Put Me On The Bench

Apparently another outbreak of Hirshman fever is spreading through the blogosphere. Julia linked to an op-ed piece Linda Hirshman wrote for the Washington Post, complaining about how widely popular hated she is, how she barely has time to do anything but Google herself, and shucks, she never meant to start a revolution. Poor thing may be forced to return to the lecture circuit.

I'm not about to send reinforcements to the front lines of the Mommy Wars.  I think the whole thing is ridiculous, serving only to make mothers feel smug or guilty or both. The world would be much better off if there were a lot less smugness and guilt. Moms-- if you work, or if you don't-- if you're happy, I'm happy. What I think we all resent is someone telling us what we should or shouldn't do, which is precisely what Ms. Hirshman does. All the hullabaloo started with this article, which makes me see red every time I read it. It is the most classist, (and by association, racist) cow patty I've read in a long time. Let me address a couple of points Ms. Noblesse Oblige makes.

• Women who have the education and opportunity to attain money, power, and honor, have an obligation to womankind to do so, whether they want to or not. Well educated, affluent women must become judges and research scientists because it's the "ruling class" who decides how life will go for the rest of us.

• Then, out of the other side of her mouth, she sings the praises of autonomy.


• If you make the unfortunate choice to marry, never do more than your fair share of housework. To avoid this trap you can "either find a spouse who has less social power than you or find one with an ideological commitment to gender equality."


• If you have a baby, make sure you only have one. If you have two you can kiss your aspirations  good-bye.

Let's take those first two bullet points. Does she want women to be autonomous or not? Essentially what she's saying is that if we want to stay home with our kids, we need to sacrifice what we want, so that we can pave the way for future generations to work outside the home too. Huh? Unless of course you're a poor minority, then we should magnanimously give you the shit jobs we'll be too busy to do because you won't have the economic wherewithal to refuse them.

She derides the "repetitious, socially invisible, physical tasks" of home life. Well you know what? So do I. Housework sucks, and I've lamented more than once about the lack of income, and boredom of staying at home with my kids. But making that sacrifice, for the concrete, immediate needs and well being of my children is a far superior sacrifice than some future realization of an ideology. (Sorry future generations of women, you know I theoretically love you.) Why can't the women who want high powered careers pave the way? Why can't I opt out?

Apparently there's no value in hard work (if it doesn't help you step up the corporate ladder), or enjoying your job (whatever it may be), or finding satisfaction in the inner life. (One of the most intelligent, well educated women I've known drove a courtesy van for a car dealership, and she had no children, and she liked her job. Was that a wrong choice? How the heck should I know, it's not my life.) Is she saying women have no value beyond their earning potential or their ability to land a prestigious job? What about women who sleep their way to the top? Does she endorse that? Hardly sounds like feminism to me. She advises women not to get a liberal arts degree because it won't get you a good job. Sheesh, so much for reading Kierkegaard, just for the sake of reading it.

As for her tips on catching a man, and having babies, how are they any different that the plot Lauren Bacall and Marilyn Monroe devised in How To Marry A Millionaire-- except Ms. Hirshman wants women to aim down instead of up. And instead of getting pregnant to keep a man, she wants you to limit your pregnancies to keep a career. The whole thing is so calculated, it makes me wonder if she's ever had a sustained intimate relationship (either male or female) because people just don't operate like that. If you treat your relationship like an option contract, making sure that everything is split 50/50 right down the middle, the only thing your sure to end up with is a long list of resentments and a big honkin' score card. Who wants to live like that? (Remember the Joy Luck Club?)

I may be letting our team down, but I don't want to spend 60 hours a week at the office in a suit and uncomfortable shoes, and come home to a husband who isn't much of a conversationalist, but he irons a mean shirt, in order to do my list of chores, kiss my sleeping kid, and hit the hay. The only thing I can figure is that Hirshman must be taking kickbacks from some big pharmaceutical company, because the only way I could live like that is if I had an unlimited supply of Xanax.

Comments

[Em]

I work 4 shifts a month at a job I love. I consider myself a SAHM. I work with a relative who, since I "dropped off" when my first child was born, has tried to get me to work more, to aspire to higher positions within the company. I finally told her recently, "I am just not as ambitious as you must think I am". It felt so good to say that instead of pretending I was too busy, too anything. I just don't want to. I could be rich but I'd rather be happy. But not being ambitious doesn't sound very good. Maybe I should be honest and say that I have my heart's desire right now. A great job, a great husband (usually), great kids (usually) and the time to spend with them. I'm pretty sure thats what MY foremothers fought for. Thats the thing about ambitions, you can't have them for someone else.

Screw this Linda person - when her 15 minutes are up...poof!

[Mir]

Xanax!

I think you just cracked this one wide open, Sheryl!

[Tonio]

"I'm a philosopher, and it's a philosopher's job to tell people how they should lead their lives."

Bull. I wish I could write the sentence below in 500-point type:

IT IS NO ONE'S JOB TO TELL OTHERS HOW TO LIVE THEIR LIVES.

Advise, suggest, yes. Tell, no. Even advice columnists don't offer advice unless solicited.

Having said that, I think Hirshman is largely correct when she pointed out that religious fundamentalism is behind a lot of the stay-at-home movement. I'm a man who believes that feminism is about women making choices without men, other women or society interfering in those choices. I think the fundamentalist connection needs to be explored further. Have any of you ever read Margaret Atwood's novel "The Handmaid's Tale"? Or Judy Mann's book "The Difference," which traces much of society's patriarchal attitudes to religion?

[Elizabeth]

Have I mentioned lately that you are a genius?

