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Unboxing Barbie: A Discussion of Gender Equality, Empowerment, and Self Identity - with Laura Laskey
100 Plays1 year ago
Note: This episode contains *SPOILER ALERTS* for the Barbie movie.
This week, host Leanna Lasky McGrath, a former tech executive turned full-time mom and certified executive coach, welcomes her sister, Laura Laskey, an executive mom, to discuss their thoughts and debrief the Barbie movie. They dive into the themes presented in the film and its implications on gender equality, empowerment, and self-worth.
Leanna introduces the concept of "Barbie Land," where women are in power and men are secondary, contrasting it with the patriarchy found in the real world. They explore how the movie highlights the role reversal experienced by Barbie and Ken, bringing attention to the disparities in power dynamics and societal expectations.
The sisters delve into key scenes and dialogues, such as America Ferrera's impactful speech that challenges the contradictory expectations placed on women. They discuss how societal norms lead women to doubt themselves, limit their aspirations, and hinder their empowerment. The hosts emphasize the importance of women supporting one another and raising their voices to break free from the confines of these expectations.
Leanna and Laura express their desire for a world where people of all genders collaborate to create policies, workplaces, and communities that consider everyone's input, fostering an environment of equal opportunity and empowerment for all. By examining the movie's themes and sharing personal insights, the hosts hope to inspire listeners to challenge societal norms, embrace their worth, and contribute to a more inclusive and equitable future.
Full transcript available here.
Connect with Leanna here
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Transcript
Podcast Introduction
00:00:08
Speaker
Welcome to the Executive Coach for Moms podcast, where we support women who are attempting to find balance and joy while simultaneously leading people at work and at home. I'm your host, Leigh Ann Alaski McGrath, former tech exec turned full-time mom, recovering perfectionist and workaholic and certified executive coach.
00:00:29
Speaker
Hi, everyone. Welcome back to the show. Thanks so much for joining me today.
Introducing Laura & Barbie Movie Discussion
00:00:34
Speaker
I have a special treat for you today. My sister is here, my baby sister, Laura, and we saw the Barbie movie the other day.
00:00:46
Speaker
And we walked out of the theater and we were just kind of like stunned into silence a little bit. It was like trying to process what we had just experienced. And we felt like it would be fun to just kind of do a little debrief on a podcast episode. So I'm excited to welcome Laura to the podcast. Laura, do you want to say hi to everybody and just tell everybody who you are? Hi, everybody.
00:01:14
Speaker
I'm a mom of two. I am constantly trying to pursue my dreams of home setting while also acting as general manager at the company where I work. And I don't typically watch movies and think, hmm, I need to think about that in debrief, but this one just really, I think had a lot to consider. So I'm excited to kind of review all of that.
00:01:40
Speaker
Yes. And I think a lot of people listening are parents. And I'm just going to note that if you have multiple kids, I just think it's fun to like see it in adulthood. How the kids raised in the same place can just be so different.
00:01:56
Speaker
But similarly, like Laura said, we both kind of walked out of there and we had a
Themes & Reflections on Barbie Movie
00:02:01
Speaker
lot of thought. So we want to talk through all of those. And when I say all of those, we won't get to everything today because I think this movie had so many different layers and arcs and just ways that we could go. But we're going to kind of hit on some of the highlights that we wanted to dive a little bit more into.
00:02:17
Speaker
I do want to share that there are going to be spoiler alerts. If you have not seen the Barbie movie and you plan to, you might want to pause and come back to this episode after you've seen the movie. Also, this is just a reflection because I think whether you enjoyed the movie or not, it has a lot of thought-provoking content. That's what we're going to be focusing on. We're going to jump into going through the plot. The first thing,
00:02:47
Speaker
that we thought was really interesting was the idea of Barbie land. Barbie land is a world where women are in power and men are kind of an afterthought. It specifically says like Ken exists only to be noticed by Barbie. So the whole Supreme Court was full of women. There was a woman president. I think also it only showed the women like their houses. And at one point someone asked like, where do Ken sleep? And she was like, I don't actually know because
00:03:16
Speaker
This is so women centric and so i wanted to talk a little bit about just kind of that role reversal what were your thoughts about that laura wall i suppose in that sense it could be a matriarchy although i typically think of that word is very like.
