advice from the women who came before
the arc of progress is slow but undeniable
Yesterday, I returned to the halls of Harvard Law to speak on a panel during Celebration 70+, which celebrates 70+ years of women on campus (as students).1 My fellow panelists ran the gamut in terms of graduation year and career pivots—the panel was about Brilliant Careers Beyond Traditional Legal Practice—and even though I sat beside these impressive women with illustrious careers, each of us behind a speaker’s name tent, I felt completely out of place.
Contrary to the panel’s optimistic title, I don’t feel like my career is “brilliant.” (It’s a little too early to tell, isn’t it?) I don’t feel like I’ve cemented a viable career outside of traditional legal practice. I don’t even know what my career will look like a year from now—I might re-apply to traditional legal jobs, who knows. Lately, I have been grappling with how uncertain my future is—and trying to accept that fact rather than assault the uncertainty with as many missiles of control as I can muster.
I hated Grazie Sophia Christie’s condescending assertions in the infamous age-gap relationship (translation: marry rich) essay in The Cut, but I also feel the dull pain of its phantom truth. Chartering your own economic life as a woman is hard; why not marry rich instead? On the surface, I may not have a lot in common with trad wives, but deep down, I suspect we’re motivated by similar fears: of poverty; of letting others down; of “doing it wrong” without really knowing what “it” is. Grazie attempted to solve for these fears through marriage; I attempted to address them through economic labor.
But economic labor is, by definition, laborious. There are many times when I look at trad wives and stay-at-home wives/girlfriends and experience those stabs of jealousy. There is a direct correlation between my fear and my desire to trade free will for purported safety: the more afraid I am of my future, the more alluring trad wife life becomes.
Agency is hard. Decision-making is hard. Taking responsibility for yourself is hard. And after enough emotionally taxing tasks, I want to scream: Forget feminism—I want ease. I want ease even at the expense of progress. Particularly when progress is barely perceptible, day-to-day. Showing up to school, or work, or whatever other space you find yourself in—what does that do, really?
My fellow panelists certainly put a stop to my pity party. I was both shocked and comforted by their stories. These women have really seen some shit. They’ve been through the gauntlet. And they’re living proof that there’s no limit to how many career and life do-overs you’re allowed to have—one woman is currently taking a gap year to re-evaluate and think through her next step, in her seventies.
Before their stories fall out of my head, I want to document them—for you, and me, and anyone else in need of a swift kick in the pants whenever we start doubting ourselves and the arc of progress.