I remember having passionate conversations with my husband about artificial intelligence (AI). A progressive adopter of new technologies, he couldn’t understand my initial resistance to AI. I, as a strong believer in human creativity and intellect, and a staunch feminist at that, insisted on waging a months-long intellectual opposition to artificial intelligence (AI). What an insult to human intelligence! Yet, while Dear Hubby was saving hours leveraging AI to assist him with unending emails and administrative tasks, here I was spending hours trying to get through a half-a-day’s emails. Fast-forward a few months later, AI is reshaping women’s careers and has become my favorite assistant in the meantime…
Actually, recent research by the University of North Carolina estimates 80% of women in the U.S. workforce are in professional occupations highly threatened by AI automation. The most AI-exposed occupations with the highest percentages of womeninclude account and bill collectors, payroll clerks, executive secretaries, typists and word processors, as well as bookkeepers, auditing and accounting clerks. In general, AI mostly impact administration, healthcare, education and social services, all sectors with higher proportions of women. More recently, the 2023 World Economic Forum Future of Jobs report predicts a 27% drop in jobs such as cashiers, administrators, payroll clerks and secretaries.
Yet, despite posing undeniable threats to women’s careers, AI can also provide opportunities for women. As society seeks ways to counteract extreme automation, feminine attributes such as collaboration, compassion and empathy are more than ever relevant and needed in the workplace. While unfortunately reinforcing gender bias, AI also has the reverse potential to identify and address gender inequalities. By enabling remote work and flexible scheduling, it has offered mothers greater flexibility and protecting Black and minority women for micro-aggressions at work.
In addition, AI can also take over some of the more tedious and less productive “office housework” tasks, largely assigned to women. This in turn will allow women to devote more time to value-adding and visible responsibilities, such as leadership and networking-related functions. As the AI-driven automation can hep reduce workloads and increase efficiency, it allows working women and moms to reclaim some of their time while still being employed. This is also valid for women entrepreneurs, who can leverage AI to save precious time and boost their business growth.
HOW TO LEVERAGE THE OPPORTUNITY AND FIGHT THE THREAT OF AI
In this sense, while AI is certainly a threat for women, it also has the potential to level the professional playing field for women. But how can women effectively prepare to leverage the advantages of AI and reduce the drawbacks? Here are some suggestions to leverage the opportunity and fight the threat of AI:
Start with your mindset
Being so skeptical about AI at first, I could not initially see it for the tool that it is. Overwhelmed by the many AI biases against women, and concerned that it would take so many jobs away from actual people, I developed a built-in mindset block. It wasn’t until I learned to shift my mindset that I began to truly realize its potential beyond its visible threats. Once I understood AI can never replicate the unique human and feminine spirit, emotions and attributes such as creativity, empathy, or critical thinking, I began seeing it as less of a threat.
Do you, like I did, have built-in mindset blocks against AI? How do you approach it as a new and evolving technology with its pros and cons? Understanding your own mindset about AI can help you shift from seeing it as a threat to seeing it as a tool that can be leveraged for the benefit of people.
Explore AI literacy
Becoming AI-literate is no longer an option, especially as a woman at work. This means fighting the initial resistance to stick to old habits, routines and processes, and adapt to new technologies. I know all too well the feeling of not wanting to start all over again learning a new disciple or adopting new tools.
From courses to applications such as Grammarly, ChaptGPT, or Claude, there is a plethora of available tools to begin your AI literacy journey. Pick the tools that are most suited to your personality, schedule and appetite to grow in learning and using AI.
Wherever you are in your career and life, by being more aware of these challenges, you can harness opportunities to leverage, critique and improve the technology around you. From participating in STEM fields yourself, to becoming more AI literate, and offering your own perspective, you have the power to change things.
All in all, AI certainly presents many challenges and opportunities for women. As such, it’s reshaping women’s careers and lives in monumental and ever-evolving ways. Shifting your mindset about it, developing AI literacy and advocating for AI gender equality are all strategies women can use to increase the related opportunities and lessen the negative aspects of it.
Is AI more of an opportunity or threat in your career, and how are you leveraging it?
