Shawna Samuel
What happens when the people holding everything together Simply stop? In 1975, an entire country found out Icelandic women went on strike and it changed the trajectory of their country. Now, nearly 50 years later, working moms and especially high performing leaders are caring more than ever at work, at home, and in a world where it feels like gender equality is being torched. So in today's episode, we're exploring what it looks like to go on strike not out of anger or vengeance, but out of courage and a desire for lasting change.

Intro
Welcome to the Mental Offload Podcast where we talk about women balancing work and life. It's the podcast that combines leadership, feminism and coaching tools so you can tackle it all with more confidence and less stress. Here's your host, Ivy League MBA, certified feminist coach and corporate warrior, Shawna Samuel.

Shawna Samuel
Hello offloaders, this is Shawna Samuel. I'm the host of the Mental Offload Podcast and I'm so happy to have you with me today. I wanted today's episode to be little bit of a serious step back and look at the world. But I'll be honest with you, as I'm recording this episode, even though there's so much in the world to be concerned and upset about, I'm actually pretty excited right now. My clients are absolutely killing it.

Several just came out of really, really good strong year end performance reviews and a handful of others just signed offers for new jobs. Like really, really good offers. And so as much as the news out there is negative and as much as the job search climate on average looks not as strong as it did a couple of years ago, I also know that some really, really big things are happening and are possible for offloaders. So there are some real reasons to be excited in the offloader world. And hey, by the way, if you want to come to some of our upcoming events, I have a couple of great free events that I am working on right now. You can go and sign up. I'll put the links in the show notes. But this month's community class is going to be around networking for introverts, which is going to be an amazing topic. And next month we have these super popular like I always get requests for this one and I'm only doing it once this year.

So we have this super super popular time management for Tired super women class coming up and if you've never attended that one, you need to attend it. So get on the list. You can go to www.thementaloffload.com, you'll see the events page, you can sign up for specific events or you can just get on the newsletter list so that you get notified about all the upcoming events. So fun. I love seeing offloaders there, but I also want to be real.

As much good stuff is happening in the offloader community, the current climate out there is not great. I was just speaking at an International Women's Day event here in France, and we were talking about how much the US Political climate is actually impacting what happening here in Europe as well. Like, we're seeing the ripple effects worldwide, a rising political backlash for programs that are labeled diversity, equity and inclusion oriented. I saw a list of prohibited terms by the US Government, which was pretty far ranging and includes things like gender, gender diversity, implicit bias, unconscious bias. Right. All this stuff that matters when it comes to your career, your success, your ability to get ahead. We're seeing a real backlash around this. And programs that have been built over decades, in some cases both within the government, but also importantly within the private sector, are being pulled back. Many companies are fearful of sticking their neck out in this particular political climate and being identified as a company that supports equality and inclusion, which boggles the mind. But this is where we are. Susan Faludi, in her really groundbreaking book, Backlash, back in the early 90s, was already talking about this phenomenon that when underrepresented groups start to make gains, there are forces that are going to try to pull back, to derail that progress, to make things more difficult for women and underrepresented groups to get ahead.

And I think it creates a real urgency in this particular moment in time for action, but also for leadership. And I don't just mean political leadership and I don't just mean CEOs, although, yes, it would be great to see more leadership at these levels. But I mean leadership at every level and in every sector, because I really want to see gender equality in our lifetime. And I think that we can get there, but we need action and we need support. So today I'm going to talk a little bit about Moms on Strike. And for me, that's not about giving up. It's really about how we demonstrate our value in the world and how we exert our power as well. And we'll talk about the different ways that you can lead in different circumstances and cultures, as well as maybe a few practical ideas for some resistance when it feels like you're moving into headwinds. And that brings us all the way back to 1975, 50 years ago to Iceland, where women at the time were earning about 60 cents on the dollar to men. And there Wasn't necessarily a ton of support for women's equality and gender equity. And so Icelandic women did this famous one day strike where they basically stopped doing anything for the day. They didn't go to their jobs, they didn't do any child caring, no home related tasks. They said, that's it, we're off, we're on strike. And a significant portion of the population went and attended demonstrations and listened to speakers and organized. They planned it to be one day long. And that one day was enough to grind a lot of things in Iceland to a halt.

