It's time to embark on your own heroic journey.
And the fact is we're living in a mythic times where we are faced with overwhelming challenges
on every front, but we have been trained for an earlier era.
How the Wizard of Oz can help us access our potential,
plus some lean-in backlash.
I'm Susan Barnett, and this is 51% the women's perspective.
We studied the heroic myths in school, and our kids are drawn to books and games that let them access their own inner heroes and heroines.
Think of Harry Potter, Bella, and just about every video game on the market.
We long to be big, to do great things.
Jean Houston is a widely respected philosopher and researcher.
One of the founders of the Human Potential Movement,
her work with UNICEF, as advisor to presidents and first ladies,
and with the UN, has taken her around the world where she works to build community,
to empower people, and train future leaders.
Her new book, The Wizard of Oz, uses the time-honored practice of teaching through myth,
using the film version of the classic movie about Dorothy's journey to find her way back to Kansas,
as a metaphor for our own search for meaning.
When I am teaching, I've worked in 108 countries,
at this point, with the UN and other international agencies,
but I find that when I am trying to help a culture develop,
or to begin to meet the millennium development goal for any of these things,
if I put it within the context of a great story,
especially at the different culture's stories,
I find that people will go further and faster and deeper
if they feel themselves as part of this kind of mythic push, this mythic stream.
How do we turn on our various capacities, most of which we do not use?
We use a very small part of our human capacity,
and the fact is we are living in a mythic times where we are faced with overwhelming challenges
on every front, but we have been trained for an earlier era.
You see, all the heroes and heroines are called to lead an outmoded situation.
It's about evolution and action, and then, of course, it takes a tornado.
But what are the other tornadoes in your life,
whether it is divorce or illness or some kind of loss of role or experience or capacity?
Whatever it is, or just sheer dogged boredom,
living a life of serial monotony.
No, the tornado comes along, it picks you in the pants and off you go.
So I find you see the metaphors in that story are so potent, so profound.
And I think there is such a hunger among people to be a hero,
but it's a very difficult thing to do when you're just trying to make ends meet and live in your life.
Susan, I think we have to re-missologize our daily lives.
Instead of pathologizing them, we re-missologize them.
I mean, what is more heroic or heroic, if you will,
than raising the kids trying to make ends meet, holding a job?
That is a heroic journey.
I mean, we are something I, hopefully, I try to indicate in the book,
but how we begin to take that life that is being lived,
and also to see the deeper dimensions of it to be a woman in this time,
is to have not only all the women's roles, many of the men's roles,
and roles that nobody ever thought of before,
but it's also being called upon to cross the great divide of otherness
that separates what we used to call the patriarchy,
to partnership or a form of equality.
And women are probably working harder now in our time than in any other time in human history.
And you do seem to point to this time.
This time right now is a pivotal moment.
What is it that makes you believe that?
The world that I saw in the early 1950s, the 1960s,
is not the same world today.
My parents and grandparents and great-grandchildren lived a very different life.
And we have more challenges, I mean, the ecological challenges,
which are massive and which could fright frankly cause the species,
our species, to more or less,
the dimension die off within the next 200 years.
That is not a false statistic, unfortunately.
The very ecological challenges, the financial disparities,
and of course the positive, the rise of women slowly but surely,
and with terrible backlash, but it is happening to full,
you know, to kind of equality with men in the whole agenda of human affairs.
This is changing every day,
because with women, the emphasis is on process rather than on product,
on making things cohere and develop and grow,
interrelatedness, relationships, the subjective being as important as the objective,
and not all, but in many cases, not in the COO of Facebook,
quite a few, in a funny book, leading, which I found very funny.
You found it funny.
Very funny.
Well, because it's becoming a second rate man,
you know, it really, it kind of throws out a lot of the energies and capacities
and the sheer genius of women, you know, in order to be kosher in the,
you know, in the sort of male-female sense of the corporation.
And there's very few, well, I mean, there's a lot of people like her,
but I found it to be a funny book, because it was so paradoxical.
So I laughed all through it.
You know, I'm the daughter of a well-known,
comedy writer.
My dad wrote the joke, who's on first.
I'm always looking at the ironically absurd and the co-local, you know,
and I've laughed and laughed through the book.
Well, let's talk about that for a moment,
then if you don't mind.
Cheryl Sandberg's book, Lean In,
is exhorting women to have their place at the table to lean into the conversations
to make their voices heard?
What would you say instead?
Well, mine is reach out, of course.
It's not me and it's reach out.
It's also realize the incredible pliability of our persona
and that we are not going to be locked into being second-grade men in, you know,
in short skirts, but that it is women's genius,
women's gift, holistics, and credit,
relationship, and process oriented that is actually going to save our businesses.
