There is a peculiar moment in many working mothers’ days when they are discussing something terribly important while thinking about something apparently ridiculous. The strategy. The budget. The client. The PE kit. All four are competing for space in the same brain. We have spent years talking about women doing more at home. But I […]
If someone disappeared from work for a year to complete an executive MBA, we’d roll out the red carpet when they returned. “Tell us what you learned.” “How has it changed the way you think?” “We can’t wait to see what you do next.” Yet when a woman returns from maternity leave, the questions often […]
There is something deeply revealing about the way we talk about exhausted mothers. We talk about them as though they are an unavoidable feature of modern life, like traffic jams or delayed trains. We acknowledge their existence, perhaps even sympathise with them, but rarely stop to question why so many women seem to be carrying […]
For years, workplaces have talked about motherhood as though it were some sort of unfortunate side effect. Like a software update nobody asked for. A talented woman gets promoted, has a baby, and suddenly people start looking at her differently. Will she still be ambitious? Can she still handle pressure? Does she really want that […]