'Having it All' Author Vows to Stop Saying 'Having it All'

The discussion (or backlash, depending on your point of view) that resulted from Ann-Marie Slaughter’s Atlantic cover story on “having it all” has convinced Slaughter to stop using the term “having it all.”

Do you care? If so, you should check out some of Slaughter’s other thoughts in a post she wrote for the The Atlantic‘s website yesterday, in which she touches upon brainstorming better phrases/hashtags with Rebecca Traister (How about #StillWorkingOnIt or #GuysThisIsYourProblemToo?) and the criticism she’s received from other women:

As much as reframing is needed, we cannot take our eyes off the central fact that motivated my decision to speak out. It is women who are leaving the career fast track in large numbers as they have children, which is why the pools of women for big leadership jobs are still distressingly small. So let’s start right there, by giving women the all-important flexibility they need to make their work and family work together. It is very striking that two very hostile attacks on my piece, by Linda Hirshman on this site and Katie Roiphe in the Financial Times, are both from women who are themselves academics and thus who have precisely the ability to manage their own schedules that made it possible for me to juggle work and family all the way up through a deanship and again today.

But if you’d personally rather go experience “having it all” on the beach and/or discuss your Fourth of July plans, we won’t judge you.

The ‘Having It All’ Debate Convinced Me to Stop Saying ‘Having It All’ [The Atlantic]