Just Call me a Conscientious Objector in the Mommy Wars
Posted: June 26, 2012 Filed under: War on Women, We are so F'd, Women's Healthcare, Women's Rights, worker rights | Tags: Mommy Wars Redux 24 CommentsI have no idea why this war even needs to be fought. I also object to the frame that redefines feminism as something it isn’t and then casts it in the catalyst role.
Frankly, my lifestyle choices are no one’s damn business. I also don’t want to hear any whining about put upon stay at home mothers or selfish working moms or whatever freaking black and white witchy stereotype folks dream up and embrace. This would include the appalling cartoon I used for this post. There seems to be a media obsession at the moment with painting women into corners and guilt tripping them for which ever corner they wind up in. Women are even participating in the self immolation. We’ve been regaled by lectures like this one on “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All“. Like we need some other woman defining what “all” is for the rest of us. We also don’t need a bunch of self righteous right wing wind bags that continue to blame all of the world’s problems on mothers.
It’s enough to make Betty Friedan spin in her grave.
Katrina Vanden Heuvel took up the keyboard today at WAPO with a reminder that most working mothers aren’t struggling to “have it all”. They are struggling to feed their kids and provide homes. For some reason, a lot of folks seem to think there’s all these great, supportive, bread-winning men out there just dying to reproduce and do right by their wives and families. I frankly don’t recommend marriage to any woman. Most husbands are bigger pains-in-the asses than colicky babies. A lot of them can’t even hold down jobs these days and then there’s the entire emotional trip that goes along with marriage. You know the TV sitcom stint that goes like this. Asking men to do the right thing by their families puts them in the position of being the oppressed, hypernagged hubbie who goes to work and takes it out on the resident working women and stirs up the other men in one big woe-is-me session. There’s a lot of reality out there that these BS narratives miss. Even the best intentioned man can get pulled back into the old boys club after a number of years of marriage and fatherhood. The media, their jobs and the entertainment industry absolutely empower them to be reckless with their family relationships.
This is the reality that faces millions of working women. More than 70 percent of all mothers and more than 60 percent of mothers with children under 3 are in the workforce. Two-thirds of them earn less than $30,000 a year. Nine of 10 less than $50,000. In the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson’s powerful image, “They catch the early bus,” or, in Vasquez’s case, the late bus. They work out of need, whether they want to or not. Half are their family’s primary breadwinner.
These mothers don’t have the luxury of flexible time or the ability to leave when a child is in trouble or sick. Most can’t afford to take unpaid sick leave to care for their children — and many would lose their jobs if they did, despite the federal law guaranteeing unpaid leave. Many work in jobs — as home-care workers, farm workers, cleaning people — that have scant protection of minimum wage and hours standards. Many cobble together two or three part-time jobs. Child care gets done by grandmothers, neighbors or simply the TV.
Okay, so this is the deal. The problem is not with WOMEN. The problem is with the way “work” and “income” is structured in this country. It doesn’t change because most men in power don’t want it to change. Things used to be different when most businesses were family run and family owned or when most families lived off farms. Working for some one else in this country but a few enlightened companies basically means placing your family outside your major time commitments. That is not the way it should be.
Here’s something that caught my eye as I thought about this. This is written by a journalist as a response to the articles run by The Atlantic recently in the vein of mommy wars. I like it because it states what I find is obvious. Feminism is about finding options and accepting and empowering women’s choices. It’s not about pitting our various roles against each other. Every woman should make her choice. There is no sainthood or martyrdom prize for whatever that choice is so can’t we just knock it off now?
The average American worker gets something like 14 days of paid vacation. In my school, you’d use up ten of those taking care of your kids on teacher professional days, then tack on a couple more for kids getting sick. When you do the simple math, the American workplace seems utterly inhumane in its unwillingness to adapt to the fact that women make up half of all workers.
Economist Claudia Goldin has made a career out of studying what she calls the “career cost of family.” The industries that thrive and hold onto talented women are the ones that figure out how to minimize the cost of taking time off for your family. It’s not all that complicated. They take advantage of technologies to let parents work at home or be more efficient, they schedule shifts, they minimize face time, they let people do what Sheryl Sandberg says she does: go home at 5:30 and pick up again later after her kids are in bed.
Feminism was about making women’s lives less constrained and giving them more choices. Right now, most women have none — not because they are spoiled and unrealistic and want to do lunchtime yoga, but because they are working hard to support their families and everyone is colluding in the fiction that they have nothing else on their minds. I return to a modest proposal I made last week in Slate, inspired by Slaughter: Mothers, fathers, don’t lie to your employers about the kid things you have to (or want to) do during the day. If you are taking a kid to the doctor, say so. Ditto for parent teacher conferences or the school play. At this point, honesty would be a radical act.