Not the whole sense of just looking for the bottom line,
which is unfortunately, in that case, you know, the financial form.
So it's not that restrictive view.
Lean in, it already seems to be that restrictive.
You go in a very narrow kind of focus,
whereas the world simply does not operate that way anymore.
It does not.
And, you know, when I've looked at women's business,
all right, let me take you back some years ago.
So Margaret Mead says,
Jane, let's do anthropology in the corporation.
She takes me to corporations where women are on the rise as vice presidents
who are in very important positions.
She said, now watch, Jane.
Watch how this woman braids her work.
And so we watch as she stops at every desk.
She's working on a quarterly report,
but stops at every desk.
Ask about the family.
She talks about ideas,
pulls calls people into their not accountability,
but their capability and their story, the deeper stories.
And I mean, in this particular case,
the company was doing fine because of this woman.
And we just, I mean, I went to enough of them with her
to see the women who were really making the difference
were operating out of the genius of women
and not being second-rate men.
And she said, and Margaret said to me,
well, you know, Jane, if they really can continue doing that,
she said, in another 40 years,
you're going to have women as the priest, the president,
and also the heads of companies.
But to try to imitate men and do that narrow kind of focus
is really going to be destructive to the self and society
because that's not the way self-consociety operates.
And she also said, you have to look at nature
when you look at biomemetic forms of society,
imitate with imitations, not imulations,
but analogues to nature.
That's when things work.
That's when things work.
And that tends to be much more of a feminine perspective.
Jean Houston is a scholar, researcher and philosopher
and founder of the Human Potential Movement.
For the past 10 years, she's worked with the United Nations Development Program,
training leaders in human and cultural development
as well as in social artistry,
a community leadership training program she developed.
Her book is The Wizard of Us,
Transformation Lessons from Oz.
It is published by Simon & Schuster.
Coming up more on whether women need to lean in
or whether there's more to the story,
plus a profile of a woman who changed our understanding of the world.
If you miss part of this show or want to hear it again,
visit the 51% Archives at www.amc.org.
This week's show is number 1240.
Lean In has certainly got women talking.
The book by Facebook Executive Cheryl Sandberg says women are the architects of their own glass
ceilings, calling for women to lean in and embrace ambition and their careers.
Instead of worrying about the challenges of balancing work and family,
it's opened up an important discussion about women, work and society.
Commentator March Gallagher says it's a book she won't be reading.
She's living it.
In 1999, I was earning six figures as a new attorney at a high-powered corporate law firm in Boston.
I had just graduated at the top of my class and finished a prestigious federal clerkship.
I worked with brilliant and competent people on complex and interesting problems for more money
than anyone in my family had ever earned.
I soaked up the experience and I leaned in hard.
Despite working on a full plate of large corporate environmental litigation cases,
I hounded partners for additional work in securities law, white collar crime,
and other areas in order to add to my knowledge base and make my skill set well known to the
partnership. I had confidence in myself and I knew I would go far.
Less than six months into my law firm experience, I started the day continuing my climb up the
ladder. I ended the day knowing I was pregnant and that I had early stage cervical cancer.
Inventility among women who waited to make partner before starting their families
was so rampant that the firm had an employee benefit of $10,000 in in vitro fertilization.
No questions asked. I was already 30. I was in a 10-year stable relationship and we knew we wanted
a family. More importantly, the doctors were telling me that the cervical cancer post-pregnancy
treatment might make it impossible to carry a baby to term in the future.
If I wanted to be a mother, now is the time. Maybe the only time.
The problems of parenting while working at the firm were evident.
Late nights, on-site emergency childcare, disfavored occasional work from home arrangements.
Most women had a nanny. One nanny brought a little girl to see her mother at the firm.
As the girl was getting off the elevator, she tripped and ran right past her mother into the nanny's arms.
The final straw was a partner who quietly took me aside to tell me that she saw her baby
one hour a day. I knew I couldn't do that. The firm offered three months paid and three months
unpaid leave and like most of my colleagues, I took the full six. I believe there might be options.
One you've seen your managing woman partner told young associates a great story of how she left
the firm to raise her kids for over a decade. She was at the hardware store in overalls one day,
picking up more paint for a home improvement project. When a partner ran into her, he encouraged
her to return to the firm, which she did, rising to a leadership position.
