Dec. 9, 2005

Is Your Husband a Worse Problem Than Larry Summers?

In my recent article, “Homeward Bound” (The American Prospect, December 2005), I propose that the low representation of women at the highest level of the American government and economy is due in substantial measure to a steady stream of educated women deciding to leave full-time work. Recent analysis of the opt-out revolution reveals that the only group of mothers not continuing to raise their work-force participation despite economic ups and downs is mothers with graduate and professional degrees. Their numbers are flat and have been for several years. Their decisions matter because their careers, if realized, would be influential. Their decisions are a mistake because they lead them to lesser lives, by most measures, and because these decisions hurt society. And their decision is not freely chosen, even if they “chose” it, as it is made in the context of an ideology that assigns childrearing and housekeeping to women, an ideology that, interviews reveal, they themselves accept.The solution will not come from employers, who have no motivation to change economically productive behaviors, nor from the government, firmly in the hands of conservatives, who believe in the ideology. Instead, I recommend that women start by refusing to play their gendered role, preparing themselves for lives of independent means, bargaining from this position of power with the men they sleep with, only looking for help to more distant sources as a last resort.

Looking for a job?

See all 217 new postings

Browse all job listings:

Faculty: 3,477
Administrative: 1,652
Executive: 163
FEATURED EMPLOYERS

The readers of this Web site would largely fall into my definition of highly educated people, even though academics do not normally earn salaries as large as similarly educated people in more conventional market positions. And this site has devoted substantial space to the subject of the advancement of women’s careers and the role of the reproductive family, which also inspired my American Prospect piece, reflecting a widespread debate in the academy. Does my analysis apply to the world of Higher Ed?

Straight off I confess I did not interview many academics or former academics. My data included the U.S. Census Bureau’s Population Survey, the media reports of anecdotal evidence, my personal experience as a university teacher, and my interviews with the couples who announced their weddings in The New York Times on three Sundays during 1996, which sample did include a couple of academic women. After I wrote, I reconfirmed my data against the findings of economist Heather Boushey regarding highly educated women, although her failure to break out full- and part-time work makes her findings of questionable relevance to mine. The academic literature, however, includes a rich trove of data about the matter. As one would expect from a world of researchers!

For example, the American Historical Association reported that although in 1988, 39 percent of assistant professors of history were women, 11 years later, as one would have expected some of that cohort to have raised the percentage of full professors closer, if not fully, to 39 percent, the full professor ranks were still only 18 percent female. In 2003 over 45 percent of Ph.D.’s were women, while only 36 percent of the hires at the University of California were women. Judith H. White writes in Liberal Education that “while in 1998 women made up 42 percent of all new Ph.D. recipients, the portion of women faculty in the senior tenured positions at doctoral research institutions had reached only 13.8 percent — up from 6.1 percent in 1974.”

The same article reports that careful studies out of Berkeley show that academic women having children within five years of their Ph.D. fail at tenure vastly more often than men in the same parental position. Academic women who have children later succeed at tenure just as much as childless women do. But findings from the 2001 Journal of Higher Education ("The Relationship Between Family Responsibilities and Employment Status Among College and University Faculty") also suggest that the employment of women in non-tenure-track positions is attributable in part to their marital status. Although a smaller share of women than men junior faculty are married (67 percent versus 78 percent), being married increases the odds of holding a part-time, non-tenure-track position for women but not for men. This study suggests that married men faculty and male faculty members with children are also benefiting from their marital and parental status in terms of their employment status.

This is very valuable data. One of the hottest debates in gender politics today is whether women fail at work compared to men more because of workplace hostility and discrimination or whether they fail more because of their “choice” to take their financial support from their spouses and tend the babies or the husbands and the home fires. But common sense tells us that something besides marriage must be at work. Nancy Hopkins’ groundbreaking study of resource allocation at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology lifted the veil on an ugly part of what goes on — plain old discrimination, conscious or unconscious.

In this, I suspect the academy is worse than the world of finance and medicine and the like where my research subjects had worked before they quit. While no sane woman I’ve ever met claims that there are workplaces completely free of sex discrimination (it is, after all, only 85 years since the 19th Amendment!), research on gender reflects that the arena for discrimination is greater where there is not a clear monetary measure of productivity. So the world of the research university is a perfect playground for subjective opinion, including ideas about women’s proper roles, conscious or not, and the powerful lure of autobiography in each hiring committee member’s inaccessible subconscious.

But you already knew that. Nancy Hopkins and all the others have been telling you that loud and clear for what feels like 85 years as well. Is that all there is? I think not. In American Prospect, I did a Larry Summers and said that the male dominance of influential jobs is partly due to elite women’s decisions to devote themselves to childrearing and housekeeping, an opting out that is not new, but has not subsided, either. Most of the Times brides I interviewed didn’t take their work seriously and had been preparing to bail for years before their kids came. My experience in a very liberal classroom was that a lot of the female students were already preparing ... to prepare to bail. And I said it was a mistake for the women to do that and that they shouldn’t be looking for help from Jack Welch or Tom DeLay. Aw, hell, nobody from the Harvard presidential search committee was calling me anyway.

Here again the academy may be different, but in this way, better. Women may not be as eager to leave academic jobs as their well educated sisters were to quit journalism, law and publishing. There are two reasons for this. One, the hours are better. While the business magazine Fast Company reports that a 60 to 75 hour work week is typical for business leaders, ladder rank faculty with children in the University of California study (according to their own self-reporting) worked 53 to 56 hours a week. Second, university teaching is really good substantive work, between the good students and researching things that interest you and making them real, even if just in a book (like some of mine) nobody reads but mom. So it’s understandable that women faculty are pressing universities to make it possible for them to have children and stay on track, through devices like extended tenure periods and the like. Moreover, the effort to extract help from the workplace may succeed better at Harvard than at General Electric, because, when clear, objective programs are proposed, nonprofits like Harvard are not up to their eyeballs in the Hobbesian world of globalized late capitalism, so it’s easier for them to yield a little.

But in the end, it’s a fundamental mistake to ignore the gendered family in favor of putting so much emphasis on institutional programs or policies. The University of California reports that young faculty women with children work 37 hours a week on family care; if they are 34—38, they work a self-reported but staggering 43 hours a week on family care. Young dads work only two-thirds as much (25 hours); in the 34—38 age bracket the gap is even higher — dads work half as hard as their female counterparts. No wonder, when the University of California proposed one of the many initiatives surfacing nationwide of flex time for tenure decisions, 74 percent of women with children supported the policy, but only just over half the men did. The statistics exactly mirror the difference between the dads’ family care hours and the mothers’.

Commentators on the California plan worried about the reduction in faculty productivity, especially in teaching, and the substitution of increasing numbers of serfs from the non-tenure track. Where such policies exist, it is overwhelmingly the women who take advantage of them. Stopping the tenure clock is one thing, but, as one of the commentators also asked, what will the promotion committee do when, years later, it looks at a CV half again as long for the man as for the woman? The women’s own reports of their domestic arrangements clearly show that the main guy in an academic woman’s path may not be Larry Summers after all — he may be her own husband.

Here’s an answer to the commentators who worried about the reduction in faculty productivity and the length of male résumés. Since young faculty fathers spend two-thirds the time on family care that mothers do, why not simply require faculty fathers to produce half again as much (teaching, scholarship, whatever) at each step of the way that the faculty mothers do, rather than lowering the requirements for the women? Demanding of these pampered fellas that they work as hard, over all, as their female counterparts do would add a salutary dash of reality to their perceived superiority to women in the workplace, level the playing field and create some job opportunities for ambitious women who want to do a little extra. A modest proposal. In the end, I contend, the workplace will never be a substitute for women standing up for what they need in the reproductive family. It’s not only the tenure clock that’s the villain here; it’s the guys on the couch 12 hours a week while faculty mom does the wash. As Mothers’ Movement Online’s Judith Stadtman Tucker said in an interview, “Women will take on the worst bastard in the world rather than ask their husbands to help out.”

