To mark Women’s History Month, SCNR is profiling individuals who had a significant impact on women in their lives and communities. This year’s theme, “Women’s True Enemy – Other Women,” focuses on those whose actions harmed women or female-centered causes.The modern woman is told she can have it all – a relationship, kids, and a high-powered career.
This was undoubtedly true for Marissa Mayer, a tech executive who rose to the top and left other working moms wondering why she was not pulling them up behind her. Her professional choice that paralleled the growth of her family split female advocates who had declared her a feminist trailblazer.
Marissa Mayer was the youngest female chief executive officer to ever lead a Fortune 500 company when she was hired by Yahoo in July of 2012. At the time, she was five months pregnant with her first child and Yahoo was valued at nearly $4 billion.
Prior to joining the tech company, Mayer had been Google’s 20th employee and its first female engineer. She profited significantly when the company went public in 2004, opening the door to a lavish lifestyle. It was reported that, in 2006, she had 400 pieces of glass art from Dale Chihuly installed in her apartment – causing traffic throughout the area. Each piece of art sold for an average of $15,000, according to Business Insider.
Mayer married tech investor Zachary Bogue in 2009 in San Francisco. The Killers performed at their rehearsal dinner and the reception was held at the Four Seasons.
Her ascension up the ranks of Silicon Valley was heralded as a win for ambitious, professional women everywhere.
Mayer gave birth to her son in the fall of 2012 and took just two weeks of maternity leave. In preparation for her return to work, she paid to have a nursery built in her office so she could bring her newborn with her.
In February of 2013, a memo was sent out to Yahoo staff notifying them that by June, they would no longer be permitted to telecommute. They must come into the office.
“Speed and quality are often sacrificed when we work from home,” the notice said. “Being at Yahoo isn’t just about your day-to-day job, it is about the interactions and experiences that are only possible in our offices.”
The move was received like the sudden collapse of a building. Many of Mayer’s employees, as well as advocates for working mothers, were shocked and angered. Some even expressed a sense of betrayal.
“We looked at her getting made CEO for a Fortune 500 company and cheered,” Jennifer Owens, editorial director of Working Mother Media, told the New York Daily News. “We tried to make her our role model.”
“The shame of Marissa Mayer’s decision has nothing to do with her or her company; it’s the overall message that work flexibility is a perk that companies give to their employees, as opposed to a tool that has been proven to boost a company’s bottom line,” Lyss Stern, the founder of DivaLysscious Mom, told the outlet. “One of the main concerns among women surrounding Marissa Mayer’s decision to no longer allow working from home is this: Could she possibly be unintentionally sending an anti-woman or anti-mother message?”
In an imaginary open letter to Mayer from a pretend Yahoo employee, HuffPost contributor Kristen Kennedy noted some single parents have to miss work to stay home with sick children and that child care for non-school-aged children was a hefty financial burden to the average person.
“We working gals can't sacrifice getting ahead to take care of family needs, can we?” Kennedy wrote in the parody letter. “So if keeping my job means my daughter has to raise herself, I am ready to take that for the team!”
But modern feminism dictates women must stick together and other women were prepared to defend the CEO against accusations of hypocrisy. Another HuffPost contributor, Bonnie Fuller, defended Mayer and argued that the complaints about her in-office nursery were unfairly linked to the bitterness about the change in work-from-home rules.
“Mayer after all, has faced sexist criticism from the moment her appointment was announced,” Fuller wrote. “There are so few female CEOs of large companies, we shouldn't be slagging any of them, let alone dissing Mayer for first being pregnant, and second, for trying to be close to her baby. … Her office nursery is her solution to being on top and having a family at the same time. If Marissa were a man who wanted to be a deeply involved father to his newborn and built a nursery next to his office, wouldn't people — especially women — be swooning over his commitment to fatherhood?”
For what it's worth, Mayer never claimed to be motivated by feminism even when some felt she was the ideology’s de facto queen. She appeared in PBS’s feminist history documentary Makers, which premiered in February of 2013, and distanced herself from the women’s movement.
