When women can’t quit the emotional labor habit: “It’s hard to give up that gold star”

From Salon authored by Mary Elizabeth Williams:

“The number one accessory women are carrying around this season is their fury. Not that female anger is a new concept — we’ve been simmering for eons — but the articulation of our frustrations has made for some great recent literary fodder. The past several weeks already brought us Soraya Chemaly’s “Rage Becomes Her” and Rebecca Traister’s “Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women’s Anger.” Now, a year after her supremely relatable Harper’s Bazaar story on women’s emotional labor went viral, Gemma Hartley has put expanded on her argument in a wise and realistic new book. Appropriately titled “Fed Up: Emotional Labor, Women, and the Way Forward,” Hartley writes from the grounded perspective of a working mother of three who knows exactly the toll of the invisible work of keeping all the ships running smoothly.

But it’s not just a tome for mothers — it’s a call to action for every woman who’s had someone else’s drudgery dropped in her lap, an acknowledgment of the heavy lifting of simply building a home life. Salon spoke recently with Hartley about creating more balanced domestic dynamics — and why becoming the poster girl for emotional labor didn’t magically transform her own life.

“We’re trying to move the needle on something that has been set in stone for hundreds of years,” Hartley tells me. “It’s not an easy thing to do. With my husband, it’s a totally new concept for him. We as women are just now finding the language to talk about this, and then we’ve got to have the language to talk about it and then bring men into this completely foreign concept. It takes a lot more work than just, ‘Oh I get it now. I can explain it now.'”

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Another Biglaw Firm Gets On Board With Gender Neutral — And Longer — Parental Leave

From Above the Law authored by Kathryn Rubino:

“Well, this is a trend we can get behind. Fresh off the news that Fenwick & West stepped up with some impressive parental benefits, a tipster reached out with some exciting details about the parental leave being offered at White & Case.

Effective January 2018, the firm now offers 12 weeks paid leave for all Legal and Business Services employees who are new parents following the birth or placement of a child. The policy applies regardless of gender or primary caregiver status. This is in addition to disability leave for birthing mothers, which is typically 8-10 weeks.

One of the best features of the firm’s new program is the flexibility it provides. The new leave program allows new parents to take the time off consecutively or intermittently in a minimum of one-day increments, at any point in the first 12 months. Additionally, for parents who are adopting or fostering children, leave can be taken prior to the placement in order to ease the process.

For the firm, it’s part of a process of creating a top-notch work environment that allows their employees to build their careers.”

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The Problem With Being Perfect

From The Atlantic authored by Olga Khazan:

“When the psychologist Jessica Pryor lived near an internationally renowned university, she once saw a student walking into a library holding a sleeping bag and a coffee maker.

She’s heard of grad students spending 12 to 18 hours at a time in the lab. Their schedules are meant to be literally punishing: If they’re scientists-in-training, they won’t allow themselves to watch Netflix until their experiments start generating results. “Relationships become estranged—people stop inviting them to things, which leads them to spend even more time in the lab,” Pryor told me.

Along with other therapists, Pryor, who is now with the Family Institute at Northwestern University, is trying to sound the alarm about a tendency among young adults and college students to strive for perfection in their work—sometimes at any cost. Though it is often portrayed as a positive trait—a clever response to the “greatest weaknesses” question during job interviews, for instance—Pryor and others say extreme perfectionism can lead to depression, anxiety, and even suicidal ideation.”

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Meet the 2018 Glamour Women of the Year

From Glamour authored by Glamour:

“In the 28 years that we’ve celebrated Women of the Year—both in our pages and at our annual summit and awards ceremony—the stories of our honorees often start with the same idea: a woman that refuses to wait for someone else to make things better. Alone, or with an army behind her, she decides to act.

