arising in women alone?

When was the last time we heard men acknowledge and worry publicly about not having it all? Children grow up while fathers are in boardrooms, courtrooms, schoolrooms, hospitals, and city councils, yet men don't tell each other that they are missing an important part of life by working till midnight. From an early age, and over countless generations, men have swallowed, imbibed, absorbed the fact that days are made of finite hours that need to be handed over to the world of work. And the nature of work, when strategically chosen, will give back enough to take a wife who will keep house while raising babies. Men have thus always pretended they have it all.

I am not saying that the ways of men are in anyway superior to the ways that have been handed to, and meekly embraced by, middle- and upper-class women. I am saying that my writer-husband, who is the stay-at-home father and primary care-giving parent, who wrote minimally in the last 12 years while appreciating the opportunity to raise three young children, knows better than to turn around and tell other men that they aren't having it all or that I, as a woman, am not having it all.

My husband's day-to-day routine is very different from those of other men, but his decision to take over for me gives us both some peace and calm. There is some angst on his part on devoting less time to his writing and the consequences for his lifelong earning potential, but he figures that something will work out when the time is right. Most importantly, my husband knows better than to accept snide, put-us-down comments from other people (men and women alike, including an occasional friend or relative) as justifications for why we cannot dream of a different life than the ones expected from both sexes.  

It is frustrating that even powerful women like Indra Nooyi refuse to see the forest for the trees; refuse to question the system; refuse to acknowledge that some of our most vicious and powerful and inadvertent detractors are other women around us. Sometimes, these women live in our homes or hearts and subtly and effectively undermine the confidence and dignity we have managed to earn gradually over the years. Yes, I am alluding to Nooyi's now-famous milk-buying episode that has several women gushing with awe that even the most powerful, corporate woman that India has ever produced meekly went out to buy milk on the day she was appointed president of PepsiCo.

As a good Indian daughter, Nooyi takes her mother's words at face value.  But I am distressed that she actually used it to justify the glib idea that women, and women alone, cannot have it all. In my view, the episode inside her home was unfair and discriminatory towards her. Perhaps her mother was having a bad day, but if Indra Nooyi were a man, I am convinced that her mother would not have taken it out on her in such a manner.

Here are the facts as she recounted during the recent Aspen Ideas Festival: Her husband was home at 8 p.m. but her mother accepted that he was tired. They had a couple of people at home who were hired domestic help, but her mother apparently forgot that they existed. Nooyi came home at 10 p.m. with news that only one in a billion women has the privilege to announce – that she had just been promoted to president of a multinational corporation – but her mother dismissed it like so much spoilt milk. Worse, even after Nooyi finally told her, her mother did not soften up or give in; did not congratulate her or apologize for having been preoccupied with an everyday detail. Instead, she justified putting her and her accomplishments down. Now imagine if she were a son, instead of a daughter. This is how her mother's words would sound: 

Let me explain something to you. You might be president of PepsiCo. You might be on the board of directors. But when you enter this house, you're the wife husband, you're the daughter son, you're the daughter-in-law son-in-law, you're the mother father. You're all of that. Nobody else can take that place. So leave that damned crown in the garage. And don't bring it into the house. 

The question is not whether anybody else could have taken her place; the question is whether she was treated reasonably well even under her own roof. Why does Nooyi internalize this and recount this as a story about her gender? Why not blame it on her mother's gender, disposition, generation and upbringing? Maybe the fixed values and expectations of our culture need to shoulder some blame.

More depressing is Nooyi's implied acceptance of this personal incident as an anecdote to support the theme that even women in her stature can't have it all. What is the moral of this story to middle- and working-class women? What are women like me supposed to take out of it in our quest to better juggle our work and family?

