Are You In, or Out? Categories: Parenting, Feminism
Linda Hirshman had a very thought-provoking article in The American
Prospect last month on the phenomenon of wealthy, highly educated and
once-ambitious women of the post-baby-boom generation leaving work to
stay home with their kids.
Hirshman argues that the failure of 1970s feminism wasnt that it
was too radical and ended up alienating younger women, who reacted by
embracing the traditional sex roles their elders had rejected, but
that it wasnt radical enough. Over the decades, she says, feminism
left the basic gender patterns of the nuclear family untouched, and
when it began to pander to the clichés of mainstream society by
subsuming all larger goals to the easily palatable idea of preserving
womens choices (wherever those choices might lead them), it
completely lost its revolutionary potential ? and women have been left holding the bag.
Thats a thumbnail simplification of an intellectually complex
argument, but I want to get quickly to the point at which I will add
my two cents to the debate, which has, since the articles
publication, been kept alive by David Brooks , Judith Stadtman Tucker and others
Hirshman is ideologically opposed to stay-at-home motherhood. The crux
of her argument is as follows:
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.
My problem with this is that not all women or men are the same.
Some women and men find ?epetitious, socially invisible, physical
tasks?mind-numbing and stultifying; some dont. Some thrive on the
competitive effervescence of the marketplace; some feel crushed by it.
Many, in fact, now feel exhausted and, perhaps, dehumanized by the
increasingly crushing, competitive and nonstop demanding marketplace
of the turn of the 21st century, where Americans work the longest
hours of any people in the industrialized world yet have less and less
job security, shrinking benefits and essentially stagnant wages. Given the nature of work today, I dont think its all that surprising
that women who dont take any particular pleasure in their work or
have a particular sense of a professional calling or a particular need
to make money should choose to opt out. I think that many men in
similar circumstances would love to do the same thing. In fact, the
very real phenomenon of men resenting their wives for choosing to stay
home has, to date, been consistently underreported.
Work stinks for most people. Given the financial opportunity to Opt
Out, a great many men and women alike, particularly those outside the
upper middle class, would gladly do so.
The sociologist Philip Slater once put in a very funny way what Im
trying more flat-footedly to say here. This is from his 1970 book The
Pursuit of Loneliness: American Culture at the Breaking Point
Many people would object that most women dont want careers. I suspect
that women themselves would agree, but I also wonder if deep inside they dont feel the kind of puzzled uneasiness that we always
experience when obliged to accept a formulation that makes us lose
either way When we say career it connotes a demanding, rigorous,
preordained life pattern, to whose goals everything else is ruthlessly
subordinated everything pleasurable, human, emotional, bodily,
frivolous Thus when a man asks a woman if she wants a career, it is
intimidating. He is saying, are you willing to suppress half of your
being as I am, neglect your family as I do, exploit personal
relationships as I do, renounce all personal spontaneity as I do?
Naturally, she shudders a bit and shuffles back to the broom closet.
She even feels a little sorry for him, and bewails the unkind fate
that has forced him against his will to become such a despicable person
A more effective (revolutionary, confronting) response would be to admit that a career, thus defined, is indeed undesirable that (now
that you mention it) it seems like a pernicious activity for any human
being to engage in, and should be eschewed by both men and women.
This quotation basically sums up the attitude that both my husband and
I have to work which, as you might imagine, has led to a certain
amount of tension over the years. (Health insurance must be secured,
and, by God, it isnt going to be by me.)
Its my belief that, with the exception of people with extreme Type A
sensibilities, human flourishing? requires a certain kind of
slowness in life, a certain kind of stillness, a great degree of
relaxation, time for reflection and, at the risk of sounding downright
nauseating, for meaningful human connection. Those things, however,
are now a luxury for most people, given the nature of life and work in
our time.
Whether Opting Out is ultimately good for women in the long term (after all, Divorce Happens) or good for their sons and daughters or
good for the gender is another matter entirely. Hirshmans article is
primarily focused on the latter concern. My concern here is more purely human.
