Speaker 1: Hi, This is Milan Vervier and this is Kim Azarelli.
Speaker 1: We are co authors of the book Fast Forward, How
Speaker 1: Women Can Achieve Power and Purpose, and you're listening to
Speaker 1: Seneca's conversations on power and Purpose. Welcome to this special edition.
Speaker 1: This new six part series called Getting to Equal will
Speaker 1: change the way you think about women and leadership, and
Speaker 1: it comes at a time when women's leadership has never
Speaker 1: been more crucial. We have two amazing leaders who are
Speaker 1: guest hosting these six episodes, Carol and Tastad, Group President
Speaker 1: North America and Diana Bass, Vice President Global Diversity, Equality
Speaker 1: and Inclusion, both from PNG, one of the largest consumer
Speaker 1: goods companies in the world. Together, Caroline and Diana have
Speaker 1: created an impressive gender equality strategy for PNG, and it's
Speaker 1: a strategy that's really breaking new ground on these issues
Speaker 1: in the private sector. And they'll be joined by incredible
Speaker 1: guests from all walks of life. Today, Caroline Indiana talked
Speaker 1: with Eve Rodsky, author of the best selling book fair Play.
Speaker 1: Fair Play offers a solution to the fact that women
Speaker 1: continue to bear the brunt of child wearing and responsibilities
Speaker 1: at home. Caroline and Diana, thanks so much for joining
Speaker 1: us again today and I'm looking forward to hearing the conversation.
Speaker 1: Thanks Kim. Before we start this episode of Getting to Equal,
Speaker 1: we want to take a moment to acknowledge the recent
Speaker 1: passing of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a remarkable woman, a
Speaker 1: bold champion for equality. Justice Ginsberg dedicated her life to
Speaker 1: helping everyone get to equal. Today's conversation shows why equality
Speaker 1: in the home is crucial to women's advancement in the workplace.
Speaker 1: It's a concept Justice Ginsburg understood well. She and her
Speaker 1: late husband, Attorney Martin Ginsburg, embodied home life equality. There's
Speaker 1: was a partnership of shared responsibilities, and as with most
Speaker 1: topics in this area, Justice Ginsburg was ahead of her time.
Speaker 1: And that's only one of the very many reasons she'll
Speaker 1: be so profoundly missed. Gosh, you're so right, Caroline, what
Speaker 1: a great example Justice Skinsburg was. She was such an
Speaker 1: extraordinary woman. I'm happy today that we're going to be
Speaker 1: talking with our good friend and ally in this work,
Speaker 1: Eve Rodsky, who has excellent practical ways of achieving equity
Speaker 1: and balance at home, and she's always so much fun
Speaker 1: to talk with. But to start with, I want to
Speaker 1: ask our listeners a couple of questions. Have you ever
Speaker 1: thought that there just wasn't enough time in the day
Speaker 1: to get everything done? Does getting everything done become more
Speaker 1: complicated when children enter your family? And at the same time,
Speaker 1: have you ever wondered how your partner or spouse has
Speaker 1: time to work out, watch a ball game, or read
Speaker 1: a book while you're barely able to make it so.
Speaker 1: Kara and I are fierce advocates of shining a light
Speaker 1: on the inequalities in our homes and the fight for
Speaker 1: gender equality. We believe that we will never truly achieve
Speaker 1: equality until there is a quality at home. Today, we're
Speaker 1: going to talk about the intersection of work and home,
Speaker 1: which has simply been compounded by the global pandemic, How
Speaker 1: to balance the taskload at home and why that has
Speaker 1: a profound impact on women's performance at work. We're going
Speaker 1: to share advice and solutions that men and women can
Speaker 1: use to free up what is today mostly women's time
Speaker 1: and allow women to accelerate their careers, accelerating their communities,
Speaker 1: or frankly, just take a nap. So, Caroline, we're talking
Speaker 1: about equal treatment of men and women at home, but
Speaker 1: it's really a bigger issue, isn't it. It's one that
Speaker 1: ties to our overall theme of women in leadership. So
Speaker 1: how do those things connect for you, Diana? It's a
Speaker 1: it's a really a great question, and it is a
Speaker 1: much bigger issue than simply who does the dishes or
Speaker 1: who helps the kids with their homework. You know, we
Speaker 1: know that women at all levels of achievement and in
Speaker 1: however they define what their career and their interests are,
Speaker 1: they continue to do most of the work in the home,
Speaker 1: including caring for the home, child rearing, and often taking
Speaker 1: care of extended family obligations. So these additional responsibilities, while
Speaker 1: very important, I mean less time available to concentrate on
Speaker 1: their careers or other interests, especially as compared to their
Speaker 1: male colleagues or counterparts. And we often say that, you know,
Speaker 1: equality at work starts with equality at home, and we
Speaker 1: need to make room for both men and women to
Speaker 1: play equal or shared roles at home. Linked to that,
Speaker 1: we need companies to acknowledge that both men and women
Speaker 1: should share responsibilities and and in doing that, in courage
Speaker 1: this to happen through workplace policies that can allow for
Speaker 1: mothers and fathers to be part of a child's life
Speaker 1: and their home home responsibilities. You know, interestingly, when women
Speaker 1: get into leadership positions, it's been shown that they're more
Speaker 1: likely to create or sponsor workplace policies or solutions, such
Speaker 1: as paid parental leave and child care policies for women
Speaker 1: and men. And not only are things like this the
Speaker 1: right thing to do, but that parental leave allows men
Speaker 1: to really understand the challenges of child rearing and what
Speaker 1: uh women in the home and at workface every day.
