Everybody hates Linda
commentary by Judith Stadtman Tucker

page two

I have more to say about Linda Hirshman, but first I'd like to talk about robots.

I've noticed that when science fiction writers and filmmakers imagine a robotic future (in stories and films such as A.I., I, Robot and Bladerunner, for example), they invariably envision a world where robots and androids specialize in three of the most durable social functions: sex work, soldiering and child care. The possibility we will one day have the technical know-how to manufacture an artificial race of life-sized, super-interactive sex toys is fascinating, but the subtext is that science and technology will eventually liberate flesh-and-blood folk from menial servitude. That this new world order might involve mass production of an underclass of machines that look, reason and act like real people is one of the central moral tensions of such futuristic fables. That child care is grouped with sex work among the dangerous, degrading and low-status labor we'll presumably hand off to the humanoid set at some future date seems especially salient, since both are linked to women's reproductive capacity and, until better days, are predominantly women's work.

The idea that "the family -- with its repetitious, socially invisible, physical tasks -- is a necessary part of life, but it allows fewer opportunities for full human flourishing than public spheres like the market or the government" did not originate with Linda Hirshman, nor does it end with her. Its deepest roots are in the Western philosophies that nourish the ideals of democratic societies, but in the late 1960s and early 1970s, radical feminists compared housewifery to prostitution, proclaimed that women could only be liberated if they disconnected from their biological and social roles in human reproduction, and sought to abolish traditional family forms. One of the reasons radical feminism never gained traction -- and liberal feminism did -- is that even though radical feminists identified bearing and caring for children as the source of women's oppression rather than their glory, they generally rejected the possibility that marriage and mothering could have authentic value in women's lives. So perhaps the overriding problem is that the most flexible political philosophies at our disposal are still too androcentric to help us theorize a world where women's liberty and equality would not depend on communal living, artificial wombs or nannybots.

In the words of psychologist Jean Baker Miller:

Humanity has been held to a limited and distorted view of itself -- from its interpretation of the most intimate personal emotions to its grandest visions of human possibilities -- precisely by the virtue of its subordination of women.

Until recently, "mankind's" understandings have been the only understandings generally available to us. As other perceptions arise -- precisely those perceptions that men, because of their dominant position, could not perceive -- the total vision of human possibilities enlarges and is transformed. The old is severely challenged.

Women have been in a subservient position, in many ways like that of a subservient class or caste. Thus it is necessary to first look at women as "unequals" or subordinates. But it is immediately apparent too, that women's position cannot be understood solely in terms of inequality. An even more complex dynamic follows. (Toward a New Psychology of Women, 1976.)

The paradox of modern feminism is that we've waffled between the view that motherhood is the most important job in the world, and the conviction that the family offers fewer opportunities for full human flourishing -- which is why we can understand both extremes as valid positions, even when experience belies the dogma. What we need is a theory or an agenda capable of embodying the "complex dynamic" Miller speaks of -- which is not that men's motivations are typically more clear-headed and results-oriented and ambitious women ought to follow their lead, or that women's outlook is naturally more relational and mothers' family work should be valued for its own sake and what it adds to the society.

A better starting point might look something like this:

Men and women are rational actors situated in a relational world, and should fully share all the opportunities and responsibilities of social life.

In other words, we need something truly radical -- not just a fusion or a reconfiguration of known ideologies, but a serious reworking of how we think about men's and women's reproductive and economic roles and how they could share the world and all the work in it. Something a little more catchy than "Housekeeping and child-rearing in the nuclear family is not interesting and not socially validated. Justice requires that it not be assigned to women on the basis of their gender and at the sacrifice of their access to money, power and honor." Since very few mothers and fathers will ever have access to "money, power and honor" on Hirshman's terms, I suggest we concentrate on the values of freedom, equality and justice.

There are all sorts of moving parts to this debate, some of which I've addressed in earlier commentaries, others I plan to tackle as time goes on. But as a gesture of solidarity to my underachieving sisters everywhere, I'll add this final thought: Women who want to lead, should lead -- and we must make it more possible for them to step into their potential. But most of us will settle for leaving the world a little better than we found it.

mmo : december 2005

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Also on MMO:

Telling it like it is:
Rewriting the "opting out" narrative
Perhaps the popularity of the opt-out story suggests that our country still prefers to think about family and motherhood in terms of personal values and choices and not in socioeconomic or political terms.
By Heather Hewett

Wake Up Call
Think family-friendly workplace policies are the new norm? Think again.
By Sara Eversden