During the first few months of my life as a new mother, it became clear to me that no amount of
money was worth sacrificing my most fundamental belief in my responsibilities as a mother to care
for my child. My husband and I moved back to upstate New York. I had cervical surgery and luckily
went on to have two more children. I didn't forget my career. I hung out my shingle and began
taking pro bono cases. I grew my practice into representing small businesses and zoning and
planning law. Land use practice had the benefit of being primarily night meetings before local
boards. I stayed home for ten years until my youngest turned four. I founded not for profits for
environmental protection, land conservation, and arts education. I ran for local elected office.
I volunteered for various boards and committees at the town and county level.
I was appointed to the county industrial development agency and became the first chairwoman
in 30-year history. Our county changed his form of government and our first ever county executive
brought a cadre of talented professionals to implement good governance and efficiency. He made
vision reality and appointed women to top leadership positions in his administration. I was
asked to head up economic development and I am now the director of business services for my county
providing the gateway and administration for economic development bonding tax incentives
and revolving loanfront capital. Every day I confront issues as a working mother. I have
tremendous help with two dads who work from home and involved in supportive stepmother to my children
and many grandparents within a 25-minute drive. I've learned over time not to refer to my mothering
responsibilities casually in a professional context. If I can't attend a work meeting or event
because I have to take a child to a medical appointment or attend a school function,
I say I have another commitment. But being a working mother with high stress job, even with
tons of support and low needs thriving children, I still feel inadequate as a mother. And as a
professional with kids, I can't give my job 120%. I can't go to every night meeting in event because
that would have me out four to five nights a week. I can't work from home like I did in graduate
school and law school. And as I type this one hand at I have an eight-year-old that I haven't seen
all day sitting on my lap. And that's not even getting into taking care of myself. Sure, I'd love to
go to the gym three days a week and I used to ride my bike 10 miles every morning. Now I steal an
hour or two on the weekends and if I can hit the gym one night a week on the way home, that's a huge
accomplishment. I get up at 6 a.m. and I prepped dinner before work and that may sound self-righteous
but I must fully acknowledge the things I don't need to do. I don't make lunches. I don't do laundry
and I don't go food shopping. And just to get by, especially with my high standards, I constantly
have to tell myself that I will have a clean house, one of my grandmother. I will take more long
contemplative walks when I'm a widow. I will have my best professional years as an old lady.
That's what I remind myself when I look at my social security earnings thus far.
So you can imagine that I read with interest Anne-Marie Slaughter's article in Atlantic Monthly,
why women still can't have it all. Her message soothed me and I knew that I'm okay. I'm doing the
best I can and it's not just good enough, it's darn good. When presidential contender Mitt Romney
talked about his binder of women, I started my own and I updated with each role model I find that
speaks to me. I avidly follow glass ceiling issues believing, no knowing that if I were a man,
I'd be earning more because if I were a man, I wouldn't have taken a decade off of full-time work
and I'd likely be in a completely different job, a partner in a major law firm or running a
business or a non-profit somewhere. When Marissa Mayer took a poultry maternity leave and installed
a nursery in her office, I was keenly interested. How could she do it? Would she be satisfied with
herself as a person as a mother when she looked back from her golden years? And then Cheryl Sandberg
comes out with her book and know I haven't read it because I'm too darn busy working and parenting
full-time and I'm fairly certain after reading a few reviews that it just might tick me off and make
me feel inadequate. The national dialogue that has erupted since Mayer's telecommuting prohibition
and Sandberg's leaning in has frustrated me. It hasn't inspired or motivated me and it hasn't
given me any relief. Although it has made me and others question why work-life balance applies more
to women than it does to men. Why is it that a woman executive who works and puts family on the
back burner must be missing out on something but a man who does so as a go-getter? Well, at least most
working women and the national sentiment are as ambivalent as I about what constitutes success for
the working mother. I don't yet regret taking time off the high-pressure contentious career of my
choosing to raise children. I was home with them during their formative years and while I don't
have time to bake with them now and I dread kids' birthday parties, I still feel my lost decade
was a good solid investment. Not in my net assets, not in my earnings potential, not in my publications
list but in my wholeness as a person. I've avoided my biggest fear, looking back at my mothering
and blaming myself for shortcomings in my children because I didn't take the time necessary to do a
decent, if not perfect job. The next generation now has a solid foundation of walks in the park,
homemade science experiments and family dinners. So I didn't make partner to top firm by 40,
but I might by 60 and my babies will be taking good care of their babies by then.
March Gallagher is an attorney and an expert in business and economic development. She lives in
New York's Hudson Valley. Finally, a woman who changed our understanding of the world around us.
Rachel Carson was a marine biologist and ecologist who started her career as a writer. That writing
skill helped propel her best known work, Silent Spring, onto the best cellar list and opened our
eyes to the effect we have on our environment. Jill Malkeen has more. Although many people become
heroes in ways that touch many of us, few become champions of a cause that concerns us all.