A final note. When my American Prospect article was linked over to some of the many Stay at Home Mom Web sites, it generated a lot of commentary like “fuck you,” “you make me want to vomit,” “oh, puhleeze,” “she’s only looking for a book contract,” and similar well-reasoned responses. A brief look at the sources of these contributions to the discussion of this important issue revealed an alarming number of them came from retired or active female academics. I’m all for free speech, and I hope people who disagree will offer their views and critique my ideas, but a professional Web site like this one is normally blessedly free of such empty calories. I hope such will be the case again here. This is too important an issue for tactics like that.

Linda Hirshman retired as Allen-Berenson Distinguished Visiting Professor of Philosophy and Women’s Studies at Brandeis University.

Want it on paper? Print this page.
Know someone who’d be interested? Forward this story.
Want to stay informed? Sign up for free daily news e-mail.

Comments

so who be on the computer the most? i think adults because they be on everyday @ work.........:}

tae tae johnson, wutchu been on tha computer, at 4:00 pm EDT on October 10, 2007

Assumptions

There are a lot of assumptions going on here that bear examination. Why is it assumed by so many commenters—we already know Hirshman assumes this from her body of work—that stay-at-home moms are doing unfulfilling and mentally dulling work? (As one commenter astutely pointed out, pointing out the drudgery of the work probably isn’t the best way to encourage men to help out.) Why do we assume that work on the PTA involves none of the same skills and challenges and fulfillments that come from paid work? That would seem to imply that volunteer work generally is without worth, when that is hardly the case, anecdotally or economically. Why do we assume that the main function of raising kids is to make good little workers out of them? That does seem to be the focus of many of the commenters, and since working parents can turn out equally efficient worker-bees as stay-at-home parents can, then society reaps no economic benefit from stay-at-home parenting. Why do we assume that the questions of primary importance when discussing families and child-rearing are economic questions?

One (or possibly more) commenters remarks that it’s hypocritical to encourage little girls to do well in school when their example is a stay-at-home mom. But it doesn’t seem to me to be. For one thing, many women who stay home when their children are very young do go back to work, not always to the same high-powered careers they had before, admittedly, but to work. Some of them use their skills acquired from their educations for other work, paid and unpaid, that they find meaningful. In other words, by all means a stay-at-home mom should encourage her little girl to do well in school and pursue her dreams. It is always possible that her little girl’s dreams will never include having children at all or, as one of many alternatives, that her little girl will grow up (as my own mother and aunts all did) to be a stay-at-home mom and then go on to have powerful careers (my mother went on to get her Ph.D. and a career in academia; one aunt became a nurse and is now in hospital administration; etc). There is nothing hypocritical in telling a little girl to follow her dreams and simultaneously telling her that your own dreams are different than hers.

I’m really baffled by these assumptions. Most of the stay-at-home moms I know are engaged with serious literature, not letting their brains become the sludge that these commenters seem to assume. Most of them are also heavily involved in volunteerism, and as far as I can tell, volunteers are a boon to our society. Most of them also are doing some kind of paid work or other, however minimally, to keep up in their fields or to go into new ones. The kind of stay-at-home mother the commenters seem to be discussing probably does exist, but I don’t know her (and most of my mother friends are well-educated stay-at-home moms).

Finally, while I am quite familiar with Hirshman’s work and realize the sorts of standards she cares about, I admit to having lost patience with people and a society who make moral judgments based on values such as money and power. Aristotle warned about living a life that requires external validation, did he not? And Kant warned of this type of moral argument as well—provided someone does not agree that the ends (in this case, money and power in society) are worthwhile, the argument collapses.

Finally, I am a mother who redesigned her working life entirely to fit around her child-rearing. My full-time job is that of a stay-at-home mom. At night, I sacrifice sleep to work for pay. My day job, the full-time one that involves teaching a little person how to read and use the potty, is much more challenging, much more work, and much more satisfying than my night job. It always puzzles me that people think being a mother isn’t challenging, but especially teachers. Why don’t teachers see that teaching, which is what a stay-at-home parent ideally is doing with most of his/her day, is an inherently challenging and rewarding job? As any group of academics should well know, not everyone can teach—it requires patience, dedication, and careful thought. Yet we think stay-at-home moms are throwing away their mental faculties? I really don’t think that follows.

Julie, at 5:00 am EDT on March 14, 2008

Wow. Strangely enough, despite the fact that this issue is fairly obvious to many, people seem afraid to address it in such an honest manner.

Larry, at 7:19 am EST on December 9, 2005

Academic Moms—role models

I could not agree more with the gist of this essay. For years, I have marvelled at my colleagues (and grad students) to juggle motherhood and academic careers. Those of us on the male side of the house can’t begin to appreciate the pressures on young women who are fighting both a biological and an academic clock and seeking to beat both of them. I don’t feel academe has begun to face the issues—as is evident from the essay, and (sadly) from some of the responses the author cites in response to her call for change. I have one younger colleague in exactly this situation and while I believe she will be fine when coming up for tenure next year (she’s been wonderfully productive under both clocks), I can see how tired she is on occasion. My own elder daughter, while not an academic, is facing many of the same problems—in her case, of running a small business and raising our granddaughter (and perhaps a sibling to come) with but limited assistance from her spouse. This issue is all too common and must be dealt with constructively—and soon. Just the thoughts of one of those “old white men” sitting atop the tenure pile. . . some of us are well aware of the issues.

Chris Sterling, professor, at 7:50 am EST on December 9, 2005

multimedia

I’ve been saying for years that the worse enemy that a woman has is herself. We don’t demand that our husbands do an equal amount of the childcare and housework. And if we do ask him to do something, we then run around behind him to do it ‘right’. This just causes resentment on his part.

My husband and I share the housework equally... this is done by dividing the rooms and one week he cleans the livingroom and the next week I do it.That way it’s cleaned the way *I* like it 50% of the time.

As for other ‘jobs’ around the house. I learned a long time ago that he isn’t going to notice that ‘X’ needs to be done, so I’ve had to learn that I have to ask him to do it... and he has had to learn that when I ask... I’m not nagging.

ML Price, Reader at one in the UK, at 8:50 am EST on December 9, 2005

equal pay—-equal work

What does the author think of the economic reality many young women face: pay inequityWomen get only 76 cents for every man’s dollar.

Imagine a woman, newly graduated with a Ph.D. facing the choices of child rearing and job hunting. Imagine she also wants her children to be raised by a parent, and not through day care. If she has a husband, that husband likely is making good money.

Does that family trade in security of a regular paycheck for insecurity and principal of a woman in a university or college position where she may not get tenured because of sexist people who assume that despite having a stay-at-home father for the woman faculty member’s children......that children will interfere with her work....? Does that make sense? No it doesn’t, and frankly, women who face this decision do have the opportunity to remain active in teaching, and in some fields, publishing as well. Academic women who raise children (for no pay) do not lose capacity to think. We just need part time work to pay better (see http://chronicle.com/jobs/2003/10/2003102201c.htm).

The fact is, until pay equity is here and/or until child care choices, quality, and pricing become better, academic women whose husbands would like to stay at home face a financially a huge risk in doing so. Claiming that women are accpeting oppression simplifies the equation.

Bea, Ph.D.—and Adjunct, at 8:50 am EST on December 9, 2005

Just to play devil’s advocate

“Although a smaller share of women than men junior faculty are married (67 percent versus 78 percent), being married increases the odds of holding a part-time, non-tenure-track position for women but not for men.”

If one accepts your hypothesis for the corporate world that women are “dropping out” to have families, couldn’t this statistic be viewed as not evidence to the contrary for academia but evidence supporting your hypothesis? I could argue that a number (certainly not all) of married academic women made the same choice that your NY Times sample did: Work part-time or drop-out entirely of the workforce in the belief that this decision would make the family unit efficiently.

As vexing as that possibility might seem, I think that you would need to do interviews (like you did with the women from the NY Times marriage announcement pages) before you dismiss it. Probably 80-90% of the endowded chairs and high-level administrators follow that model (including a couple of stay-at-home men and working women). Considering the bleak prospects in some academic fields dominated by women (I will leave the “why” to others), I am not sure it is an economically unrational strategy.

Just me, at 9:03 am EST on December 9, 2005

Differences in institutions?

Here the references seem to be to large research institutions. I would like to suggest that someone investigate regional universities and colleges, where the faculty in some departments is predominantly female. Though the salary is less, the support can be better: a better choice of hours, supportive colleagues and ultimately tuition rebates for children. Such a study might also help generate some interest in less-than top research level jobs for those in graduate school mills! College jobs are intensive too, but can offer a better level of personal support.

