Contra Mike

Oh, come on, Mike. Yes, women “choose” to stay home with their children, but generally they choose from only two options: (1)continue working full-time or above (let’s say at least 40 to 50 hours per week for an academic) when children are at their neediest (a period of a few years) or (2)give up all paid work for that period when children need so much care, even though it means that later they probably will not have the option of getting back on the tenure track. By couching your comment in terms of choice, you suggest that those two choices are somehow the only choices that we as a society could offer women, which is simply false. Universities could offer women (and men) the choice of reduced duties (and commensurately reduced pay) to enable them to remain on the tenure track while also caring for children. See Robert Drago and Joan Williams’s proposal for half-time tenure-track positions.

Rachel Hile, at 11:55 am EDT on August 21, 2008

Fair?

Wait until the sandwich generation factor is added to the next study of the women covered in this article. Then those people who put their career on the back burner until the children are in school or the spouse is settled into the promotion and then get back into their chosen career and are then responsible for taking care of aging parents or the parents of their spouse/partner. Fairness takes several steps backward, career is again on the back burner, and the responsibilities of family and culture take over. While those responsible for making sure that business/education world continues, they ignore (have to ignore)that individual lives and responsibilities do not stop the larger world of which they are in charge.

Linda, Ivy Tech, at 12:00 pm EDT on August 21, 2008

Fair is a childs word

Play fair, be fair &c are children’s words and complaints. JFK said Life Is Not Fair. Rabbi Kushner wrote a book about bad things happening to good people. All this writing about how to be fair is raging against a world that IS. So go get in line at the Complaint Department. Women stay home and care for children because SOMEONE has to. They can’t take care of themselves! Women then lose their place in the achievement lineup. I did, myself—husband couldn’t even think about it, nor any of my former male colleagues. At my age (65) I now think feminist liberation was a pretense, and there was never such a real thing.

Marian, Ph. D., at 2:15 pm EDT on August 21, 2008

Question for Mike

Mike, I’m interested by your responses. Can you spell out how you think a responsible academic should look at a career? I have the impression that you believe that basically people should realize that a serious academic career is all-consuming. So in choosing to have children (unless their care is delegated to someone else, as you say, as a professor of my father’s generation would delegate his kids to his wife) women should realize that they can’t get as far as women without children, or men — at least men whose wives don’t insist that they share care. Or, to put it in terms of time, do you think it’s just a fact that a serious academic career requires an 80-hour week and essentially no competing commitments? I think you may be right, descriptively— at least judging by the unbelievably workaholic behavior I see in the top research university in which I work. But I’m curious to know whether you think this is a good thing, and whether, as your tone suggests, you think no one *should* question it.

Elizabeth

Elizabeth, at 4:55 pm EDT on August 21, 2008

Mike’s comments

Mike,

I am curious who you think these women are having their children with. The vast majority of women academics who have children do so with men. Why should we not ask men to sacrifice something related to their professional lives to raise their children? Couples have children in a partnership and should have to share the burden of the changes that children bring to life.

kathy, professor, at 7:45 pm EDT on August 21, 2008

mike is right

I’m not in the social sciences, but I did make the choice earlier in my career to become a “house husband” for a while. I knew this would have consequences for my career, but my decision was based on what was best for my loved ones.Since my goal was to teach and not necessarily to achieve the highest rank, I am happy with my decision. Society doesn’t owe me anything for “settling” on not running the world.

DFS, at 6:05 am EDT on August 22, 2008

I remember when I was in grad school....

I was married, and my spouse and I wanted to start a family, but we decided to hold off on having kids until after I finished my degree and got a job. It was a “tradeoff,” but one that we felt was necessary. I remember feeling the same way as Mike when, a few years later, a group of grad students started demonstrating at the university in favor of expanded (free) student health insurance to cover the children of graduate students. They argued that they “couldn’t afford” to pay for their kids’ health care while in school. I couldn’t afford to have kids and go to school at the same time either, of course...that’s why I made a choice!

Prof Challenger, at 11:31 am EDT on August 22, 2008