Having It All

Perhaps you've read or heard about this Atlantic piece, "Why Women Still Can't Have It All". It's the cover story of the most recent issue of the magazine, which arrived at our house a couple of weeks ago. I haven't read it yet, but apparently it's aroused quite a controversy, as this topic usually does--"this topic" being the difficulty women have in balancing family and job. Or, as it is generally framed by the journalists and academics who talk about it most (or most conspicuously anyway), family and career. 

There is a whole lot to be said about this, and everybody on all sides has said it, from the traditionalists who believe it's best for mothers to focus on raising their children, even if it means less money and prestige!!, a troublesome idea in some quarters, to the feminists who argue that is actually wrong for women not to have jobs outside the home. I'm not making that last one up; that also was an Atlantic piece, I think, sometime within the last ten years, but I've forgotten the woman's name now.

A whole lot to be said, but I just want to register one complaint from the male point of view: there's an implication in this complaint that men do "have it all." Anybody who thinks that we do, in general, is an idiot. Most men don't go off every morning to a career they love. They go to work, at a job which they don't especially like, or maybe even hate, and they do it because they have to, and/or because it's their duty. 

For most of us life after adolescence involves a great many compromises between what we would really like to do and what we have to do to earn a living. Adults accept this.

There's an interesting exchange about the Atlantic  piece at PBS. I like this, from one of the participants, Naomi Decter:

Of course we can't have it all. No one can have it all. Men can't have it all either. ...this is a problem and always has been a problem of highly privileged, highly educated women. And I think the fact is, we're extremely lucky and we may not have it all, but we have much, much more than most of the women and men in this country or certainly in the world.

Observation tells me that a great many mothers, possibly a majority, possibly a large majority, who hold down jobs would really rather be at home with their children, at least while the children are young, but must work to make ends meet. Feminists have never had much interest in them. In fact, to the extent that improving that situation would require paying better wages to the husbands of those women, they're hostile to that concern.

 

Comments

[Noah G.]

And yet so many of these same feminists who passionately put this forward as a supreme good--the right of women to actualize themselves through the pursuit of careers, to follow their respective American Dreams--also, often in the next breath, will argue that Capitalism is without any redeeming value whatsoever, and/or will ridicule the idea of the American Dream.

(You seem to be suggesting, and I'm inclined to agree, that the whole "follow your dreams" thing, at least with regard to career, really is somewhat of a lie, to a large extent anyway. So, you and the feminists in question are somewhat in agreement?--sort of. Emphasis on somewhat. ;-)

I imagine if pressed on the issue they might say "well, yeah, it's a lie, but it doesn't matter. It's about EQUAL RIGHTS. *We* should be allowed to pursue the lie TOO!")

[Mac]

In a way both left and right have that follow-your-American-Dream basis. But the right generally sees it as something you achieve. The left generally sees it as something the government should provide for you. Broad strokes, but somewhat accurate.

I'm a little confused by your parenthesis. I don't think the feminists in general believe it's a lie. They believe their difficulty in achieving it is the fault of Society and that someone should fix the problem.

[Louise]

I agree with you, Maclin.

[Louise]

As for me, I'm pretty content here at home, bringing up the kids. Like anything, it has its difficulties and challenges, but on the whole I'm happy that I've had the chance to stay at home with them. The uber-feminists strike me as being essentially

[Louise]

oops! they strike me as being essentially immature if they really believe what they seem to believe, that women shouldn't have to have any difficulties in life.

[Louise]

Also, I think men get to a certain point in their working life when they still have many years ahead but aren't as young as they were, and they look at their at-home wives and wish they could just stay home. I can't say I blame them.

[Mac]

I just read the first couple of pages of the Atlantic piece. Not sure I'll finish it. It was a great victory for the devil when educated and influential women started to agree with men that money and prestige and power are the most important things in life. Though really I guess they always have, they just changed from wanting to get these things through their husbands to wanting to get them on their own. It's good that this woman figured out that she couldn't "have it all," but the whole frame of mind is just depressing.