Why Good Girls Don't Get Ahead... But Gutsy Girls Do (2 page)

Oh, I longed to be wild, but I was afraid to break the rules. Here's a perfect example: My parents were fairly protective and they made my brothers and me wear boots in winter even if there were only two patches of snow on the sidewalk. Years later I mentioned to my brother Jim how embarrassed I'd felt trudging along in what seemed like forty pounds of rubber while everyone else had on Keds.

“Didn't it bother you?” I asked.

“Nah,” he replied. “Mike and I always left our boots at Charlie Hagstrand's in the morning and picked them up on the way home.”

It had never, not even once, occurred to me to break the rules that way.

My goody-two-boots tendencies continued all through school, as well as through the early years of my career. Sometimes I'd break out and do something surprisingly daring, and the result would be fabulous. But rather than think that gutsiness had worked in my favor, I'd feel as if I'd managed to get away with something and maybe I shouldn't try it again.

I started my career at
Glamour
magazine after winning their Top Ten College Women contest. After working at
Glamour
for six years as an editorial assistant and then a feature writer, I moved to
Family Weekly (now USA Today Weekend),
as senior editor and eventually executive editor. From there I went to
Mademoiselle,
where I was the executive editor in charge of the articles department. I was a hard worker, and though my boss considered me fairly spunky. I always minded my p's and q's. That approach. I assumed, was serving me well.

Then, just after I was promoted to the number-two position at
Mademoiselle,
I had a baby and everything began to change for me. I'd expected that in my case being a working mother would be fairly smooth sailing. My boss, an extremely smart and creative editor-in-chief, had a tendency to go hot and cold on employees, but I'd managed to remain in her good graces by following orders and agreeing with all of her insights At times I felt like one of those dogs with the bobbing heads you see in the back windows of cars, but at least I felt safe in my job.

As soon as I returned from maternity leave, however, my boss turned icy toward me. After several years on the hot list, I suddenly had freezer burn. On my seventh day back, she called me into her office and said she was uncomfortable with the fad that I was now leaving at 5:00
P.M.
every day and warned me to stay until at least six in case any big ideas came up during that time period. She certainly had the right to say it, but to me it was a ludicrous request. We were, after all, a fashion and beauty magazine for twenty-four-year-olds. It wasn't as if someone was going to burst into my office at 5:45 screaming. “Stop the presses! Somebody just invented thong underwear!” Though I agreed to her demands. I left that night determined to get a job that would allow me to come and go as I pleased so I could spend enough time with my child. Four months later, after lots and lots of hustling, I was the editor-in-chief of
Child
magazine.

And that's when I started to scrutinize the way I approached my work and when I began, without even realizing it, to kick the good girl out of my system. You sec, I really didn't have a choice. I wanted very much to succeed at
Child
but I also knew it would be tough to be effective in such a powerful position and also be a conscientious mother. I'd already discovered how crazy life was as a working mother. One night after I'd gotten home from
Mademoiselle,
I'd hurriedly dressed Hunter in his snowsuit so I could take him with me grocery shopping. As I pushed the stroller through my apartment building lobby, I noticed in the mirror that in my frantic state I'd put his little ski cap on
my
head. That moment seemed to symbolize the nuttiness of my life.

It was clear to me that in order to pull it off. I would have to change my work style. I was going to have to learn to make instant decisions, delegate like crazy, focus on the big picture rather than the details, and be adventurous in my thinking And I was going to have to cease caring if people “liked” me.

So that's what I did. I took a gutsier approach to everything And what's amazing is that as I experimented with this style, I discovered that it felt far more natural to me than the Little Miss Nice role I had played for so long.

A year and a half after going to
Child,
I was recruited to be the editor-in-chief of
Wording Woman.
I was a little more than seven months’ pregnant when I got the job; the owner said he chose me because of my gutsy new plan for the magazine And a year and a half after that, I was recruited back to the New York Times Company to be editor-in-chief of
McCall's
The good girl had bitten the dust.

After about four years at
McCall's
I was chosen last October to be the new editor-in-chief of
Redbook,
which had been brilliantly fashioned by Ellen Levine into a magazine for smart, sexy, gutsy women. I couldn't ask for more.