I can’t distinctly recall when it happened exactly. Somewhere between the “tween” and teen stage, my daughter refused to wear dresses. Or at least the dresses I would buy her. While seemingly insignificant, this drew a pretty significant line in the sand of my motherhood experience. And it wasn’t just about the nostalgia of pretty pink flowery dresses either…Somewhere through this shift, the reality of parenting teens as a working mom in modern times brutally imposed itself, with its heavy weight of mental, emotional, spiritual and even physical pressure, tempered only by the bittersweet adventure that is mothering young adults…
Why didn’t anyone tell me about any of this before? Wasn’t I supposed to be warned of the impending, heart-wrenching rip in one’s mother’s heart that is adolescence? And why didn’t anyone share the remedies available to such a drastic transition, especially through the uncertainty of a modern world without a blueprint for working moms?
THE CHALLENGES OF PARENTING TEENS
While there is ample research on the topic of adolescence in general, and parenting’s impact on teens, much less has been studied on the effect of parenting teens on working moms. The reality is, parenting is an ever-evolving, sweet and sour battle for mothers. In the book Maternal Optimism: Forging positive paths through work and motherhood, authors Jamie Ledge and Danna Greenberg describe motherhood as a non-linear path. They also encourage working moms to forge their own paths through its various stages.
TRANSITIONING TO THE ADOLESCENCE STAGE AS A WORKING MOM
As a working mom and parent of teenagers, the transition to adolescence was a particularly challenging one. It wasn’t just about kids growing up or their own personal dress choices (goodbye, flowery pink dresses). Nor was it just about my own nostalgia of earlier years and the bitter sweetness of kids growing up. It was mostly about the unpreparedness that I, and so many other working mothers, feel when faced with the mental, emotional and physical roller-coaster of teenage years.
The days of kissing kids’ boo-boos are now being replaced with the need to be available to manage emotional meltdowns, keep unseen social media dangers at bay, and learn about potential mental health concerns. It also means becoming better at integrating work and life, being there for first dates and soccer tournaments, tracking phones’ activities, and learning new cool words. There are so many joys, big and small, embedded in each precious moment of discovery and learning as a mom of teens. There are also many small and large costs involved, from the switching costs of focus, to the heavier mental load of constantly being preoccupied with teens’ online, mental and physical safety…
In the busy world of modern parenting, no one prepares you for this…As an immigrant particularly, adapting to new ways of thinking and doing parenting in a decidedly different world, no one even thinks to warn you beforehand. As a woman at work, there is no memo explaining that you may have to interrupt a presentation because your teen sends you a preoccupying text, or because it’s only their third time driving on the highway…
MANAGING THE TEEN TRANSITION
So, without a blueprint, and in the absence of a supportive village in many cases, how can we as working moms manage the transition to and new parenting phase of adolescence? Here are three ways I’d like to suggest, from my own imperfect and still very much ongoing experience:
Get prepared!
Don’t wait until adolescence is knocking at the door of your motherhood journey to learn about it. Talk to moms of teenagers around you, ask questions, and start preparing for your own journey into the teenage years.
I wish someone had sat me down for a good, sobering, maybe even tear-filled chat about it. But no one did, because unfortunately there aren’t enough crucial conversations about mothering to go aroung. So instead of waiting for those conversations, why don’t we initiate them?
Define your own brand of adolescent motherhood!
As your kids become teenagers, so does your experience of motherhood. While there’s much valid parenting advice out there, the reality is, parenting is not a one-size-fits-all experience. Hence the need to define and develop your own brand of mothering through the teenage years. While you may choose to be more hands-on in your approach, another mom may opt to adopt a more surrendered perspective.
How you see yourself as a mom during the teenage years is going to affect much of your motherhood journey. So choose a vision and an approach that is flexible enough to reflect who you authentically are and who you’re growing into as a working mom.
Build your own path through the teen years.
Getting prepared for the journey and defining your own brand of motherhood through the teen years is setting the foundation. Building your own path is actually doing the work. This is where you get your hands dirty, and shape your own journey as a working mom of teenagers.
It may mean altering the way you’ve been building your career, allowing for more flexibility and availability. Or doing the healing work that allows you to better understand, evolve and accompany your kids through this phase. It also means having the necessary, often tough, conversations with your teens as you steer them and yourself through this new phase of your relationship. For me, it’s been actively learning what it means to parent teenagers in a modern society. Books such as Dr. Shefali Tsabary’s The Conscious Parent, or The Awakened Family, have been precious guides in the process. Whatever it is for you, it will require taking some action or another as you tread on this path.