00:03:32
Speaker
motherly leadership rather than like just female, but technically that's what it is.
Ken's Role in Barbie Land and Beyond
00:03:39
Speaker
And in the way that Barbie is meant to show us all these different rules that women can be, like just from the toy that Mattel puts out. In that sense, I was watching it thinking like,
00:03:56
Speaker
Oh, that would be so great if all these roles were filled by women, you know, be filling these roles. But I will say the whole, and just only existing to be noticed by Barbie, isn't ideal to me. Anybody being just completely irrelevant is either realistic or ideal. Yeah.
00:04:19
Speaker
But can you relate to Canada in that role? I mean, of course there was some satire and maybe exaggerating a little bit. Really, if we think about the history of women not in this century for the most part, though it still exists, it's kind of like we existed to be married off, right? Like our parents would get the dowry and like we would be
00:04:43
Speaker
essentially sold to, the eye is bitter. And so it was like, we were trying to catch the eye of a man. And that was truly our role. Even then it wasn't us catching the eye, it was our dowry. Yeah. Well, it might've been a little bit of a obviously like Bridgerton is probably not a hundred percent historically accurate. No, it definitely is.
00:05:12
Speaker
But I'm just thinking of Richardson and like that kind of time, right? Where it was kind of like in order for me to not end up at quote unquote spinster, I need to be discovered by a man, right? So I don't think it's ideal.
00:05:30
Speaker
And I think that it's not that far fetched from the role of the woman in our society, especially a few hundred years ago. And still, I think when we look back on things that were in the past and we're like, Oh, but that's not now. I think we have to remember that like, it's still kind of like in our minds, right? Like it's evolved over time, but it's,
00:05:53
Speaker
still part of our history. It is still, you know, kind of there a little bit. Very recent history. There are people alive who lived it. Right. And still happens in some cultures today. So yeah, I thought that was interesting. I felt like Ken was kind of an outward reflection of what was being told to him. It was his job to catch the eye of Barbie, for example, and his existence.
00:06:18
Speaker
was there to like kind of support Barbie. It wasn't like he was not the star of the show. And I think it was interesting to kind of see that reflected, it's like he was like the personification of that socialization of you are secondary to the more dominant gender. Well, right. And even later in the movie, Barbie says, 10 is just superfluous.
00:06:43
Speaker
You don't actually need him there. He's just there and extra. Yeah, exactly. And then Ken and Barbie go to the real world and they notice kind of a stark difference because they are confronted in Los Angeles with patriarchy and recognizing that where they are in the real world is
00:07:06
Speaker
not anything like Barbie Land, it is the patriarchy. And I want to just kind of say I know that patriarchy can be a loaded word because of how it's been used and misused in our society today and politicized. So I just wanted to share, I went to the Googles to find some neutral words about patriarchy. So
00:07:26
Speaker
Patriarchy is defined as a system of society or government in which the father or eldest male is head of the family and descent is traced through the male line. Another definition is a social system in which positions of dominance and privilege are primarily held by men.
00:07:44
Speaker
So if that's the definition of patriarchy, I think at least in the United States, that's what we're living in. We have forefathers, our government and workplaces were really set up by men and policies were really created through their lenses. And so really also both the government and workplaces continue to be largely run by men. Of course, more women are making headway, but still currently in Congress, 27% of the House
00:08:14
Speaker
are women, 24% of the Senate are women, and only 10% of Fortune 500 companies have female CEOs. So we are more represented, but still very underrepresented in the highest levels of leadership and where decisions are made.
00:08:30
Speaker
And we've had 46 male presidents. We've yet to see a female president at this point in 2023. Like while we see more women ascending into leadership, the fact that the vast majority of these highest systems of power are run by men, it just means that by definition, we're living in a patriarchal society.