THE TRIPLE BONUS OF BEING A GUTSY GIRL

Once I began to think about my transformation to gutsy girl and reflect on how it had affected my professional life—my whole life, for that matter—I decided I wanted to share what I have learned. This book is filled with strategies on how you too can become a gutsy girl. They come not only from me but from some of the very successful women I have met through my work.

A word of caution: Being gutsy is not without its consequences. It's not unlike putting on Rollerblades instead of walking shoes. You're going to get there faster, the ride will be exhilarating, and yet there's a chance of bruising your shins or even breaking your elbow. You'll find, however, that your new skills as a gutsy girl can help you deal with any flak that you get from taking chances.

You'll discover, as well, three amazing dividends from following the strategies in this book. The first I've already talked about: your career opportunities will open up dramatically as you begin to be bolder and slop trying to please everyone but yourself Second, you will find yourself less a prisoner of your work as you learn to delegate, take shortcuts, and give yourself permission to relax. Being a gutsy girl actually has given me more personal time.

And finally you'll feel an amazing sense of relief as you let the gutsy girl out from her hiding place inside of you. It's wonderful to go home at night and not have to feel the ache in your cheeks from holding a frozen smile in place all day long.

CHAPTER
TWO

Are You Trapped in the Good-Girl Role?

I
hope by now you're itching to read the strategies in this book and embark on a gutsier approach to your career. But before you do, it's important to do a little prep work.

First, you should spend time thinking about how your good-girl habits evolved. When you trace the pattern backward it's not only illuminating, but you're likely to end at a point in time when you were spunky, adventurous, and unafraid—and that can be very inspiring.

Next, you should figure out how the good girl in you operates. When is she most likely to take over? What effect has she had on your career up until now? Warning: It may be less obvious than you realize. Good-girlism, you see, is very sneaky, and wears a variety of surprising disguises.

WHERE DO GOOD GIRLS COME FROM?

Good girls, I believe, are made, not born. In the past decade there's been a lot written about how women learn to put their own needs last and suppress their voices. Much of my understanding on this subject comes from conversations I've had with Ron Taffel, Ph.D., an extraordinary child psychologist and author of
Why Parents Disagree,
who writes “The Confident Parent” column for
McCall's.
Recruiting Dr. Taffel was one of the first steps I took after I got the job, because to me he had the freshest, most exciting views in the field of parenting. He works with individual kids and parents in therapy, and he also runs workshops for parents across the country.

According to Dr. Taffel, the seeds of the good girl are planted very early as a daughter observes the way the individuals in her home interact with each other and absorbs the messages her parents send.

While watching her mother day in and day out, she discovers the thousands of ways her mother takes care of everybody else. “A mother assumes primary responsibility for her family's needs,” says Taffel. “When a father
does
participate, its known as ‘helping out.’”

The mother, even if she has a job, makes the arrangements for school, for play dates, meals, holidays, celebrations, dentist and doctor appointments, vacations, and trips to relatives. She buys the clothes, the underwear, the shoes, the toothbrushes, the birthday gifts (for her own kids as well as her kids’ friends), the books, the Play-Doh and the paint sets. She drives for the car pool, makes the snacks, applies the Band-Aids, wipes the noses, cleans up the spills and messes, supervises the homework, calls the teacher, gets the camp applications, writes the thank-you notes. … It never stops.

A mother's responsibility includes not merely
doing
all these things, but constantly
thinking
about them, keeping a mental calendar and to-do list going day and night—what Taffel calls “The Endless List of Childrearing.” This mental list is her province alone. It's safe to say that if she doesn't ever get around to calling the orthodontist for a consultation, someone will have a lifelong overbite.

She is also what Taffel calls the family “gatekeeper,” the possessor of critical information. If a child wants to know where to find a clean pair of socks or a library book he was reading, there is only one parent who knows for sure.

The message a daughter hears through all this is that one of the most important jobs a female has is considering and taking care of others’ needs, and in the process that often involves putting her own needs aside.

That's not all that's going on. In her home. Dr. Taffel explains, a daughter is also encouraged to be “the best little girl in the world.” When she takes a toy from another child, talks back to her parents, refuses to follow an order, she is told. “That's not nice.” or “Be nice,” or “Be a good girl.” Because her not-so-pleasing, aggressive side is so often admonished, she may become ashamed of it—and eventually repress it.