Speaker 1: It builds empathy, it builds understanding, and it makes room
Speaker 1: for more equality in the workplace. Yeah, you know, I
Speaker 1: believe that paid paternity leave is the single most important
Speaker 1: benefit intervention we can make to accelerate gender equality at
Speaker 1: home and importantly in the place. We're going to talk
Speaker 1: about this a lot more with Eve, but here's some
Speaker 1: research to get us started. First of all, the research
Speaker 1: tells us that when new fathers take paid parental leave,
Speaker 1: mothers return to work more easily. Now that's a little obvious,
Speaker 1: but more interestingly, female employment is higher in countries where
Speaker 1: they have paid paternity leave, and more significantly, the earnings
Speaker 1: gap is lower in those countries. In fact, a study
Speaker 1: done by the Institute for labor market policy evaluation. It's
Speaker 1: a European organization. UM found that for every month of
Speaker 1: paid parental leave a man takes, a woman's salary goes
Speaker 1: up almost seven percent. And it's amazing to think that
Speaker 1: this one policy intervention can and will help equalize the
Speaker 1: effects of maternity leave and motherhood on the development and
Speaker 1: the compensation of women in our organizations. It's so important
Speaker 1: to us that at and G we just announced we're
Speaker 1: going to be rolling out over the next year a
Speaker 1: standard eight weeks paid parentally for all of our employees
Speaker 1: in all parts of the world. It's a significant intervention
Speaker 1: for us, and it's significant for men and women as
Speaker 1: part of our gender equality initiative. But we also know
Speaker 1: from our own experience with our employees that the coronavirus
Speaker 1: has made all of these challenges much more painfully obvious. UM.
Speaker 1: And in fact, there is this great article in Fortune
Speaker 1: that Cheryl Sandberg dig back in May where she smartly
Speaker 1: coined the phrase the double double shift, right, referring to
Speaker 1: the fact that women who are already doing a double shift,
Speaker 1: like I'm going to work working all day long, and
Speaker 1: then I'm having to come home and do everything at home.
Speaker 1: The double double shift like takes into consideration what's happened
Speaker 1: in the pandemic, that there's additional responsibilities of home schooling,
Speaker 1: of taking care of elder parents, you know, many of
Speaker 1: the things that you talked about. Yeah, you know that
Speaker 1: this is exactly true. This pandemic has the potential to
Speaker 1: wipe out years of progress that we've made in building
Speaker 1: up a pipeline of women. A recent survey shows that
Speaker 1: four percent of women considering quitting their jobs due to
Speaker 1: family demands created by COVID versus eleven percent of men,
Speaker 1: and that pressure is even higher for multicultural women of
Speaker 1: Hispanic women and fIF percent of Black and Asian women.
Speaker 1: You know, even our own internal survey data at p
Speaker 1: AND shows that women are more concerned about caretaking than men,
Speaker 1: and it shows up in one of their top three
Speaker 1: concerns for more than fifty percent of women and a
Speaker 1: little over thirty of men. So this shows up over
Speaker 1: and over again. Yeah, there's so much to talk about
Speaker 1: on this topic. Our guest today has even written a
Speaker 1: book on this and it's a New York Times bestseller.
Speaker 1: I'm so excited to introduce all of you to Eve
Speaker 1: rod Sky, the author of fair Play a game changing
Speaker 1: solution for when you have too much to do and
Speaker 1: more life to live. In fair Play, Eve uses her
Speaker 1: Harvard Law School training and years of organization management experience
Speaker 1: to create a gamified life management system to help couples
Speaker 1: rebalance all of the work that it takes to run
Speaker 1: a home and allow them to reimagine their relationships, their time,
Speaker 1: and their purpose. So, Eve, I'm so glad to have
Speaker 1: you here. Thank you for having me. Can you tell
Speaker 1: our audience what got you started on the fair Play journey? So, yes,
Speaker 1: how did this I'll get started? Well, um, yeah, I
Speaker 1: guess you can't. You can't make this stuff up. But this, this,
Speaker 1: my whole journey to understanding started with a text my
Speaker 1: husband sent me after been my second son was born.
Speaker 1: And that text just said, UM, I'm surprised you didn't
Speaker 1: get blueberries. So I'm surprised you didn't get blueberries. So
Speaker 1: I just had been at a toddler Zach at the
Speaker 1: time as well. Um I had that day that I
Speaker 1: got this text, I had a diaper bag and a
Speaker 1: breast pump on the passenger seat in my car. I
Speaker 1: had gifts for a newborn baby to return in the
Speaker 1: back seat of my car. UM, So I had a
Speaker 1: client contract in my lap where I was marking it
Speaker 1: up with a pen, and I'm racing, racing to get
Speaker 1: my older son, Zach at our his toddler transition daycare.
Speaker 1: And in all that chaos, which reminds me a lot
Speaker 1: of what's happening today, UM, where it feels like sort
Speaker 1: of the space and time continuum is collapsing on a
Speaker 1: lot of seth Um had the audacity to send me
Speaker 1: a text saying, UM, I'm surprised you didn't get blueberries.
Speaker 1: And it hit me so hard that day that I
Speaker 1: pulled over and if I had to pull over to
Speaker 1: compose myself because I was crying over this text. UM,
Speaker 1: you know, it was pretty bad. But what I was
Speaker 1: thinking that day was two things. One was blaming myself that, UM,
Speaker 1: I used to be able to manage employee teams and
Speaker 1: now I'm in a position and I'm so overwhelmed that
Speaker 1: I can't even manage a grocery list. But more importantly,
Speaker 1: I was thinking to myself, how had this happened that UM,
Speaker 1: I am the default, or as I call in fair play,
Speaker 1: the she fault for literally every single household and domestic
Speaker 1: task for my family wasn't supposed to happen to me.