Ms. Nooyi, if ever your PR folks stumble upon this blog post, here is my humble list of 'dos and don'ts' requests to you: 

• Please don't make it easy for naysayers of either sex by doing their facile job for them. Think about the power of your utterances.
• Talk to us about how to recognize sabotaging and undermining, at work and at home. Keep the progressive people's collective morale up by highlighting the unusual strides in parenting that pockets of men and women have quietly achieved with and without the help of their spouses, family, friends, and bosses.
• Give us solid, usable advice about how to "develop mechanisms with…secretaries,…extended office,…everybody around [us]" to practice "seamless parenting" when most of us don't bring in billions for our companies; when most of us cannot reasonably expect to "train people at work" to be our extended family.
• Tell us what policies you and your company have implemented to ensure that even your receptionists and secretaries can hope to co-opt men and women around them to support them in their parenting responsibilities.
• Help the younger generation understand which job sectors and industries, which companies, genuinely care, and at what levels of pay, about their employees' commitments as parents, caregivers, and socially responsible people.
• Ask why only women have begun to tell each other that they cannot manage to balance it all. Are male spouses the elephants in the family room that everybody ignores? Do women allow their husbands to 'lean back' and not 'lean in' at family meetings?

Nooyi has more influence than most people in this world, men or women. She has the power to think, talk and act in ways that can bring about some change in this world. Yet, when she too casually reinforces the idea that the problem is in women's expectations, we have to wonder if and how the system benefits from all this visible hand-wringing by women.  If she really cannot see how far she has come, then we might as well all give up here and now, as her interview has already been described as the "interview of the year." 

Veterinary Medicine -- The much loved, but underappreciated cousin in the STEM family

On LinkedIn, some fantastic veterinarians and thought leaders are discussing a really interesting topic -- how to increase diversity in veterinary medicine.  Among other active interventions, it was suggested that we increase the exposure that the profession gets among under-represented minorities in the United States in an effort to help them come through the pipeline. Some unique programs in this direction have already taken off.  Check out what they do at Purdue University and at People, Animals, Love. 

While principally in agreement with this strategy and appreciative of programs as well-planned as the two linked above, I am not always sure that this is the most efficient, universal, long-term strategy to guarantee inclusiveness in our profession.  Sure, I worry about the lone, racial minority or ethnic vet-wannabe kid growing up isolated, suffocating and trapped in a culture that values a degree in medicine, dentistry, law, pharmacy, engineering, business administration, accounting (yes, even accounting!)  before it values a degree in veterinary medicine, -- in other words a redux of my teen years -- but I worry that too many localized resources invested towards a distant outcome with an unknown probability may not be necessarily defensible (if using public funding) or self-sustaining (if not using public funding).  (How precarious funding can get is something I have picked up from my days studying environmental education programs.)  In lean times, the best we can hope for, and strategize, is to join hands with other groups working towards increasing minority representation in the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) subjects and streamline efforts.    
  

However, in this post I necessarily step away from the good work of leading, avant-garde local efforts, and attempt to raise questions on the profession's (abysmal) publicity in the larger, over-arching society -- i.e., exposure outside of targeted, localized efforts to attract and retain exceptional individuals from minority backgrounds; exposure that can guide exceptional individuals with leadership qualities from all backgrounds at all stages of a career in veterinary medicine.  More precisely, I have been thinking about why it is that we don't seem to receive, and benefit from, mainstream media attention the same way that mainstream professions get exposure.  Leaders and high-profile people from other professions -- politicians, doctors, researchers, lawyers, writers, economists, investment advisors -- manage to become household names and get more and more exposure with each passing day.  This must surely have some dampening effect on exceptional incoming cohorts of future students as well as on those of us who have already chosen this profession? 

For example, I would love to read (and pass on) career-advice columns from veterinary leaders to my friends in software and management fields the same way they casually send me article links from their worlds. I want to profile-watch people closer to my heart and profession than the mainstream ones I get accustomed to recognizing on TV, facebook, newspapers and magazines.  I would love to discuss who is the latest woman veterinary leader who says 'women can't have it all' and dissect why she is right (or wrong).  I want to get a glimpse of the early careers of the veterinary leaders and heroes I know about -- what difficulties did they encounter? What sacrifices, if any, did they make? What decisions did they take at crucial points that led them to where they are today?   

