THE DEMOGRAPHICS OF SUCCESS
What
Ambition
Means for
Women
It’s complicated: not just a matter of
laser-focused careerism but the quest
for a fulfilling work-life balance
By Kristin van Ogtrop
I
f you want to insult a woman but sound as if
you’re paying her a compliment, there are a few ways
you can do it. If she is not particularly attractive, you
tell her she has beautiful hair. If she seems a little dim,
you say, “You’re so nice!” And if you work with her and she’s
pushy, or she’s grasping, or sharp-elbowed, or a land grabber,
or simply annoying in a way you can’t put your finger on, you
say, “You’re very ambitious.” Which is code for so many other
things, nearly all of them bad.
A few years ago a colleague of my husband’s remarked to
him, “Kristin must be incredibly ambitious.” I’d been editor
of Real Simple for more than a decade, and in that time the
brand had grown bigger and bigger. I chalk up my success to
love, dedication and the fact that luck favors the prepared. It is
this growth trajectory, I believe, that prompted the comment.
Which may have been an insult. I don’t know. But I do know that
my husband’s reaction was a puzzled “Not really.” Which is both
true and perhaps a sign that my husband still really likes me.
TIME and Real Simple teamed up in 2015 to conduct our
second annual poll exploring how men and women define suc-
cess and ambition and how priorities change over the course of
a lifetime. The findings are surprising and a bit depressing—or
not, depending on how you look at career arcs and the mean-
ing of life. Although American women and men have simi-
lar levels of ambition (51% of men and 38% of women would
