Never heard of Liz Lemoning? Me either til I read Why High-Achieving Women Pretend Their Lives Are A Mess

Did you ever watch “I Don’t Know How She Does It?” from 2011 starring Sarah Jessica Parker? I did. I wanted to like it. I didn’t like it.

My movie review: https://workingmom.guru/2015/07/i-dont-know-how-she-does-it-movie-review/

When I read this article recently, it helped to identify some of my frustration.

In short: Liz Lemon was a Hot Mess. Her Hot Mess Syndrome — the affliction of so many successful women everywhere — was precisely the point. Whether or not you think she’s a revolutionary figure, the Hot Mess has a lot to tell us about our contradictory expectations of high-achieving women under late-capitalist patriarchy.

Why do successful women insist on pretending they aren’t? Maybe because we’re trying to apologize for being successful?

On account of her smarts and circumstances, the Hot Mess gets that her success needs to look a little bit like an accident in order not to garner resentment. Her messiness is equal parts internalized misogyny and compensatory measure.

Do we even know we are doing it?

Fey’s not really a mess. But it’s telling that her fictional analogue is. We can learn a lot about ourselves by what we find funny and what we decide to show others.