LM, at 9:05 am EST on December 9, 2005

Complicated

I agree with some of the above commenters that you’ve simplified the situation here. And, as I said on my blog, my husband is not sitting on the couch 12 hours a day. He’s working—writing, researching, grading. So I think it is the tenure clock that is to blame. I also live in an area where day care is expensive ($1000/mo.), housing costs are outrageous (avg. price, $350,000 or so), and there is little to no after school care (tell me again why schools still let out at 3:00, especially in urban areas). While my husband and I decided that having two incomes was the way to go, we also didn’t have more than one kid in daycare at one time. Many of my friends would face $2,000-$3,000/mo. in daycare costs. Granted, if the jobs they chose were high paying enough, that wouldn’t really matter, but given the current economic situation, high paying jobs aren’t just falling from the trees. And like me, many of my friends interrupted their educations or careers not because they had kids, but because their husbands had to get jobs halfway across the country. The academic market is not stable and colleges and universities are not lined up along the street so that families can stay in one place. The corporate world, the academy, the school system needs to change in order to accomodate two income families so that working and parenting is a real choice.

Laura, at 11:35 am EST on December 9, 2005

I appreciate the frankness of this article and agree that if I got to put my two lovingly-raised children on my resume, that plus my publications would definitely outrank any fellow’s who didn’t take years off to raise kids. But that puts women who don’t want to have children in a bind, too. Rather than saying that women opt out and give in to their husbands, I think that many couples, desperately trying to make an academic career, a household economy, AND raising a family workable come up with the only sane strategy: one tenure-track, go-for-it academic partner and one who does it part-time for satisfaction more than money. We will have an equitable society when either the male or female of a heterosexual couple could choose the part-time work, family manager role. And it will truly be an equitable family-supportive society when institutions make it easier for both parents to work and parent.But the person who talks about dividing the house and cleaning the rooms misses the point. That’s easy. A neglected child is different from a dirty house. The serious issues involve which partner gives up a week of work when the child is ill or is going through a difficult time and needs extra attention, and which partner moves to a school where there isn’t a good job, to enable the other partner to advance in the academic system.

C.S., adjunct at large research institution, at 11:36 am EST on December 9, 2005

There may be something happening at the other end of a woman’s academic career that offsets some of the disadvantages of being female in the early stages. While this doesn’t justify injustices or inequities women experience in their early careers, I’d like to bring it into the picture as something to consider.

I struggled as a younger woman to make my career and have and raise my young children simultaneously. It was very difficult and I had to make some hard choices. I both opted to stay at home (until my children were about 2) and to work when I had no infants or toddlers. My spouse was not helpful with young children or housekeeping and cooking. However, he did all the maintenance and exterior chores. I did and do believe that I worked harder and longer at home than he did.

And I know that he earned much more than I did over those years.

However, an interesting thing happened when our children grew up and left home. In fact, a couple of interesting things happened: 1. Without children at home, the time I had invested in childcare was available to spend on other things, such as my work and research. Furthermore, without children at home, the amount of housekeeping and cooking time and effort required of me diminished greatly. 2. In middle age men and women tend to have a change in their perspectives and roles. Some attribute this to age/stage/developmental effects and other to the hormonal changes both sexes experience. Regardless of why it happens, some — perhaps most — men become less aggressive about their work and more nurturing and oriented to family and home. Conversely, perhaps due to menopausal changes, some — perhaps many — women become more oriented to career and more aggressive in pursuing career goals at the same time they have more time and energy to invest in their career because they are no longer caring for children and spend less time caring for home.Upshot of these changes in middle life? Women have an opportunity and can, if they choose, to move ahead of men in their careers. In my particular case, I now have much higher rank and salary than my very successful spouse due to this mid-life change in ability to pursue my career.

I anticipate that some will note that the responsibility for caring for elderly parents and in-laws often falls more heavily on women than on men. This is true. However, with the elderly living longer and staying more healthy until their very elderly years, this burden is lighter than it once was.

Again, all this is not to say that young women do not work at a disadvantage to young men when family and home associated work is distributed in the traditional ways between them. I do, however, want to suggest that men’s family and home responsibilities tend to remain at a steady leve throughout life, while women’s are front-loaded to their child-bearing years and become much less after children leave home.

gd, at 11:36 am EST on December 9, 2005

the slow track/the mommy track

I met my husband when we were both in graduate school. He got a tenure-track job, while I was very happy being on the slow track, teaching a course or two. I loved being on the mommy track, too, taking care of my kids. I ambled along, collecting four post-graduate degrees, culminating in a Ph.D. when I was 50. My then husband earned enough to support us comfortably and I was without academic ambitions. But then he decided that he wanted a divorce. Personally, I am still happy being an adjunct, and it’s a good thing, because professionally, I’m out of luck—few institutions are interested in offering a tenure-track position to a 50+-year-old with a resume showing lots of teaching but no scholarship. Economically, things are tenuous. I lost my spouse-provided health coverage, and my salary as an adjunct comes nowhere near meeting my expenses. Luckily, a judge recognized the value of my years as a mother and support to my ex, who therefore continues to send me a modest amount each month. But women who are currently in their 30s need to look ahead to the day when they’ll be in their 50s and perhaps, unexpectedly, on their own.

Ph.D. at 50, at 12:10 pm EST on December 9, 2005

No spouse, no kids

Well-done, well-argued piece on parents in academia.

What about single, childless academics — who, as clear-eyed careerists, decide to pour all their efforts into their academic careers? Who sacrifice relationships and parenthood to try to achieve great things?

If more benefits are given to those on the parent-track — those of us without spouses or kids will expect to be compensated as well. We have the phone number of the ACLU, too ...

R.A. Shaw, Small cog at Small wheel, at 12:14 pm EST on December 9, 2005

I would like to know why we see raising children (human beings that we bring into this world) as a “bail out"? It makes the business and necessity of raising the next generation seem as a bad thing.

WL, Is “bail out” bad?, at 12:14 pm EST on December 9, 2005

Lisa writes: “Their decisions are a mistake because they lead them to lesser lives, by most measures, and because these decisions hurt society.”

These women are mothers, and society is not their first priority, nor their own lives being “lessened” in the shallow measurements of feminists and sociologists. Their first priority, if I have to spell it out, is their children. Doing what is best for their children more than makes up in satisfaction for what they have sacrificed. That fact is the “ideology” that Lisa claims is keeping them from “freely” choosing to live the lifestyle that she judges they should. Is it any wonder that stay-at-home former academics would feel hostility to the way Lisa runs roughshod over their sacrifices?

Samwise, at 1:01 pm EST on December 9, 2005

Linda Hirshman received the response she deserved from stay-at-home parents around the web (not just mothers, by the way). Her TAP article was nothing short of insulting to all of us. Few of us would argue with the argument that more men should more equally bear the burden of housework and childcare, but to describe the work of creating a family as that of the “lower castes” and the choice to do so as “voluntarily becoming untouchables?” Those are not characterizations that we will accept without a fight.

Inflammatory language creates inflamed responses. If she would like this discussion to be conducted with a little more respect, then I suggest that she look to treating those whom she’s trying to evangelize with a little more respect as well.

Phantom Scribbler, at 1:02 pm EST on December 9, 2005

But Phantom misses the point

Phantom, But your argument fails to address the issue. When people enter academe, for better or worse, they agree that they will be measured in terms of how they compare to other academics. Usually there is some handicapping for seniority, so 20-something candidates compete with others similar-situated, and 30-something junior professors compete with others, etc. When women get off this track, they will be doing something other than what their cohorts are doing, and therefore it is considered “less.” True, in some cultures, raising children is considered to be something that is important, but not in academe, and certainly not in my family. For that reason, when women, give up the competition with their cohorts to do what any uneducated woman can do, they are considered to have wasted their careers and not be as valuable to their colleagues who want to be seen as associated with “winners” not “breeders.”

Larry, at 4:11 pm EST on December 9, 2005

Many, Many Points

I thought I wouldn’t even touch this topic, but I’ll see if I can add anything to the discussion.

I find it rather odd that the author chose to insult the work done by many women (and some men) who choose (not “choose” or “choose” by being forced) to live a different lifestyle from her.

