Do women lack ambition?” the Harvard Business Review asked 20 years ago, like a misogynist comedian wondering if women can be funny. But do we? Do I?
It’s complicated. I internalised the gen X contempt for visible striving early and we joked about the one openly ambitious girl at school (she’s now a CEO whose £3.2m pay package I read about this year; the joke’s on me). My professional life started aimlessly, in a job I hated; I had two children in quick succession at least partly to get time off work. I was nearly 35 before I accepted and acted on my deeply repressed ambition – to write – then tackled it with a white-hot determination that came at real detriment to my personal life. Now 49, my work excites and challenges me, but I’m also conflicted. I’m constantly anxious, stressed and comparing myself unfavourably to my peers. My hips ache from all the desk hours; I wish I was fitter and had more time to read, garden and see friends. My slightly older husband has a better work-life balance and I sometimes look up from my laptop to see him heading off to do something fun and fulfilling and think: ‘Is this really what I want, and if so, why?’