Overall, parenting teens should be talked about more often and honestly among working moms. More stories, advice and recommendations should be shared to help working moms. More information should also be shared with places of employment, organizations and business structures, so they can recognize and honor this delicate phase of parenting for working moms. There ought to be more personal and professional support and infrastructure for working mothers going through this phase as well.
By getting prepared early, defining your own brand of adolescent mothering, and building your own unique path through it, you can lessen the shock often involved during these years. You can also leverage the beauty of this phase of motherhood without relinquishing yourself as a working woman and mom.
What advice do you have for working moms parenting teens?
Did you know by 2030 women are poised to hold over $30 trillion?
In this episode, I discuss the changing landscape of wealth for women in the U.S., also known as “The Great Transfer’. As we prepare for this shift, I’m chatting about three strategies to get ready for the feminization of wealth.
Thanks so much for tuning in and listening to this week’s episode! If you enjoyed this week’s episode, please share it by using the social media at the bottom of this post!
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Here I was, standing in front of a full classroom of students, not quite fully ready to step into this new academic career. Everything in my past experience, from shying away from speaking up, to a predominantly behind-the-scenes corporate career, seemed to go against what I was about to begin. But I had to begin… so one word after the other, one practical application after the other, I transitioned careers from Big Corporate to Big Academia. Slowly but surely, I learned to reclaim my own style of leadership in a new career, a new space, and a new expression of purpose. And I’m glad to report I haven’t looked back ever since…
Many Obstacles to Women’s Leadership…
The Merriam-webster dictionary defines leadership as the “capacity to lead”. As a working mom and a woman of color, leadership was initially quite the foreign concept for me. It may also have been for you. I mean, the blatant under-representation of women, especially women of color, from the boardroom to the office and the front of the classroom, has not exactly been encouraging. As of 2023, women only held 10.6% of leadership positions at Fortune 500 companies. This is with only two Black women in leadership, including Thasunda Brown Duckett at TIAA and Roz Brewer at Walgreens. The plethora of societal biases plaguing the very existence of women in certain professional and entrepreneurial spaces has not helped either. Nor has the recent rollback of diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in light of the U.S. Supreme Court overturning affirmative action.
In an era where threats against women’s belonging in and legitimacy are over-abundant, it is fair to wonder how to lead. Or if we can even lead…Some of the most pressing questions around women’ s leadership have been:
How do you lead when very few of those who look like you are in positions of leadership? How do you lead when there is no blueprint or support for someone like you to lead?
And how do you lead in the face of constant change, threats to your very belonging, and societal biases questioning your very existence in certain spaces?
Yet, the leadership we see is not the leadership we can get…
Yet, when it comes to women’s leadership, could it be that what we see is not exactly what we can get? The thing is, when I used to think of leadership, I thought of it as being in a position of authority or power as traditionally defined by society. While this may be true in some cases, what occurred to me through my career is that while valid, this is only an external manifestation of leadership. Although not many women currently hold traditional offices of power and authority, many, if not, most women are natural-born leaders and naturally lead in their environments. Effective leadership skills such as communication, organization and consensus are innate to women. So could it be that the real issue is not so much to focus on having more women leaders, but rather to first help more women develop their own, already existing, capacity to lead?
Experience has taught me over and over again, that true leadership is not a matter of external positioning. Rather, it’s one of internal positioning. As working women and moms, much of the battle of reclaiming our authentic brand of leadership starts within. It starts with the reframing of our mindsets about what leading means to each and every one of us. It is in the development of our internal capacity to lead first, which then flows into authentic external manifestation.
If you have been wondering how to reclaim your own leadership in these uncertain times, here are three strategies you may want to consider:
Define your own brand of authentic leadership
What does leadership mean to you in this season of your life and career? This is a question I invite you to ponder not just every once in a while, but periodically and consistently. While it took a big shift for me to reclaim a sense of authentic leadership, it may not have to take as much for you.
Whether you are just starting your career, or in the midst of a personal or professional transition, now is as good a time as any to define your own style of leadership. Some questions you may ask yourself in the process include:
What are your specific strengths and values, and how do they color the way you lead?
What is your style of leadership?
Which spaces are most aligned with your leadership, and which are not?
If you’re on your own leadership journey, I strongly recommend reading “Dare to Lead“ by New York Times best-selling author Dr. Brene Brown. This book will help you become braver as you cultivate the courage to lead from the heart.