Speaker 1: I'm a product of a single mom. I vowed from
Speaker 1: being her partner in life seven years old, eight years old,
Speaker 1: helping her with eviction notices and late utility bills, that
Speaker 1: I would have an equal partner in life. And more importantly, Um,
Speaker 1: as you said so nicely before, Dana, I'm a Harvard
Speaker 1: trained attorney, I'm a mediator, and I'm trained to communicate.
Speaker 1: So I think what I realized was that if this
Speaker 1: was happening to me, it was probably happening to other women.
Speaker 1: And that's the quest that began eight years ago that
Speaker 1: I'm still on today to understand what it means to
Speaker 1: be the she fault in our society. You know, I
Speaker 1: think I think it's such a great story, and this
Speaker 1: notion of the she fault is something that um, I
Speaker 1: think many can identify with. It's your story amplifies this
Speaker 1: whole assumption that caring for home and family is women's work,
Speaker 1: or or potentially even worse, you know, the perception that
Speaker 1: women are intrinsically better at caring for home and family
Speaker 1: than their male counterparts, neither of which is true. You know,
Speaker 1: I was at a leadership for him. This was a
Speaker 1: few years back with two uh pears in in our industry,
Speaker 1: man and a woman who used to work together. And
Speaker 1: as the conversation began, you know, they were talking about
Speaker 1: their early years together when they would do Saturday morning
Speaker 1: store visits, which was kind of a write of passage
Speaker 1: for all of us. And as they chatted, the man
Speaker 1: said to the woman, you know, I always felt so
Speaker 1: badly about you having to leave your kids on a
Speaker 1: Saturday morning. To what she smiled and nodded, and the
Speaker 1: conversation moved on. I sat there going, wait a minute,
Speaker 1: didn't he have kids too? Why aren't we talking about that?
Speaker 1: And there's just this ingrained bias in society and in
Speaker 1: ourselves that somehow we think women are failing their families
Speaker 1: when they work outside the home or when they when
Speaker 1: they step away from that responsibility. Somehow that gets associated
Speaker 1: as a as a female circumstance, even in today's world
Speaker 1: and in the world I've grown up in where my
Speaker 1: husband has played a much greater role in the caring
Speaker 1: for our children, but we don't talk about it that way.
Speaker 1: So we know today that women do two times more
Speaker 1: unpaid care work than men. The World Economic Forums Gender
Speaker 1: Report studies more than a hundred and fifty countries, and
Speaker 1: in the last report there were zero countries. That's a
Speaker 1: crazy number, zero countries where men do more unpaid care
Speaker 1: work than women. And the only way to get it
Speaker 1: solveding that is by really getting at the systemic issues
Speaker 1: and and getting at this bias in our society. Even
Speaker 1: when you were putting together your fair playbook, you you
Speaker 1: did a lot of your own research. Tell us a
Speaker 1: little bit about that. As you said before, this is
Speaker 1: a systemic issue, and I think it requires understanding the
Speaker 1: systemic bias. This really comes down to a finding that
Speaker 1: was so interesting to me, UM when I interviewed five
Speaker 1: men and women that married the U S census. UM,
Speaker 1: my core finding of fair Play was that we as
Speaker 1: a society men, women, UM, and society, we treat and
Speaker 1: we value men's time as finite like and we guard
Speaker 1: it like a diamond, and we we value and treat
Speaker 1: women's time as infinite like sand. And UM. That sounds
Speaker 1: very esoteric, so let me just break it down for
Speaker 1: how that that plays out in the real world. Well,
Speaker 1: we know that we don't value women's time the same
Speaker 1: as men's time because we don't pay women the same
Speaker 1: for the same work. Um, if you're a woman of color,
Speaker 1: you're getting sixty cents on the dollar to a white man.
Speaker 1: So we know women's time isn't valued in the workplace.
Speaker 1: But what I was so surprised by was how much women,
Speaker 1: especially devalue their own time and the home. And so
Speaker 1: these were things that I was hearing what I call
Speaker 1: toxic time messages. Um, women from all walks of life
Speaker 1: said things to me like, of course I am the
Speaker 1: one making the lunch is getting the call from the
Speaker 1: school because my husband makes more money than me. Well,
Speaker 1: typically se men make more of money than women because
Speaker 1: of that pay equity issue we just talked about, So
Speaker 1: that's gonna be a losing argument for women. Um, I'm
Speaker 1: I'm more trained than my husband, I have more degrees,
Speaker 1: but I chose philanthropy. So does that mean because he
Speaker 1: chose private equity, that I'm now relegated to doing the
Speaker 1: unpaid care in my home forever. Other women said to
Speaker 1: me things like, well, you know that once you become
Speaker 1: a mother, multitask is our superpower. Where why are differently
Speaker 1: for care and for multitasking? So for that one I
Speaker 1: went to one of the top neuroscientists in this country,
Speaker 1: and Caroline Diana. That was the only other time I cried, actually,
Speaker 1: um on this journey. The only other time I really
Speaker 1: sab was this day that this old crotch of the neuroscientists,
Speaker 1: when I asked him our women, why are differently from
Speaker 1: multitasking and care because we've heard, or at least I
Speaker 1: saw so many articles that sort of implied that. He
Speaker 1: just looked at me with a blank stare and said, um, imagine, Eve,
Speaker 1: we men can convince you women, um, that you're better
Speaker 1: at wiping asses and doing dishes? Why would I want
Speaker 1: to change that perception? But other so other than the multitasking,
Speaker 1: the most other popular message, toxic time message was in
Speaker 1: the time I would take me to tell him what
Speaker 1: to do, I might as well do it myself. So
Speaker 1: for that when I went to Dan Arielli, my good friend,
Speaker 1: because a behavioral economist, and I said, is it a
Speaker 1: good argument to say, in the time it takes me
Speaker 1: to tell him what to do, I should do it myself?