00:08:50
Speaker
And I think some of the depictions whenever they came to Los Angeles, every picture on money is a man's head and Mount Rushmore is made up of four men, right? And a bunch of other examples, but I think that it was really interesting. What did you think, Laura, about the depictions of patriarchy and when they got to Los Angeles in the real world?
Patriarchy in Barbie & Real World Implications
00:09:15
Speaker
Well, I mean, even as another example at Mattel, the entire board and CEO were men, even though they were in charge of Barbie land, which to me just really rang out that even though there is this Barbie land of matriarchy and empowered women, there are still all these men
00:09:42
Speaker
somewhere in the real world, rolling the strings and making the decisions. Then, of course, there was the Barbie feeling unsafe and that just being okay and normal, just shows the power that men have, I think.
00:10:02
Speaker
Yeah. So I think then kind of what happened once they kind of came into the real world is they felt a real reversal. So suddenly Barbie was more in the Ken role, although I don't think that Ken in Barbie land was like sexualized and kind of made you feel unsafe. I think it was just more, like you said, superfluous, like they were just more ignored, which
00:10:29
Speaker
Neither is ideal, obviously. So I think in that role reversal, then Barbie started to feel unsafe whenever she approached the construction workers and thought like, oh, this is a really safe place because she was used to a group of female construction workers.
00:10:46
Speaker
saying empowering things in Barbie land that was different in the real world, right? The men were not saying empowering things. They were doing the cat calling and you know that kind of thing and the things that often actually happen in the real world to women. And so
00:11:03
Speaker
Yeah, and then I think it was also interesting to see what happened to Ken in the real world. Well, he points, they both point out that they see people and notice people like looking at them. Barbie's attention was a lot different from the attention Ken was getting where he said,
00:11:19
Speaker
they look at me, like they actually look at me and notice in me. And on top of that, they respect me. At one point, somebody asks them for the time and he thinks, oh, she has respect for me. You know, it's just clear that other men around are not at odds with him. It's more like there's all this empowerment to him, but then just like tearing down a Barbie and sexualizing.
00:11:46
Speaker
Yeah, when he walked past the gym, they were like, yeah, bro, and high five and each other. Yeah, I think it's interesting because like, they both went from one thing to being very noticed. But it was a very different experience for them both, right? Because Ken was used to being ignored. So then he started to be noticed. And he was like, Yeah, this is
00:12:06
Speaker
awesome, right? And he was being noticed in a positive way. Whereas Barbie was used to being noticed, right? They all like, wait, wake up and say hello to each other all the time. Oh my gosh. Like their arms must have been so dry and from waving all the time. There was a lot of recognition, but it was all kind of empowering recognition. And then to come into the real world and be sexualized or talk down to objectified. Yeah.
00:12:36
Speaker
Yeah. So that's what I mean. I don't think either is ideal, but it's just interesting how it switched for both of them, but in kind of different ways. And so then Ken goes back to Barbieland and takes this idea of patriarchy where men and horses run the world for whatever reason he grouped in horses, but he turns it into Kendam.
00:12:59
Speaker
And I think that was really interesting because of course, you know, you feel like you kind of get a taste of, oh, this is what it's like to be respected and regarded. And so I want that for myself all the time and I want that for,
00:13:15
Speaker
I want other men to experience that. And so I think the idea of taking that back to Barbie land was like made sense or was maybe that's how we feel sometimes as women, right? Like we want to feel that too, but it was like maybe went pretty far away from Barbie land and way into Kendall with kind of the toxic masculinity. So do you want to talk a little bit about that? Yeah, I mean, it just,
00:13:43
Speaker
It's interesting because he was there for a day or something in the real world and then he goes back to Barbie land and by the time Barbie gets back there, he's completely turned it into a patriarchy with lots of toxic masculinity. And all the women are suddenly brainwashed and they doubt themselves and they think that
00:14:08
Speaker
they don't deserve any recognition and they are just there and serving brewski beers to the men because for some reason that's all they're good for now but I thought it was really interesting that that happened so quickly and obviously like it's not realistic to think that you know in the real world that anything like that would happen quickly but I just think
00:14:33
Speaker
in the real world we have been fighting for so long as women to have that equality and leadership and otherwise that it's just interesting to think about the patriarchy
00:14:48
Speaker
being so persistent and so pervasive. It seems like every step forward, there's still some steps back and you can't be a feminist without somehow being offensive. I just wonder what it is about the patriarchy that makes it that way.
