Pennsylvania Governor’s Conference for Women

Philadelphia, PA

November 8, 2007

Thank you so much for that kind introduction. And thank you for inviting me here today. Isn’t this just an amazing event? I really think we should salute the Governor for establishing this conference.

I was looking at the agenda for today. And as I read—health and well-being, personal finance, politics, career planning, communication skills, time planning—it made me think, my word, there is a lot of stuff I need to know. I’d better go to some of those sessions.

It’s so impressive it makes you wonder: what unique perspective can I bring?

Then, last night, I happened to see my daughter’s old Nintendo and that gave me the answer.

There were times when I’d be traveling to China, Japan, Korea—and that’s 12, 14 hours ahead of New York. And my daughter Tara would come back from school and call the office, and say, “Can I speak to my mommy?”

And my assistant Barb would pick up the phone and say, “Oh, hi Tara, how are you?”

“I want to speak to my mommy.”

Now she knows I’m in China, it’s 3am in the morning, she’s not going to wake me up. She says, “What would you like to do Tara?”

“I want to play Nintendo.”

“Ok, have you finished your homework? Do you have homework to do?”

So there would be this checklist of questions that she went through. And then she left me a message to say, Tara called. These were the questions, this is how she answered it, and therefore, we gave her permission to play Nintendo for half an hour.

So why is this important? There is a thing about “It takes a village.” It’s very important because for Tara, it was a seamless mothering.

That’s not just a story, it’s a parable. It was Barb that time and somebody else on other occasions. I wouldn’t be on this platform today without the incredible support I’ve received over the years from so many people.

So that’s what I want to offer to you: some reflections on what it’s like for women in the workplace today.

I’d like to have arrived with the recipe for success in corporate America. I’d like to give you the ingredients so that, in 10 years time, a dozen of you here would be CEOs of major corporations.

I’d like to have a blueprint for erasing the suffering and inequity that so many women and girls around the world face. I’d like to guarantee that, all over the world, girls get a fair start in life.

Of course, I don’t have any such recipe. I have no easy blueprint.

What I can tell you, however, is what companies—good companies—can do to make a difference. And guess what—I’m a big believer in the positive role companies can play in society. I think good companies can do a lot for women.

But even the best company can’t do everything. I also want to tell you what good companies can’t do. Some of the issues we face need a partnership. We need the public and the private sectors to work together.

I want to paint two pictures today: first, of the good company and, second, of the good society for women to work and live in. 

Let me, right at the start, set out the principal dilemma we face. This is the question we are trying to answer. We need women in the workforce. And yet, at the same time, our children need Mom at home.

And in the private moments of almost all women, this dilemma can cause agonies. On the one hand: the desire for advancement, the itch of ambition. On the other: the call of home. The tug of affection, which I’m sure is familiar to so many of you, between family and career.

You know what I’m talking about. Those moments when the two worlds clash and a choice cannot be avoided any longer. You have been preparing a big presentation for months. Then the day dawns and your beloved child comes down with a throat infection.

What do you do? Either way, whichever option you take, involves a sacrifice. 

Well, over the years, I’ve made my choices. All of us have. The sacrifice is always there. In a sense, the very existence of the dilemma is a mark of progress. For very many centuries, the role of women was fixed. They were the nurturers, the source of family stability. The work they did in the home was unpaid. Indeed, it was not really classified as work at all.

We have lived in the era of growing choices. A generation of women fought for the opportunity to set their own life course. Their voices, eventually, were heard.

And so, from the first decade of the 20th century, every democracy began to grant the franchise to women. Then, from the mid-1950s onwards, women began to enter the labor market in far greater numbers. Attitudes began to change too. Thirty years ago, two-thirds of Baby Boomers thought men should work and women were better off staying at home. Now more than half of that generation thinks the opposite.

For more and more women today, things are really good. We have more freedom to pursue our dreams than ever before. I’ve been lucky enough to live mine and I don’t, for one second, want to go back.

And yet, we have to admit, this very progress harbors problems of its own. This was the story we were told: you can hold down a senior position and, at the same time, be a great mother and a great wife.

Let’s be honest: the biological clock and the career clock are ticking at the same time. The desire to start and raise a family occurs, for many women, at exactly the moment in their lives that their careers are starting to take shape.

I think a whole generation of women has struggled with being the “you can have it all” generation. What are we all supposed to be? Wonder Woman?

A lot has been written recently about the “Opt-Out Revolution.” It has been said that women are turning off the career path. Actually, the real revolution is that women are turning away from career progression. Women are now less likely than men to desire jobs with greater responsibility. They don’t like the fact that the job spills over into family time.

You see, women didn’t give up wanting families when they entered the labor market in greater numbers. They just started doing what the sociologist Arlie Hochschild has called “the second shift.” The first shift was at the office, the second was at home.

So here we are at the crossroads. Robert Frost once famously wrote, “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and sorry I could not travel both and be one traveler, long I stood…” The two roads: the corporate path, the call of home.

Frost concludes the poem by pointing out, with regret, that we always have to choose: “I shall be telling this with a sigh, somewhere ages and ages hence: two roads diverged in a wood, and I—I took the ones less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.”

That’s the dilemma. Many of you will have lived it. Many more of the young ladies here today will face it soon.