Speaker 1: And he said that was the worst argument he ever
Speaker 1: heard for women. Of course, it makes sense to quote
Speaker 1: unquote enlist your partner in the wiping of the asses
Speaker 1: and doing the dishes otherwise, otherwise you're doing it yourself
Speaker 1: forever at the expense of your finite time. Still, I
Speaker 1: heard women saying, and that's my husband's bettered focusing on
Speaker 1: one task of the time, and I can find the time.
Speaker 1: There's no way to find time, especially when space and
Speaker 1: time is collapsing on us as it is in a pandemic.
Speaker 1: And so what this just means is that there's a
Speaker 1: different expectation over how women are supposed to use their time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, in our last episode, we were talking to
Speaker 1: Justin Baldoni and one of the things that he said was,
Speaker 1: you know, basically you can't get mad at men about
Speaker 1: this that you have to in today's world. We have
Speaker 1: to approach equality with a sense of compassion. And like,
Speaker 1: I'm listening to your story, going, then who do I
Speaker 1: get to be mad at? Who am I supposed to
Speaker 1: be mad at? Because it's it's frustrating. I think a
Speaker 1: lot of us are directing it at our partners. Um
Speaker 1: I called the residentometer a lot of resent as at ten.
Speaker 1: But when I think is we have to also look
Speaker 1: at our own our own bias, and part of this work,
Speaker 1: really is this idea of UM using our voice. Because
Speaker 1: I think the thing that hurt me the most in
Speaker 1: this research UM was even more than understanding how women
Speaker 1: treated their own time as sand and didn't guard it
Speaker 1: as diamonds, including myself, where I had some of those
Speaker 1: toxic time beliefs that I was somehow a multitasking superhero
Speaker 1: for being able to do dishes and have my own
Speaker 1: firm and have pinches perfect, um clothes are my kids?
Speaker 1: You know, all these unrealistic expectations that ultimately lead us
Speaker 1: to crash UM. The other thing that made me really
Speaker 1: sad was that women did admit to anger and rage
Speaker 1: and sadness UM, but when I asked whether it correlated
Speaker 1: to using their voice in their home, many women said
Speaker 1: it did not. It did not correlate, And I think
Speaker 1: that was a really hard finding for me to accept.
Speaker 1: You're exactly right, I mean it is I myself have
Speaker 1: been guilty of this. And you know, one of the
Speaker 1: things that Caroline and I have talked a lot about
Speaker 1: as we talked to women that we work with, you
Speaker 1: hear things like, UM, I have to hurry up and
Speaker 1: get home and make dinner, and so I do think
Speaker 1: women carry a bit of you know, whether it is
Speaker 1: we carry the same bias that everybody else has about
Speaker 1: what our responsibility is, or we get something for having
Speaker 1: the leadership and the accountability at home. Right. But um,
Speaker 1: I do think that that women have some reframing to
Speaker 1: do as well in this whole area. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: I think that's so right. I think both men and
Speaker 1: women have to shift their assumptions in terms of, you know,
Speaker 1: the work at home and raising a family and all
Speaker 1: of that. I'll give you an example of that. You know,
Speaker 1: my husband is the best partner I can imagine, certainly
Speaker 1: the best partner for me when our children were younger.
Speaker 1: With both of us working, I had a heavier travel
Speaker 1: scheduled than he did. And there was one day that
Speaker 1: I got home early, a miracle, right, a miracle happens
Speaker 1: you never get home early. And I was so excited
Speaker 1: because I was there. And so as we finished dinner,
Speaker 1: I said, who's having a bath, Who's whose homework has
Speaker 1: to get done? Let's go. I was. I was ready
Speaker 1: to roll and uh, and my kids stopped and they
Speaker 1: kind of looked at my husband, and then they looked
Speaker 1: back at me, and they kind of sat there like
Speaker 1: I was speaking a completely foreign language, and then looked
Speaker 1: at my husband. And then at one point, my husband
Speaker 1: looked at the kids and he said, in a very
Speaker 1: loud stage whisper, it's okay, guys, Mom's home. She thinks
Speaker 1: she's in charge. He said, just just go with it.
Speaker 1: She's going to be traveling again next week and it'll
Speaker 1: all be back to normal. And the kids thought this
Speaker 1: was the funniest thing in the world, and you know,
Speaker 1: tripped merrily away to go do homework and have a
Speaker 1: bath because Dad had just um very much put mom
Speaker 1: in her place. And and for me, what I hadn't
Speaker 1: internalized until that moment was that my husband was the
Speaker 1: one who was managing the day to day. I got
Speaker 1: other responsibilities. We both played a great role in in
Speaker 1: bringing up our kids, you know. But he got that
Speaker 1: day to day responsibility, and I got things that worked
Speaker 1: on my travel schedule, and that was theater costumes and
Speaker 1: birthday parties and the big projects and you know, the
Speaker 1: dreaded college applications. I still think he got the better
Speaker 1: deal than I did on that one. But that notion
Speaker 1: of both of us figuring out our role, figuring it
Speaker 1: out in a way that worked for us equally, UM
Speaker 1: took some took some to and frowing from both of us,
Speaker 1: but very definitely from me. I love that so much. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, one of the concepts that you talk about
Speaker 1: that I found so interesting was this notion of fixed
Speaker 1: time and flexible time. So I think it's such an
Speaker 1: important conversation when you think about what women and men
Speaker 1: do at home. Absolutely, typically women are doing work in
Speaker 1: the home that cannot be said at their own timetable.
