Lean Cuisine recently and inexplicably launched a campaign asking women to "explore what having #ItAll" means to us. In a social experiment conducted by the brand, women encouraged each other to define more ambitious personal choices about what #ItAll means to each of us. Hopefully all that collective striving doesn't make us hungry. The Lean Cuisine version of Lean In is apparently fueled by low-cal, frozen, controlled portions.

It's all a little hard to swallow. Yet at the same time, it's an inadvertently apt illustration of the contradictory, often conflicting expectations that women face. Have it all, but don't eat #ItAll. Or have it all, but choose only what's important to have.

All of this is on my mind because last week, my friend and first cousin Elisabeth Cohen published the novel, The Glitch. It's the story of Shelley Stone, a wife, mother, and tech company CEO, who is committed to living her most efficient life. To have it all, she takes her "me time" at 3:30 a.m. on the treadmill, swallows Dramamine* so she can work in the car, and buys a men's multivitamin because she refuses to participate in her own oppression. The novel spans genres as part satire, part sci-fi and part mystery. It becomes #ItAll in its exploration of trying to have #ItAll, which I love.

Over the course of our adult lives, Elisabeth and I have had an ongoing conversation about how "having it all" is laden with expectation and fraught with emotion, which are themes she explores in her novel. For us, it's less about "having it all" and more about finding the best way to keep it all together. Since many of you are likely having these conversations in your own lives, this week I proposed publishing an interview on the topic. Elisabeth readily agreed (thanks!). Here's our conversation on the topic.

Me: What was the zeitgeist when you started writing?

EC: When I started writing The Glitch, Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In had just come out, and Marissa Mayer was the new CEO of Yahoo, and I kept seeing them in the news talking about how easily they combined a high-powered job and motherhood, and I kept thinking—wow, is there some secret to this I’m missing?

It just didn’t seem reflective of my experience, or the experience of my friends. I think it’s possible to work and have kids—I mean, I know it’s possible. But it’s not easy, and I wanted to write a story that was honest about the contradictions that working mothers face: to clock long hours at work but also be a devoted, hands-on mom; to prioritize family but in a way that never interferes with a meeting or work event; to be strong and aggressive but come across as pleasant and “nice”; to be attractive but also smart; to have gravitas yet not look old. 

Shelley Stone, my heroine (I’ve noticed power women often have alliterative names!), thrives, at least in the beginning of the book, because of her ability to identify all these contradictory expectations and manage them. I hope my book will be entertaining to readers who are facing some version of these same pressures.

Me: Your thoughts on working mothers?

EC: I’ve never worked as hard as I have as a working woman with kids. No matter how much I put into it, I feel like I’m often coming up short, either shortchanging my kids, my job, or myself. I wrote most of this novel while I was working full-time and raising young kids, and that sounds crazy, but it gave me a place to put all my stress. I woke up early to write, and it was the one time in my day when my time was (usually) mine alone.

Some people do really well with a tight schedule and a lot of pressure. I want to be able to be sick occasionally, or have an off day—to not always have to be relentlessly productive. And I feel like that isn’t in the cards for working mothers. It feels like you’re supposed to be superhuman, and good luck to you if you’re not.

Sheryl Sandberg has said she leaves the office at 5:30 sharp and logs back on later, but the idea of logging back on at night is so depressing to me. I want to read a book or watch TV or see a friend. It’s like, what is the point of modern life and connectivity and all this effort if at the end of the day, all you win is the chance to do more work?

I don’t think working dads feel these pressures in the same way. Maybe it’s partly that on average they do less housework, or they aren’t as concerned with societal expectations. There’s a level of anxiety I carry with me at all times that my husband doesn’t have. He’s a great dad, and incredibly involved with our kids, but he has an ability to tune out certain things. He doesn’t read all the emails from school, and he doesn’t feel bad about that. I feel an obligation to read them all.  

Me: What do you hope will come of this off-kilter satire?

EC: By writing about a woman who relishes productivity and is well-suited to the intensity of her career, I hope my book reveals something about the pressures on working women. Women in positions of power are given so much less latitude than their male peers in terms of appearance, behavior, judgment, the sound of their voice, everything.

The Fortune 500 this year has 24 women CEOs; last year there were 32. There are so few women at this level, and it’s demoralizing to see the numbers drop.

Social science research shows that for women, likability and success are inversely correlated. How do you thread that needle? If we automatically believe that a decisive woman can’t be nice, then we’re shutting the door on this ever getting easier. We need to teach ourselves to think differently.

Have you read the book Dear Madame President by Jennifer Palmieri? One of the observations it makes is how hard it is to be the first female president when there’s no blueprint. A female presidential candidate not only has to be sharp on policy, she also has to figure out the right outfit for the debate. It may seem small, but it siphons off energy she could be using to prepare.

There has to be a way for women to succeed at the very top, so what is it? I hope my book, in its small way, offers one model of a strong, ambitious female CEO. Shelley’s far from perfect, but she’s hardworking, genuinely loves her work, and is good at what she does. We’re never going to get past the clichés and dead-end arguments and go further unless we think seriously about what a woman succeeding at the highest levels might look like, and consider the possibilities for what it could be.

Me: Agreed! And on that point of clichés and dead-end arguments, we need a different discussion than having it all. What should be the new having #ItAll?

EC: Having #some doesn't have the same ring, does it? I think #keepingittogether is a contender. Lately I've been trying to focus on what's most important, and distinguish between what I do that really matters and what's only about fulfilling expectations. I keep hearing that Childish Gambino song "Have Some Love." Maybe that's what we shoot for: have some love, have some work, and leave some room for dessert. That's a nicer way to think of those Lean Cuisine ads. It's not that you're going hungry, you're saving room in case there's cake. 

*Me: I confess I take Dramamine so I can work in moving vehicles when I travel. Elisabeth admits this detail was inspired by my questionable habit -- questionable because you have to drink a lot of coffee for this to be an effective approach to multi-tasking given the medicine's soporific effects. I don't do that other stuff!