"Tech Bros and Girl Bosses" is a two-part series on the role of technology and science in the lives of Millennials and others in the Crisis Era and the COVID-19 pandemic. Part One - "Silicon Valley" focuses on the male-centric side of technology in the current crisis. Part Two - "Glass Ceiling" focuses on the female-centric side of economics in the current crisis.
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If anyone seemed eligible to be named a #GirlBoss in the nineteenth century, it would have been Mary Shelley. She had a literary pedigree, a strong education, and was intelligent, talented, and well-read. Her father had plenty of connections to the literary intelligencia of the day. Her husband was a talented and respected poet, and the son of a baronet. And yet, her personal life, professional reputation, and personal writings do not betray the self-importance that was so endemic to the Romanticism.* That she desired to write well is evident. That she desired fame is not. Frankenstein is a cautionary tale-- one that today's ambitious women and men might do well to remember.
Perhaps Mary Shelley was cautious because she lived with so much disappointment and betrayal. At various turns she would be shunned by her father, her father's friends, and her husband's family. Her half-sister committed suicide. Three of her four children would die in youth. Her husband would eventually seek other love interests and perish in a sailing accident at the age of thirty. For Mary Shelley, writing (of all forms: travel journals, novels, editing, etc.) became a means to support herself and her young son-- not a passionate, fulfilling career.
But today's Millennials face disappointment and betrayal of a different kind, and as the Fourth Turning brings these feelings to the forefront, our culture begins to strain under the weight of the reckoning.
BRIGHT, HOT, AND GONE
What happened to the promise of the Millennials, the HERO generation that was supposed to conquer the world with teamwork? They were so smart, so good, so ready. They would follow their passions. They would transform the workplace. They would save us all.
The stakes were especially high for Millennial women. Raised and educated in world of post-Third Wave Feminism, they were full expected to pierce the fabled glass ceiling. The road to success was paved. The heroes fully equipped. All they had to do was go out there and take it.
Except that no one told them about the sacrifice.
The sacrifice that was inevitable, and would take a toll on not just them, but society itself.
Success is a slippery thing: It has different meanings for different people. It's hard to hold onto. And it can be faked.
Millennials have been hit hard by all three.
In 2003, the oldest Millennials were turning twenty-one; presumably ready to enter the workforce. Only a couple of years earlier, the nation had suffered the September 11th terrorist attacks and the DotCom crash. Discouraged by the rippling economic effects and hoping for a better payday on the other end, some entered graduate school, adding to their student loan debt. Others entered the emerging gig economy, patching together a paycheck out of miscellaneous part-time jobs. The housing bubble burst in 2008, and the lingering Great Recession has bled into the ongoing COVID-19 Crisis.
What does success look like in the Unraveling of the Third Turning? Or the Crisis of the Fourth?
Survival alone might have been good enough. But the narrative never changed. Year after year, graduating Millennials were encouraged to pursue their passions and find their dream jobs. "You can be anything you want when you grow up," their parents, teachers, and guidance counselors would say. And whatever that passion or dream was, they were expected to WIN.
But is winning an event, or a lifestyle? Consider Sofia Amoroso, the founder of the NastyGal fashion brand and author of #GIRLBOSS, an autobiography offering advice from her own success in business. In 2016, she was one of Forbes' richest self-made women, worth $280 million. She was 32 years old. And in 2017, NastyGal filed for bankruptcy.
Meanwhile, social media forums (especially those with heavy visual orientation such as Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok) have grown up alongside Millennials, encouraging them to compete with each other over the appearance of success. From carefully edited selfies to outright frauds, the hashtag "#nofilter" has become a joke. Thanks to Big Tech, the photo and video editing tools that once lay solely in the hands of professionals are now in the hands of everyone-- further enabling the lies.
REALITY BITES
If Tech Bros are Victor Frankenstein, Girl Bosses are The Creature.
Raised with egos of enormous proportion, like Victor's eight-foot, muscle-bound Creature, the Girl Bosses were expected to kick ass and look good doing it. But over and over, the Creature would not find fame, fortune, or even love from those around him. Instead, he would experience repeated disappointment and betrayal.
His creator, Victor Frankenstein, abhorred and abandoned him from the moment he was brought to life. Though the Creature invisibly aided a blind man's family, they turned on him as soon as his face was revealed. And while Victor at last promised to create a mate for it, he later demurred and destroyed his work-- securing the Creature's wrath and a promise to do the same to Victor.
Disappointment is the result of unmet expectations. Betrayal is the result of broken trust.
Millennial women have experienced both, because they were told that they could "have it all." And as the oldest of them stands on the brink of 40, realization is beginning to dawn: they can't have it all, and for some of them, it's almost too late.
WORK
When challenged by the lackluster economy, Millennials were encouraged to simply try harder. As the former editor of Teen Vogue writes for The Cut,
"I worked with women who earnestly posted serif-font graphics on social media about how 'it’s not luck; it’s hard work' and Instagram Stories about the importance of hustle. They had unironically subscribed to the girlboss ethos. These were women who got up at the crack of dawn to go to the gym, who worked after-hours on their side projects, who were motivated by something deeper than the byline or the cover of a magazine. For them, the girlboss provided a map showing the way out of the conditions they were living in."
