Analysis & Opinion
Why women e-mail at night by Mrs. Moneypenny of the FT
The Financial Times' Mrs. Moneypenny says women "clearly can’t have it all" - the top of big business and a top family life... But do we agree?
When is it socially acceptable to e-mail? With the cost centres either out or tucked up in bed, and Mr M watching the golf, I occasionally spend a little bit of my Saturday nights catching up on my messages. What is the etiquette when e-mailing someone, particularly about a work matter, on a Saturday night? Doesn’t it look a little sad? Mrs no-mates Moneypenny on the e-mail on a Saturday night. Poor soul, she’s got nothing else to do. Or, worse, she is so work-obsessed that she would rather e-mail than be with her family at the weekend. I always feel the need to preface any work-related e-mail late at night with an apology and an explanation that I am not ignoring my loved ones. So imagine my surprise when I e-mailed a senior female banker on a Saturday night and she replied immediately! She too felt the need to explain why she was available for electronic correspondence. Her children were in bed, she said, and her husband was away heli-skiing. Heli-skiing? I thought there was a recession on. What sort of recession is open to debate – we may be in a deep bath-shaped recession, or recovering from the first dip of a double-dip recession, or indeed it may just be a U-shaped recession – but whatever shape recession it is, I didn’t think that heli-skiing would figure much in it. Also, this sounds horribly familiar to me. Exhausted working mother at home managing children, catering, domestic paperwork and so on while husband is on cash-consuming sporting trip with his mates. Although golf isn’t cheap, I promise you that heli-skiing is in a different league as far as expensive sporting activities go.
The heli-skiing widow said something to me the other day that rang very true. The best way to shatter the glass ceiling, she said, is first to shatter the myth that you can have it all. Hear, hear. Nothing makes me angrier than the legions of young women who have been brought up with the vision that everything is possible in this age of equal opportunity and oral contraception. Sure, women can achieve everything in the workplace that men can, but only at the price that men pay.
When did you last hear of a truly successful businessman who has got there while maintaining a perfect work/life balance? Or worked his way up the greasy pole part-time? Or who had a family which raised itself by magic without someone at home? Of course not. Men who have achieved notable business success have usually done so by working insane hours at great expense to their personal lives, while someone they had the great good fortune to marry at an early stage has been at home making sure that the gas bill was paid and taking little Johnny’s hockey stick to school when he forgot it. And if that person works and has a career too, then it is almost certain that it will be she, not the man of the household, who arranged the childcare, chose and booked the holidays in the south of France and cleared the diary to make the GCSE information evening. With all that, is it any wonder that so few women choose to aim for the top of big business? When I read yet another piece bemoaning the lack of women on the boards of FTSE companies, I just sigh. The lack of female representation does not indicate lack of capability, or some conspiracy by men to dominate the world of public companies. It just shows that women are too smart; they have worked out what it takes and don’t want to make those sacrifices. Most of us would prefer to prioritise our families, or to have time to go to the gym, care for aged parents, or even just to read a book, than run a company with all its associated hassles.
Anyway, you clearly can’t have it all. Senior job in banking, nice house, gorgeous children . . . and stuck at home e-mailing on a Saturday night while husband is heli-skiing.
Source: Financial Times