“Anger is the signal that it's time to be assertive,” says Dr Taffel, “but if you are told repeatedly that it's wrong to be angry and you don't let yourself feel anger, you lose the signal that you need to let your assertiveness take over.”

Boys, too, are admonished for their bad behavior, but it's often done with a wink or what Taffel calls a “double look.” It's as if the parent is saying, “You shouldn't have done that—but I'm proud of you because you did It means you're not a wimp or a sissy.”

Now, certainly this was the way it
used
to happen, but haven't things changed? Aren't we giving girls a whole new set of messages?

Marsha Gathron, associate professor of health and sports sciences at Ohio University, who has studied self-esteem in young girls, says that she feels the problem has gotten even worse. “Young girls are being hit just as hard today if not harder than several generations ago,” she says. “Many of the same variables are still there that make girls doubt themselves. Plus we no longer have the strong family ties that might help some girls get beyond the messages.”

Dr. Taffel believes that though we've made progress in raising kids without the strong sexual stereotyping of the past, the good-girl message still comes through loud and clear, not only at home, but through television, advertising, books, and other conduits of society's attitude. Sometimes it's done with such subtlety that we don't even notice.

Consider the latest edition of the classic board game Chutes and Ladders, billed as “an exciting up and down game for little people.” In the game, players (kids ages four to seven) move along a playing board, sometimes landing on ladders that allow them to take shortcuts, and sometimes landing on chutes that force them backwards. The ladder squares depict kids being rewarded for good behavior and the chute squares show them facing consequences for bad behavior.

Here's where it gets interesting. There are twelve boys on the board, compared to seven girls. In the examples in which the boys get to move up the ladders, they are being rewarded for a
variety
of good behavior, including some heroic stuff: returning a lost purse, saving a kitty. The girls are all rewarded for housework: sweeping a floor, baking a cake. As for bad behavior, there are twice as many high jinks for the boys. The girls’ naughty behavior, what little there is of it, includes eating too much candy and carrying too many dishes. The boys’ is all action oriented: riding a bike without holding on, breaking a window playing ball, and walking in a puddle. Twenty million sets of Chutes and Ladders have been sold since its creation.

Even when we attempt to be fair, we blunder. Take a look at the hugely successful book series for young kids, the Beren-stain Bears. The books are charming, informative, and full of politically correct references to nurturing dads and working moms. But here's what Sister Bear and Brother Bear fantasize about in
Trouble with Pets,
published in 1990, when they're anticipating getting their first dog.

Sister thought about dressing it in doll's clothes and pushing it in her doll carriage. She thought about introducing it to her stuffed toys. Perhaps they could have a tea party. … Brother's thoughts were quite different; he thought about winning the blue ribbon at the Bear Country Dog Show. He thought how fine it would be to shout “Mush!” as his great dog pulled him through the deep snow.

In other words, Sister wants to sit around looking pretty and acting pleasant. Brother wants to be a leader and a winner.

THE GOOD GIRL GOES TO SCHOOL

Any good-girl message that comes through at home soon gets reinforced at school. Some research over the past two decades has revealed that there is extraordinary gender bias in schools, and that it continues in strong force today. Social scientists Myra Sadker, Ed.D., and David Sadker, Ed.D., authors of
Failing at Fairness: How America's Schools Cheat Girls,
who have conducted twenty years of research, say that girls are systematically denied opportunities in areas where boys are encouraged to excel, often by well-meaning teachers who are unaware of what they're doing. Male students, the Sadkers report, control classroom conversation. They ask and answer more questions. They receive more praise for the intellectual quality of their ideas. Girls, on the other hand, are taught to speak quietly, to defer to boys, to avoid math and science, and to value neatness over innovation, appearance over intelligence. In one school contest the Sadkers observed, the “Brilliant Boys” competed against the “Good Girls.”

In the early grades, girls routinely outperform boys on achievement tests, but that's only one part of “schooling.” “There's the
official
curriculum, which calls for doing well on tests and homework and getting good grades,” says David Sadker, “but then there's also the
hidden
one. This curriculum involves speaking up in class, raising questions, offering insights. It helps a student develop a public voice. Girls aren't encouraged to develop this public voice. They are rewarded for being nice and being quiet. Their high grades lull them into a false sense of security that they are doing what they must to be a success. It's only later that they pay a price for having been encouraged to be a spectator, to not speak up.”