But for a generation more divorced from religion than those prior, this devotion became a religion in itself, known as "workism." As Derek Thompson writes in The Atlantic, "The rise of the professional class and corporate bureaucracies in the early 20th century created the modern journey of a career, a narrative arc bending toward a set of precious initials: VP, SVP, CEO. The upshot is that for today’s workists, anything short of finding one’s vocational soul mate means a wasted life." For women, bursting that glass ceiling meant literally everything. But Thompson also notes that "The problem with this gospel—Your dream job is out there, so never stop hustling—is that it’s a blueprint for spiritual and physical exhaustion."
Employers have been eager to reap the benefits of hardworking hustlers, but in some cases, jobs have never been less fulfilling: the daily work is untethered from tangible reward, wages have stagnated due to a risk-averse culture, and our society has seemingly forgotten the purpose of leisure. In her viral article, Audible-exclusive audiobook, and best-selling book, author Anne Helen Petersen discusses how this perfect storm has led to Millennials becoming the "Burnout Generation"**, and how hard it is to escape the cult of workism.
FAMILY
Many Millennial women have also been persuaded to put childbearing on the back burner as they pursued their careers. The idea that these "trappings" of the traditional female family role would keep women from self-actualization goes all the way back to second-wave feminism, but has received an extra push in third-wave feminism. Contraception and abortion have played dual roles in keeping birth rates historically low. A study from American Enterprise Institute found that workism itself is also to blame: "[...] even women who desired smaller families were falling short of having the number of children that they wanted," and it may be because "both men and women are deriving more value from work, which often directly competes with family for time and attention."
Even though The Pill was introduced in 1960 and Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973, a newer technology has entered the fertility fray. In-vitro fertilization and other reproductive assistive technologies have produced at least one million births in the US between 1987 and 2015, but their availability has been yet another inducement to delay childbirth. Some companies (notably, many in Silicon Valley) have offered to cover egg freezing for employees. This seems generous, but many women are misled about the actual success rates for IVF and later-age pregnancy, especially after age 40. While employers get the benefit of delayed parental leave and the lion's share of their employees' attention, that someday-baby may never come, even when mom (and dad) are ready.
LOVE & MARRIAGE
Marriage, which may or not proceed the baby carriage in a postmodern world, is also delayed by Millennials. Seen more as a capstone than a cornerstone, and fraught with the possibility for a messy divorce, marriage is something to do later-- possibly after cohabitating or getting one's career in order. But even finding a suitable partner is difficult. Men are more reluctant to marry because of the financial penalties involved in divorce, and many perceive the #GirlBoss world as hostile toward their own ambitions and desires, or prohibitive to their own earning potential.***
Dating apps (such as Tinder and Bumble) have further complicated the scene, creating a sense of endless options, unrealistic standards, and (ironically) lack of connection. As one user said, "People become more disposable because there are so many new people you can meet, and you’re judging someone based on a picture." And although older men are seemingly able to take their pick of what's offered on the apps, older women find it increasingly difficult to attract attention from their male peers. Meanwhile, divorce and delayed marriage can have a significant impact on the long-term financial well-being of women, leaving older, single Millennials in a precarious situation.
ENOUGH ALREADY
The author of an article titled "Scambition: Is That All There Is?" has an interesting idea: "Thinking of burnout as a form of betrayal is illuminating, because it frames burnout not as a solitary experience — an agony you battle alone, something that's your sole responsibility to heal from — but a relationship in conflict. [...] the details of the conflict vary, but the core problem remains the same: Workers feel betrayed by their employers."
Some Millennial women are realizing that they if things stay the way they are, they'll end up exhausted, childless, #ForeverAlone, and financially insecure. Some of them are already there, especially in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. They're broken-hearted, they're angry, and they're not going to take it anymore.
But the Crisis Era is exactly the time for this kind of self-examination. As Millennials re-evaluate their lives, the culture as a whole is re-evaluating its values. The Great Resignation (or "Big Quit") is only the beginning. More families are choosing to homeschool their children. Divorce rates appear to be dropping. Theological schools are seeing an increase in enrollment. Roe v. Wade stands a strong chance to be overturned in 2022. And "cottagecore" is a newer, softer, trending image of femininity outside of the pantsuit.
In Strauss and Howe's The Fourth Turning, the turns in the saeculum are compared to the seasons. The Crisis Era is Winter. So what should you do in this season of discontent?
Look to the future, and imagine Spring.
It's not too late to stand up to the abuse, give that relationship a try, take the plunge to start a family, or begin to walk with God. Dig down deep, and figure out what means the most to you. Ask what will last-- ten, twenty, forty years into the future, and start building now what you want to see then. Just remember, glass and silicon are both made from sand. And sand is a terrible foundation for anything.
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* "Readers who know well the writings of William Godwin, Mary Wollstonecraft, and Percy Shelley often notice how different Frankenstein is in spirit from their work, how much less trustful Mary is of creativity, the imagination, intellectual ambition, and writing itself. Her feelings towards her parents and lover [...] were decidedly mixed: her admiration of each was strong, but so was resistance and suspicion...." (p. ix), Frankenstein, Norton Critical Edition (W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1996)
** Article contains some language
*** See Men on Strike: Why Men Are Boycotting Marriage, Fatherhood, and the American Dream-- and Why It Matters by Dr. Helen Smith, PhD (Encounter Books, 2014)