This week in Rooting For You 🌿
🌿 Playing Unfair Games - an intro to my new video series
🌿 The Motherhood Penalty
🌿 Therapy Books + Podcast Recommendations
→ Playing Unfair Games in Male Dominated Industries - a video series
Engineering + Leadership
I talk about playing unfair games a lot.
I use this phrase all the time with clients.. because, well, when they’re working as engineers in manufacturing environments or similar industries, they have to play a lot of unfair games.
It seems absurd to think that you’d willingly participate in a game thats rules are ever-changing, or absent, or where the odds to winning are severely stacked against you. Welcome to male-dominated industries. But my encouragement to you is this → play anyway. Sure, it’s not fair. But you either play the game, or you sit on the sidelines.
Know what happens when you sit on the sidelines of your career? Stagnation. Lower salaries. Fewer promotion opportunities. Resentment. Frustration. Quiet quitting. Loud quitting. Low job satisfaction. Burnout.
So this is what I encourage my clients to do: play the unfair game. It looks like this:
→ It’s not fair that you’re paid less for the same work, but negotiate your salary every chance you get.
→ It’s not fair that you get interrupted in meetings, but keep speaking up.
→ It’s not fair that you’re recognized more often for the way you look rather than the way your brain works, but keep shouting out those ideas.
So, with this idea in mind, I started a weekly video series on LinkedIn called Playing Unfair Games in Male-Dominated Industries.
I’ll post a video every Thursday that’ll give you insight & strategy into playing the game.
For my first video, I talked about the mere exposure effect. A very simple, psychological principle that basically means this: we like things/people/ideas that we’re more familiar with.
How does this translate to your work in male-dominated industries?
Check out this video and find out ⬇️
What do you think? Follow along with 6k+ others here:
→ Let’s talk about the motherhood penalty
Motherhood + Work
Let’s start with the basics:
The motherhood penalty is a term that describes the career setbacks women often face when they return to work with children at home. I have no research to support this, but I’d imagine that these penalties rear their ugly heads the harshest during the first few years after the kids are born.. and here’s why:
→ You’re going back to work likely three months after the little bambino was born, and your productivity now will be directly compared to your productivity before you had the kid. I don't know how you were doing at 3 months postpartum, but I was very much NOT able to get it together - mentally, physically, or in any other way.
→ Babies + toddlers are germ factories with no off button. I do have research to support that.
→ You’re figuring out with your partner how to manage it all. Who takes off when the baby is sick? Who leaves early because the kid threw up at school? Whose meetings are more important? Fortunately for your partner (if it is a man), becoming a father is actually proven to help his career. :) For you, not so much.
I polled my LinkedIn community because I wanted to know exactly how the motherhood penalty has affected them. Here were the results:
I suspected that inflexibility with childcare would easily be #1, but I was surprised that performance ratings don’t rank higher. I think that’s a great thing - it shows that bosses and managers may not be associating difficulties with work/life priorities as a reflection on a mother’s performance at work.
Anecdotally, with my clients and friends, I’ve seen promotion opportunities fall drastically for new moms returning to work. Either the opportunity is pushed off beyond the previously decided-upon timeline, or the promotion is given to someone else with, let’s say, less competing priorities.
Sidebar: I think it’s natural to want to coast in your career for a few years after having children in order to get a grasp on all that is on your plate - I certainly have no judgement about that.. I gave up my career in manufacturing altogether!
Either way, the motherhood penalty is a real thing. It’s an unfair game we have to play. Knowing how it can affect you is really important. And the best way to combat those penalties is by having really good conversations with your managers about expectations, capabilities, and the realities of how your life has changed.
This guide can help - and it’s yours! For free :)
→ Resources that Normalize Therapy
Mental Health + Psychology
→ Books
Group by
- all things group therapy, from a storytelling perspectiveMaybe You Should Talk to Someone by Lori Gottlieb - a therapist talking about her experiences with therapy
They Called Us Exceptional: And Other Lies That Raised Us by Prachi Gupta - this is on my *to read* list. I listened to a podcast with Prachi when she was promoting this book, and the way she normalizes the mental health struggles of immigrants really stuck with me. If you’ve read it, let me know what you thought!
→ Podcasts
Armchair Expert with Dax Shephard + Monica Padman - if I’ve recommended this podcast once, I have a million times. Pop out episodes: Maureen Dunne (on neurodiversity), Dr. Becky Kennedy (psychologist on parenting), every Adam Grant episode, Phil Stutz (therapist, author, & psychiatrist), & Gabor Maté (on trauma and addiction)
Nurture vs Nurture with Dr. Wendy Mogel - basically, be a fly on the wall of therapy sessions where parents try to figure out where they’re going wrong
Where Should We Begin? with Esther Perel - basically, be a fly on the wall of couples therapy sessions.
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See you next week, friend.
& as always,
I’m rooting for you.
xx Hannah
Hi Hannah,
Very interesting article and the structure of your newsletter feels fantastic.
Based on my little direct and indirect experience, as a child psychologist and mother of three, I think rating someone down on their performance requires documented explanations in an organized sector. However, questioning someone's capabilities and not promoting them is pretty doable and can be HR policy-compliant