What Do Marissa Mayer's Decisions and Life Style Mean For the Rest of Us

I have not been a fan of Marissa Mayer from the beginning. I have no idea what she is doing to Yahoo and I don't care much about her business choices as a CEO. But as a woman, I think she is a traitor and to some, a hypocrite.

 

When she was five months pregnant, she took the job as the CEO of the powerful company. Some would say that is a step in the right direction for women's rights. Others would say, what were you thinking? Then, she decided to take only two weeks off maternity leave, which was completely ridiculous to me. It is also very indicative of where her loyalties and interests lie, and it's not with the working mommy. This week, I read an article that she has decided that all telecommuters working from home at Yahoo will begin working from the office, which has been met with criticism and anger, and she is even been referred to by NetworkWorld.com as "CEO of the year 1955."

 

Mayer was picked for this position carefully and on purpose. No company in their right mind would appoint a 5 month old pregnant woman as their brand new CEO, no matter how much they've accomplished, without an alternative agenda. In my opinion, they have several: 1) "Marissa Mayer is the poster child for what a woman CAN accomplish, if she sacrifices her life and well-being and gets 'better' at balancing her priorities." 2) "If this woman can deal with having a baby and coming back to work two weeks later, than all women can." 3) "We need a woman with a newborn to be the bad guy for our plans for the company, because if it's coming from her mouth, people won't be as angry."

 

And you know what? She is more than willing to play that part because this is a woman who very clearly wants to be the best and will do what it takes to make that happen, even completely ignore the position she could be in to make a difference in women's issues and workplace obstacles. She loves being the woman in charge. Women bosses like her always do. I've worked for several women bosses in my day. And there is only one that comes to mind as one I would actually work for again. If you are reading this, you know who you are. (insert winky face here) I have only had one woman boss who cared more about me and who wanted to help me rather than be horribly mean and ugly to me. While they all taught me alot about being successful at my job as a woman, they simultaneously taught me alot about how not to be a woman anyone liked or wanted to work hard for. I hate to say it, but women bosses like Mayer are the antithesis of what employees want because they care nothing about the employees and care more about the accolades they are receiving from all the men on the board.

 

I already think it's an embarassment, the thing we call "maternity leave" in this country. Six weeks is non-sense in my opinion, when other coutries, like France, greatly value home life and offer much more flexibility, not just with maternity leave but childcare help as a whole. And according to Strocel.com, "France has a high proportion of mothers in the work force compared to other countries." Hmm. Imagine that, we give women and families the flexibility and help necessary in the early part of children's lives and woman actually want to work more and work harder? Not in the US, though. We appoint this yahoo (pardon the pun) to be the example of what a working mother should be.

 

Oh, did I mention that Mayer built a $5 million nursery attached to her office? Now, if that isn't the most hypocritical thing I've ever heard. I am hoping she understands how horribly this comes off to her employees and installs a work-place daycare area so other moms of young children can bring them, too. Or is she the only one that needs to benefits from this because she is the CEO? Oh, and coincidentally enough, I searched but could not find a news article on Yahoo regarding this topic. Imagine that.

 

What do you think of Marissa Mayer? Is she a visionairy for mother's and employee's rights or is she bringing us back to the 50's with her ideas?