Speaker 1: And we know that now, especially in this pandemic, that
Speaker 1: UM women are subject to far more interruptions than men
Speaker 1: are UM, and men often choose the task that they
Speaker 1: can do UM at times at work for them and
Speaker 1: so I call that in the book the Daily Grinds.
Speaker 1: So here the from my survey of a hundred men
Speaker 1: and women, what is causing the most consternation in the
Speaker 1: home right now? Laundry, groceries, meals, home supplies, who's ordering
Speaker 1: the hand sanitizer and wipes, tiding up, cleaning dishes, and garbage.
Speaker 1: If you have children, you would add discipline in in
Speaker 1: screen time, homework which has now become homeschool watching of children,
Speaker 1: whether it's toddlers or even teenagers. That dirty doesn't are
Speaker 1: the other tasks that are the hardest, and typically those
Speaker 1: are the ones Diana, that fall on women because they're
Speaker 1: not ones that can be done on your own timetable.
Speaker 1: You may be able to mow the lawn, who cares
Speaker 1: of the grasses a little long, But you can't put
Speaker 1: your child to bed without dinner consistently. Otherwise child Protective
Speaker 1: Services is going to come to your house. It's just
Speaker 1: the reality. And so inviting men to the table for
Speaker 1: those dirty dozen those are where you can really get
Speaker 1: the most relief. But that requires um not only using
Speaker 1: your voice, but it requires understanding that Um, this is
Speaker 1: more than just a list list of loan do not work,
Speaker 1: but what does work is systems. And if you can
Speaker 1: treat your home as your most important organization, if you
Speaker 1: can start thinking of your home with some respect and rigor,
Speaker 1: like my aunt Marian's Magen group has more clearly defined
Speaker 1: expectations in the home. If you don't bring snack twice
Speaker 1: to that group, you're out. But the whole we're all deciding,
Speaker 1: as Carol, you're said in your beautiful story, Okay, who's
Speaker 1: doing what? Who's setting the table for dinner? Who wants
Speaker 1: to take the first bath. We're dying in decision fatigue,
Speaker 1: and if we are not making those decisions, then it's
Speaker 1: gonna she fault right in this gendered way. So the
Speaker 1: answer is to treat our home is our most important organization,
Speaker 1: to treat it with some respect and rigor, and to
Speaker 1: customize our defaults. You don't walk into your boss's office
Speaker 1: and say, hey, what should I be doing today? And
Speaker 1: I'll just wait here to you tell me what to do.
Speaker 1: It's just not gonna fly with you. I know it. It
Speaker 1: It would definitely not fly with you, Caroline. I know that. Um.
Speaker 1: But what you're doing, and why you're such effective managers,
Speaker 1: right is you're giving ownership to the people who work
Speaker 1: around you. You're giving them autonomy. And that's why this
Speaker 1: doesn't work for men either. Why fair Play became a
Speaker 1: love letter to men because no man told me that
Speaker 1: the current system was working for them. The number one
Speaker 1: thing men tell me they hate about home life is
Speaker 1: quote unquote nagging. The number one thing women tell me
Speaker 1: they hate about home life is that they can't shut
Speaker 1: their minds off. The only way you do you cure
Speaker 1: that is by starting to customize your defaults. Were in
Speaker 1: advance you know who's handling a task in your home
Speaker 1: from start to finish. We'll be back after this break.
Speaker 1: I love your system for working this UM Conception Planning
Speaker 1: and execution. I'd love you to tell everybody about this
Speaker 1: because I think it's simple. It's sticky in that it's
Speaker 1: easy to remember, and it's really easy to learn, uh.
Speaker 1: And it's a way to have such an important conversation
Speaker 1: and dialogue and just to get clear on who's gonna
Speaker 1: do what. So tell us about CPE can Option planning
Speaker 1: and execution. CPS really the basis of their play. And
Speaker 1: this is what I mean by it. What I mean
Speaker 1: is that the domestic conversation so far UM in modern
Speaker 1: history is all about fifty fifty. And I want to
Speaker 1: tell you that I think fifty fifty is a very
Speaker 1: dangerous equation because it automatically leads to score keeping. What
Speaker 1: if we change the score keeping mindset and instead adopt
Speaker 1: an ownership mindset. What I mean is that set when
Speaker 1: we first started playing fair play, we first started to
Speaker 1: have these conversations. He genuinely felt that he was in
Speaker 1: charge of our son's extra picular sports because he was
Speaker 1: showing up to the little league field on the weekend.
Speaker 1: And so when we finally sit down and said, thank
Speaker 1: you for executing that piece, right, I appreciate you showing up. Um.
Speaker 1: But here's the behind the scenes task. I'm serving our
Speaker 1: kids to see what sports they want to play and
Speaker 1: what sports leagues they want to be in. I am
Speaker 1: logging onto some crazy portal UM that always locks me
Speaker 1: out to try to register them on the same team
Speaker 1: at the same at six am in the morning when
Speaker 1: the portal opens up. UM. I am ordering cleats or
Speaker 1: getting cleats from friends who have outgrown their cleats and
Speaker 1: going to pick them up. I'm returning that those cleats
Speaker 1: or though that equipment when it doesn't fit. UM. I'm
Speaker 1: organizing for three days a week practices for you know,
Speaker 1: cumulative between both of our kids, UM, and the car
Speaker 1: pulling to and from those practices. I'm organizing a coach's
Speaker 1: gift for all of us do once once every couple
Speaker 1: of times. I'm snack mom, which is I hate that term.
