Dear Ambitious Men: You Can’t Have It All

If there’s one message I’ve had drummed into my head over the years, be it from interviews with accomplished women or self help articles in women’s magazines or Gelnn Close’s character in Damages, at it’s that women can’t have it all – the career and the happy well nurtured family that is. I get it. If I want those things, I need a wife, or at least some sort of domestic help (with a legal green card and to whom I pay a living wage of course). But if the last ten years have taught me anything, it’s that this women are not alone in having a personal/professional conundrum. Ambitious, powerful men have a dilemma themselves.  So please - Eliot Spitzer, John Edwards, Mark Sanford, Tiger Woods - a word to you, my friends:

You can’t have it all either. You can have the women or you can have the family, but you have to choose one.

Now, I’ve heard a lot of pundits expound vociferously on this topic over the last several weeks, but no one’s broken it down quite like I’m about to here, so listen up. As a culture, we pressure men to be successful, to make it to the top. The rewards of this success are power, money, and let’s face it, sex.  At the end of all this is uncomparable ego affirmation. As a man you become a political leader, a world-class athlete, you make it to the top of your profession – what’s driving you there?  These rewards.

However, we’ve set up this sort unfortunate dichotomy, which is that we expect these great leaders to follow cultural norms, namely monogamous marriage and family life.  But those norms and the values that we project onto marriage We like to see our leaders in a conventional marriage, because it confers these qualities onto them. A married man – someone who’s taken on emotional and economic responsibility for the family unit, etc. – is mature, loyal, and responsible.  Without marriage, we’re suspicious. As American’s we’ve had only a single bachelor president, no. 15 James Buchanan, and that was not for lack of trying (his fiancée allegedly committed suicide). I’d venture to say that conventional marriage is a pretty much a prerequisite of success.

Okay, still with me? The problem comes when we require traits in our leaders that put them into conflict with one of these rewards that lure men into these positions. Unsurprisingly, these great men in the moment succumb to sexual temptation. This of course compromised the implied moral firmament that was (at least in part) the foundation of their success. Not coincidentally, I think this is why you don’t hear about nearly as many scandals involving married women in high positions - because a woman’s sexual appeal is not enabled by her proximity to power.

So, ambitious men, you’ve got to make a choice – follow the family track and stick to it, or have the cajones to make it a go alone. But please, don’t get married if you don’t think you can handle it. Seriously, no judgment.

I think we as a culture need to embrace the unconventional whether that’s unmarried men, men with open marriages, non-traditional partnerships, whatever –we need to let men be self aware, and be okay with men whose personal relationships are outside social norms coming to power.  I’m okay with a sports star or even an elected official who’s middle aged and good looking and single sleeping around – as long as that doesn’t interfere with what he does for his profession. Frankly, I’d rather have an open and honest bachelor in office than some sorry married schmo who gives in to temptation weeping at a press conference and mea culpa-ing all the way to divorce court.  We as a society have to be more accepting, because we’ve put men into this impossible position.

So men, take heed. As fraught as women are (and heaven know we have our lights, quandaries and issues), we know you have yours too. More to come on this topic in future pots, I'm sure.

-TVB