upward is better than homeward?

As I mentioned in an earlier post, the Washington Post ran an editorial on June 18 entitled “Unleashing the Wrath of Stay-at-Home Moms”. In this Linda Hirshman defends her earlier article “Homeward Bound” in The American Prospect.

My first reaction to the Washington Post article was extreme anger. Stepping back from my desire to immediately launch into a diatribe, I read her American Prospect article to undertand to why the “wrath of stay-at-home moms” was being directed at her. This earlier piece gave me more insight into what she believes, and, while I can respect some of her points, I still believe that she is causing more harm than good with her commentary.

From the Prospect article:
“Among the affluent-educated-married population, women are letting their careers slide to tend the home fires. If my interviewees are working, they work largely part time, and their part-time careers are not putting them in the executive suite.”

Perhaps they don’t want to be in the executive suite? I wonder if all affluent-educated-married men want to be in the executive suite too? Or maybe they are headed there just because that is what is expected of them? Ms. Hirshman goes on to detail some of the data that she has collected with regards to women and work. Eventually, she gets to the part where I feel that her argument has turned from possibly supportable data to opinion. She states:

The family — with its repetitious, socially invisible, physical tasks — is a necessary part of life, but it allows fewer opportunities for full human flourishing than public spheres like the market or the government. This less-flourishing sphere is not the natural or moral responsibility only of women. Therefore, assigning it to women is unjust. Women assigning it to themselves is equally unjust. To paraphrase, as Mark Twain said, “A man who chooses not to read is just as ignorant as a man who cannot read.”

Hold on a minute! I was not assigned to the “homefront”. I jumped into it with both eyes open! Admittedly, I still work for the same company from which I jumped, but now it is part-time from home. Would I be happy to go to work all day and have my husband take care of kids and house? I know that I would not. Working full time would leave me very little time to enjoy the things that mean the most to me. My children. My friends. My pursuit of knowledge. My time when I am not working is when I can fully flourish as a human. I have time to read interesting articles, debate topics with my husnband and friends, learn more about the world, volunteer for organizations that I support. My career work is interesting and challenges my brain in some ways, but not in the philospohical manner that my non-career work does!

Ms. Hirshman then goes on to list rules for “Prying women out of their traditional roles.” The rules are laughable. They give no worth to the most valuable things in life. I think she would prefer to have robots than real humans with real feelings who want to live real lives.

Here is one of her “rules”:

You can either find a spouse with less social power than you or find one with an ideological commitment to gender equality. Taking the easier path first, marry down. Don’t think of this as brutally strategic. If you are devoted to your career goals and would like a man who will support that, you’re just doing what men throughout the ages have done: placing a safe bet.

Yes, right, that’s how I wish to choose a husband. I fell in love with someone who respects me as a person and supports my choices.

She also states:

Yet somewhere along the way the women made decisions in the direction of less money. Part of the problem was idealism; idealism on the career trail usually leads to volunteer work, or indentured servitude in social-service jobs, which is nice but doesn’t get you to money.

Is money the only reason for life? Am I here just to make money? If that makes me idealistic, then I am proud to be an idealist. Maybe one day men will also make these highly-enlightened choices that she claims women make now. Perhaps the gender equality should come from the other direction. Let us let men step down from their ladders and have more time to enjoy the finer things in life!

Finally, these choices are bad for women individually. A good life for humans includes the classical standard of using one’s capacities for speech and reason in a prudent way, the liberal requirement of having enough autonomy to direct one’s own life, and the utilitarian test of doing more good than harm in the world. Measured against these time-tested standards, the expensively educated upper-class moms will be leading lesser lives.

As I argued before, I do not agree that I have a lesser life because I spend more time with my kids than at an office or in a courtroom. I have the better life, according to her definition of a “good life”. Moreover, I think she is missing some vital parts of a good life which include making connections with others.

I do undertand is her point that the fewer women there are in places of power, the fewer advances that will be made to support those women who do want to “be in power”. I can respect that opinion. However, I am not willing to sacrifice my life to that cause. I will let my friends and colleagues know about issues facing women. I will fight for the sub-issues that I feel are worthy. You want more resources for breastfeeding in the workplace, I’ll be there to support you. You need better childcare options, okay, I’ll write and lobby about that. In fact, I believe that I have made the company for which I work more family-friendly in some small ways.

I am not making a mistake by not climbing the ladder to the executive suite. I may be making the path to the executive suite a little more difficult for those women who wish to pursue it by not performing some of the trailblazing, but I am not willing to sacrifice who I am for Ms. Hirshman’s vision of the world.

Tomorrow I will be taking a look at her Washington Post article. To leave you with one final, inflammatory quote from the “Homewad Boundnd” article which insinuates that every woman who is not on track for the executive suite is fixated on baby poop :

Not two weeks after the Yalie flap, the Times ran a story of moms who were toilet training in infancy by vigilantly watching their babies for signs of excretion 24-7. They have voluntarily become untouchables.