The constant pressure to be producing
Finding the ability to simply exist without having to prove it
The White Cape is a newsletter that shares the interests, evolution, and changing perspective of my little white Cape Cod-style home, and the people (mostly me) inside it.
This is a personal essay that touches on pregnancy, womanhood, and being a pregnant working woman in society. If these topics aren’t interesting to you at this time, feel free to skip this one.
Over the past few months I have found difficulty in keeping up with my “personal brand.” This is a phrase that’s tossed around at work constantly and is an indirect way of being told that you need to shape yourself in a way that other people will find pleasing. I have received feedback in the past that I need to “develop my personal brand,” meaning that in the eyes of others, I didn’t exist.
I spent the last five years agonizing over what this means for me, and how to shape myself in a way that would be convincing to others that I was worthy of continuing to have a job. After clutching onto my income stream during the pandemic, then managing being a working pregnant person, and returning to work with raging postpartum depression, I feel like last year was when I really nailed my personal branding.
I made a conscious effort to change the way I spoke (slower, with intention, as if I was speaking to an older person at all times), the way I presented myself (hair always blown out, makeup always on, clothes always put together), and the way I interacted with others in passing (overly friendly and open).
The quality of my work continued to improve over this time period, of course, but I believe that the changes to my personality are what got me to the next level.
Now, as a leader of four employees with very different needs, I am challenged to figure out how to give them the direction to figure it out for themselves.
Now, as someone who is nearly nine months pregnant with a toddler and house under construction, I need to figure out how to maintain consistency to prove that I am still worthy of the promotion and accolades I was given when I was literally in a different body.
The last few months have been eye-opening to me to see yet another insane difference in standards between men and women. I have been working primarily with superiors that are all men, and I am so embarrassingly aware that I am “the pregnant girl” in the group. Because of this, I have felt pressure to over-deliver, to continuously produce results and accolades for my team so not one single person questions whether I am capable of continuing to be employed.
I’ve felt pressure to produce at work, produce at home to maintain my half of the shared responsibilities, and produce within my body as my unborn baby’s last few organs develop fully. I walk around the world and see strangers staring at my body, as if I’m some sort of creature, and see their surprise when I speak in coherent sentences.
All this is to say that I have had to give myself grace in the other areas of my life that actually give me fulfillment. I’ve had to sacrifice moments of peace for myself in order to make sure I’m overcompensating for the way I’m being viewed by others. I’ve had to make sure my “personal brand” at work, at home, and in society is not tainted by the fact that I’m expected to constantly deliver, in ways beyond just the birth of my child.
recently so beautifully wrote about the things no one told her about the process of becoming a mother, and to me, this second time around, I am shocked by the infantilism I experience from society every day.Women are stronger than men because we need to be in order to survive. Pregnant women are stronger than anyone because we need to be able to survive while keeping our unborn child safe. It’s not just the physical pain, the bleeding, the tears, the milk, the infections, the sickness, the exhaustion, the delirium, the insanity, the mania. It’s all of that, plus the need to make everyone around them feel comfortable in the meantime.
As always, thank you for being here.
Kelly
The White Cape is a free publication. If you enjoyed this post, you can tell Kelly that her writing is valuable by subscribing, liking, commenting, or sharing this post.