00:15:10
Speaker
And one thing that I was kind of thinking about in terms of the role reversal is that Ken didn't actually have a role in Barbie Land. He was just superfluous.
00:15:27
Speaker
But like in a patriarchy, women do have roles, but those roles are not, you know, roles of power. Those roles are not autonomous. They're dependent on what a man is willing to allow them to do. And so I wonder if that is why it's so persistent because there are rules that you can fall into and feel that's your role to fill as a woman. It's not as easy to see that like the roles
00:15:56
Speaker
that have a say over how things are done. The leadership roles and roles of power aren't yours because you do have a role. Yeah, it's kind of like what's coming up for me is the idea of kind of like busy versus productive. It's like you can go, go, go, go, go. Right. Like you're doing something like Ken wasn't doing anything. His role, his job was beach. Right. But he couldn't swim any.
00:16:23
Speaker
You're right. Like he sort of had a role, but what was it? He wasn't contributing in any way. And so yeah, it's like, as women, like we are contributing to society. It's not like we're just standing at the beach, watching people drown, but like reaching, reaching. So it feels like we're doing things and we are, but are we making the decisions for our future and for our next generation?
00:16:51
Speaker
not nearly as much as men are at this point in time. Yeah, and I think it was so interesting to see kind of what happened to the men. Like they just felt this, I think they even said like they felt this level of entitlement and that they deserve this. And it was interesting to see what happened to the women. Like I think one of the things that really kind of illustrated the change when they were brainwashed was
00:17:16
Speaker
at the beginning, they were given awards like the Nobel Prize or I can't remember what exact awards and the Barbie that received it said, I deserve this. And it was just like this innate feeling of I am enough. I deserve it. Right. And then whenever the roles reversed, someone got an award and she was like, Oh, I don't know.
00:17:39
Speaker
I mean, how did, how did I get here? It must have been Ken, you know, like it wasn't, it wasn't me. It was, it can help me get here. That's right. Yeah. Kind of like relegating her power and autonomy. She was not like, yes, I deserve this. It was like, Hmm, that was an accident. I don't know how this happened. Yeah. And so then the women
00:18:02
Speaker
eventually snap out of it and take
Empowerment & Women's Roles
00:18:04
Speaker
their power back. And I think that process, to me, was kind of the most important takeaway from the movie, in my opinion, because that was where they were at Weird Barbie's house and then America Ferrera gave her speech. And that's being quoted in lots of places. And I did want to just read it because I think this movie has been such a cultural phenomenon and
00:18:28
Speaker
it's the highest grossing female directed movie of all time. And I think it's just amazing. And also I think you've seen the impact I've seen on social media, like women getting out of toxic relationships and abusive relationships because of this movie, because of them feeling empowered. And I just love to see that. I love to see that media and kind of entertainment can have that kind of impact on people's lives. I mean, that's amazing. So,
00:18:55
Speaker
Here's America for Air speech. If you haven't seen the movie, this is where everyone probably teared up and also was like, yes, it is literally impossible to be a woman. You are so beautiful and so smart and it kills me that you don't think you're good enough. Like we always have to be extraordinary, but somehow we're always doing it wrong.
00:19:12
Speaker
You have to be thin, but not too thin. And you can never say you want to be thin. You have to say you want to be healthy, but also you have to be thin. You also have to have money, but you can't ask for money because that's crass. You have to be a boss, but you can't be mean. You have to lead, but you can't squash other people's ideas. You're supposed to love being a mother, but don't talk about your kids all the damn time. You have to be a career woman, but also
00:19:36
Speaker
always be looking out for other people. You have to answer for men's bad behavior, which is insane. But if you point that out, you're accused of complaining. You're supposed to stay pretty for men, but not so pretty that you tempt them too much or that you threaten other women because you're supposed to be part of the sisterhood.