There were many companies that had to close for the day because much of their staff were women. There was like a country wide run on paper and crayons to help try to entertain the kids that the dads were bringing into work. And thanks to the day long strike, many, many people realized just how much women had been carrying and how much had been taken for granted by an entire society. The strike had huge coverage in the news and in the media and is considered by many to be a huge catalyst for some of the important reforms and change that happened in Iceland. And today Iceland's known as a model of gender equality. It's often ranked first in studies and has been for more than a decade of gender parity. So much of that was set in motion by that day of the women's strike. And not only that, but shortly thereafter, Iceland elected its first female prime minister. It seems to have not only really shifted some views, but galvanized a country to make concrete change. Now I live in France, where we love a good debate. We love to sit around and talk in cafes and really argue with each other over various viewpoints. But one of the things that I think makes a strike such an

impactful movement is sometimes it's not enough to just tell people or give them arguments for why something's wrong.

Sometimes you need to show them. And there's nothing like a strike for people to realize what they're missing. And when that's happening collectively, the impact is even bigger. It really showed how much invisible unpaid labor was being held up by half the population in your own household. Is there invisible labor that goes unnoticed? And what would happen if you stopped over functioning, if you stopped being the over competent person either at home or at work? I think as moms, it is time that we explore that. I would love it if we could get a strike of moms or even working moms together for a day. I think the world would see exactly how much we're carrying in terms of the mental load in terms of invisible labor and in terms of the second shift that so often impacts both our energy and our careers. So I'm on board.

If someone's organizing a strike, I will show up for it. But here's the thing. It's not always safe or feasible to take large scale collective action. Depending on what kind of regime you're living within or what kind of culture you're working within. Some kinds of action requires some privilege. So I've been thinking a lot recently about what are the levers of resistance that are open to us and what kinds of things can we do if it's not safe or feasible for you to fly to Washington, D.C. and participate in whatever the next iteration of the women's marches? And I'm pulling a little bit from Timothy Snyder's work. In his book on tyranny, he talks about a sort of form of internal resistance that's really about maintaining your professional and personal ethics. So what do I mean by that? Even if you are living in a society that is rolling back DEI efforts or working within a culture that is dismantling some of these programs, you can still choose, if you're in a leadership position, to continue to try to hire inclusively and run an inclusive process.

You can maintain those standards and ethics. You might also choose to speak up or advocate for the programs that have helped you or members of your team. You can express your disappointment and dismay when programs, perks and benefits that you care about lose funding and support. For example, if your company has had a long standing history of sponsoring certain talent to go to women's leadership events, for example, and they're pulling back on that, that can be an opportunity to speak up and say, hey, I think there were some real concrete benefits to this program. And I actually think now more than ever, we need them. I'm disappointed and confused as to why the company would choose to pull back from this right now.

Now, you want to be thoughtful about the culture that you're working in and how that would be received. So I'm not saying this is appropriate for every circumstance, but I'm saying it's an option. So think about where you can use your voice and your actions to resist policies that you disagree with. Another form of internal resistance is refusing to cover for broken systems. This is true at work. For example, if the women in a particular group are often asked to be the note taker, you might choose to do your own mini strike, right? Say, hey, you know what? Last five times this has been covered by the women in the room. Let's rotate the responsibilities. But this is also equally true at home. You can refuse to cover for broken systems by over functioning and being over competent. Like, hey, I covered the last four times when we had a sick kid and someone had to stay home from work. So you know what, I'm on strike this time. We can also stop picking up tasks just because it's easier for me to do it rather than to rely on a less competent person in the household. And we can do this as well by renegotiating roles. Household labor at home.