Mayer said:I don’t think that I would consider myself a feminist. I think that, I certainly believe in equal rights. I believe that women are just as capable, if not more so, in a lot of different dimensions. But I don’t, I think, have sort of the militant drive and sort of the chip on the shoulder that sometimes comes with that. And I think it’s too bad, but I do think feminism has become, in many ways, a more negative word. There are amazing opportunities all over the world for women, and I think that there’s more good that comes out of positive energy around that than negative energy.
In 2015, Mayer announced that she was expecting identical twin girls and would once again only step away for two weeks.
This time, the champions of paid maternity leave pleaded with her to change her mind.
“Even as I wish Mayer and her family the best, my heart is with all the other mothers in this country who also went back to work within two or three weeks — most of them not by choice,” Ellen Bravo, the executive director of Family Values @ Work, wrote in a piece for CNBC. She noted that Yahoo offered biological mothers 16 weeks of maternity leave and 8 weeks of leave to fathers and adoptive or foster parents.
“Many of us are also rooting for Marissa Mayer to take one more step. She's already lengthened the amount of paid leave available for Yahoo employees,” Bravo continued. “We hope she will recognize the disparity between her own situation and that of so many Americans, and join other business leaders in calling for a national family and medical leave insurance fund, where everyone makes small contributions to a pool that enables workers to draw a significant portion of their pay while on leave.”
“Mayer’s announcement is disappointing,” Anne Weisberg, the senior vice president of the Families and Work Institute, told The Guardian. “She’s a role model and I think she should take whatever Yahoo’s parental leave is – the mark of a great leader is that they have a strong team and don’t need to be there all the time themselves. And she’s having twins – just physically that’s a big deal.”
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists reported in 2023 that 56% of women work full-time while pregnant and that 82% of first-time moms are still working within the month of delivery. The majority of women – 73% – return to work within six months of giving birth.
The federal Family and Medical Leave Act guarantees eligible workers 12 weeks of leave for prenatal appointments, pregnancy-related medical conditions, physical recovery and infant bonding.
After delivering her twins, Mayer was back on the job in less than a month. She defended her choices in a series of posts on Twitter, setting herself apart from other women by calling herself “the exception.” She said that of the 469 women at Yahoo who took maternity leave in 2015, 349, or 75%, took full leave and that she was the only person to take less than four weeks away.
“I understand there is a worry about setting the tone, but the data suggests it isn't an issue at Yahoo,” Mayer wrote.
Mayer stepped down from her position at Yahoo in 2017 following mounting internal tensions, a massive data breach and stagnant financial growth. Yahoo was purchased by Verizon for $4.5 billion and Mayer received a severance package of $23 million.
The then-42-year-old posted a goodbye message on Tumblr, saying the changes created an “emotional time for all of us.”
“I want all of you to know that I’m brimming with nostalgia, gratitude, and optimism,” she wrote. She touted her legacy, which she said included “expanded benefits including free food, extended maternity and paternity leave, and [encouraging] using Yahoo products by providing smartphones for our employees” and that she “prioritized leadership empowerment, diversity & inclusion.”
“We always endeavored to do the right thing for our users, advertisers, shareholders, and fellow Yahoos. This has required the most impressive displays of teamwork, innovation, and resilience I’ve ever seen, and working with you has made my time as CEO nothing short of a privilege,” she wrote.
Mayer’s life post-Yahoo still seemed to rely on women and their sense of collective loyalty.
She had plans to convert the oldest funeral home in Palo Alto where she would host Halloween parties into a co-working space. She purchased the property for $11.2 million in 2013. In her 2018 application with the city, Mayers said the venue would “provide space, time and energy to support professionals on their path to self-defined success while raising thriving families” with a specific “focus on providing a supportive place for working women, especially mothers, as they seek to balance their work and family lives.”
From last week: Margaret Sanger: Feminists’ Favorite Forgiven Eugenicist