I faced it and the parable of Barb tells you how I coped. The answer is: other people. I have been blessed with such wonderful support, both at home and at work. At home, my husband has been a great source of strength and support for me. Then, whenever the twin demands of home and work threatened to overwhelm me, I was lucky to have lots of family members to step into the breach to help. I couldn’t have done it without all of them.

I was also blessed by the people I met at work too. Along the way, I was fortunate enough to be taken under the wing of so many excellent mentors, wise counsel that helped me to navigate a way through the problems. I do not think you can seek out mentors; they have to find you. But I would say: be receptive. Be ready to listen and remember that nobody is too small to deserve your attention if they have good advice to offer.

Then, at PepsiCo, I fell into the arms of an extended family. I don’t mean that in the vague way that sometimes people describe their workplace. I mean it literally. I could take up all my time just telling you stories, but let me give you just one more.

I’m aware that I have been very lucky. I had a support system that I could not have done without. Not everybody has that. So that is why we need, as far as we can, to help people create it. We need to think, what does a good company do to help? And, then, what more might we do, as a society?

First, what does the good company do? How can corporate leaders help you avoid the stark choice?

Well, it’s obvious that the good company won’t tolerate a pay gap. Let’s not pretend that this problem has been solved. It hasn’t. Forty years after the Civil Rights Act made discrimination on the basis of sex illegal, women are still paid less for doing the very same job.

Even allowing for the fact that working mothers take time off and even allowing for the fact that some women choose professions that pay less, women still don’t get equal reward for equal work. The further up the pay scale you go, the wider the earnings gap.

We don’t need to look to more legislation on this one. Corporate America can act here.

Actually, there is one thing we can all do for ourselves. In her book Women Don’t Ask, the economist Linda Babcock showed that women are much more likely to accept a salary offer without negotiating. I’m pleased to see you have a session in today’s program to address this very issue. I hope you’ll pay attention.

What else does the good company do? Good basic employee benefits are a start. At PepsiCo, we provide healthcare benefits with an annual well-woman visit. We offer six weeks of full disability pay for women who are having a baby and a pregnancy management program to prepare them, as best you ever can, for labor. We also cover preventive and wellness visits to the doctor for the newborn.

I don’t see any of this as a drag on our commercial success. On the contrary, a work-all-the-time lifestyle has a serious downside. People burn out quickly. They get stress-related illnesses. Employees who focus on both work and home have significantly higher levels of job satisfaction than employees who are more work-centric.

The good company gives women great prospects for advancement. We need women in the managerial ranks. So the good company adjusts its corporate practice to accommodate younger women and motivates them to pursue higher-level jobs. It understands child care needs and it provides ways for women to step on and off the fast track.

We have a long way to go on this one. Women do now hold about half of all managerial and professional positions but they account for only 8% of executive vice presidents and above at Fortune 500 companies. That’s not enough.

One of the reasons it’s so hard for women to break through is that we often feel excluded from the informal networks that men often establish without even knowing it. So it’s important that a good company sets up networks to allow and encourage women to talk. At PepsiCo, we have the Women's Initiative Network, Women of Color and Strong Women in Leadership. They reach out to women of all levels in the company. They start a conversation.

We also provide formal training and coaching programs with outside experts—one example is Lluminari—to help women learn to juggle time, handle stress, stay balanced, communicate better—actually, many of the same things you’ll be doing here today.

The good company is not just a material idea; there is also an emotional side to it. I like to say to people I work with that they should bring their whole selves to work. Don’t invent a work persona who walks through the door and then, like a ghost, vacates your body when you go home. Be yourself.

The good company lets you know that feeling stretched sometimes is not a dereliction of duty. The good company knows that if you feel valued and understood, that this is actually the best way of dealing with the pressures you are under.

I am sure there is more we can do to allow you to be yourself. I would be interested to hear of people’s ideas on what they think a good company should do for them.

But a word of caution is in order now. Even the very best company can only do so much. Companies can’t change society by themselves. This is the realm of public policy.

The road to the good society is long and the cost is high. But what if our public policy leaders could help take the sting out of the dilemma women face?

Now I’m not saying we can have all we would like. I do not have a specific plan or program for action. But hey, let me dream a little.

What if we, as a society, gave parents more flexibility by expanding family and medical leave rights and introducing a right to request part-time and flexible hours?

What if we, as a society, allowed parents the option to stay home in the first year of their child’s life, by providing a year of paid parental leave and at-home infant child care programs for low-income parents?

What if we, as a society, improved the quality of care for infants and toddlers and increased access to high-quality out-of-school programs for school-age children?

I don’t have all the answers. But I do believe that combined with what good companies can do, good public policy can transform the way we live and work. It’s a noble dream.

So, to conclude, nobody should feel guilty if, every day, they struggle with the reality. The “have it all idea” wasn’t realistic. We need to get the balance right.

I want to end on an optimistic note. I am, by nature, an optimist. And the role of women in work and in society is a story of progress.

Like so many Americans, I have been inspired by the uplifting words of Maya Angelou. “Now you understand,” she wrote, “just why my head's not bowed. I don't shout or jump about or have to talk real loud. When you see me passing, it ought to make you proud. I say, it's in the click of my heels, the bend of my hair, the palm of my hand, the need of my care. ‘Cause I'm a woman, phenomenally. Phenomenal woman. That's me.”

And you know who she means? She doesn’t mean it’s her. She doesn’t mean it’s me. She means it’s you.

Thank you so much for inviting me to be your guest here today.

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