One of the hopes for the future for me is that political nonsense will stop informing who does what in a household — let the couple work it out for themselves. The idea that everyone who doesn’t have a outside the home job is either A) inferior B) delusional C) oppressed D) some combination thereof simply is not true. I know many, many intelligent and hardworking women who look forward to having children and spending time with them. I know a male or two like that as well. The thought that their choices are forced is not in line with reality either. No one forces the choice to have children or to stay home with them on you in this nation in this age.

The same applies to the division of household labor. I know families where the father does most of the household work; I know families where the mother does. I know single father families and single mother families. I would assume that the author as well as most of the reader do as well. That there is one arrangement, some sort of precise 50-50 split of housework and any other agreement (yes, agreement) is “unjust” or oppressive is insulting to all but the few families who find that to work best.

Lastly, as a comment on the classical “men are pigs” jist of this argument, if you feel you are entitled to a given state of relationship, you may wish to work that out before, not after, you get married or attached in a long term manner rather than taking what you get in terms of men and then whining that his priorities are not the same as yours. Two halves to the partnership; when not in agreement, to each their own path, not the path of political correctness.

Academia, like any other pursuit, is not a holistic evaluation of life in general but rather an evaluation of a skillset in a particular area (usually what you have your PhD in). What you do and why you do it in the rest of your life should not be relevant to tenure and other performance evaluation decisions. One must prioritize life. Clichéd as that statement is, you choose what matters to you. Let me give you a very simple and utterly apolitical example. When I take a math test, it matters if I can do math or not. When I step onto the mat for my karate class, I am evaluated for karate. No one in math class cares how good or bad I am at karate and no one in karate cares how good I am at math. If I skipped math class and worked obsessively at karate, I could be quite good. If I skipped karate and worked obsessively at math, perhaps a similar situation would result. No one will say, however, “oh you had a math test, we’ll excuse your poor punching” or “oh, you had a kata evaluation, we’ll excuse you from your problem set.” Nor should they. Ever.

Kevin, Undergraduate, at 4:43 pm EST on December 9, 2005

“For that reason, when women, give up the competition with their cohorts to do what any uneducated woman can do, they are considered to have wasted their careers and not be as valuable to their colleagues who want to be seen as associated with “winners” not “breeders.””

Larry is in a department by himself. Postponing entry to the full time workforce is not bailing out. Or giving up. By focusing only on women’s capacity to ‘breed’ he sexistly reinforces the ‘you are not wanted here’ attitude that many women with children resist.

What’s the difference for an Assistant Prof. position between these two Ph.D.s: 1) a 28-year old unattached (except perhaps to his/her own parents who may eventually become a “burden” slowing the Ph.D. down with caregiving tasks) with 0 publications, and

2) a 37-year old Ph.D. with 1-3 publications, many conference presentations, significant civic leadership work or volunteer experience, and children in school........

All Ph.D.s with children who re-enter the full-time workforce ask is to be taken seriously. That won’t happen when Larry’s in charge. And he knows it. Hence the posting on this issue (here and after other articles). Threatened? or Trolling?

Bea, at 4:54 pm EST on December 9, 2005

It is unfortunate that Hirshman sees her SAHM critics as merely “empty calories,” particularly when so many of them called her out on her shallow second wave feminism, with all the race and class blinkers involved. For example, Hirshman argues that women who engage in childcare and clean-up bodily fluids are lower-than-low, “untouchables,” in her own words. Yet who exactly does she think cares for the children (or child, I suppose, since she thinks that a good feminist should limit herself to a single child, never mind the demographic suicide involved in *that*) of those high-paid female lawyers? Does she think the lower-class women of color who are frequently employed as nannies or childcare workers are “untouchables"? Lower-than-low? It is sad that she thinks of domestic labor in this way. Does she feel that (the all-too-rare) men who choose to stay home with their children are similarly wasting their potential and are “untouchable"? Or does this only apply to rich, white women? She paints the both the problem and the solution with too broad a brush.

It is right and proper than women should demand more participation from the men in their lives in the care upkeep of both household and children. However, as one who quotes Mark Twain, she should be aware that painting domestic work as unbearable torture is unlikely to draw men into greater participation (Tom Sawyer, at least, knew how to get help whitewashing a fence, even if she doesn’t). Furthermore, she judges women’s success entirely on the standards of patriarchal capitalism. The answer is not for women to remake themselves to conform to a male-driven ideology of success. Women must demand change from the workplace as well as from their male partners. If women demand more participation from their male partners, then perhaps their male partners will also demand change in the workplace. And then perhaps we will finally see change, when parents of both sexes demand it.

Mrs. Coulter, at 9:50 pm EST on December 9, 2005

its about choices

Bea, The difference between a younger and an older person with a different number of publications is that the older person won’t be working as long, and won’t develop to the level of fame (thereby bringing glory to the department) that the young person will. It is a sad fact of life, but any school that wants to be great needs to understand that they need to see not just what a faculty member will produce now, but how good they will look in 15 years. A retiring faculty member is of little use, especially when they have less publications than similarly-situated faculty members.

I realize this subject brings up a lot of emotional issue, which make it hard to discuss. But if we all work very hard, I think that we can discuss it sanely. So, I will not insult you if you don’t insult me (as you did by calling me a troll and saying that I was threatening you.)

Personally, I like women. The women in my family, however, do not stop to have kids, because they don’t think it is really their proper role. Just like we choose between eating pie and being fat, women choose between being PTA-mothers and contributing the way men do to academic discussion. That is why none of the women in my family eat pie or join the PTA.

Larry, at 1:29 pm EST on December 10, 2005

This debate has been going on for 30 years. That provides enough evidence to argue that academe is simply indifferent to change except that which profits the institution. (Witness the growth of adjunct labor over that span.) A Ph.D. is useless unless one practices the research it trains you for. Ergo, don’t get Ph.D.’s with no employability outside academe.

The debate on household work is ridiculous and harks back to the simple-minded debate of 30 years ago. It also puts the onus on the married couple and avoids questions of institutionalcustom/practice/responsibility. If the “employees” are miserable, one would think they would work for change. Instead they squabble among themselves, assuring their managers will never have to fact up to change. Keep the faculty off balance and you can do anything you like as an administrator/manager. Or, rather, if the “wilde beestes” can’t come up with a rational set of proposals, an intelligent leader doesn’t have to pay attention. After all, the only problem is a few women who are a nuisance. Isn’t that the academic response to the question of children?

Women choosing graduate school should focus on credentials that are saleable. Other sorts are silly indeed...and a waste of an intelligent woman’s time.

JSK

J. S. Kantrowitz, retired Ph.D., English, at 3:53 pm EST on December 10, 2005

Hirshman’s arguments here are very different than they were in the TAP version. She seems to think data that shows women have different career patterns than men is some kind of triumph for her. We all know that. It’s not news. Where we go from here is the question, and Hirshman’s recommendations were both appalling and insulting in many respects, as was her castigation of feminists. She and Maureen Dowd may get a lot of press but the true mantle of feminism will carry on as a movement toward the equality of all women, not just the ones who get Hirshman attention.

Professa G., at 6:02 am EST on December 11, 2005

Linda —You know that I have problems with many of your assumptions that begin your essay, ie that the workplace is the only place for human fulfillment. And I think that you waver on the blaming the opt out moms — sometimes they just want to bake pies and other times they face real obstacles. But I just want to talk now about academic moms — a topic that I know very, very well.

Academic women who later drop out of the workforce never planned on doing that. The average time in graduate school is 8 or 9 years and results in mountains of debt. Why go through all that work and debt if you were planning on staying home? Certainly not to find a rich, sugar daddy.

Why do Academic Moms opt out?

1. Academic moms dropout for many of the same reasons that academic men dropout. It’s really hard to find work. Ask my husband who has a PhD in history. Read all those sad columns in the Chronicle of Higher Education.

2. Dual academic families are brutal. I have many friends who have had to raise their kids on their own in separate cities from their husband, because they couldn’t find work in the same city.

3. The pay is so terrible and the student loans are so huge, that childcare is unaffordable.

4. Some schools offer decent, affordable childcare on campus, but it is still not the norm. Areas to breastfeed are non-existent.

