Postcards
Yahoo's Mayer: "having it all" debate rages on
July 20, 2012: 2:18 PM ET
Mayer (with me) at Fortune's MPW dinner in Palo Alto Photo Credit: Asa Mathat
What a week! Just as we were starting Fortune Brainstorm Tech in Aspen, the rumors surfaced that Google (GOOG) VP Marissa Mayer would be chosen as Yahoo's (YHOO) new CEO. I called Mayer on her cell and left her a voicemail. She called back within five minutes and told me, "It's true."
Turns out Mayer, 37 -- who became the Fortune 500's youngest CEO and scored a $71 million pay package at Yahoo -- stunned us even more when she called back after Yahoo announced her appointment: "I'm pregnant," she said.
Fortune broke the story of Mayer's pregnancy. (She's due October 7, and it's a boy.) And she fueled the debate about whether successful working women can have it all.
The debate was already raging, actually, since last month when Princeton University's Anne-Marie Slaughter wrote "Why Women Still Can't Have It All." Slaughter's Atlantic cover story critiqued stars like Facebook (FB) COO Sheryl Sandberg who seem to do it all (with domestic help) and dare other aspiring women to try.
Let's continue the debate. It's healthy. And let's hope that other women like Mayer and Sandberg -- women who succeed at work and family -- surface as role models, as more corporate boards open up opportunities.
I shared my views with Charlie Rose and Gayle King on the CBS Morning Show. You can watch the clip here.
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Slaughter vs. Sandberg: Can women have it all?
The debate on women and work is only beginning. Women can't have it all? Or is it the case that they won't take it all?
First came Cherie Blair's hot-button comments about working women and motherhood, at the Fortune Most Powerful Women conference in London last week.
Then came an Atlantic magazine cover story, "Why Women Still Can't Have It All," in which Anne-Marie Slaughter, once a senior adviser to Secretary of MORE
Patricia Sellers - Jun 25, 2012 10:24 AM ET -
Power Point: Find support to do what you want
"In every culture we care too much about what others think. That's what the women's movement was about, creating a community that allows you to articulate what you want. But you will always face the challenges of others' expectations."
--Anne-Marie Slaughter, director of policy planning at the U.S. State Department during a gathering on Monday. Slaughter and several other women leaders from the State Department met with 32 rising stars from MORE
Jessica Shambora, Writer-Reporter - Apr 28, 2009 6:28 PM ET
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Sheryl Sandberg:
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In her first public interview since taking on the CEO gig at Yahoo, Marissa Mayer outlines her priorities both in and out of the company. Watch
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Fortune senior editor at large Pattie Sellers has written some of Fortune's most talked-about cover stories, including "Marissa Mayer: Ready to Rumble at Yahoo," "Oprah's Next Act," "Can Meg Whitman Save California?" "The $100 Billion Woman" (Melinda Gates), and "Remodeling Martha" (Martha Stewart). She has helped oversee Fortune's "Most Powerful Women in Business" package every year since its launch in 1998. Pattie is Executive Director of the Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit, the preeminent gathering of women leaders in business and beyond. She oversees MPW programs that enable women leaders to extend their influence and empower the next generation—such as Fortune MPW Entrepreneurs and the Fortune-U.S. State Department Global Women Leaders Mentoring Partnership. Beyond her Fortune duties, she is also developing Live Content across Time Inc. Pattie grew up in Allentown, PA, graduated from the University of Virginia, and started at Fortune in 1984. Her blog, Postcards, is about how power players lead, manage others, and navigate their careers.
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The Fortune/U.S. State Department Global Women Leaders Mentoring Partnership brings rising-star women from countries around the world to the U.S. for three-week mentorships with participants of the annual Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit - among them Ursula Burns of Xerox, Laura Lang of Time Inc., Marissa Mayer of Yahoo, and Tory Burch.
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