We Can’t Go Back But We Can’t Stay Here:
A Call for a New Model for Working Mothers
Perhaps we have been trying to fit a square peg into a round whole for a couple of decades now, and for most of us, it’s just too exhausting for words. Can I say that? Can I have a new revolution now?
By Kristin Teigen

The new future of motherhood
Women don’t “choose” their way into the motherhood problem, and they can’t choose their way out of it. So where do we go from here?
By Judith Stadtman Tucker

The new possibility: Beyond the lockstep life course
Review of The Career Mystique: Cracks in the American Dream
By Phyllis Moen and Patricia Roehling

Also: an excerpt from "The Career Mystique"

Why can't men be more like women?
Nowhere in all this hand-wringing does anyone stop to actually ask women (and men) what they need -- to be good mothers (or fathers), to be good workers, to be responsible members of their communities, to be whole human beings.
By Nandini Pandya

Soccer Mom Wannabe
Welcome to postmodern child rearing: I watch my son at daycare over the internet. He is growing up in Technicolor, right on my screen.
By Jessica Smartt Gullion

Let’s Talk About Mothers and Choices
Choice is for women with social, cultural, and economic capital. The discourse of choice is not about women’s empowerment or advancement— it neglects those lacking both.
By Shawna Goodrich

The Case Against "Opting-Out"
I was a thirty-something, married mother of three with a college degree, a nice house, a flexible, work-at-home writing career, and a husband with a good job providing health insurance. In 2002, a sudden and unexpected shift of seismic proportions rearranged my enviable work-life balance.
By Katie Allison Granju

From The Motherhood Papers by
MMO editor Judith Stadtman Tucker:

Why we need time to care:
The gap in U.S. family policy
October 2005. I've come to understand caregiving not only as a core social and economic issue, but also as a deeply ethical practice. Not because caring for others requires exceptional self-sacrifice -- under more equitable conditions, it shouldn't -- but because caregiving is one of the few activities of contemporary life that routinely grounds us in our humanity.

Doing Difference:
Motherhood, gender and the stories we live by
September 2004. Over the last decade or so, writers and researchers—from both pro- and anti-feminist camps -- have attempted to tease out why the high-speed train to liberty, equality and justice for women rusted onto the tracks at the half-way point. Conflicting theories abound, but most can be distilled down to a fairly simple formula: Is it nature or culture that continues to divide the fortunes of men and women -- or some of each, and if so, how much and what should we do about it?

The least worst choice:
Why mothers “opt” out of the workforce
December 2003. Why don’t women run the world?” work-life columnist Lisa Belkin ponders in her cover story for the “New York Times” magazine. “Maybe it’s because they don’t want to.” Or maybe it’s because the world doesn’t want women in charge.

Other reading and resources:

Are Women Opting Out? Debunking the Myth
Heather Boushey, Center for Economic Policy Research, nov.05
Most thirty-something mothers work. Not only are highly-educated, thirty-something women with children at home a relatively small share of the population, but, compared to other educational groups, they are also more likely to be in the labor force if they have children and their child penalty is smaller than for other educational groups.

Catalyst Report Addresses Top Barriers to Women's Advancement
Women "Take Care," Men "Take Charge:"
Stereotyping of U.S. Business Leaders Exposed

Generation & Gender in the Workplace
Full report and summaries from the Families and Work Institute
National Study of the Changing Workforce

Also from the Families and Work Institute:
Overwork in America (Executive Summary, in .pdf)

Goodbye to All That
Jia Lynn Yang, Fortune, 14.nov.05
Getting to the top can take the better part of a lifetime. So why do some women choose to chuck it?

Get A Life!
Jody Miller and Matt Miller, Fortune, 28.nov.05
Working 24/7 may seem good for companies, but it's often bad for the talent -- and men finally agree. So businesses are hatching alternatives to the punishing, productivity-sapping norm.

The Working Mommy Trap
E.J. Graff, TomePaine.com, 5.oct.05
"The message is quite explicit: Women don’t make as much as men because they don’t want to—so stop whining already. But this focus on women’s' 'choices' masks a far more profound story. The real trend isn’t choice; it’s the lack thereof. Most women have to work, because they and their families need the paycheck. But they’re also treated unfairly on the job."

The Real Reasons You're Working So Hard...
and what you can do about it
Business Week Online, oct.05
"With so many managers and professionals stuck at work, there is a growing consensus among management gurus that the stuck-at-work epidemic is symptomatic of a serious disorder in the organization of corporations."