For our lifetime achievement winner, 97-year-old National Park Service Ranger Betty Reid Soskin, one of those moments came during planning meetings for the Rosie the Riveter Park. When it was clear her story as an African American woman was being left out, she didn’t sit silently. She spoke up and, as a result, the 60,000-plus visitors to the park each year learn a fuller version of history. Rachael Denhollander’s moment came when she stood in her kitchen and called the police, hoping she’d keep Larry Nassar from assaulting one more girl. Viola Davis made it her mission to stop the camera from overlooking unseen women—the maids, the wives, the grieving mothers—and kept at it for 30 years. Chrissy Teigen had an idea that social media could give all women a voice to share their passions and fears, while Kamala Harris is the politician women—and all Americans, for that matter—so desperately need.

We couldn’t be prouder to introduce you to Glamour’s 2018 Women of the Year. They are a diverse bunch, including a senator, an actress, and two groups of powerful young women fighting to make a lasting difference, but they have one thing in common: They aren’t waiting for the world to change; they’re getting the job done themselves.”

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When Michelle Obama told her mother she hated being a lawyer, her mom told her to ‘make the money, worry about being happy later’

From Business Insider authored by Andy Kiersz:

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‘Big Law Killed My Husband’: An Open Letter From a Sidley Partner’s Widow

From The American Lawyer authored by Joanna Litt:

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‘Siri, I’m getting pulled over’: A new shortcut for iPhones can automatically record the police

From Business Insider authored by Kif Leswing:

“There’s a big new feature for iPhone experts this year: It’s an app called Shortcuts, and with a little bit of logic and know-how, you can stitch together several apps and create a script that can be activated by pressing a button or using Siri.

Some early uses are predictable, like saving Instagram photos, sharing the song you’re listening to, or creating a morning routine that activates your lights and plays a song.

But Robert Petersen of Arizona has developed a more serious shortcut: It’s called Police, and it monitors police interactions so you have a record of what happened.

Once the shortcut is installed and configured, you just have to say, for example, “Hey Siri, I’m getting pulled over.” Then the program pauses music you may be playing, turns down the brightness on the iPhone, and turns on “do not disturb” mode.

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Michelle Obama Tells The Story Of ‘Becoming’ Herself — And The Struggle To Hang On

From NPR authored by Danielle Kurtzleben:

“In her new book, Becoming, former first lady Michelle Obama writes about the profound frustration of being misunderstood — of being pegged as an “angry black woman.” She writes about the discomfort of being a hyperaccomplished woman only recognized through her connection to a powerful man. She writes about the power in telling one’s own story, on one’s own terms.

So it’s perhaps a cruel irony that the first headlines about Obama’s book have been about her anger at Trump. And that’s because Trump, and Obama’s accompanying contempt toward him, occupies a minuscule sliver of this memoir — a handful of pages, most of them toward the very end.

In fact, it’s probably unfair to have mentioned him in the second paragraph of this review. Actually, let’s just start this whole thing over.”

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‘I Voted’ Stickers Pile Up In Emotional Tribute At Susan B. Anthony’s Grave

From NPR authored by Colin Dwyer:

“When Susan B. Anthony cast her ballot in the 1872 presidential election, it’s fairly safe to say the pioneering suffragist did not receive a sticker declaring, “I voted.” Instead of one of those little badges of civic honor, so ubiquitous in U.S. elections these days, Anthony received a pair of handcuffs — she was arrested for and convicted of voting nearly half a century before women finally won the right to do so.

Anthony never lived to see the 19th Amendment adopted. But on Tuesday, some people did their best to repay her sacrifice — with stickers. Lots and lots of stickers.

Beginning early in the morning, women left their polling places and descended on the cemetery where Anthony was laid to rest in Rochester, N.Y. There, in the drizzly gray of autumn, they plastered her gravestone with stickers of red, white and blue.”

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Mother of 5 whose law school graduation photos went viral passes bar exam

From CBS News authored by Christopher Brito:

“The single mother of five children whose law school graduation photos with her kids went viral is a big step closer to achieving her lifelong dream of becoming a lawyer. Ieshia Champs, 33, announced she passed the Bar exam in a Facebook post Monday.”

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