5. The competition is so tough that one or two years off is career suicide.

6. Most women finish their PhDs in their mid-30s which is prime baby-time. If they have a problem pregnancy or a child with special needs and need to take a year off, this is a disaster.

7. In most cases, the money is too meager to support a family. Rules out having a stay at home father watching the two kids.

Look, my father is a retired academic. Things are very different now than they were in the past. It’s not only the guy on the couch, but all sorts of other obstacles preventing women from succeeding in higher education.

I totally agree that we need more women in positions of power, especially in academia. Hell, I want a job in a year after my son who has speech disabilities is back on track. I think it will be highly unlikely and with my fancy education, I’ll be taking admissions slips in a bursor’s office at a third rate university. Sometimes I wish that I had just gone to nursing school.

Laura McKenna, at 11:26 am EST on December 12, 2005

Note for Laura

L: truer words, never spoken. For all the yippin’ and yappin’ about how unfair the world is to adjuncts — I’d suggest reading Cary Nelson’s descriptions of MLA conventions and job candidates crying as they beg for a TT job.

As to this: ” .. sometimes I wish that I had just gone to nursing school ..”

Actually, I understand there is a shortage of doctorally-qualified RN faculty. A friend was PhD-English, then went RN/BSN. She’s TT now. Might want to take a look. Best, R.

R.A. Shaw, at 3:21 pm EST on December 12, 2005

Rhona Mahoney has a brilliant discussion of this issue in her unjustly neglected book, Kidding Ourselves: Breadwinning, Babies and Bargaining Power.

Her slogan: women need to train up, and marry down.

Joseph Heath, professor, at 4:30 pm EST on December 12, 2005

I really don’t know why this feminist-bashing is so acceptable here when feminists were responsible for adding women to Title VII and lobbying Title IX as well as the first discrimination case and the subsequent harrassment cases. Some people need to review and learn a little history.

Working mothers do get a good deal in some places (if not “higher” academe). A young friend of mine (gifted mathematician) just had two babies in the course of 3 years—each with a 1-year unpaid leave. She is a valued employee of Lucent, one of the offshoots of AT&T (where one of the early discriminations cases occured. They now have model policies). Public education has long had pregnancy leave courtesy of the teacher’s unions—and a generous tenure policy as well. (Maybe too generous?) In any case, the model is there if only academe were willing to learn from what many consider their “inferiors.” And there are many other examples. Joan Williams, now at Hastings Law School, has been studying these issues for years—so there’s a good research base available to any institution that takes these issues seriously.

And Larry Summers just married again—his wife is a professor of English at Harvard. (Both of them are in their 50’s). Is that nepotism?? Or just an acknowledgement of academic realities. At least he didn’t choose a sportscar wife!

Cheers,JSK

JSK, at 2:53 pm EST on December 14, 2005

Or maybe perhaps....

Linda needs to go “realize her career” and “marry down,” and feel superior, and the rest of us will ignore her, marry the people we love and live our lives as we see fit. It IS freely-chosen, Linda, in a society that gives women a choice. The feminist movement fought to give women the OPTION of a career, not to REQUIRE them to have a career.

I am not going to “refuse” to do something that I want to do. Continue to fight for equality, but realize that forcing people to make choices that go against the grain of what works best in their lives is a fairly twisted form of “social justice.” Defining something that makes people happy as “not freely chosen” is patronizing at best and Orwellian at worst.

I proudly “refuse” to live my life according to a Hirshman-approved stamp, just as on the other hand I refuse to live it according to a Jerry Fallwell-approved stamp. And if Linda’s dictatorial brand of feminism ever becomes the law in America, then Canada will gain a new citizen.

MS, at 4:18 pm EST on December 14, 2005

Bastards, etc.

Provocative discussion. I just want to mention that the quote attributed to me, while nearly accurate, is reported out of context. When I spoke with Hirshman, the particular question at hand was, why did the elite brides she interviewed for her informal study continue to pick up their husbands dirty socks with nary a word of protest? My response wasn’t intended as an assessment of the work-life conflicts of dual-earner academic couples, or even affluent, well-educated parents in general. While this is pure anecdote, most of the dual-academic couples I know are consciously striving to find a fairer way to share the work of family life, but feel their ability to do so is greatly constrained by the ticking of the tenure clock.

One thing that does apply to women in the super-affluent set and those of garden-variety privilege, including those in academia, is that when mothers cut back on their workforce participation while children are young, they sacrifice immediate and long-term earnings potential as well as career mobility. During the years they work less than full-time, the financial security of married mothers and their children is a least to a degree — and often significantly — dependent on a partner’s earnings, and generally continues if and when mothers resume full time employment. Research suggests income disparity tends to shift the power balance in marital relationships and plays into who gets more of what — more sleep, more leisure time, more mobility, more time to pursue career goals. It creates a perceived and actual economic risk for wives who confront their primary earner partners about the more equitable sharing of domestic work necessary for mothers’ career advancement, and a perceived and actual disincentive for high-achieving men to pick up more of the slack at home.

Some mothers don’t feel it’s worth taking the risk of roiling the marital waters with demands for a more equitable division of household labor and some do justify their inequality by falling back on the “motherhood mystique,” hence my observation about women’s reticence to question conventional gender roles in the family, bastards and housework. It was not a serious comment meant to be applied as proof of the backwardness of men or the false consciousness of women who ought to the leading lights in their professions but are at home sorting laundry instead, and I’m quite sure Hirshman knew it. As many here have noted, the cultural and structural factors which contribute to continued male dominance in the professions are many and complicated, and I very much doubt that individual women putting their foot down about fully-shared parenting is the overriding solution to the problem. But implementing other changes to make men’s lives look more like women’s lives might be.

Judith Stadtman, at 11:57 am EST on December 15, 2005

the balance of power in a family

This is an excellent discussion so far. I’m a PhD economist (though not an academic) and wanted to reinforce a couple of points that I’ve seen touched on in some of the posts. Of course highly educated women who decide to stay at home raising children for long periods of time (i.e. more than a 6-month period here and there) “choose” this lifestyle and can find fulfillment in this choice. But what they may not realize they are also “choosing” at the same time is to reduce themselves to a secondary role within the family balance of power. Early in a marriage, this may not seem obvious, but as the woman who found herself divorced at age 50 with difficulty finding a job attests, the seeds are sown for bad outcomes later on. The stay-at-home mom makes herself much more dispensable in the marriage pair and therefore loses a great deal of bargaining power in all disputes. The husband can get along fine without her – he has his career and is able to do the housework himself if need be, or hire a nanny or housekeeper. The SAHM, on the other hand, can not get alone fine without him. Thus, she has little to bargain with, as one writer notes, in disputes over who will do the laundry, put the kids to bed, or the implications of her husband’s extramarital explorations. How many times have we heard of such disputes ended by the man sitting in his chair, folding his hands, and declaring, “well, I don’t see anyone else putting food on the table around here” or some such…Essentially, since she has much more to lose by the marriage breaking up, the SAHM thus becomes dependent – which erodes the quality of the marriage from both sides. Also, though this is a much more subjective point, what do highly educated SAHMs see as the fruit of their sacrificing some of their own ambitions to raise children? Do they aim to produce daughters who will follow in their own footsteps – essentially to play a supporting role as they do? This pattern strikes me as very primitive – what have we accomplished as a society when many of our members (in whom society has invested substantial resources) with great potential do little more than continue the cycle of reproduction? Perhaps they are reaching some kind of zen-like inner fulfillment by wiping runny noses and doing laundry, but this is not much of an advance from where we were as a human society thousands of years ago. Also, why isn’t the point being made that it actually IS possible to both care for children AND to achieve great things outside of the home. Where does it say that being a good mother requires being one 24/7? Indeed this probably becomes counterproductive even from the child’s perspective – is this really a choice made for the sake of the child or is he/she used as justification for a choice of the mother who takes what seems to be the easy road at the time (but is usually not, in the long run – see my first paragraph).

