I once watched a remarkable role model complete her Ph.D. while raising five children, making it to her sons’ Little League games, and calmly leading a large hospital nursing staff.

The possibility of moving into a vice president role did not frighten her. She knew she could do the work. She also knew the needs of five children were real. The question was whether the rest of her life could absorb one more demand.

In her case, she and her husband, who also worked full time, had support from both sets of grandparents. One set handled laundry each week. The other prepared and froze meals. Standards for the children’s rooms were relaxed, to put it positively.

They were happy, busy people. But everyone, including the extended family, carried part of the load. That support allowed both parents to use their gifts in leadership.

Many families do not have grandparents ready to step in. When the demands become too much, it is still usually the woman who adjusts her career and absorbs more of the family’s needs.

Three things I read recently brought that tension into sharper focus. One examined what women are being taught about marriage. Another described the burdens working mothers continue to carry. The third offered a hopeful vision of how men and workplaces can help create something better.

Together, they reminded me that retaining women is never only a workplace issue.

Even doing less can become more work

A recent New York Times article explored the continuing popularity of Laura Doyle’s The Surrendered Wife. Many women credit Doyle’s approach with improving or even saving their marriages. Her message encourages women to relinquish control, offer greater respect and appreciation, and focus on changing their own behavior rather than trying to change their husbands.

There are parts of that message I understand. Respect matters. Appreciation matters. Most of us could benefit from trying less often to manage another capable adult.

But as I read, one question stayed with me:

Why is the woman still being assigned so much of the work of changing the relationship?

She must surrender control, soften her criticism, communicate differently, protect the intimacy, and create a more peaceful emotional climate. Even learning how to do less can become one more assignment for her to carry.

The work women carry is not imaginary

Lean In’s August 5 edition of The Lead marked Moms’ Equal Pay Day by describing the unfair pressures working mothers experience at work and at home.

At work, mothers still encounter assumptions that they are less committed or capable. At home, women frequently remain responsible not only for more visible housework and caregiving, but also for the mental load beneath it.

The mental load is more than completing a task. It is noticing that the task exists, anticipating when it will matter, deciding how it will be handled, and making sure it actually happens.

Women I coach may lead significant work all day and then return home to manage another complex operation. Life is rarely cleanly compartmentalized. The involved caregiver may be sitting in an important meeting while also remembering that a child needs poster board for tomorrow’s project and wondering when anyone will have time to get it.

A partner may willingly help, yet the woman remains the person who notices, organizes, delegates, and follows up.

These women are not necessarily asking to do less with their lives.

They are asking not to carry so much of life alone.

Fairness at home and work are connected

Economist Claudia Goldin has spent decades studying why women’s professional progress has not eliminated the earnings gap.

Her research describes the tension created by “greedy” jobs, which disproportionately reward long, inflexible, and unpredictable hours. When one partner can remain continually available to work only because the other stays on call at home, inequality within the couple and inequality at work reinforce one another.

In an October 17, 2023, excerpt from Career and Family, Goldin puts it plainly:

“When couple equity is thrown out the window, gender equality generally goes with it.”

Her point is not simply that couples should negotiate better. Work must also be structured so employees can share responsibilities, use flexibility, and care for their families without paying an outsized professional price.

Couples need a fairer division of care.

And workplaces need to make that possible.

Many men want to carry more, too

This is why Brad Johnson and David Smith’s new book, Fair Share, feels both timely and hopeful.

Brad and David are not merely telling men to try harder at home. They recognize that many men want to be equal partners, present fathers, and active caregivers. Yet outdated workplace norms still stigmatize men who use flexibility, take caregiving leave, or make their family responsibilities visible.

When men fear that caregiving will harm their careers, women often absorb more of the unpaid work and lose professional opportunities. That can leave families trapped in an old arrangement, even when neither partner truly wants it.

An equal partner does more than “help” when asked. He owns part of the household and caregiving work from beginning to end, including the noticing, planning, and remembering.

Speaking from my own experience, sharing responsibility also requires women to release some control. If my husband owns the poster-board problem, I have to accept that he may solve it differently than I would.

Sometimes that is easier said than done.

But shared responsibility asks something of both partners. One must be willing to release control, and the other must be willing to assume real ownership.

A fully engaged partner does not view his wife’s career as secondary to his own. He wants her to find fulfillment in her work and life, and he understands that her success does not diminish him.

But an equal partner also needs a workplace that allows him to be one.

Brad and David call organizational leaders to support caregiving leave, rethink outdated expectations of constant availability, and build fairness into ordinary workplace systems. We cannot encourage men to carry more at home while penalizing them for taking their full parental leave, declining a late meeting, or leaving in time for school pickup.

Women do not need another strategy for carrying more

That is the unifying thread I see.

Laura Doyle asks women to examine how they show up in marriage. Lean In names the unequal burdens women continue to carry. Claudia Goldin shows how family arrangements and workplace structures sustain career and earnings gaps. Brad and David invite men and organizational leaders to become active partners in changing both home and work.

Personal reflection matters. Partnership requires generosity, communication, respect, and appreciation from both people.

But personal change cannot substitute for shared responsibility.

We cannot coach women to lead boldly while ignoring the exhaustion waiting for them at home. We cannot ask men to become equal caregivers while quietly penalizing them for making care visible at work.

And we cannot retain accomplished women by continually teaching them how to endure unfair conditions more gracefully.

A fair share requires something from women, men, couples, and organizations.

Questions to carry into the week

• At home: Who notices, plans, and follows through, not merely who completes the visible task?

• For men: What household or caregiving responsibility could you fully own rather than waiting to be asked to help?

• For leaders: Do men in your organization feel genuinely safe using flexibility and taking their full caregiving leave? Are senior executives modeling that behavior?

• For organizations: Are you measuring excellent work, or rewarding employees who appear to have no responsibilities outside it?

• For all of us: What might become possible for women’s leadership if care were treated as shared human work?

What happens around the kitchen table eventually shows up around the conference table. It influences who can accept the promotion, attend the early meeting, travel without weeks of preparation, arrive with energy left to lead, and remain in a role long enough to make a lasting contribution.

That is why my consulting, coaching, and Women Leading Boldly groups focus on more than helping individual women navigate difficult systems.

Women need strategies for responding, clarity about what may be happening, and a community of people who support one another’s success. They also need partners and workplaces willing to change the conditions around them.

If we want accomplished women to stay, lead, and thrive, we must build homes and organizations where care is shared, ambition is not punished, and no one has to surrender an important part of themselves to make the rest of life work.

That is not asking for special treatment.

It is asking for a fair share.

Warmly,

Dawn

Research Notes

The New York Times. “Women Are Too Controlling, She Wrote. Her Message Still Resonates.” July 22, 2026.

LeanIn.Org. The Lead, Moms’ Equal Pay Day edition. August 5, 2026.

Claudia Goldin. “Gender Pay Gap? Culprit Is ‘Greedy Work.’” Excerpt from Career and Family: Women’s Century-Long Journey Toward Equity. Harvard Gazette, October 17, 2023.

W. Brad Johnson and David G. Smith. Fair Share: How Men and Women Can Create a More Equitable Workplace Together. Harvard Business Review Press, June 30, 2026.

P.S. Summer Recipe ☀️

Fresh lime juice makes this Avocado Corn and Bean Salad a refreshing choice for a hot summer day! Recipe credit: Lord Byron’s Kitchen.

Some salads are meant to be served as a side dish and some salads, like this Avocado Corn and Bean Salad, are hearty enough to be a main. Filled with heart-healthy vegetables, and tossed in an oil and lime juice dressing, this salad is refreshingly perfect for summer!