Perhaps not everyone is comfortable talking about setbacks along with their successes, but somehow there seems to be a market (speaking / talk-show circuit, book deals) for such information when they are from the banking, corporate management or tech world.  Where are the Sheryl Sandbergs/Anne-Marie Slaughters; the Arianna Huffingtons/Katrina vanden Heuvals; the Sanjay Guptas/Francis Collins of our veterinary medical world?  

Will a teen who hopes to be the first one ever to go to college in her household easily identify, idolize someone -- a contemporary, universal icon -- who has made a career out of working with/for animals?  Did I, as the first female to go to college in my family and second only to my father, recognize any veterinary public figures or know any close enough to be mentors? Answer: No.  (Just as I did a couple of decades ago growing up in India, James Herriott and Jane Goodall are the only universal ‘animal people’ names that friends' kids come up with when I quiz them now.)  This is partly the reality of our outside world -- kids believe and affirm that they love our profession, but media-industry adults with an eye on ratings don't see fit to promote us.  Perhaps, we are not captivating or charismatic enough.  But have they ever met our very own charming, gracious and articulate Dr. Karen Bradley?  Did they give a bigger chance (exposure, if you will) to Drs. Baxter Black and Kevin Fitgerald -- celebrities in their own right?  Do they know who is America's Favorite Veterinarian this year?  How do we rectify this under-appreciation, this lack of recognition, given our limited resources? 

How do we identify and promote the names and profiles of the top 100 veterinarians in global veterinary history?
How do we ensure that at least the top 10 become household names?  (Here you can find one list although it is missing other well-known names.  If you type in 'Legends' as a keyword search on the AVMA website, you will find these profiles.)
How do we ensure that at least one veterinarian is mentioned among the 'Healing, Feeding and Educating the World' category of Forbes list of 'The World's Most Powerful People?'

 And if we are successful in doing all this, will we also necessarily have to make further specific efforts to attract a diverse group of applicants as well as future leaders? (Perhaps yes, but that would be for different reasons and not for lack of exposure…) 

Yet, despite all my passionate questioning, there's a voice inside me that simultaneously wonders, 'Why must we try to be mainstream?  Why should we compete for visibility with other professions?  Isn't there a reason why veterinarians, as a distinct demographic group, and the veterinary profession are unique?'   

But those are, perhaps, questions to be answered another day.    

 

Dr. Sheela Basrur, voice of reason during Toronto's SARS crisis

Dr. Sheela Basrur, the public health doctor, who appears to have calmed and charmed Canada even while Toronto was reeling under the fearful SARS crisis, passed away on June 2, 2008. She was only 51.

I am touched by how much Dr.Basrur seems to mean to Canada at a national level and to the average Canadian. Having lived in the US, I find it hard to imagine similar levels of warmth, public affection and emotions extended towards a public health professional/doctor over there (think CDC) even if they had worked through something as new and scary as SARS. Several factors have aligned together in her case, of course, but not least of which is the comparative smallness of the Canadian population that seems to tap into a 'close-knit community' feel when needed.

A female co-worker remembers bumping into her one day during the crisis as she emerged from a washroom. The co-worker told Dr. Basrur that she looked great and the doctor responded by saying she felt so tired.
“And I said Sheela, you're great,” said the co-worker. “The whole city loves you and is counting on you. And this morning on the radio I heard the host of the morning show say that he knew it was OK to go out because the little doctor with the glasses said it was.”

[Link]

Toronto Star has a picture gallery and a collection of videos on their site [Link].

I was living in the US during Toronto's SARS crisis, so the first time I heard her voice over the radio was only about a few months ago. She was talking about her cancer and her experience of the health care system as a patient. She was so candid, calm and composed despite probably knowing that the prognosis for her was not good. I felt immense respect and yes, affection, for this stranger whom I have never personally known. You can listen to parts of this interview on the June 2 show of 'As It Happens.' [Link]

As a mother myself, I could not hold back the rush of emotions that swept through my body when I read yesterday that her daughter is only 16 years old.

Of interest to public health and medical students: how her travels to Nepal and India shaped her extraordinary career in public health [Link].