No? My bad-- because WOMAN, those neuron receptors and synapses and whatnot are a snapping and a crackling with the good fire. And you have 3 kids and you focus the energies of your day on the raising and nurturing of those kids and LOOK! Your brain could still kick Hirschbitch's ass six ways to Sunday.

Anyone who sits down to make generalizations about people is a dope. That's like the first thing you learn in high school, non? Certainly, you can't get through college without a basic grasp of this truth-- so Hirschbitcher is clearly someone who missed the important stuff-- thus, I say PBBBFFFFTTTtttttt with my tongue to her silly essay.

[marian]

well said. well written.

"If you treat your relationship like an option contract, making sure that everything is split 50/50 right down the middle, the only thing your sure to end up with is a long list of resentments and a big honkin' score card. Who wants to live like that?"

exactly.

[Michele]

Fab.U.Lous.Post.

Marian already quoted my favorite part.

((((((golf clap))))))

[Laylabean]

Linda Hirshman? Never heard of her, but from what you said about her, I'm nauseated. I wonder what birth order she is. It's pretty likely that if her mother had listened her advice, Linda wouldn't be with us today. The good news is that people who think like that aren't reproducing themselves, so their idealogoy dwindles and may even die out completely - eventually.

[wlfryke]

Hows this for an opinion...How about daughters(I have two) raised by moms they admire...and learn from...My eldest has said to me, numerous times....that I'm UNDEREMPLOYED at home. I take this as an extreem cmpliment. She at 16 is now understanding that I MADE A CHOICE. and that having kids and raising them, did not kill off any brain cells or ambition I have. You further womens causes by raising KICK ASS DAUGHTERS!!!not by having a Beemer and a secretary to return your calls. You do the Back aching work of holding the next GENERATION on your shoulders....Thats how you show the world how real women do it!!!!
Wendy

[lizardek]

You rock, Sheryl. That was PERFECT. Spot on.

[Irene]

thank you for this.

[Momcani]

I am secure in who I am. I know that I am the equal to any man out there. I have nothing to prove. I work because those kids I have? Well, they need food, clothes, shelter. I have a job outside the home, but I am a mom. There is no shame in that. Those who would say otherwise don't understand what that means. If you want a career, have it. Eqaulity doesn't mean you have to abandon motherhood. It means you have a choice. Yeah for us, we choose to be moms.

[Kate the Shrew]

Excellent post.

Absolutely, feminism was supposed to be about giving us the power to choose.

If someone were forcing me to stay at home in my pearls and heels for the rest of my life, I'd be out there on the picket lines. As it is, I'm happy being a SAHM. My choice.

When did we lose sight of this?

[DM]

Yay! I love these posts, Sheryl, I really do. I hate the Mommy wars because I think they are stupid. If you want to work, fine. Work. If you want to stay home, fine. Stay home. Is it really that important?

As a non-parent, I sometimes find myself being judged because I made a decision not to have children. I hear everything from "It's every woman's responsibility to have children" to "It's different when you have your own children (because I don't deal well with small children)."

Why can't people respect each other's decisions?

[dutch from sweet juniper]

Linda Hirshman's "how to marry" plan may work better for her, though, because, let's face it, she's no lauren bacall.

excellent post, Sheryl. I would love to shove that classist argument down her throat in person. it's an important one.

[Tonio]

Re: DMI...Doesn't that bug the hell out of you? That "every woman's responsibility" line is a load of crap. Do you hear that mostly from women or from men, or equally from both?

In Slate recently, a reader asked Dear Prudence on how to deal with family members and friends who were pressuring her to have kids. Prudence advised the reader that she may want to rethink her decision not to have children. The response to that was staggering, and I can understand why--my parents withheld love and approval when my siblings and I hadn't yet had children, and when we did, they tried to interfere with our parenting decisions.

[mo-wo]

Thanks for the comment over at my house today Sheryl.. and I am so glad to have access to your insights here. I have further noted that this philosophy of hers is very linear and basic in its vision of families.

While the drugery of homelife she abhors is so distinct to her -- my desire to indulge in the 'distraction' of my family after years of working at god knows what jobs ??? is a substandard choice. A lot of mothers I know put in a good 10-15 years working prior to childrearin'.. how much productivity will be enough for this person and must it be sequential... ??

yep which way for the medicine cupboard Ladies and gentlemen?

[Her Bad Mother]

I read Mo-Wo and L. on this, then came here. You put it all perfectly, perfectly. I have about, oh, a trillion things that I'd like say in response, but they largely boil down to YES, yes, yes, yes, YES, ditto, ditto, hear hear, yes, YES.

I'm going to have to blow my own fuse on this one at some point, when my head is clearer. I'll give you credit for inspiration when I do.

[Bethiclaus]

While I completely agree that each perons should have the autonomy to make her own choice on this issue, I have to wonder why we have such an inequality in the way we see things for men and women.

You say that the only way you could live the life Hirshman describes is if you were medicated. Someone must work hard to bring in sufficient income for a family to have a stay-at-home parent. Why is it fair to expect that men should do that in every situation?

I'm sure that you are not proposing that all women should stay home, or even that women who choose to work 60 hour weeks are neglecting their children, I just thought that it was an interesting point in this debate.

[bubandpie]

Great post (found it through Her Bad Mother's Hirshman slag-fest). The fundamental contradiction in Hirshman's argument is the idea that "women need to get to the top to change the world" BUT "in order to do so they have to recreate themselves as 1950s husbands." To the extent that anyone actually takes her advice, the result will be, if anything, worse than ever: a world governed by women who have given up their family life for their careers, and expect others to do the same. How is that not just the status quo?