One of the bottom lines to me is that if men would actually do something about making the country, the work place, and their family more children friendly, we wouldn’t be having these problems or this discussion. Our situation exists because men do not treat women or children as anything valuable unless there’s something at the time that they need from them. There are work environments out there that are family friendly. They are very successful. They got that way because the men in charge made them that way to attract and maintain talent. They attract men and women to work for them that value families. There are far too few companies that do that because there’s a lot of men that get away with ignoring their families. They’re rewarded for it. European countries do not do this. France doesn’t do it. Germany doesn’t do it. None of the Scandinavian countries do it. It’s an American value to fuck over you family because you have to work.
The other interesting thing in all of this is the role of birth control and the empowerment of controlling when you have children. Economist Claudia Goldin calls this The Quiet Revolution. I have no doubt that there is an equal role in all the re-ignition of the mommy wars with the attack on birth control. Reproductive rights is essential to women’s freedom and children’s well being. It’s also necessary to the transformation that could occur in the work place if more women got into positions of power and more men were motivated by family concerns and demanded the work place empower them to parent. Taking away this important right means undoing women’s autonomy.
All of this just continues to impress upon me how little this country actually cares about its children. There seems to be this silly idea that if you just strand a woman at home with children and giver her a husband with a paycheck then all the problems of the world will just fade away. This couldn’t be farther from the truth. Just reading literature on depression and unhappiness should put this damaging canard to bed. Again, look at that damn cartoon up there. We need to be a society that supports family choices and provides resources to all our children to be in the environment in which each child thrives. This will never happen in less our institutions stop prioritizing the wrong things and until every one refuses to participate in the Mommy Wars.
peej
Carissa
ecocatwoman
mablue2
peggysue22
quixote
skydancingguestblogger
Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
Sky Dancing 
What the right wing wants, women having children whether she wants to or not, no child care, no maternity leaves, and low pay and no help from the fathers, sometimes even multiple wives, sounds an awful lot like harems to me. Every right wing male’s dream, harems and an all male work force.
Look what’s holding up a bill on flood insurance today in the US Senate:
http://www.politico.com/blogs/on-congress/2012/06/flood-insurance-bill-snag-abortion-127303.html
Rand Paul = faux libertarian
There is nothing about your article that I don’t like……..I am so glad to belong a skydancer.
Thanks Dak.
What Fannie said Kat…this here is priceless:
Great post, Dak. I’m so sick of the media opining on women’s lives and choices. What is this, Backlash III or IV? It’s really getting old.
No matter what, women just can’t seem to catch a break.
I once worked for a man who had more mood swings than Lindsay Lohan. Apparently his wife “wore the pants” in the family and he often came into work taking his passive agression out on the women subordinates. Door slamming, sarcasm, and staff avoidance were a common occurrence.
No open toed shoes allowed. No sleeveless blouses. He even went so far one time to admit that “women get on his nerves”. We hated his wife at home as much as we began to hate him since it seemed that when things weren’t going well in his Happy Valley, we women were going to pay big time.
Some of us weren’t even concentrating about “having it all” when we had to worry about paying the mortgage, feeding our kids, and hoping there was enough gas in the car to get us through to payday.
Having to report to work each day wondering about the “mood” our male boss was going to be in pushed “having it all” way to the back of our Bucket List. Some people are just not equipped to be the boss of someone else and too many women, out their busting their butts, are faced with the same attitude of an “office husband” as they are with who is waiting at home.
No surprise that he was eventually “promoted” but he did end up divorced. Which, I heard, led to more “mood issues” when he could not find anyone to date.
If a woman boss behaved along the same lines she would have been put out to pasture for bringing her personal issues into the workplace. But where it applies to men, no big deal.
I never wanted to have children. That was my CHOICE — but not according to others. “Well you just have to have kids — that’s what marriage is all about.” Few of the people offering their opinion on my choice had bothered to consider the future. Population Bomb — Mother Nature is already hitting back at the stupid parasitic humans who insist on consuming everything and pooping on the rest.
The GOP’s war on common sense is where the problem is. Forcing women to have children that they cannot afford (each child in the US will require about a quarter of a million $$ to raise). Children who can’t be given all the opportunities that money can buy — will they be the slaves of the very rich? The movie classic — Blade runner — comes to mind.
With the evidence of Global warming piling up — I’m not hopeful for the future.
My rant is in no way critical of Skydancers who have children. I’ve met so many young people who are mature beyond their years they are a credit to their parents. I’m thinking of three young adults right now up in Canada who were raised with a concern about the environment that they will be inheriting.
Right now we still have choices — eventually there will be fewer and fewer choices.
Same here. I decided not to have children when I was still in high school, and I never regretted it. I was afraid I’d be like my parents, so I decided not to do it. I never really wanted to be married either, but I did do that. Now I really enjoy kids, but it’s also nice to hand give them back to their parents.