Speaker 1: I'm snack parents. UM. Those are the things. I'm researching
Speaker 1: their birth certificate or trying to make five copies of it,
Speaker 1: and some I don't have a xerox copy machine in
Speaker 1: my house. Um, those are the behind the scenes conception
Speaker 1: and planning tasks that take that take us to that
Speaker 1: little league field. Those are was required to get us
Speaker 1: to that little league field, along with sunscreen and maybe
Speaker 1: a protective helmet so they don't have to use a
Speaker 1: communal helmet, because of course, my kids will be the
Speaker 1: ones that come home with life. Um. And I think
Speaker 1: it was that understanding that your own to to move
Speaker 1: to an ownership mindset, that it would require taking over
Speaker 1: everything the conception, to the planning, to the execution of
Speaker 1: that entire task. And then if something fell through the cracks,
Speaker 1: the blame would not be the she fault. It would
Speaker 1: not come back on me. You would carry through your mistake.
Speaker 1: You don't bring the equipment you have to go back home.
Speaker 1: You don't say eve, I can't believe in and bring
Speaker 1: me the equipment. You carry through your own mistake. That
Speaker 1: is really the basis of what CPE is. It's just
Speaker 1: another way of saying, um, we're here to start looking
Speaker 1: at the home in a different way into adopting an
Speaker 1: ownership mindset as opposed to a fifty fifty score keeping mindset.
Speaker 1: You know, the other thing on this one is that
Speaker 1: you have to be open to different ways to do things.
Speaker 1: My experience with that, before I knew what it was called,
Speaker 1: was when my kids were older and my husband retired,
Speaker 1: and at one point my daughter came to me and said, Mom,
Speaker 1: I'm out of clean underwear. Can you talk to dad.
Speaker 1: Dad said he's only doing laundry once a week, and like,
Speaker 1: that's just not going to work. At which point I
Speaker 1: went to my husband and I said, like, really, our kids,
Speaker 1: they got to have clean underwear. And he said, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: my responsibility. The kids need clean underwear. I understand that
Speaker 1: I'm going to do laundry once a week. We need
Speaker 1: a different solution. We're going to buy more underwear. And
Speaker 1: we did. It was a different solution. It worked beautifully
Speaker 1: and everybody was happy. But in terms of the CPE,
Speaker 1: the concept, planning and execution, you've got to be open
Speaker 1: to different solutions as long as you're clear on what
Speaker 1: I think you call it the minimum standards. You know,
Speaker 1: what's that minimum standard of care that you agree on,
Speaker 1: and then you've got to be willing to let other
Speaker 1: stuff go. It doesn't have to be it doesn't have
Speaker 1: to be done your way. It just has to be
Speaker 1: done in a way that works. Yes, and I think
Speaker 1: that that's what so shaming to women, because every article
Speaker 1: I was seeing up until that point, Caroline was things
Speaker 1: that said, like, women, you have to lower your standards
Speaker 1: where men your standards suck and you have to raise
Speaker 1: your standards. Were Oftentimes it's just ridiculous. It just wrong.
Speaker 1: It's wrong because this is not a zero sum game.
Speaker 1: You know, we're trying to redefine teamwork here. This is
Speaker 1: not I win and you lose. So the way what
Speaker 1: you said before is such a beautiful way to think
Speaker 1: about a minimum standard because guess what I talk about
Speaker 1: this in fair play. Our legal system, our trillion dollar
Speaker 1: legal system works on minimum standard. Our medical system they
Speaker 1: talk a lot about minimum standards of care. This is
Speaker 1: something that works everywhere else, So why not bring these
Speaker 1: concepts into the home. You're exactly right that this idea
Speaker 1: that there's this shaming around men's standards versus women's standards
Speaker 1: is completely counterproductive. What I said to Seth is here's
Speaker 1: what the CP is for extracurricular sports. The only thing
Speaker 1: that I care about is that when they show up,
Speaker 1: if it's possible that they could be wearing a helmet
Speaker 1: and not the communal helmet and then sets like, sure,
Speaker 1: of course, you know, I'll get them there on time,
Speaker 1: which was important for him, and that was something I
Speaker 1: wasn't doing for the minimum standard of care. I would
Speaker 1: always get them to their games when they're batting, like
Speaker 1: second inning. He said, please, the minimum standard for me
Speaker 1: is yes, protective gear, but also getting them there on time.
Speaker 1: And that was not a hard conversation to have. One
Speaker 1: of the things that Caroline and I have been talking
Speaker 1: about a great deal is that there is a relationship
Speaker 1: between everything that you're talking about, like how do you
Speaker 1: renegotiate things at home so that there's more equity, there's
Speaker 1: more opportunity for women, for the person who's taking on
Speaker 1: the majority of the unpaid care work. So there's a
Speaker 1: relationship between what you're talking about and then inside a
Speaker 1: company creating a culture that supports that transition. And um,
Speaker 1: it's really it's I started this off saying, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm a real I'm very committed to the concept of
Speaker 1: paid paternity leave. It's really paid parental leave. What paid
Speaker 1: paternity leave does is it's it starts to create the
Speaker 1: expertise across both people. Right, So where is the diaper
Speaker 1: bag how do you change a diaper? To your point,
Speaker 1: we have no diapers, right, like, oh my god, how
Speaker 1: did that happen? I don't know. I'm not believing you
Speaker 1: for you know, I could have accountability as well, exactly.
Speaker 1: But inside the workplace, it also what the man has
Speaker 1: to go through is what women have to go through.
Speaker 1: So I now have to go to my boss and say, hey,
Speaker 1: my family is going to bring a child into you know,
Speaker 1: into our home, and I'd like to take paid paternity
Speaker 1: leave that I hope can we talk about is there
Speaker 1: a job on the backside of this for me? Um?
Speaker 1: And I have to think about how my work is
Speaker 1: going to get done while I'm gone, and then I
Speaker 1: have to do the reentry into the workplace again. When
Speaker 1: men go through that cycle, they are infinitely better managers
Speaker 1: of women who go through that cycle, right it, Carolyn said,
Speaker 1: it's a big empathy builder. It's an enormous sympathy builder.