Develop a holistic approach to leadership
Leadership starts within. It is after all, the capacity to lead. So it cannot, and should not, be confined to the bounds of some office space, boardroom, or professional arena. As women especially, our leadership tends to permeate every area of our lives, from motherhood, to relationships and work. This is exactly what makes us capable of leading in very unique, authentic and effective ways.
As you reframe your own leadership, let it build up from everything you bring to the table as a working woman and mom. How you lead at home will impact how you lead in the workplace, and vice-versa. There are no compartments really. There are only parts that can and should integrate one with the others, like puzzle pieces that ought to work together to create a full, and fulfilling picture of a life well-lived.
Some questions you may ask yourself include:
How does the way I lead at home or in my relationships inform the way I lead at work?
What are the skills, strengths and values I bring to my leadership outside of the workplace? How can I repurpose them professionally? And vice-versa?
What kind of leader am I in the various areas of my life? And how can I embrace a holistic leadership approach encompassing all the spaces I evolve in?
In her book ” Lead from the outside“, political leader, serial entrepreneur and New York Times best-seller Stacey Abrams discusses harnessing the strengths of being an outsider. As she argues that differences in race, gender and class are surmountable, she also helps to see leadership in a more authentic way.
Adapt, pivot and change
Nothing remains the same. Developing your own capacity to lead is also developing your ability to adapt, pivot and change. From remote work to the advent of artificial intelligence, the world of work continues to evolve. So must we continue to adapt and evolve as well…
Transitioning careers has taught me invaluable lessons on the power of adapting, while remaining authentic to one’s purpose. As a matter of fact, had this transition not happened, I would probably not have stumbled upon my own capacity to lead. Change is often the catalyst that spurs us to step into areas of ourselves we may not have suspected, or may have previously minimized. So if there is an area of growth or change that you have been resisting, this may be your sign to use it as an opportunity to adapt, pivot and change.
Some questions you may ask yourself include:
What are the changes that are happening in my personal and professional world?
How are these changes calling me out of my comfort zone?
What can I learn from and become through these changes as a leader?
If you’re looking to develop your capacity to adapt, pivot and change, “Who Moved My Cheese?” is an absolute read. This book offers a simple yet so effective approach to handling change and personal growth.
All in all, since the dawn of times, women have reclaimed leadership despite the fear and uncertainty surrounding them. Today is no exception. By reframing your own style of leadership, building it up from the sum of your life experiences, and developing your own capacity to adapt, you can do the same, on your own terms.
The other day, I innocently asked Dear Daughter why she did not ask me to go to the store instead of her dad. To which she quickly responded: “Mom, you’re kind of cheap…” After the initial maternal hurt and shock, coupled with the realization that my dear child also believes buying all of Sephora amounts to a very affordable purchase, I got to thinking about what financial power truly means for working women and moms.
For as long as I can remember, I’ve valued financial security. Raised by a single mom who often reminded us kids that money doesn’t grow on trees, I understood the value of money very early on. However, for the longest time, this understanding was coupled with fear. It was the same fear that also kept me paralyzed when it came to money matters later on in life, from negotiating my salaries to learning to invest. Fast-forward a few decades punctuated by personal growth, marriage, motherhood, and career changes, and my financial outlook has been on quite the journey along with me. The more I learned to value myself and my unique purpose, the more my outlook on money morphed from fearful reliance to secure appreciation.
GENDER PERSPECTIVES ON FINANCIAL POWER.
The reality is, much of our money mindset and attitudes about money are often rooted in gender-based social conditioning. Indeed, research clearly shows men and women hold different conceptions of money. While men tend to consider money as a success and power symbol, women tend to consider money both as a source of security and anxiety. Men also tend to be more prone to pursuing financial investments than women. However, both genders share similar attitudes toward monitoring savings and expenses.
WOMEN’S FINANCIAL CHALLENGES.
Women are also no strangers to significant financial challenges. One of the latter can be summarized in one simple but loaded word: “Busyness”. According to an April 2023 Pew Research report, women complete on average 4.6 hours of housework as compared to 1.9 hours for men. Where both spouses share the same earning power, women take on 6.9 hours of household chores vs. 5.1 hours for men. This disparity obviously and significantly reduces women’s availability and ability to dedicate time to financial education and growth.
Indeed, the 2021 Survey of Household Economics and Decision Making (SHED) reveals substantial gender differences in financial literacy. While this is partially due to lack of motivation and confidence, other factors such as the wage gap, time spent by women outside the workforce, and the inequity in gender’s responsibilities at home, are also to blame. Considering women tend to live on average longer than their male counterparts, these staggering differences tend to impact them more heavily.
