Picture a 1950s housewife.
You can organise yourself so you can do your housework first and still go out and still be home in time for the children when they come home.
Cut now to the late 1980s, replace the corset with shoulder pads,
place a briefcase in one arm and a happy baby in the other.
This new vision of the empowered, successful super mum who juggles everything has been with us in different forms since,
influenced by 90s girl power, to the girl boss mantras of today.
These images really matter.
They tell us what success is supposed to look like.
They tell us that if we put in the work, if we reach out and grab success, we can thrive.
It's a tantalising promise, but is it the reality?
Welcome to LSE IQ, the podcast where we ask social scientists and other experts to answer one intelligent question.
I'm Natalie from the IQ team, where we work with academics to bring you their latest research and ideas.
In this episode, I ask, can mothers do it all?
I speak to LSE's Dr Shani Orgad about media portrayals of mothers and what effects these have on all of us.
We find out the real reasons mums leave the workforce,
deep dive into the media coverage of one of the world's most talked about mothers and get Shani's advice on how to do it all.
I think there's a really deep irony to the fact that actions women are taking,
and I see this all the time, with the objective of staying in the workforce actually lead to their eventually leaving.
That's Sheryl Sandberg, business exec, billionaire and author of Lean In,
Women Work and the Will to Lead, in her renowned 2010 TED talk.