I do have some well behaved companion animals. My husband is a good guy — appreciates the reason why I won’t fly and will be heading off the handle some family business on his own. Skype to the rescue.
this is a very important post, thank you Dakinkat
A discussion about women having-it-all is offensive on so many levels I don’t know where to begin. Thankfully you did, dak. This is the only blog post worth reading on the subject.
By the way, I worked for a company that was comparatively progressive at the time, competitive wages and perks, even paid for 15% of childcare, that would penalize you on your review for having too many “unexcused absences”. Now these were PTO days that were yours to use but if you didn’t give at least 24 hours notice before using it, they slapped you on your review and therefore reduced or eliminated your next raise. I remember women being reduced to tears when their daycare provider would call and say that their kid was sick and that someone had to come and get them immediately. Sick for a daycare provider is any temperature that hits 3 digits. In my case, my husband worked out of town, so it had to be me picking her up. I would leave the office, pick her up and take her straight to the doctor whose first words would be…”100? That’s not a fever. Take her home, giver her some children’s Motrin and let her get some rest.” I knew she wasn’t that sick, but I didn’t dare not take her to the doctor in case a question ever came up. Being a working mom means being constantly reminded that you are a second class citizen.
I was fortunate that I could get into teaching college and have some control over my schedule when my kids were small. It really hurt my career though. It’s taken me awhile to get those so-called “lost” years back. You pay one way or the other. It never impacted my ex that way. He just continued to do what he wanted.
Brilliant.
Just the 2 cents of an overweight, childless, never married older woman: we don’t live in a “one size fits all world”, yet so many insist on trying to relegate everything to the concept of one size fits all. It doesn’t work in clothes, it doesn’t fit in political parties (except that the Republicans are quickly approaching that), it doesn’t fit in states, countries, or even mothers and fathers. It’s one of the reasons I despise the word “normal.” Personally I think it’s purpose (the ever present use of normal) is to further divide & conquer, because we differ from each other in as many ways as those qualities we have in common with each other.
Hear! Hear! I too am sick and tired of that “normal one size fits all” mindset.
I’m a single mom by CHOICE. I decided to have two children – alone and unhindered by a possible third child – that being a male who considered women property, as so many do (not those that post here of course) Yet according to some politicians I and women like me are responsible for the decline in morals and work ethic in the youth and in the upswing of drugs and all the ills that those mini-minds create a fuss about because they think it will get them votes. A pox on them all!
As you say, dak, all this garbage has nothing to do with women. It’s men who thought it would be a bright idea to set up rules that made it impossible to have a next generation and make a living at the same time.
Speaking of how to structure things more intelligently, as far as I can tell it’s actually possible to pay a living wage or more for 24 hours work per week to all workers. (Divide total income based on IRS data by adults working 24 hours. There’d be two “shifts” in a week.) Add in the requirement that employers have to cooperate to give parents alternating schedules, and it seems like a whole host of problems just melt away. According to my calcs, there’s even plenty of income left over for some people to be millionaires. No billionaires, though.
What do you think? Am I nuts? Did I misplace a decimal point? Because if those numbers work, then the difference between life as it could be and the mess made of it is even more stark.
(Of course, I realize that suggesting any sort of income redistribution is horrible, disgusting class warfare. :rollseyes:)
I for one agree with you.
Dak, as others have indicated, this is a very cogent and important post. It should be incorporated into all management courses but of course is never touched upon. I should know; I’ve have more management courses than I can remember and that includes those within college and outside in the business world. Covey made billions on his 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (5 days of hell if anyone asks – a bunch of common sense plus goggledygoop packaged as something new and marvelous), yet never touched upon this – of course he’s a mormon so probably didn’t think women were important. It’s all in the frame of reference
Nora Ephron has died. She was 71.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/nora-ephron-prolific-author-and-screenwriter-dies-at-age-71/2012/06/26/gJQAMOtN5V_story.html
Oh, that is sad news…very sad news.
I loved her films. That’s so sad.
You said it. The work model has been in place for decades, and it presupposes that everyone has a full-time wife or team of servants to take full charge of all non-work obligations and all work-related social obligations. No problem working 80 hours with pretend wife holding down the fort at home. I don’t know any woman who can approximate pretend wife, so that would seem to put most women at an extreme disadvantage, especially if the pay gap makes her husband’s job more economically valuable.
I really hope the marriages around me aren’t the norm, but not only do the women I know get stuck with most of the childcaring and domestic labor in addition to working for pay, but it usually seems like the husbands are incapable of fulfilling the most basic responsibilities, financial and otherwise, without being reminded over and over and over again. With that degree of lack of initiative, all too often it’s like having an extra child instead of a partner.