Speaker 1: But the other thing that we are like working on.
Speaker 1: I was at this conference a couple of years ago.
Speaker 1: One of the main speakers is he's a CEO of
Speaker 1: a very large company, and he is one of the
Speaker 1: men that is, you know, genuinely out trying to have
Speaker 1: a voice in you know, in gender equality and what
Speaker 1: is the role of men. And for the most part
Speaker 1: it was a really good conversation, but at one point
Speaker 1: he said, Um, you know, I tell the women who
Speaker 1: work for me that they can have it all. They
Speaker 1: just can't have it all at the same time, right,
Speaker 1: And there's kind of silence, and then they moved on, right,
Speaker 1: and um and right. That's so perplexing because I would
Speaker 1: bet my life on the fact that that is not
Speaker 1: the coaching that the men in his office are getting
Speaker 1: at all. Right, So it perpetuates the belief and the
Speaker 1: bias that everything that's going to happen on the back
Speaker 1: side of that child coming in is the responsibility of
Speaker 1: the woman and she's just got to navigate when and
Speaker 1: how she can have it all, whereas men get offered
Speaker 1: it all. And so the you know, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of work that has to be done inside the workplace
Speaker 1: to support the exact work that you're talking about that
Speaker 1: needs to be renegotiated at home. And I think that
Speaker 1: you know, Dianna, you you brilliantly gave the example of
Speaker 1: parenting leave and how important that is because it really
Speaker 1: cements the opportunity for a man to be a dad
Speaker 1: all the way through a child's life. But there's so
Speaker 1: many also, there's so many other ways that men and
Speaker 1: partners can can do this work. And you know, we
Speaker 1: spend a lot of time talking about the need for
Speaker 1: flexibility and flexible policies for start time and work from home,
Speaker 1: and certainly what we've all experienced during this pandemic is
Speaker 1: the ability to be flexible and agile and figure out
Speaker 1: how to cope with it. And what's really important is
Speaker 1: that we continue to learn that way and continue to
Speaker 1: set this expectation that we need to give flexibility to
Speaker 1: women and two men. So we've we have this initiative
Speaker 1: called flex at Work that Caroline is talking about, and
Speaker 1: it's my own little way to, you know, try to
Speaker 1: make change over the last several years. Every time that
Speaker 1: every time we've done any sort of um visual around
Speaker 1: flex at work or um in in the materials that
Speaker 1: we put out, I'm just like, find me the man
Speaker 1: and let's put his next flexibility. I want the sure
Speaker 1: and it's it's really important, it's really important. What I
Speaker 1: love about that is the modeling. So what was so
Speaker 1: beautiful was I got to be with you. UM in
Speaker 1: Davos that the World Economic Forum, and I had all
Speaker 1: these male ceo has come up to me, UM and ask,
Speaker 1: you know, what is the number one thing you recommend?
Speaker 1: So of course it's always you know, fraternity leave, right,
Speaker 1: but Um, but modeling is a big part of it.
Speaker 1: So if it was a CEO of it was a
Speaker 1: very high level man that asked me that question, I say,
Speaker 1: put your put your name as first and emphasize that
Speaker 1: you are the number one only person to call when
Speaker 1: your child is sick from the score or needs something
Speaker 1: from the school, because the modeling of having a male
Speaker 1: leader be interrupted, because that is where the motherhood penalty
Speaker 1: comes from. It comes from this bias that, um, we
Speaker 1: are women mothers, we are the responsible party for the eruptions,
Speaker 1: the daily disruptions, which makes us less committed to the workforce.
Speaker 1: And that's how we're losing five of our wages for
Speaker 1: every child that we bring into the world, where men
Speaker 1: increase their wages by six percent for every child they
Speaker 1: bring into the world. So just in our peak earning years,
Speaker 1: when women are having children, all of a sudden we
Speaker 1: become oftentimes the secondary earners because of these motherhood penalties.
Speaker 1: So how transformational if you see the leader uh in
Speaker 1: the middle of a giant presentation where the clients say,
Speaker 1: I had to step out, my school is calling. We
Speaker 1: know that what people see, like what they see in advertising,
Speaker 1: or what they see on film or what they see
Speaker 1: on television is enormously important in framing how we all
Speaker 1: think about this. And so Carol and you are like
Speaker 1: really at a real center point in terms of what
Speaker 1: goes on air and are advertising in North America. You
Speaker 1: want to talk a little bit about that and like
Speaker 1: why that's important to us? Exactly as you said, this
Speaker 1: is all about setting new expectations. So whether the new
Speaker 1: expectation is woods the school phone when somebody's sick or
Speaker 1: there's an issue at school, Um, who goes to the
Speaker 1: doctor's appointment, But setting that expectation creates a new norm.
Speaker 1: It's a new normal. And one of the things that
Speaker 1: we're really intentional, very deliberate about doing is really showing
Speaker 1: men as equal partners in the home in our advertising.
Speaker 1: You know, we are the world's largest advertiser. We have
Speaker 1: a an amazing portfolio of brands, so we need to
Speaker 1: show men doing laundry, changing diapers, swiffering floors, and we
Speaker 1: when we do that, we do that in a way
Speaker 1: that's very natural and just part of the everyday living.
Speaker 1: We show dads as caregivers, but we're very intentional in
Speaker 1: assuring that we we have walked away from these outdated
Speaker 1: stereotypes and we really make room to create this better,
Speaker 1: more equal world. I'm proud of so many of our
Speaker 1: brands for that tied swiffer, Pampers, you know, Pampers, ads
Speaker 1: have moved their target from moms to parents. It's you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's wonderful, and it's modern, it's relevant for today's world.
