Last Friday The New York Times ran an article titled “Recession Drives Women Back to Workforce,” profiling several long-time stay at home mothers, all highly educated former professionals, who were re-entering the job market for financial reasons. The comments, many of them mommy-wars bitter, raised the question: is choosing to stay at home anti-feminist? As Cathy in Maine writes:
Being a stay-at-home mom is not a “choice” in the feminist sense. I hate when women bastardize the language of feminism to justify their own personal needs, when feminism is a mass, not an individual, movement…Feminism is not about choosing to stay home based on the fact that your husband can financially support you. Poor women cannot be feminist, by the stay-at-home-mom definition of feminism, because they don’t have the money to make the choice to do so. Feminism is about making it possible for all women to have the same choices.
Cathy puts her finger on the nose of something I’ve been thinking for a while — that the new notion of feminism being about “choices” was designed to help a particular class of women feel okay about opting out. On the other hand, the implication from her post, and many others on the article, is that stay-at-home mothers only deploy their skills towards taking care of home and children. I’m not sure that’s true either.
Take the women in the article, for example. The first back to worker profiled, Trudi Foutts Loh, seemed to have little trouble getting a new job as a lawyer after twenty years out of the formal workforce — but she had clearly kept a network buzzing, and had worked intermittently as a political consultant and writer. That may have directly impacted her success in finding a new full-time position versus some of the other women in the piece who found it more difficult to re-enter after so many years completely out of the loop. (This is epitomized by a woman who laments having applied for many positions on Craigslist — not the first place most professional women are going for jobs.)
Other women I know who have opted-out of their career path have used the opportunity to reset the career button — going back to school, finding part-time and intern work that takes them in a different direction, and keeping in the marketplace with writing, speaking and consulting gigs. Yes, it’s a luxury to be able to look at your career this way. And freelance, part-time and intern jobs are, for the most part, not the same as full-time employment. But to think of “stay-at-home” mothers as a monolith of women harkening back to a 1950s way of life isn’t quite true either.
My answer to Cathy: staying at home is surely not a “feminist” choice, and I would agree that framing it that way suits the emotional needs of a few lucky women without doing much for the collective. And yet, stay-at-home mothers can still be feminists. It all depends on how they are using their skills, and whether they have the capacity to return to work and support themselves and their families if needed. In other words, what is the level of their dependence on men and are they using their lucky situation to grow in some way?
Many would say that just by taking care of their children, women grow personally and positively impact the lives of the next generation. But as important as childcare and homemaking roles might be, they are not likely to dramatically improve the collective, and the skills can’t be monetized. That differentiates it from other kinds of jobs that yield transferable skills and allow women to build careers.
One thing the Times article didn’t directly address is that these women who are re-entering may be more palatable to employers now than at other times because they are cheaper. If you’ve been out of the workforce for a long time, it’s likely that you will work for significantly less than your counterparts who have stayed in the game. Many families will have traded the higher income of a husband for the lower income of a working mother, who will need to work twice as hard as her male and childless counterparts to prove her worth. It would be interesting to read about that angle on this story.
I found the women in that article to be rather bizarrely unrealistic in their expectations. On the one hand, they are seeking to reenter the work force precisely because the economy is so shaky and their husbands are at risk of losing their jobs. On the other, they seemed totally shocked — and angry! — that they might have difficulty finding jobs after many years of not working. Isn’t it sort of obvious that when there is a great deal of unemployment, and many qualified people who have been in the work force for their entire adult lives are looking for jobs, an employer’s first choice might not be the person whose resume proudly proclaims that she has been head of the PTA for the past five years? I am not suggesting that women should not seek to reenter the work force after taking time off to be with their children – I am, however, suggesting that they should be a bit more realistic about their prospects.
Whoa: “as important as childcare and homemaking roles might be, they are not likely to dramatically improve the collective.” You’re kidding, right? If raising grounded, secure, nurtured children either full time or part time isn’t dramatically improving the collective, I have no idea what is.
I struggled with the NYT piece because of the narrow stereotype of these women as pampered and privileged (indeed, some of them may be). In all the discussions of how women who stay home are failing society, it is rare that the financial scrimping, cost-cutting and even debt that goes with a one-income situation is ever discussed. The “stuff” is sacrificed precisely so the family AND the collective can benefit overall.