THE FEMINIZATION OF WEALTH.
Despite these challenges, women are thankfully far from being out of the financial game. If you’ve heard of the Great Wealth Transfer, you may know it’s an enormous shift of financial ownership in the United States set to occur in the next couple of decades. Currently, half of the wealth in the US is held by Boomers. However, in the next 20 years, it is predicted to land in the hands of a majority of women. As women tend to live longer than men, more women Boomers will be in charge of their family’s wealth. Additionally, a record number of single millennial women are set to inherit most of the future wealth. As a result, by 2030, American woman are predicted to manage at least $30 trillion in wealth. Which is more than the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), in the hands of women! Talk about the feminization of wealth…
FINANCIAL WELLNESS IS SELF-CARE.
For all these reasons and beyond, financial self-care is now more than ever an absolute necessity for women. Caring for one’s finances as a working woman and mom is an act of radical self-care and community care. Indeed,financial self-care impacts families and communities by enlarging the pool of available financial resources, and providing positive examples for other women. It also requires reshaping what wealth means to and for women…
RESHAPING WOMEN’S FINANCIAL POWER.
For far too long, women have had a complicated relationship with money. I know I certainly have. Whenever I used to think about money, I would also think “stress”. And I’m far from being the only one here… According to a 2023 Fidelity Investments survey, stress is the first word women use to describe their feelings about money. Meanwhile, men tend to associate finances with the word “hopeful”. Difference much?
The 2022 Ipsos study published in the Women, Money, Confidence: A Lifelong Relationship report indicates most women manage their day-to-day finances well. However, it appears they struggle with longer term financial goals such as paying down debt, retirement and emergency savings.
Faced with these challenges, redefining wealth as women also means:
– CHANGING OUR MONEY MINDSET
I don’t know about you, but I’ve certainly struggled with a scarcity mindset about money. While I’ve always made it a point to budget, save and invest, it was more out of a sense of lack and fear, than a belief in abundance and purpose. It took literally changing my mind about what financial security and power really mean, to even begin my journey into financial growth. And this is more gender-based than we often want to believe… Research shows while men tend to exhibit a higher risk tolerance as related to financial decisions, women tend to prioritize financial security and be more risk-averse. These biological and psychological gender differences result in the different money mindsets exhibited by women and men.
However, changing our money mindsets as working women and moms doesn’t necessarily equate behaving like men. Rather, it means identifying our money fears and addressing them as proactively, and effectively as possible. Many of these fears come from traumas passed on from generation to generation as early as in childhood. Debunking these while renewing how we view and think about money, is an indispensable part of growth and evolution.
Realizing our worth as working women and moms is a lifelong journey of unlearning society’s gender value system. It’s the mental, spiritual and psychological process of shedding the burden of shame, guilt, and excessive self-sacrifice.
It’s also a matter of re-learning our values in our personal and professional life, wherever finances are concerned. At work, we may measure professional worth in terms of professional fit, personal fulfillment and salary expectations. On a personal level, it’s about educating ourselves financially in the short and long-term, using resources such as the book “Girls that Invest” by Simran Kaur. It’s also about developing an investment and financial mindset rooted in a spirit of financial abundance rather than scarcity.
– BOUNDARY UP!
Last but not least, implementing strong financial boundaries is key to stepping into our financial power. Most importantly, learning to say “no” to internal or external financial pressures, in order to say “yes” to financial growth and empowerment, is crucial. This can take the form of flexible budgeting, wise investments, or strong personal limits.
Setting, and keeping, financial boundaries has certainly been an ongoing journey for me. As financial power takes on very many different forms through the various seasons of our life and work, it requires different evolving versions of ourselves as well. Awareness then is the first step to creating, adjusting and upholding effective financial boundaries.
IN CONCLUSION…
All in all, stepping into our financial power, especially at the dawn of the feminization of wealth era, is a lifelong journey. However, in light of the Great Wealth Transfer set to occur in the U.S. in the next decade, it is more relevant and important than ever. Despite its challenges, stepping into our financial power as working women and moms may just be one of the most enlightening and rewarding journeys of our lives and careers. One that holds the unique potential and power of teaching us about our worth, our power and the legitimacy of our own unique purpose.
How will you step into your financial power in this season?