Speaker 1: It's about it's about diapering parents. It's not about diapering moms,
Speaker 1: you know, cleaning homes. You used to only see mums
Speaker 1: doing dishes. It's like, no, we're not going to do
Speaker 1: that anymore. We are really going to showcase this new
Speaker 1: world and this new expectation that men can play an
Speaker 1: equal role here. Uh. And that's good for everybody, you know.
Speaker 1: I think the conversation CPE is so important and and
Speaker 1: when families and couples get it right, it has huge impact.
Speaker 1: You both know that I got divorced when my kids
Speaker 1: were very young. I mean they were eight, four and
Speaker 1: three when Tony and I split up and when we
Speaker 1: first um. When we first split up, we had um.
Speaker 1: Back then, it was a really traditional way of thinking about,
Speaker 1: you know, split families. Tony had the kids every Wednesday
Speaker 1: night for dinner and had them every other weekend. And
Speaker 1: but what that meant for me was that I had
Speaker 1: them all the time. And I love my children, but
Speaker 1: I was exhausted. I was literally exhausted because the cpe
Speaker 1: predominantly fell on me. You know, at some point, Tony
Speaker 1: and I, for a lot of reasons, for him, for me,
Speaker 1: for the kids, moved to a week on, week off
Speaker 1: model of parenting. I had to let go of everything
Speaker 1: I believed I was supposed to be as a mother.
Speaker 1: I mean, we've talked about this all through here, that
Speaker 1: women have to really reframe their role at home. Um,
Speaker 1: if you want to get to equality, but I will
Speaker 1: tell you this, my life changed when we made that decision,
Speaker 1: and so did Tony's. But for me, it you know,
Speaker 1: I got to get some sleep. Um. I knew when
Speaker 1: I could travel, I when it was my week. I
Speaker 1: knew that doctor's appointments and parent teacher conferences and sports
Speaker 1: were my responsibility, but when it was his week, they
Speaker 1: were his responsibility. And UM, and you know, I say
Speaker 1: it was life changing, but it also changed the trajectory
Speaker 1: of my career because my ability to do my job,
Speaker 1: to plan my weeks, to um, you know, be excellent
Speaker 1: at what I do at home and excellent at what
Speaker 1: I do at work. And I wouldn't recommend that, you know,
Speaker 1: people get divorced in order to get that. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think, Eve, what you're laying out for us is
Speaker 1: a way to navigate the equality at home and equality
Speaker 1: at work without having to be drastic. UM. But I
Speaker 1: think it's a really really UM. The intervention of CPE
Speaker 1: is such an important uh concept for everyone to take on.
Speaker 1: Even this has been such a great converse station, Like,
Speaker 1: you're so amazing. You have a podcast coming up this fall.
Speaker 1: You want to tell us really quickly about it. Oh,
Speaker 1: thank you. It's called the fair Play Files. Um. We're
Speaker 1: basically looking at this idea that the home presents itself
Speaker 1: really small, but recognizing that, UM, the presenting problem is
Speaker 1: never the real problem. So really looking at these greater issues,
Speaker 1: whether they be issues about UM, the three things that
Speaker 1: seem to prevent people from getting to this place of equity,
Speaker 1: and those are really boundaries that you know, women believing
Speaker 1: that they have a permission to be unavailable for things
Speaker 1: that they care about. Systems, as we talked about a
Speaker 1: lot um, the idea of owning the full grocery situation,
Speaker 1: the CPE, and then also communication, how do we use
Speaker 1: our voices? So I'm really excited to explore um what
Speaker 1: I believe is really the key to mental health for women,
Speaker 1: and that's boundaries, systems, um and communication. So that's what
Speaker 1: we're gonna be doing in the fall with the podcast.
Speaker 1: I can't wait to hear it. Thank you so much, Eve,
Speaker 1: It's been such a delight talking with you today. I
Speaker 1: appreciate your being here. So is there one final thought
Speaker 1: you'd like to leave us with? One final thought? What
Speaker 1: I'd like for us all to take a moment to
Speaker 1: think about is do you believe an hour holding your
Speaker 1: child's hand at the pediatrician's office is just as valuable
Speaker 1: to society as an hour in the boardroom. If you
Speaker 1: believe that, then you also believe that all time is
Speaker 1: created equal, that women and men's time are both diamonds
Speaker 1: and it should be treated as such. That's amazing, beautiful.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much. Eve, It's been delightful talking to
Speaker 1: you today. What an incredible conversation. I learned so much
Speaker 1: today listening to Eve, Caroline Indiana. Here are my takeaways. First,
Speaker 1: equality at work begins with the quality at home. As
Speaker 1: we've said in other episodes, now is the time to
Speaker 1: reframe our thinking and debunk old stereotypes. Both men and
Speaker 1: women can play an equal role at home, and children
Speaker 1: and families will be the better for it. Second, to
Speaker 1: encourage equality at home, consider a system or tool that
Speaker 1: actually gets you there, such as eaves CPE. It's a
Speaker 1: simple and effective plan that calls for owning an activity
Speaker 1: from start to finish, conception, planning, and execution. Finally, we
Speaker 1: need to carry this message into the workplace. We need
Speaker 1: policies that treat men and women equally on topics ranging
Speaker 1: from flexible work for men and women to paid parental
Speaker 1: leave that equally supports new moms and new dads. Join
Speaker 1: us next week, when Caroline and Diana talked to Tina Chen,
Speaker 1: president and CEO of Times Up, about dealing with harassment
Speaker 1: at work and creating workplace is that are safe, fair,
Speaker 1: and dignified. You're Listening to Seneca Women Conversations on Power
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Speaker 1: great day.