This Month in Having It All

October’s stories of work, family, and power

Each month, I gather stories that show us where the conversation around “having it all” is moving. It’s not about finding a single answer, but about noticing the patterns, provocations, and contradictions that shape how women’s lives are understood today.

Contradictions and Culture Wars

At HuffPost, Brittany Wong traces the long-standing paradox of conservative women who urge others to stay home while building their own public platforms — from Phyllis Schlafly to today’s influencer class.

Meanwhile, in The Spectator, Taylor Swift’s The Life of a Showgirl becomes a morality tale about fame, family, and feminist promise — arguing that global success is no substitute for marriage or motherhood.

Sara Petersen skewers the rise of “husband veneration content” — those smiling Instagram posts that make domestic devotion look like the new rebellion.

And in The New York Times, Trump’s prosecution of New York Attorney General Letitia James continues a familiar pattern: powerful women of color framed as threats to the system itself.

The Data of Domestic Life

A new paper by Having It All author Corinne Low shows that even when women earn more than twice as much as their partners, they still work fewer paid hours — because they’re still doing more at home.

A new survey from therapy provider Headway finds that 49% of new parents feel they’ve lost their sense of identity since having kids.

From The Guardian: one in five men who asked for family leave were questioned about where their wives were — as if care work were still “her job.”

And as Molly Dickens, PhD of the The Maternal Stress Project writes, the data gap isn’t just domestic — it’s generational. A new NBC poll shows a widening divide between what young men and women value most. “These men want kids,” she notes, “but do they want fatherhood?”

Power and Representation

In The New Yorker, former Finnish prime minister Sanna Marin reflects on work-life balance and the cultural limits of Nordic feminism. “We Nordic feminists don’t have your crazy working hours… We are no servants of men or market economy,” one academic quips.

I loved this conversation between Stacey Abrams and Robin Givhan about how women still lack a visual language for power — and the freedom that comes with inventing our own.

The Work — and Absence — of Intimacy

In Dire Straights, Amanda Montei and Tracy Clark-Flory argue that marital intimacy is the “fifth shift” of women’s labor — the invisible emotional and sexual work expected to keep relationships running.

In a very different conversation, actor Jodie Turner-Smith speaks to what it means to define family on her own terms. “I want to teach my daughter that she shouldn’t have to either because we live in a society that makes women feel that you can only be this or that… I really believe in creating a reality of both/and.” she says. “I want another baby but I don’t necessarily need the man to go along with it.”

And at the women’s strike in Iceland last week, which I attended as part of a press delegation, they played the brilliant song Labour, by UK singer-songwriter Paris Paloma. Check it out — I’m obsessed.

Building New Models

“If parents are exhausted,” writes therapist Tanith Carey iNews, “it’s because they’ve lost the village that once helped children survive and thrive.”

Kate Mangino and Rachel Childs’ new podcast Equal-ish explores how couples (mostly straight, but not only) navigate domestic equality — a practical complement to the data above.

And Sara Sadek writes about “breaking up with the nuclear family” and becoming platonic co-parents with her ex — a powerful critique of the traditional family model. I’d have shared this essay regardless, but I laughed when I opened her sample schedule and realized it almost exactly matches my husband’s and mine. My marriage isn’t perfect, but it’s a division I highly recommend.

What part of this month’s conversation hits closest to home for you? Hit reply and share what feels most alive — or unsettled — for you right now.

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🎧 Coming soon: Having It All — a documentary podcast about the cultural history of female ambition.