want my life to look? What else do I want
to achieve besides what I’m doing at the
office?” I think it’s simpler for men. Men
are expected, encouraged to be ambitious.
Women are told to have it all, which is a ver-
sion of ambition that puts way too much
pressure on us. When we can’t balance it
all, we feel like failures. I think men are al-
lowed culturally to pursue whatever it is
they want, and women who pursue that as
single-mindedly are penalized.
Stephanie Clifford
New York Times reporter and author of
the novel Everybody Rise
I have wondered, on occasion, if what sep-
arates men from women when it comes
to ambition is a matter of biology. Spe-
cifically, hormones. But then I think that
sounds retrograde, like something a loose-
cannon (male) politician might claim.
How else, though, to explain the fact
that in research data and anecdotal evi-
dence, for women ambition is about a lot
more than work? In our poll, men were
more likely than women to say they would
still work even if they were independently
wealthy and did not need a job to support
themselves and their families. Women were
less likely to have missed an important fam-
ily event to advance their careers and less
likely to be raising their children to believe
ambition is extremely important.
It’s the “there must be more to life”
problem. HBO’s Wright Brindle explains:
“You get to a certain point in your ca-
reer, and you’re like ‘Are you kidding me?’
Women start out equally ambitious, but
men are still the drivers of what success
looks like. People say, ‘Why aren’t there
more women CEOs?’ and the answer, if
you ask me, is because they don’t want to
be—with a big ‘but,’ because of how those
jobs are currently defined.”
For those of us with experience and wis-
dom, Lean In came 25 years too late. When
I ask women in their 40s and 50s how they
feel about the book, many say, “Tired.” And
I get it. We did lean in, and some of us fell
over, which helps explain the resonance of
Slaughter’s message.
But the women following behind us
make me believe that real change is pos-
sible. Now senior director of audience in-
sights for New York Public Radio, Angela
Su, 28, was formerly lead buyer- planner
for the digital fashion startup Bombfell.
She is successful, ambitious and, like
many of her generation, skeptical. “I strive
hard to do well at my job, but toward what
end?” she asks. “I guess to be happy or live
a good life, but I’m still struggling to define
what a good life means. What am I being
driven toward?”
Young men are skeptical too. If there is
one thing Slaughter and Sandberg agree
on, it’s that this is not just a women’s issue.
In Unfinished Business, Slaughter cites a
Harvard Business School study of more
than 6,500 HBS grads that showed that
modern men are more family-focused than
ever before: a third of male millennials ex-
pect to split childcare 50-50, compared
with 22% of Gen X men and 16% of boomer
men. In our poll, more than a quarter of
men cited “flexible hours” and “support-
ive environment” as being most important
in their workplace. Slaughter’s husband,
Andrew Moravcsik, argued in The Atlan-
tic that more men should become the “lead
parent,” as he has. The “most fundamental
reason for men to embrace a more egalitar-
ian and open-ended distribution of family
work,” he wrote, “is that doing so can fos-
ter a more diverse and fulfilling life.” As
the mother of three boys, I would be hope-
ful about our future if they channeled their
ambition in such a way.
Because it’s up to their generation to
push for that change: to groom men for
lead-parenting jobs and women for the
C-suite. And perhaps someday those two
roles will not be mutually exclusive. “I’m
attracted to the idea of being a CEO,” says
Tara Raghuveer, a 2014 college graduate
who is policy and advocacy director for
the National Partnership for New Amer-
icans. “I’m also attracted to the idea of
having an amazing family. There are all
these different things that I consider part
of my ambition.” —witH REPoRtinG by
CHaRlottE altER •