Overthrowing the Patriarchy — Episode #023 With Sarah Lacy of Chairman Mom

40% of American households believe that it is bad for society if mothers work.

Because sexism is a global phenomenon, you might believe this statistic to be universal as well—but it just isn’t. In fact, this kind of maternal bias against women in the workplace is a strictly American phenomenon. Diverse cultures from deeply feminist Iceland to ‘one-child policy’ China simply do not have stay-at-home moms.

Today Sarah explains how this staggering statistic manifests itself in our culture, from the wage gap to maternity leave policy to overt sexism on the job. I ask her about the need to dismantle the patriarchy and her experience of maternal bias in the workplace.

She shares her journey from ‘cool girl’ sexism denier to fierce feminist, explaining how becoming a mother allowed her to find her power as a woman and gave her the confidence to start her own business. Listen in as we discuss the way that calling out bad behavior is shifting the world of work and how to go about changing the narrative of the young, single, working mother, who is also a fierce startup founder.

Quotes from this episode:

• I thought because sexism was universal, this bias that mothers are weak and disabled and should just be baby machines that a lot of our country believes would also be a global, universal thing—and it’s not. It’s a very American thing, which is why we are the only country that doesn’t give women maternity rights.
• When you talk to people who feel this lack of agency or economic anxiety in our country … what they’re describing is for the first time in their life not getting preference and how disorienting that is for a lot of men.
• It’s this idea that all these men who’ve succeeded in a place like Silicon Valley believed that it was a meritocracy—and it was a meritocracy against other white men—and they believed this, and so then they believed that they were exceptional. It’s like telling people that they actually weren’t exceptional.
• [Dismantling the patriarchy] is so important: That we could actually live in a world where feeling exceptional and society deeming you exceptional wouldn’t have to do with your gender or race. I just think that has to be a net good for everybody.
• “It is sacrificing the lives and rights of other people if you feel like your needs are getting taken care of. And there’s 30% of this country that is just okay with that.
• I had amazing pregnancies, and I felt like a superhero. I just was in awe that this whole time this body that I resented and hated so much and felt so much shame over … was able to produce life and just knew what to do. I feel like I fell in love with being a woman for the first time during that pregnancy.
• When I became a mother, strength was no longer about pent-up male sexual aggression. Strength was about loving something so much that you can destroy anything in front of you in order to protect that thing. That’s so much more exciting and exhilarating and powerful for me.
• [As a mother] you just develop such an internal core of right and wrong and important and not important. And if you can withstand your children, who cares about anything else.
• The more you change the makeup of who’s writing the checks, the more you can change the pattern of who’s getting funded, and then you can change the pattern of who’s in this 5% who’s driving 95% of the returns.

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