One of my listeners just shared a really interesting statistic with me in France. We have this great application on our phone that we can use to make doctor's appointments. And so a lot of people use it, but they collected statistics and noticed that when it comes to making doctor's appointments for kids, 80% of those appointments are are made by the mom. Now, I aim for a pretty 5050 division of labor at home. And my husband is really good about stepping up on 99% of accounts. But on this one, we fall more in line with the French statistics. 80% of that work is falling on me. And my husband apologized. He's like, you know what, I got a claim here. I can see a lot more of this falls on you. Like, we're kind of in line with the statistics. And I said an apology is, is a great start, but let's go beyond that and talk about how we're going to fix that gap. Right? So sitting down and renegotiating apologies are great, but when you actually decide to go on strike and say, hey, I'm not letting this gap stand any longer, that is a way of reclaiming power and rebalancing the scales. I've caveated those opportunities a couple times by saying, look, we have to do this within the cultures that we're living in and working in. Not all of these things are going to be things that are safe and available for you to do today or tomorrow. So when it comes to really putting your leadership into action, it's essential to assess the culture that you're in before you start to try to shape it. And when I talk about the cultures that you're in, this can be on so many intersecting levels, from the society that you live in geographically, to the culture that you're working, working within, to subcultures that make a part of your identity that can be based on race, that could also be based on your professional training. Like lawyers often have a very different professional culture from management consultants. Right.

So it can be tied to your professional identity. It can also be tied to your educational background and schooling. So all of these things can intersect and be part of the different cultures that you just want to assess and reflect on. Where do you have room to potentially strike? And even though this episode is all about the power of striking, of moms saying no and pulling back from doing the work, I want to stress that there are multiple ways that you can show your resistance. There is a sort of vocal leading from the front, advocacy, you know, the marching in the streets, which is so valuable and so needed. But we also don't want to discount the power of quiet leadership or leading from the back of the room. For example, maybe you're working in a culture that has said, hey, we're pulling back on our DEI initiatives. We're no longer invested in making flexible work accommodations, for example, for moms. But if you're hiring for a role as the decision maker, you can decide, hey, I'm going to make flexible work accommodations possible in this role.

This actually happened to me at one point when I was hiring for a role in another country, and the HR team in that country called me and said, you know, this person has requested some flexible accommodations. And, you know, so we'd like to talk to you about that. They were coming in prepared to tell me why they thought I should at least consider the case, but prepared clearly for some resistance, knowing that it was not something that a leader was required to accept and that many leaders might not have accepted. I think they were genuinely surprised when my response was like, look, tell me what I can do. I'm here to try to support equity, so if there are accommodations I can make for this candidate, I'm happy to talk about them. You don't have to be sitting in the CEO seat and controlling any every level of policy within your company to have a zone of influence and control. So think about where you do have influence and where you can leverage that to make change and make your own mini strikes in line with your values and beliefs. And my guess is, if you think about this, there are already spaces where you are exerting your leadership and your subtle resistance. So where can you step into that even a little bit more going forward? On top of the internal resistance?

I want to talk a little bit about the power of community. I think one of the things that made the Iceland strike so powerful and impactful was that power of collective action getting a whole country to basically shut down. Now, we don't need a whole country to shut down in every case to make change, but Making change is often so much easier when you have allies and networks of support. So think about the networks that you can tap into already. Maybe that's an employee resource group at your company. Maybe that's women's leadership circles. I've led several of these in the past years and they're amazing for bringing women together and sharing tips and support and working together collectively. And I'm super lucky to be part of some great alumni networks as well, where we have women's groups who work together to share everything from salary negotiation tips to household negotiation tips, to organizations who are working on issues that we want to impact and care about.

Tapping into a community can be so, so useful for organizing and sharing ideas and developing scripts, but also strengthening you in those moments where striking feels difficult or maybe even impossible. When I think about moms on strike, I don't just see marching in the streets. I see these small micro strike actions that we do within our homes and work and life to help us set boundaries and reclaim our own energy. Because most companies, unfortunately, and most societies that we're living in treat your stamina and as your problem to solve. So playing the long game requires your self preservation and stepping into your own leadership can mean things like saying no more, often refusing to over function and take responsibility for things that should not be your responsibility. Leadership sometimes means stepping back so that others are forced to step up. So this week I want to encourage you to build that strike muscle, starting as small as you want, because all those little strikes add up to something pretty big. They're part of a world where you know you have the authority and the power to say no, to advocate for your fair share and to advocate more broadly for what's fair and right.

So this week I hope you'll reflect on where you might be doing more than you want to do and start to reclaim yourself by thinking about where you can take your own mini strike or mega strike even better. And finally, I hope that you're inspired to connect, to think about who you can partner with to build networks to drive change and to help create a world where women are free to do their best work in the world without hurdles and without recrimination.

So let's get out there and go on strike. Talk to you next week.

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the Mental Offload Podcast.