By the time girls graduate from high school, they lag, as a group, far behind their male counterparts.

Year after year of these messages, both in school and on the home front, can become internalized. The most widely known research on what happens to school-age girls is by Carol Gilligan, professor in the Human Development and Pyschology Program at the graduate school of Education, Harvard University. In studies Gilligan found that there is a “silencing” of girls that occurs as they move from the elementary grades into junior high. Up until that point, she says, they seem filled with self-confidence and courage, and they're candid about what they feel and think and know. But as they enter midadolescence and become aware of society's expectations of them, they start to get more tentative and conflicted. The conventions of femininity require them to be what Gilligan calls “the always nice and kind perfect girl.”

Thus, Gilligan says, girls experience a debilitating tension between caring for themselves and caring for others, between their understanding of the world and their awareness that it is not appropriate to speak or act on this understanding. They are uncomfortable about how people will feel if they get mad or aren't “nice.” The girl who is insistent on speaking and desires knowledge goes “underground,” says Gilligan, or is overwhelmed.

When girls look to grown women for inspiration, they may not get any help. Gilligan says that women, in the name of being good women, model for girls the “repudiation” of the playful, irreverent, outspoken girl.

Though some experts have criticized Gilligan's theories, I think many of us can't help but see ourselves when we read her words. You're automatically transported back into sixth or seventh grade, feeling the fatigue of always trying to please and the stress that results from constant vigilance over your own words and behavior. By the age of eleven or twelve you probably discovered the importance of being “liked,” and what that required. Popular boys are often boisterous and mischievous, but popular girls are generally careful about their words and their behavior. As soon as this sank in, you locked that smile into place and tried not to sound opinionated. You worried about what you were going to say before you said it, while you were saying it, and after you said it.

And come to think of it, you weren't really supposed to be saying much at all. You were told it was important to let boys do the talking and so you listened, smiled, listened. You learned quickly that no one likes a girl who hogs the limelight. And God forbid you ever did anything unconventional that would draw attention to yourself and make some loud bully of a boy suddenly take particular notice of you in class and decide that you were the one who would be crucified for your clothes or your complexion or your breasts.

I can remember extraordinarily well a moment when I began to shut down pan of myself in order to be liked. During my early grade-school years, I had this devilish streak in me, even though I was also pretty shy. In sixth grade this cute and cocky boy named Kevin transferred to our school and into my class. Everyone, boys and girls alike, fawned over him, and as the year went along he got kind of big for his britches. Where I grew up, in upper New York State, the first of May was celebrated by kids exchanging May Day baskets they made by pasting crepe paper on old oatmeal and saltine cracker boxes and filling them with candy. This particular May Day I decided I wanted to get Kevin's attention, but instead of fawning, I tried a more irreverent approach that I thought he'd appreciate as a cocky kid. I made the rattiest looking May Day basket with water-stained, ripped crepe paper, then filled it with stones, and left it on his desk just as everyone was coming in from lunch.

Well, you would have thought I'd yelled the words
sexual intercourse
at the top of my lungs. A hush fell over the class as kids realized what had happened, and once it was discovered I was the culprit, they looked at me in horror. I tried to make light of the situation, but that night I went home feeling something I had never experienced in school before: shame.

From that day forward I did my best to hold that little devil down. I got with the good-girl program that is reinforced all through adolescence. Abigail Cook, a friend of mine who is a trader on Wall Street, puts it this way: “If I could have hung a motto over my bed in high school it would have been: ‘Be nice, you'll be liked, you'll get married.’ “

Though many of Gilligan's theories were developed over fifteen years ago, educators and researchers say they see the same dynamics at work today.

Barbara Berg, dean of the upper school of Horace Mann, a private school in New York, and author of
Crisis of the Wording Mother
, says that she witnesses many young girls caught in the good-girl trap and unable to feel a personal sense of empowerment. “A girl who was being verbally harassed by some boys came to my office lately for help,” says Berg. “I suggested that one step would be for her to tell the boys that she didn't want them to do that. She said that she couldn't. She was wonted that if she did, they wouldn't like her.”