Taking a break from our regularly
scheduled all-pelvis-all-the-time programming to bring you Sarah’s-deep-musings
on topics that don’t even apply to her (yet!). Yes, this will probably get me into
trouble, no, I’m not judging moms, I’m just judging those who think they
know better (like me, apparently).
Can women – or
men, for that matter – have it all?
Well, here we
go. As a hope-to-one-day-be-a-working-mom, I’m wading into this Internet debate. I just can’t help myself. Aside from my firm
conviction that “having it all” is an objectionable phrase that should have
been retired almost as soon as it came into fashion, I also find this ongoing
conversation to be, well, how can I put this: silly. Not because there’s not a
problem here – there is – but because the “solutions” proposed by the parade of
working-mothers in glossy magazines are inadequate and incomplete.
There are
multiple tropes, but many of them boil down to this questionable assertion: feminism lied to us.[1]
Closely followed by a fusillade of prominent, accomplished working-mothers proclaiming
– almost resentfully – that they are
not feminists. Because feminists are militant and dour and don’t wear kitten
heels and a power suit while brokering an international treaty all before
picking up Junior from soccer practice. Or whatever. The bottom line is that
women accuse “feminism” – that wretched straw-woman! – of selling us a bill of
goods; we can’t have it all, they
say. And all that marching and protesting and letter writing and policy-making
our mothers and grandmothers – and fathers and grandfathers – did? Well, that
was just a fraud. But this argument is nothing more than a front; a carefully
negotiated distraction.
It’s a bait-and-switch
because these nauseating missives about whether the fairer sex can-truly-have-it-all! distract us from
proposing real solutions – like challenging and changing a culture that still
rewards sexist and unequal behavior, passing laws that allow for greater family
leave and paid maternity and paternity
leave, subsidizing child care in a meaningful way and allowing greater working
hour flexibility for ALL working parents and caregivers like, you know, most
civilized nations. Instead, we promote quick fixes aimed at mostly upper-middle
class, highly educated women, that do little to address the root of the
problem.