00:19:53
Speaker
But always stand out and always be grateful but never forget that the system is rigged. So find a way to acknowledge that but also always be grateful. You have to never get old, never be rude, never show off, never be selfish, never fall down, never fail, never show fear, never get out of line. It's too hard. It's too contradictory and no one gives you a medal or says thank you.
00:20:15
Speaker
And it turns out, in fact, that not only are you doing everything wrong, but also everything is your fault. I'm just so tired of watching myself and every single other woman tie herself into knots so that people will like us. And if all of that is true for a doll just representing women, then I don't even know.
00:20:35
Speaker
Oh, man, I love that speech. It's so true. And, you know, it's interesting because, of course, the critique of this movie is that like it's too feminist or it's anti men. And I personally didn't think that it was anti men at all. I think it was more showing men in women's roles and kind of what women go through. And I think that that speech is like such an opportunity for anyone who's curious about what it's like to be socialized as a woman.
00:21:05
Speaker
in our society. I love that speech. And I think that what happened after that speech is that some of the Barbies snapped out of it. And so then that became the key to bringing all of the Barbies back and snapping them out of that brainwashing. And the quote I loved so much, I wrote it down, was by giving voice to the cognitive dissonance required of the patriarchy, you robbed it of its power.
00:21:30
Speaker
I thought that was so powerful and I think that it's just goes to show that when we talk about it and we bring the issues to light, then that's when we can really kind of start to reimagine what our world can look like. And also that's when we start to feel empowered because
00:21:47
Speaker
I think a lot of times we think it's all in our heads. And whenever we hear other women saying that they experienced that too, and then also, I mean, the Me Too movement, for example, was so powerful because it was like, oh my gosh, I thought I was the only one and you just feel so alone. And then whenever we hear women talking about it, it can be so empowering and just putting a voice and words to what we're experiencing.
00:22:11
Speaker
One thing that I remember in the movie was America for Ours' daughter. I think her character's name was Sasha. At one point she's talking and she says, you know, everybody hates women. Men hate women. Women hate women. And it's not wrong.
00:22:31
Speaker
A lot of those things in her speech are about, you know, you have to do this, but you can't do this. And it can't be like this, it has to be like that. And I think that sometimes we do that to each other. One of those things is you can't talk about it.
00:22:49
Speaker
And I don't know that women have decided you can't talk about it, or men have decided that. But either way, I think that's very common in our society is, well, you might have this problem, but you don't talk about it. Don't air your dirty laundry. Yeah, it's impolite. That could be just ingrained in us all these years to keep us down, maybe. Because it is true that the more you talk about it and the more you share about it, the more
00:23:18
Speaker
you're able to recognize that one, you're not the only one. And two, hey, this is not right. Like this is, this needs to change. Something wrong here. It's something wrong beyond us. Yeah. It's amazing. Whoever decided like, what is Ladylike and what is not, if we were to like make a list of all the things that are Ladylike, one is to keep quiet, one is to not speak up, right? Not complain.
00:23:44
Speaker
So, you know, whenever we start to feel these things, then we have this internal battle because we've been taught to keep our mouth shut and not complain. And also I agree. I think the idea that it's not like all male imposes, it's our society. So like we all are ingrained with this socialization, men and women. And so
00:24:08
Speaker
whenever a woman is working so hard to stay within the lines and the bounds of like what we're supposed to be, whenever we see another woman stepping out, it's like,
00:24:21
Speaker
Hey, it's kind of like anger, right? And probably some jealousy. But it's kind of like, hey, no, no, no. I've been working my ass off to keep in line. And you're over there stepping out of bounds. Changing the rules. Yeah, like, no. And so I think that's part of what keeps us in line. Yeah. And that's why her saying, like, women hate women. Like, yeah. Because when we see other women doing it differently, when we've been trying so hard not to,
00:24:50
Speaker
and to be successful. Within the confines of the roles that were allowed. Exactly. Then it can, you know, it seems like there is a lot of anger and a lot of resentment and just a lot of like, no, get back in your box. Yeah, literally, right? Yeah, for sure. So I do think it's so important. And again, I think if anybody is feeling like, I don't understand feminism or that it means that like anti-men,
00:25:19
Speaker
stepping back for a minute and listening to that speech and just kind of trying to see it from that perspective. There's just a lot to learn there in my opinion about women's experience. Then the Barbies end up regaining control and we'll fast forward through that whole scene with all the machismo and tennis rackets and volleyball. I actually, I wrote down tennis rackets and volleyball because you laugh so hard.
