The Unsettling
On being a woman at work.
👋🏽 Hey, I’m Cris and welcome to my newsletter. I’m a recovering journalist turned tech operator. I am ambitious. I’m also an exhausted new mom. Every other week I tackle what it means to live at the intersection of these and other paradoxes.
It’s a strange thing to be a woman in a mostly-male space. And I’m not talking about the shocking realization that there are no lines for the bathroom 🤯
Earlier this year I attended a work dinner at a hole-in-the-wall Italian restaurant somewhere off the 280 in the heart of Silicon Valley. I had flown in for my first in-person offsite with my startup leads since returning from parental leave 8-weeks prior, and I was running late.
As I rushed to the back room, I surveyed two banquet tables. The table to my left held 12 men. They were not my dudes. My eyes quickly scanned right and settled on my team, including just one other woman.
A recent study published in the Academy of Management Journal shows that women make up less than 15% of the workforce in more than one in five startups. For Big Tech, that number is 26%. At this point in my career, 2 startups and 2 big tech companies in, I felt only slight apprehension at the raised eyebrows fixated on the carrier cradled in the nook of my arm holding my smiling, unibrowed 6-month old 👶🏻
Pleasantries were exchanged. Folks “aahed” and “oohed” at my most perfect child. Then, the questions began. “Has she been here the whole trip?” curious minds wanted to know, “Why yes, I brought her along and left her at the hotel with a friend.” The omission of details hung stale in the air and I could sense the neurons firing in the minds of this highly analytical group of operators.
“I’m her primary source of food right now, so I couldn’t leave her at home,” I deadpanned to the eight childless adults at the table while forcing myself not to glance at my boobs.
As dinner progressed, and talk of the day’s team-building activities waned, we awkwardly searched for topics to volley around. One colleague asked me about my rock climbing, as of late, knowing how much it was a part of my pre-child identity, “I’m sure having a kid has changed that.” What a strange comment I thought to myself, before transitioning the conversation to his garden.
I use the word strange on purpose. But it wasn’t always that way. In fact, in the first decade of my professional life I would have used the term infuriating.
My rage in the early years was palpable. The mental gymnastics of my 20-year-old self in that moment would have gone something like, “What the actual 🤬? Did this guy just make a judgment call on how I should be evaluating risk in my personal life? Do I really have to expound on the details of breastfeeding and my choices in that journey to a group of engineers?”
These days, age and experience have tempered my reliance on the fundamental attribution error for stupid comments. After 15 years of working in finance and tech, I’ve come to realize most of my male colleagues are not bad humans (even that one exec who felt it appropriate to call me “Muffin” every time he ran into my 22-year old self in the elevator of that midtown highrise).
The crux of the issue is that I am existing in spaces that were not designed for someone like me. And that means there are no rules of engagement.
To be clear, “me” is an ever-evolving identity. Right now, that means I am existing in a professional environment that was not designed for a working mom in her thirties, “Why no, sadly I will not be joining you for that 10pm, post-dinner drinks at the tiki bar, thank you so much for the invite!” At other times, it meant being a young, Mexican-American journalist on Wall Street wondering if my latest source respected me or wanted to f*ck me.
Trying to fit my constantly evolving identity into mostly binary spaces, means I am regularly surprised, in unsettling ways. Things are strange.
Thirty minutes later my infant's coos have turned to shrieks, right as my Founder tells me that he and his wife are thinking of having children, but that “she’ll likely look for an easier job than her current role as a startup COO.”
I can’t help but wonder if he thinks I’m just phoning in my job. What an unsettling thing to tell your Head of Product, I think, as I excuse myself to catch an Uber back to the hotel for another sleepless night with my latest (now screaming) launch.
Five things that caught my attention recently—
These days, it’s not cool to admit you enjoy work, much less to own the fact that demanding work can be both fulfilling and fun. I love this take on Taylor’s latest “project” between gigs.
In honor of Claudia Goldin’s Nobel Prize in Economics win (only 3rd woman ever), spend 30 minutes listening to this Money With Katie episode. Katie has been killing it with her data-informed, hot takes. This one, with Ellevest Founder Sallie Krawcheck, hits all the right notes, digging two layers deeper into the “why” behind a widely touted statistic.
In a Communication Standoff? Here’s How You Get Out
Whether it’s work or home life, communicating is hard. This video by Esther Perel delves into the concept of polarity management (at 25:22). I’ve been trying out this framework in difficult work conversations over the past few weeks and have been pleasantly surprised by the results.
I finally finished this excellent podcast series by Serial and the New York Times on the fertility clinic at Yale. It left me thinking about the tension between feminism and patriarchy. Between privilege and pain. Between submission and control. That is to say, it left me sitting with polarities in a really powerful way.
Make Time To Watch The Sunrise
This is so random, but a beloved local in my town died of cancer this past month at the age of 52. I won’t pretend to know him, but the outpouring of love shone through my social feeds. His passion for dawn patrols reminded me that greeting the sun in beautiful places is a privilege I need to seek out more often.
This is my first essay while participating in Write of Passage Cohort 11. Special thanks to everyone who helped me edit and refine.
Cris I am so here for you and your journey! I love how this piece evolved from your first draft. I think so many women in male-dominated spaces will find this scene you painted uncomfortably familiar. Thank you for sharing.
Congratulations on this post! My first substack post was also on motherhood. This is such a wonderfully (and unfortunately) relatable read. I am on board with your issues. As a futurist my latest rant is what is the drive, race, purpose behind creating trillion dollar companies, if we are not supporting the infrastructure (read family-time) to create the consumers of two decades from now.
As if the rest was not an amusing read, I really enjoyed your closing: "my latest screaming launch"!
(And Yeah! to Claudia Godin!!!!)