Rachel Carson was such a person. Carson was born in 1907 and raised in rural Pennsylvania.
Fascinated by marine biology, she earned her masters from Johns Hopkins in 1932.
She began by working as a writer for the US Bureau of Fisheries and wrote articles on the subject
of natural history for the Baltimore Sun. She then worked for the US Fish and Wildlife Service
and eventually became their chief editor. However, she opted to follow her pension for personal
writing and published a book called The Sea Around Us that brought her international acclaim and
admiration, revealing her ability to articulate a personal love for nature so purely that it
caused everyone who read it to aspire to her level of appreciation of the wonders of nature.
She had an ability to render scientific facts and observations into passionate and irresistible
prose and her book was a bestseller for over a year and a half.
Once or twice in a generation wrote The New York Times book critic,
does the world get a physical scientist with literary genius? Miss Carson has written a classic.
She became concerned about the agricultural employment of poisons and devoted herself to the
task of warning us about their use, which brings us to her 1962 magnum opus Silent Spring.
This book, which endures as a living testament to her own undying respect and love for our planet,
first appeared as a series of articles in The New Yorker and was published in its entirety by
Houghton Mifflin the same year. The White House, Congress and scientists all hailed the work and
gave it the highest praise and attention. Carson was brought to testify before the US committee on
commerce. She received medals and honors and became a member of the American Academy of Arts
and Letters. It was received differently as you might imagine by those who were being poisoned
then by those who stood to benefit from the poisoning. The resistance from the industry was
loud and nasty and others who were not learned in the subject also objected to having to discontinue
new and effective methods of controlling pests. The public were unaware that DDT and other
like substances had been produced as military weapons for use in World War II. The ample stockpiles
of which were now adapted to pesticide use for disposal. She explained that those substances
do not stay where they're put and don't fade away once the task they've been given has been
carried out. They can contaminate the countryside poisoning animals and humans as she discovered in
long and painstaking research on a book she had not even planned to write. Simon Spring advocated
for banning certain pesticides and restricting and regulating the use and volume of other
questionable chemicals whose toxicity and destructive effects were apparent. And for the start
of a new biotic approach to the control of harmful pests. She pointed to chemical industry propaganda
and lamented the lack of questioning from those responsible for public health and safety.
The expansion of environmental awareness began to snowball and by 1969 the president was
forwarded a congressional bill called the National Environment Policy Act or NEPA.
Its stated purposes were to declare a national policy which will encourage productive and enjoyable
harmony between man and his environment to promote the efforts which will prevent or eliminate
damage to the environment and biosphere and stimulate health and welfare of man and to enrich
our understanding of the ecological systems and natural resources important to the nation.
Remember these were new ideas at the time where there had existed no legislation before.
In 1970 the Environmental Protection Agency became a living entity and the war against pollution
was launched. The story of its birth in itself is worth looking up and reading about because it's
so rare that such a concerted and concentrated effort was made and achieved and don't think it's
easy for Congress to do that. Quote in fact the EPA today may be said without exaggeration to be
the extended shadow of Rachel Carson. Unquote wrote Jack Lewis in a 1985 edition of the EPA Journal.
Since then thousands of dedicated people have joined the fight and many battles have been lost
in one but the consciousness against pollutants is stronger than ever today and today as even ordinary
people continue to develop ideas and find practical solutions to progress without pollution.
New ways of working with nature instead of against her are within our grasp. We have but to implement
them. But Rachel Carson's story went much deeper. While she was writing the book in 1960 she
underwent a radical mastectomy for breast cancer. She kept that story private not wishing as she
said to give the chemical producers any pleasure. But it was not cured and she died of it in 1964
at the age of 56. In her final speech Rachel Carson said, underlying all of these problems of
introducing contamination into our world is the question of moral responsibility. The threat
is infinitely greater to the generations unborn, to those who have no voice in the decisions of today
and that fact alone makes our responsibility a heavy one. It's become evident since her passing
that she knew whereup she spoke. Thank you for listening. For 51% and women in history, I'm
Giel Malkeen. Giel Malkeen is a writer and musician. He lives in New York's Cat Skill Mountains.
That's our show for this week. Thanks to Katie Britton for production assistance. Our theme
music is by Kevin Bartlett. This show is a national production of Northeast Public Radio.
Our executive producer is Dr. Alan Shartock. If you'd like to hear this show again or visit
the 51% Archives, go to our website at wamc.org. Thanks so much for joining us. We'll be back next week
with another edition of 51% the Women's Perspective.
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