00:25:45
Speaker
So absurd and funny. I know. I think it's so much more fun watching movies with people who enjoy the movie. And so I hate watching Christmas vacation by myself. I would much rather watch it with dad who's going to like laugh so hard every time the cat.
00:26:10
Speaker
So yeah, so that's, that's another takeaway. See the movie with someone who is going to enjoy it. There were some super off the wall birds, but, and that was one of them. Very amazing. I think at the end of that, so basically like the Ken's
00:26:25
Speaker
took themselves down. So the women regained control and kind of like took back their houses that the Ken's had taken over and kind of said, but we will give Ken's
00:26:36
Speaker
some representation, right? Just a little. They like asked to be like, can we have a justice? And they were like, oh, no, not yet. But they gave them like some kind of insignificant rules. I don't remember maybe like social chair, which is often what women get to be on committees. So I thought that was interesting that they chose to go in that direction. What do you think about that whole idea of like the women taking back their power and then kind of like what happens to the Ken's?
00:27:04
Speaker
after that? Well, for one, I mean, I think that they wouldn't have been able to do that as individuals. They worked together, they created a plan, and they all supported each other in order to make that happen. Yeah, I think that's so important. I think that's how change happens is whenever we start to talk about our shared experiences, say this is not okay, say we'd like something different and
00:27:30
Speaker
come up with together, like what that looks like. I think that's a really good point.
Ken's Self-Discovery & Egalitarian Vision
00:27:34
Speaker
And then also a little bit to my point before about how women are given roles in a patriarchy, that Ken's were satisfied with getting these insignificant roles. They were given something. Right. And I think that's commonly, well, okay, we'll accept that. I got something.
00:27:52
Speaker
And I don't maybe deserve more, which is that inner voice and story that we're telling ourselves that isn't necessarily truth. It's like the default. I don't want to say we come into the world with because we're coming in as blank slates, but like through our socialization and upbringing, we
00:28:09
Speaker
learn that like, here's our place and here's what we deserve. And it's just so much less than what men are told that they deserve. So like, where men are feeling more entitled to those roles of leadership and to the power, I think we're feeling like, ooh, I don't deserve that. So there's like just this huge delta because it's like, we're just
00:28:35
Speaker
trying to be happy with what we've got. And then we get a little bit more and we're like, Oh, I don't deserve this. Like this is an upgrade, but like, there's still so much space between where we're at and where men are feeling like their default is. Yeah. I think it was also really interesting to see a Ken at the end because I had read about, Oh, this is such a,
00:28:56
Speaker
anti-male movie. I feel like Ken's ending really proved that untrue, along with lots of other things in the movie. But that was right because it kind of finally he realized like, I'm actually not all of those labels that you put on me. I am Ken. There was like the song, ridiculous song and sequence about I think it was called I'm Just Ken. I am Kena. That's right.
00:29:24
Speaker
I love that. Yeah. I think that that is such an important liberating thought is that he's not all those things that Barbie and Mattel projected on him whenever they created the matriarchal system, where the Barbies are in charge and the hands are superfluous. He doesn't have to take all of that on. I think that for me was like,
00:29:50
Speaker
Yes, like that's what I hope for for us for women is that we can also recognize that like we are not all of those things that society has put on us. We are not all of those labels. We are not the sexualized and objectified versions that
00:30:06
Speaker
society has casted onto us, right? Like we can kind of define ourselves. And I think that that felt really empowering to me as well. What did you think about that? I agree. And Barbie says, you know, maybe it's not Barbie and Ken, maybe it's Barbie and it's Ken. We are our own people. We do not exist for one another.