Having said that, I do feel it’s imperative that professional mothers who have these choices (term I came across here today: http://daretodream.typepad.com/weblog/2009/09/elizabeth-harmer-dionne.html) keep their skills in play, with networking, part-time work, a small business, consulting or whatever that looks like.
I have to disagree with the premise that feminism is not about having choices. There are huge battles to be fought; agreed. But until the debate can embrace, acknowledge and value professional mothers, we cannot proceed beyond the ridiculous “mommy wars”.
Great article. I have to agree with Chrysula on her point about families that scrimp and save to make a one-income home work. Often I hear about the women who are “lucky” their spouse has a high enough income to afford the woman to stay at home. Sure, some of it may be luck. Some women may marry a man with a job that pays a lot, but there are many stay-at-home moms who have planned for years in order to afford this option. And, there are those as Chrysula mentions that go into debt for this reason, although I don’t necessarily think this is the best idea, but it’s a choice everyone gets to make. Or, others who just have learned to live on less. I believe that if you really want to stay at home you can figure it out. I’ve known mothers who have stayed home on a salary that I can’t imagine raising a family on. They live in small homes and don’t take vacations and find every way they can to stretch that dollar.
I have to agree with Chrysula on her point about families that scrimp and save to make a one-income home work. Often I hear about the women who are “lucky” their spouse has a high enough income to afford the woman to stay at home.
I’m one of those moms who opted to stay at home, scrimp, developed a small business, and engage in creative financing to raise kids who are productive members of society – (while the feminism aspect of this decision is interesting, sometimes it gets in the way of the work taking place on the ground). So far so good, but now I want to re-enter the work force. I went back to school a few years ago, have earned a masters degree in part to make myself eligable for a meaningful job, but also to fuel my passion for learning. Now I’m ready and job market is awful. I’m looking for a way to find a mentor/s to me help navigate this unfamiliar territory. Is there an online network for women in transition?
Homemakers are free thinking women. Focusing on household matters and family does not restrict our ability to be liberated. In actuality, as women with families and children, domesticity is the surest if not only path to true and lasting liberation. We are only truly liberated when we are fulfilling what we know in our hearts to be one of our noblest aspirations in spite of what the world says. This is true liberation. We know we are not confined to or defined by our undertakings as homemakers. Our activities and goals as homemakers and women change daily, monthly and yearly in seasonal waves. Today we might aspire to remove the discontent from our homes by ridding it of its clutter. Tomorrow we might research and analyze the best way to help our child to overcome and cope with his ADD. The next day our focus may be on meditation and prayer. Are we not enlightened because our choices are not governed by worldly greed, desire and self gratification but by the desire to serve and be the collective creators of our earthly home? We can only be liberated when our feelings do not govern our truths.
There is no need to chastise homemakers for their decisions to withdraw from paid labor. How many reports have cited the discontented homemaker after the children are gone regretful that she did not pursue her career instead of homemaking? Few. That would be a unnecessary discontent, because she still can pursue her career. How many reports have cited the forlornness of the 50 year old executive woman regretful that she had focused solely on her career instead of raising a family and having children? Her anguish is understandable and understated.
We learned that we cannot have it all, at least not all at once. What women can honestly say she feels content and balanced as she works full time and takes care of a family and a household? In a “rate your parents” study, “Many children said their interactions with parents feel rushed and hurried, and they gave their mothers and fathers lower marks as a result. More than two in five (44.5 percent) children feel that their time with their mother is rushed, while 37 percent feel their time with their father is rushed.” (Galinsky)
Not surprisingly, “A recent survey by health magazine Top Sante and health insurers BUPA found that 77 per cent of women questioned would happily quit their jobs if they had the chance. The study found that women were sick and tired of so called superwoman role models with Cherie Blair, ironically, top of their hate list.” (Europe Intelligence Wire)
Cherie Blair, by the way, is the author and journalist who, in the 1070s, first told women they could have it all.
In view of this, which group of women is truly in charge of its destiny and is actually liberated? I think the answer is obvious.