We designed a survey that these women completed at home, in private. They considered what “having it all” meant to them personally, and defined what their ideal life would entail. We asked what aspects of their life were most important to bringing a sense of fulfillment and happiness. Did it mean carving out time for mental health and exercise? Was it managing a team of accomplished employees at a top-performing firm? Or was it dedicating one’s life to philanthropy? Did it allow for spending time caring for others? They also told us about the women in their lives whom they rely on when making some of their biggest decisions, like whom to date, when or if to have kids, or how to finish school and land the right job. These were their support networks.
A few weeks later, we sent a cryptic invitation to these women and their support networks, inviting them to an address in a posh neighborhood in New York City. The invite wasn’t as creepy as that might sound, but it wasn’t all that informative either. We told them we wanted a chance to learn more about what they wanted in life, and hoped they could bring their mom, their sister, best friend, law school study partners, or whoever else they had indicated were the women they relied on the most. They didn’t know it, but it was a social experiment. Not one that would stand up to the rigors of the peer-review process that scientists undergo when publishing their academic work in professional journals, but one that would adhere to the same principles. We had a hypothesis about the process by which women define their ideal lives, but we were going to let the data tell us whether or not we were right.
Before the date on the invitation, I had some prep work to do. I met with the film production crew who would be capturing the experience and creating a video to share the results. The crew and I talked about who the women were, the challenges they were facing in their lives at the moment, and the questions I would ask that could uncover what was holding these women back from living the lives they really wanted. We talked about the psychological reasons people get stuck making the same decisions, again and again, that don’t bring them happiness in the long run. And we batted around ideas on what inspires people to change.
Then the conversation turned to clothing. Particularly mine. No one has ever accused me of being fashion-forward, and that was especially the case after Mattie joined our family. Time was a precious resource, and I didn’t go shopping for much more than diapers on the Internet in those days. When the production team began asking me about the contents of my wardrobe and evaluating whether any of it would work for the shoot—a day and a half away—I panicked. The filmmaker leading this project was Lucy Walker, and she had tight prescriptions for what would work on camera. My closet was certain to disappoint. She was out of my league both professionally and personally. She was schooling me on some recent report on psychological research she’d just read in the news, results I hadn’t heard about yet, while looking like she was fresh off a visit to Donatella Versace’s personal closet. Two of her films had been nominated for Academy Awards, and several more had been named best picture at film festivals in pretty much every country that holds them. Coincidentally, on one of our first dates Pete and I had ended up at the Museum of Modern Art for a world premiere of one of her films, and sat next to the musician Moby, who did the film’s music and who used to DJ with Walker in New York City. Also, she wears velour without looking ironic.
Walker specified that my outfit should have sleeves. No tight patterns. Saturated colors. No logos. Professional but interesting. Contemporary but enduring. After the list came in, all that I had left that would fit the bill was shoes, and those likely wouldn’t appear on camera. My schedule was tight and I had only a two-hour window to flesh out my staid and outmoded wardrobe. I whipped through every store in SoHo that fell along and within a three-block radius of my route from the production team’s office to my apartment. I bought everything that met her specifications and hoped that the return policies would be generous when Walker turned down my selections. I snapped some extremely unflattering selfies as I tried on the clothes in the dressing rooms. I sent them on to Walker’s production team. All my choices failed. They decided to call in a specialist to take over.
A fashion consultant called me within the hour and asked a few questions about sizes and style. I gave numbers for the first and reported having none for the second. She was on the case. By the next day, she promised, she would procure the contents of a new closet that blended Walker’s requirements and my partialities. “Trust me,” she said. “I know what you’re after. Check out my website. You’ll look great and the camera will love it.” As soon as we hung up, I pulled up her site. It read like a Pinterest page, full of pictures; featured prominently were photographs of people dressed exclusively in body art and tattoos. I went to bed scared.
In the end, there was no need for my fear. The dress the consultant picked out was perfect. But even more important, the social experiment we conducted that day went off without a hitch and the results were particularly enlightening.
When the women and their social-support networks showed up to the address on the invitation, my fashion consultant was prepared to freshen any of their outfits too, should they need it. And sound engineers were tucking away microphones in the most unusual places on each participant. I wore mine in a belt around my upper thigh, like a scientific superhero with secret powers of amplification.
After all the prep work, I met the women next door. The production team had transformed an empty storefront into a one-day pop-up “shop.”
When these women walked in, they were surprised. This wasn’t a usual store or a normal shopping experience. But that was the point. I explained that today they would be shopping for their ideal life. I encouraged each woman to think about what she really wanted to accomplish in every facet of her life. Each section of the store offered selections, and she should fill her basket with choices that reflected her biggest aspirations that could be realistically achieved. The women saw jars, bottles, bags, canisters, and tubes. Each one was labeled with something like 40–60 HOUR WORK WEEK, NANNIES, DONATING TO CHARITY, and COOKING HEALTHY MEALS. I handed a basket to each woman and sent them off into the store to shop.
After a while, they brought their shopping baskets up to me at the checkout counter. They didn’t know it, but I had the survey responses that they had completed weeks earlier at home, and I knew what areas of life were most important to each woman. At checkout, I combed through the products they’d selected and compared these choices to what they had said in the survey.
I found that these women were determined and motivated. Compared to what they’d said on their survey form, when they shopped for their ideal life in the store, 89 percent of the women formed more ambitious goals. Even more interesting, what I found countered the stereotype that all women are striving to “have it all.” Instead, I found that these women all wanted a special life that was unique and different from what the other women in the store wanted, and that’s where they intended to focus their efforts. Seventy-seven percent of the women who set more ambitious goals in the store made these choices in the domains they had said were the most important aspects of their lives. They weren’t trying to achieve the highest standards in all facets of life. They aimed for the top in those areas that they personally found most satisfying, and those areas varied from one person to the next.