Dave, at 6:11 pm EST on December 20, 2005

Linda said in her “Prospect” article that “no job is perfect,” but she fails to come to grips with the simple fact that work in capitalism is extraordinarily difficult for alot of people, especially progressive ones, to stomach. She ought to consider the number of men who would “opt out” if they could. Indeed, is it not the goal of the most avaricious to make enough money to allow themselves the luxury to do nothing? It hardly seems reasonable to exhort women, or anybody, to choose “good work” over anything else if it means having to swallow hard every day to tolerate the heirarchies. Moreover, women in “good work” find themselves conforming to male-created and modeled power forms; who the heck needs that? Linda just doesn’t come to grips with the fact that being somewhere other than in a heirarchical maelstrom might allow somebody to “flourish,” as she would have it, for many more hours per week. Such a woman might well make a substantial contribution to “ruling” the world (which apparently Linda is conservative enough to believe the world requires, falling into the biggest male-created trap of all).

riiky, at 1:02 pm EST on December 22, 2005

I am a feminist who opted to take a step back in my career after my children were born. As a mother, I have reaped emotional rewards for doing this. My career has stalled as a result. This, despite a husband who contributes considerably to domestic chores.

As a feminist, however, I know that my time as a stay-at-home mom will be limited. I do not want my son and two daughters to look out onto a world ruled by men and only men. I look to Sandra Day O’Connor — wife, mother and power broker — as a mentor. Her brief stint as a stay-at-home mother did not cripple her career.

I am a freelance writer. What I find to be most challenging in my pursuit of work right now is the astronomical cost of childcare. I have 22 month old twins — day care at a highly regarded facility close to my house is $101 per day per child. If I were to put my children in that facility full time — it would be more than $4000 a month. As the mother of small children, I do not want to work the kind of hours that would enable me to pay that kind of fee. As a feminist, I do not want my brain to turn to sludge from lack of use. It is a problem I have not yet solved.

In his book about success, Jack Welsh, former CEO of GE, was quite frank that he exerted no effort to raise his sons. All credit in that area goes to his ex-wife. His company was his baby — to that, all his energies were committed. To succeed in business at that level requires the kind of time commitment that conflicts deeply with the needs of family.

To have someone else raise my children so I can focus exclusively on my career is not how I wish to live my life. American culture, with its relentless drive on the acquisition of power, money and objects, is a toxic environment for families. That is something never addressed in all the articles I’ve read on “women who opt out.” It needs to be addressed for this problem to be solved.

anne@ward-williams.com, at 3:25 pm EST on January 4, 2006

women in science, physical particularly

I just read Hirshman’s piece in the The American Prospect. As a young physicist I’m very interested in the dearth of female scientists. I forget exact numbers but physics stands out in this respect, with something like 90% of the American Physical Society’s membersip being male. This is significantly more than any other science or engineering field I know of.

Why is this, and how can it be changed? I seriously doubt it’s because male physicists are sexist, at least any more sexist as a group than lawers, bankers, doctors, chemists, mathematicians, and so on. Anecdotally, most male physicsts I know were the last ones picked for the sports teams in gym class as kids, and don’t fill male machismo stereotypes...

I also dismiss claims that the current intellectual framework of physics is somehow ‘masculine’ with all its talk of force and impact and power.

President Summers has of course offered his own insight as to why science is male-dominated...

Elite-career opt-out considerations like Hirshman’s may apply and account for a good deal of the gender imbalance, but I imagine they can’t explain why certain branches of science, like phyiscs, are so much worse than law, finance, and so on. In general I find physics less stressful than these other careers — if the paper doesn’t go out this week it’s usually no big deal, certainly not compared to preparing for a fixed trial date with millions of dollars on the line.

My own thoughts are that society tells children “science is for boys” from a very young age. Science isn’t usually done for secondary purposes like money or power. So most scientists need an interest in science for science’s sake to excel at it, and this may depend strongly on what happens during childhood. But this is utter speculation.

David Strozzi, postdoc at Lawrence Livermore National Lab, at 4:35 am EST on January 9, 2006

Where is care in this discussion? Where is the sense that care is a worthwhile endeavor that 1) benefits society and 2) benefits ourselves?

Feminists are right that fathers need to pick up some slack, and there are ways to improve incentives on this, so it is not just every woman out there negotiating with her partner on her own.

But the experience of care providing is so much more than an impediment to one’s true career potential. It can change one’s perspective on what matters. It can open your heart to a less linear notion of acheivement, and help you to recognize different kinds of ability. These are worthwhile individual benefits, part of becoming more humane — in addition to the necessity of care for any society that wants to reproduce, let alone survive.

People with any kind of care responsibilities should get extra — extra time, extra money, extra benefits — as a statement of how much we collectively value that endeavor. Care responsibilities should be spread more evenly across race, class and gender. Conversations about the costs of care seem greatly misguided if they start with the premise that caring is the mistake — the mistake is being made by those who don’t care, the mistake is when we don’t support carers.

Let care be at the center. Don’t fall in line behind some age-old hierarchy placing the mythological rational-autonomous worker at the top, a hierarchy that renders invisible all the care that goes into that worker in the first place. Make policy and personal decisions that value care, whoever is doing it.

Allison Pugh, Berkeley, at 9:14 am EST on January 11, 2006

Male dominance?

The older I become, the more darkly funny it seems, that femmunists and communists and other idealists, sit listlessly on the sidelines and wring their word processors.

Men and women in the battle, struggle with the dragons in the reality swamp; barely keeping their heads above the muck. They catch an occasional breath and then are swept back into the battle.

While they are picking up the dirty socks of excessive interest charges, picking up the excessive purchasing of materialist families, lucky to catch 5 or 6 hours of sleep between shifts battling the dragons, then they catch an occasional verbal mudball from the sidelines.

Most couples engaged in the struggle, not afforded rest by wealthy parents, understand the real life and death fight to survive. They don’t have time to ponder whether or not this is a man-made struggle or one wrought by nature.

And when one of them or a child is wounded by health or fortune, they don’t expect help from the peanut gallery. They know the intelligencia will be attacking the Czar for ideological differences, looking out for themselves.

In the coming tempest, it will be each family for themselves; clutching their little life rafts and swatting the dragon with pieces of driftwood. The only humor available might possibly be, the femmunists still demanding that men save the women as both genders go down together.

The couples who play the blame game and nit pick for faults will sink with the others. Those who hope for the corrupt state and corporations to save them had better have gills.

Dr. F. Gump, Muckraking Provost at Upper Midwest Mental Institute, at 9:44 pm EST on January 14, 2006

NY Times Brides

I’d like to comment on the Homeward Bound article in The American Prospect. I think NY Times brides are not a representative sample, even of women who graduate from elite universities. The very fact that they aspire to have their marriage announcement and photo published in the NY Times Sunday Styles indicates that they are more committed to traditional social forms than the population at large. I graduated from an elite university in 1982. I never married because I was focused on a demanding career, but among my peers who did marry and have children, I see experiments with juggling career and family that run the gamut, including househusbands, two serious careers with an army of nannies and housekeepers, and, yes, women working part-time or not at all. These are the ancedotes I see. To conclude from a sample of NY Times brides that the majority of women are giving up their careers a big leap. If other data supports that conclusion, so be it, but not NY Times brides. Thank you.

Elizabeth, at 2:20 pm EST on January 20, 2006

I am responding to “Is Your Husband a Worse Problem Than Larry Summers?".

I wonder how many American men actually laud that their educated wives leave the workforce to stay at home to raise their children?

I am from a traditional East Asian Culture, which despite what many in the West would conjecture, in modernity at least (post 1950s Korean War) values in marriage, contributions of women as equal partners. When a woman in my culture stays home, it is an unwritten rule that she must cook all meals, keep a tidy home, and be frugal with her husband’s money and if possible, invest the money and or start a small business. If and when possible for the woman to get a job outside of the home, she often does, because in my culture, the one true meassure of success is for the success of the next generation. So if you want jr. to go to Harvard, then you need money, so if possible, the woman wants to work to afford more savings for the child’s education, if for no other reason.

So my one married sister, like me, works, even though she has a baby. On the other hand,of my Irish-American sisters in law, of whom 5 are married with children (all of them college educated, all of them previoulsy job holders), only 2 work. One of them because she has a college aged child from a previous marriage whom she is supporting through school, and the other because presumably, her husband only has 1 job and does not make enough money. One of the sisters-in-law who has 3 children told me once, “I do not cook". But she does little else either, while her husband works 3 meanials jobs so that she can drive around in a Range Rover. And her children are on ADD medications even though another sister-in-law put her child on such medications and scrambled the brains of her child, who at age 24 is a high school drop out and homeless.

