Note: A Practical Wedding – a feminist publication that is about surprisingly more than weddings – is a media partner of The Bullish Conference.
In 2014, I received a series of very pleasant emails from a publisher suggesting that I might want to write a book. I was invited to come pitch.
I talked about how what I do at GetBullish is like Lean In, but for younger, quirkier women who don’t want to give themselves over to corporations. A lot of people like the idea of “leaning in,” but I strongly suspect they haven’t read the book.
In the very first chapter of Lean In, Sheryl Sandberg tells us about working full-time (and what is full-time to Sheryl Sandberg? Sixty hours? Seventy?) during a horrific pregnancy. The tale involved throwing up into the Google toilets. That’s what you’re leaning into, I thought. It did not sound very sanitary.
The meeting went well. I took myself out to a fabulous lunch at a restaurant overlooking Columbus Circle.
And then I went home, retrieved my baby from the babysitter, took off my nice pants, and climbed into bed to breastfeed the tiniest, wrinkliest, snuggliest little eight-pound animal in the world. It was, as they say, a moment. I’ve spent a lot of my life doggedly pursuing physical freedom, not wanting to be told by a boss when to get up and where to sit; this seemed like an extreme version of winning that battle. (And why wear pants if you don’t have to?)
Don’t get me wrong. This isn’t a paean to letting go, or falling so in love with your baby you become a different person, or finding a “new normal.” Fuck that. Burn it in a fire.