00:30:31
Speaker
we are enough. We can be our own individuals without all of those ideas just being forced onto us. And we don't have to live in a world where we are, in Ken's case, only there for her to notice. When I think about the two extremes depicted in this movie,
00:30:56
Speaker
the Barbie land and Kendham. I don't actually think that either of the extremes are ideal.
00:31:04
Speaker
If I had to pick one, would I pick one where like, would I pick a world that was made for me where women are calling the shots? Sure. Can we go to Barbie Land now? That's probably better. But I don't think that those two extremes are the only options. I feel like we kind of get stuck in these like forced dichotomies in our society of, you know, especially like politically, right? You're either one party or the other,
00:31:31
Speaker
think that there's so much to be learned from just like maybe creating something completely different, like it doesn't have to be one or the other. And so I don't actually want men to feel like women do now, right? Like how Ken was portrayed at the beginning of the movie, like I don't
00:31:47
Speaker
want that for men. I don't want that for anybody. When we say take down the patriarchy or bring down the patriarchy, to me, that doesn't mean like down with the men or like the anti men in any way. It just means more like, let's create a world for all of us. Let's actually build workplaces and communities, right?
00:32:07
Speaker
with men and women both in mind, not just one or the other. It's just, what if we built it together and created it together and it wasn't like either or. To me, like that's the ideal, the egalitarian society, right? Like that is the ideal to me. What do you think about that? I think
00:32:30
Speaker
what you said, like work together to make these policies is the biggest thing there because if you're truly considering everybody's input and you truly are working together, you know, I was thinking about it actually specifically from like a maternity leave standpoint.
00:32:50
Speaker
you know, in terms of workplaces being set up for men. Fortunately, you know, a lot of the bigger companies are getting better about mat leave and creating spaces for women who are breastfeeding and whatnot. But I know like when I had to take off for maternity leave, I didn't feel very good about it, even though my company was like very gracious and giving. And
00:33:13
Speaker
I took 12 weeks of paid maternity leave, which was a huge blessing because I honestly was like, how long should I ask for? Is that too long? Maybe I can get six weeks paid and six weeks unpaid.
00:33:28
Speaker
What would be okay, what's not too much to ask for. And unfortunately you know I did that to myself but that comes from a long history of what you just don't do that. You just don't take time off work and get paid for you just don't.
00:33:45
Speaker
devote your time to other things that are also very important like raising a child and giving birth and recovering so that you can come back and be effective and be very strong in your role again. Yeah, you're supposed to work like you don't have children and parent like you don't have a job.
00:34:06
Speaker
Right. Well, I think two things about that. I think one is that idea of feeling like we don't deserve it. Yes. If the systems were set up by men and women, then we might feel like that's just something that happens, right? A lot of other countries outside the United States. It's just inherent that that's what happens. Exactly. So no one is like, no, there's no drama about, oh, I'm going to take a year off. It's just like, that's what happens in our society in order to create
00:34:35
Speaker
the next generation, like we're all in that together because we want to see the next generation thrive. And so you taking some time away from this job that will always be here when you get back is fine. Like we're all invested in that. And so there's the idea of like what we deserve, quote unquote. And then there's the idea of like, that is one of the great things that I think if we were to create the world together and create our society together,
00:35:03
Speaker
then that's something that would be considered. Of course it wasn't considered whenever our workplaces were being set up because men didn't have babies and they had full-time caregivers at home in their wives.
Conclusion & Listener Feedback
00:35:15
Speaker
Free childcare. That's a really good point. Well, thank you so much for coming on the show and joining me to talk about this and seeing the movie with me. It was so fun to watch it with you and to talk through it. Also, I would love to hear any of your
00:35:31
Speaker
takeaways that maybe we didn't cover today or if you agree or disagree with any of the things that we did dive into today. Thank you so much, Laura, and thank you to everyone for listening. Have a great day. Thanks so much for tuning into the Executive Coach for Moms podcast. Please like, subscribe, or follow the show so you'll be notified when the next episode is available. I hope you'll join me again next time. Take care.