I see the husbands of these women dying/aging rapidly before my eyes, but the wife is completely oblivious. The stressed out and frazzled husbands won’t make it to age 70. Some are not even aware of what is happening to them. They seem content in their role as the family mule as long as the “princess” their wives, are happy. I don’t understand this kind of thinking.

In the media, I have observed extreme and obviously pathological conclusions of some “desparate” husbands killing their pregnant wives as their financial house of cards tumbles all around them while the wives decide to stay home or work part-time.

What do I think is going on? I don’t know. I just know that I see American women with entitlement issues that they should be put upon the pedestal while their husbands work themselves to an early grave. This can’t be good for the women, the men or the children. Maybe in the 1950s America, families could live on 1 income, but not really now, at least not in the East or the Westcoasts.

I am from a culture that believes that in marriage, men and women are equal partners. I don’t believe that married women with children, for different reasons than this referenced article, should stay at home. I believe that men need partners, not a burden to take care of (they are not children, they are adults), and that women are not seeing the greater contributions that can be made to their children and spouses, when they choose to be in the marriage and partnership “together". That means working, that means having only 1 child, or putting the children in day care. That means nannies for those who choose or can afford that. That means that married women with a child/children, should work just like their husbands. What’s the worst that can happen? The husband and wife could both retire early. The children will learn the value of work ethic. The husbands can sigh that they have partners, not a “ball and chain” that will drag them to their early graves.

amandakim, Entitlement Issues?, at 12:45 pm EDT on April 13, 2006

I have chosen to leave career behind and take care of my children. There is NO HIGHER CALLING! I am taking part in shaping and molding the next generation. There could be no other person better qualified to raise my children than myself. My husband and I are the only ones who love our children with such intensity that we will do whatever it takes to care for them and meet their emotional needs. My husband is a huge help! When he come home, he takes over caring for the children, while I either take a few moments to myself or work on another project in our home requiring attention. I truly feel sorry for all you out there who can’t see the value in such a worthwhile career. I LOVE my co-worker (my husband), the hours can be rough, but due to actually communicating my needs, I pretty much get weekends off. I also strongly believe that if more kids were actually being raised by those who love them, we would see less Columbine situations!

Ka Shawna, at 3:40 pm EDT on April 27, 2006

Linda- I assume the reality women face at their workplace largely doesn’t respond their aspirations and expectations. It simply does not apply to the system of internal values carried by woman, and frequently the decision to leave work is dictated by desire to constrain destructive influence of harsh reality to a necessary minimum in order to supports their existence and independency. And that protection mode could often be found only in childrearing and housekeeping.

Irina, at 4:35 am EDT on June 1, 2006

Linda Hirshman

I’m sure that Ms. Hirshman will not value anything I have to say and would counter with all the venom I’ve seen up to this point. I do work, only per diem, as an Occupational therapist. I work because I have to, I need to make some money. The most important job I do is to raise my 2 children. I don’t schedule work for days or weeks that they’re off from school. In the summer I only work evenings or a couple of days if they go to camp for a week or two. I drop them off at school and pick them up every day. They don’t go to before or aftercare. In my experience, every child is different, some do okay with both parents working full time. Many do not. I volunteer at my kids school a lot. I know many many stay at home moms, or women who work but don’t do so at the expense of their children. These women are beautiful, intelligent, caring, nonjudgemental and successful.. I don’t fault women who have to work or truly want to... but I expect the same treatment in return. I am a liberal, open minded supporter of women’s and all human’s rights. If someone has to be so judgemental in their views and opinions I believe it is because they lack something in their own lives. I hope Ms. Hirschman will not regret her choices in the end... and I do believe that children do not forget the little things we do for them but they do remember if we are not there for them. Linda Simpson

Linda Simpson, at 5:00 am EDT on June 15, 2006

Hmmm. While I would agree that raising children is an important job, what do we teach our children by eschewing the workplace in favor of staying home? Even my 11 year old daughter sees the hypocrisy in moms coaching their children to do well in school, get into a good college — as many of them did — and obtain high-paying job, only to opt out to become moms? Statistics show more women than men in college today, so why are we setting the tone for a one-sided domestic drain-brain? And another thing: Without a critical mass of women in the workplace, we can’t possibly achieve the reforms our sister feminists rallied so hard to put on the national agenda. Here’s some anecdotal evidence: when I was 6 months pregnant with my first child, I was terminated without cause. Yes, I sought legal recourse, and got it. Four years later, a different employer, stunned that I had returned to my job after 6 weeks as per company policy, had to then scramble to find me an office and explain how my job description had changed (read demotion) while I was out. They too received a call from my attorney and I received a substantial settlement. These are only two data points, I realize, but I could readily add the experiences of many others. Women who opt out of the workplace quite simply give employers justification to discriminate. I feel I better serve my daughters by being a role model of balance in career, home duties, and community involvement. I am teaching them that it is indeed possible to have it all, given that one defines “all” carefully. For me, this means that I sometimes choose to bake cupcakes for the school faculty lunch rather than have a pedicure. Now, that’s a real choice — one that I’m all too happy to have my children observe.

Alison Snowden, at 10:45 am EDT on June 19, 2006

Raising kids = JOB

So let’s see, Allison. You say, “While I would agree that raising children is an important JOB, what do we teach our children by eschewing the WORKPLACE in favor of staying home?. . . only to opt out to become MOMS?”

I think you miss the point, which is that raising children at home, aka, the workplace, is every bit as much of a JOB as whatever it is you do for pay.

Former Prof, Former professor, at 4:40 am EDT on June 20, 2006

A LITTLE DEFENSIVE, ARE WE?

I stand by my argument. Working in the home is NOT working. I know, because I do both — I am a corporate attorney and have neither nanny nor housekeeper.

In short, I do everything my father did and everything my mother did. My children are thriving and my retirement is secure.

Why do I feel like all the at-home moms out there are waiting for my children to fail out of school or for me to forget to bring the cupcakes? Why do so many say “I don’t know how you do it!” without waiting to hear the answer?

I suspect it’s because they want to be vindicated. They realize their position is tenuous, that the divorce rate is topping 50% (not counting women who look the other way when their husbands wander) and deep down, they feel guilty knowing that they wasted their parents’ money on a college degree.

Do flex-time or whatever, but get back to work! Do it for yourself, your kids, your marriage.

Alison Snowden, Dr., at 1:25 pm EDT on June 20, 2006

examples/choice

I would like to comment on the importance of seeing the bigger picture verses the immediate need, as mentioned by poster Allison earlier. My Mom, who always wanted to be a doctor, but who dropped out of school to have children, always encouraged me to do well in school and accomplish my dreams. But it was always a strange mixed message. On the one hand—pursue your dreams, on the other hand—if you have kids (which you probably will) you can forget about all of it. Mom never said anything like that to my older brothers, but for me the separation of being female was palpable. And I did not like it. When I was a teenager three of my brothers got married; they had kids, and their wives stayed home with them—no questions asked. I realized then that I wasn’t the same kind of person as them, at least to my Mom. It hurt me badly. I could never stand to hear about all the supposed “great differences between men and women,” epecially from people I wanted to respect. Because it’s not really about differences. It’s about women not really being people. I said that to my brother once and he gave me the blankest look. He is a nice guy, and he means well—but he’s never been on this side of the situation, and he takes the word of women who are just not interested. That’s why it’s hard to accept the choices of others. Because they can hurt YOU, and the bigger picture. And I actually believe that women have an obligation to other women, if not to themselves, to define themselves as the human counterpoints of men. It is unacceptable to choose to be unequal, even if is possible.

Rachel, choice, at 1:25 pm EDT on June 20, 2006

No woman should be bullied into making a choice one way or the other. I left paid employment 18 years ago to stay home with my 2 year old. My career in upper level retail management,which I loved, required working 6 days a week, with extra time during the holidays. My husband, whose salary was higher, worked 60 hours a week. We both realized that this combination was not in the best interest of our daughter. Even after 2 more children I have still found time to volunteer for several organizations and my children’s schools. I am currently working on an fundraiser that raises $1.5 million for financial aid at one of my children’s private school. There are many ways to use the skills that a women gains through college and the workplace. My oldest daughter is in college and is keeping her options open. She would like to marry and have a family but is very set in her career goals. I don’t think that I have let her, or her sister, down by being a “stay at home mom". I know in my case the bonds of motherhood made my choice easier, but I do not presume to tell other women how to live their lives.

Jean, at 5:20 am EDT on June 21, 2006

But do we presume to tell men how to live their lives? Put another way: do we treat wage-earning work as optional for men? Typically, no. This discussion is all but nonexistent for men. The question seems to be how to rectify this obvious double standard. If we don’t acknowledge it as a double standard, we’re denying the harm that can come from the sexes occuping separate spheres in life. The defining issue when it comes to SAHMs, in my opinion, is not the value of raising children or the practicality of care arrangements, but rather the mass defining of lives and families along gender lines.

Rachel, at 12:55 pm EDT on June 21, 2006

I’m laughing

I just noticed that all this hatred, bigotry, and horrible advice about going corporate is coming from a woman with advanced degrees in WOMENS STUDIES and PHILOSOPHY. Talk about the twin children of uselessness.

CE, PE, at 9:35 am EDT on July 14, 2006

To Rachel

To Rachel—I don’t know how old you are, but your comments give me the impression that you’re fairly young. Coming from a 61-year -"old lady", I’d just like to say how thoughtful and intelligent—and free of “attitude"—your comments are. Thank you very much. Best wishes, Pam

Pam, at 2:10 pm EDT on July 21, 2006

Up until very recently I would have been viciously defending SAHM-ism using some of the same reasoning I’ve seen here. Put bluntly, most of us aren’t receiving the ephemeral “fulfillment” in the workplace. We’re corporate drones stoking unsustainable global capitalist fires. The business model for most Universities isn’t really far from what the rest of us experience. My job, though lucrative, is based almost entirely upon the growth-oriented real estate and development market, and I believe it will prove less reliable than my dear philosopher husband. Managing your family with a mix of social consciousness, community awareness, and frugal common sense seems to be a more rewarding path. I had a mother who completely abdicated her involvement in my life to date unstable men. Would I have felt any less abandoned if it was for some professional ego-gratification? So the current of motherhood and career runs deep for me, and it’s taken the better half of my twenties to sort it out. I think.

What bothers me, however, is that somehow the exhortation for women to suceed outside the realm of children and family always gets reduced by opponents as de-valuing stay-at-home moms. I understand that Hirshman invites the vitriol with her own rhetoric, but it really ought to be put aside. Yes, there is a male-shaped hierarchical structure to power acquisition that tends to squash gentle creatures, but I still hold out feeble optimism that women can increase their ranks among the powerful and be part of the big decisions. I’d really rather see a woman get to be “the decider” if you know what I mean...

Tanya, Architectural Historian, at 4:45 am EDT on August 3, 2006

gleanings

In the interests of peace, on the one hand, and vision, on the other—both of which are extremely important—I would like to stick in a word for us young women looking out upon this massacre know as “humanity’s attitude toward women” (and especially those who see it for what it is). I bought the Hirshman BOOK, after reading her article online. I read it. I read all of it—even the parts about not being a liberal arts major (oh my!) and marrying a male “wife” (you have to love progress!?) and of course her (although slightly deserved) slights on Ms. Steinem, who I will always love, flaws and all. What I scrapped out of the book, which was admittedly not soft-pedaled and had some incredibly simplistic ideas and solutions, was that what we have taken to regarding as rights/privileges/choices as women, and have worked as such into the living fabric of our reality, ARE in fact responsibilities/duties/honors of human beings. And by taking the stance that it is acceptable for some to partake always and others to partake sometimes, BASED ON any lifelong factor (like SEX) is something we should all be able to see, at least intellectually, as wrong. ("amiss” if you prefer.) We have to look the word “differences” straight in the eye and disect it like a doctoral canditate disecting “The Wasteland.” Unfortunately, Hirshman assumes the reader is postdoctorate and knows the ins and outs, and begins her theories at the point where people don’t question what kind of person you are, it’s just that you’re shockingly underrepresented. Hirshman writes with an eye to creating some sort of change to achieve this end. It pains me to say this, but this entire concept is so foreign to [most] women of my generation that the manuscript sounds like she’s just randomly trying to ruin their lives. It’s so contrary to ingrained principles that it’s little wonder some people invoke the name of nature when defending their lack of interest in progressing gender equality. What we need is a book, specifically for women, just IDENTIFYING the problems of the blase double standard,of how the way we arrange our families affects the whole country/world, of our shamelessly selective demands for sex equality—just drawing the eye to reasons anyone would suggest the things she’s suggesting. Maybe we could suggest something better. As it stands, I’m not sure every woman is “choosing from a wide variety of choices (which we didn’t have when we were your age)” as much as she is struggling to find a level of anger she can live with. Really. And watching that kind of counterproductivity can be frustrating. So, give L. Hirshman a little slack. She’s of a different generation, she has a different memory, and she’s trying to introduce, albeit with the grace of Al Gore, the giant-pink-elephant-in-the-living-room of a lifetime. I’m thinking of overlooking her slight on history majors myself. Maybe. Don’t throw the baby out with the...

Rachel, in a nutshell, at 2:25 pm EDT on August 28, 2006

good for her

All I have to say is thank heaven for philosophers. The good professor may have ticked off some folks, insulted a few others, but she is MAKING PEOPLE THINK. She is a gadfly, directly addressing an issue that most don’t want to face. Women do most of the child-raising, they get less pay as a result, and they are discriminated against because of their gender. She is offering some suggestions for women in the face of these realities to preserve their well-being, which in this capitalistic society is about how much cabbage you have in your bank account. At least she had the courage to say it.

AM, at 1:10 pm EDT on October 7, 2006

Who we invest in?

As a society, can we afford to investing in training women in medicine or law when we will not see any return on our investment? A return on the investment could be possible if SAHMs raised childrn who contribute more to society than do children of working mothers. There is no evidence for that. Thus, admitting women to medical schools and other graduate programs — and perhaps even Colleges — may not be a good thing unless we can select for women who have a higher likelihood of providing a return on our collective investment in them than the group we are admitting today.On additional problem with SAHMs is with their monopoly, they prevent Dads from developing equal relationships with their own children. Thus children are destined to spend time with a person who has limited stimulation in her own life. Perhpas this aspect of the SAHMs children negates the positive aspect of a caring person who is always available.

Sam Massabene, at 6:01 am EST on November 26, 2006

Jobs Related to Is Your Husband a Worse Problem Than Larry Summers?

or search for jobs directly.

Assistant or Assoc Professor, Clinician Scholar
University of Minnesota, Twin Cities

The University of Minnesota is a premier employer and a talent magnet attracting leading faculty and staff from around the ... see job

Part-Time Online Facilitator (PL)
Eastern Kentucky University

Eastern Kentucky University, located in Richmond, Madison County, Kentucky near the Heart of the Bluegrass, is a ... see job

Assistant Professor
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

The UNC Department of Family Medicine in Chapel Hill is seeking a tenure track Assistant Professor (Clinician Researcher). ... see job

Program Coordinator
University of Minnesota, Twin Cities

The University of Minnesota is a premier employer and a talent magnet attracting leading faculty and staff from around the ... see job

Professor, Rhetoric and Composition
University of California, Irvine

School of Humanities Department of English Endowed Chair in Rhetoric and Communication Position: Associate or Beginning Full ... see job

Director of the Graduate Program in Education
Gordon College

GORDON COLLEGE Director, Graduate Program in Education Gordon College is seeking a Director of the Graduate Program in ... see job

Assistant Professor/Associate Professor
Western Carolina University

WESTERN CAROLINA UNIVERSITY-FACULTY POSITION IN NUTRITION/DIETETICS ASSISTANT/ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR The Nutrition and Dietetics ... see job

Executive Director of Graduate Business Programs
Hofstra University

Hofstra University’s Zarb School of Business (see job

Full-Time Tenure-Track Faculty — Fall 2009
Fashion Institute of Technology

FIT Where Creativity Gets Down to Business see job

Retail Food Service Worker, Frist Campus Center
Princeton University

Position Summary: THIS IS A 50% DUTY TIME, 9 MONTH TERM POSITION Located in a retail operation this position ... see job