Just before Mother’s Day Sharon Lerner, author of The War on Moms: On Life in a Family Unfriendly Nation, wrote an op-ed in The Nation: The Gender Equity Bubble Goes Pop!. Lerner argues that a profound lack of support services like affordable childcare and paid leave are leaving women burnt out in ways that hold them back from achieving in the workplace. In fact, Lerner says, women’s progress is plateauing because working mothers just can’t do everything.
It’s an interesting theory, and I couldn’t agree more that childcare and paid leave are critical to improving the lives of working mothers. However, when it comes to why the women’s movement hasn’t progressed further, I don’t think family policy is the only (or even primary) answer. In fact, in countries where there is significantly more government support for families, women are still lagging behind in the workplace. In Canada women earn 29% less than men (the number is 23% in the US), and male and female executives both say that workplace equality for women lags behind. In Europe women hold just 6.6% of top corporate jobs, and are less likely than their male counterparts to receive constructive criticism and to see promotion decisions as fair.
That doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t advocate for better family policy. But it does point to other answers to the question of why women are not achieving more in business, politics and industry. One of the most intriguing is that women land in industries that pay less and have less opportunity for major growth. This starts in college with choice of major, suggesting that there’s something in our educational system that discourages young women and girls from lucrative careers at an early age.
Another answer may lie in the motherhood penalty. Studies suggest that mothers, even if they have taken no time off for caregiving and have the same experience as childless counterparts, are less likely to be hired, receive raises or promotions. I don’t see this changing with better family policy; possibly just the opposite. With mandatory paid leave provided by employers, it’s likely that companies will simply hire fewer women of child-bearing age — exactly the same age when women need to be in the workforce building their careers.
Both of these answers are related to sexism, but there’s a third answer that essentially is sexism. Women continue to be plagued by stereotypes, including that they are emotional and not data-driven or risk-taking. Old boys clubs in many industries keep women from networking in ways that would foster their growth. We can’t lose sight of these factors when we consider how to get more women into top jobs and close the pay gap.
Sharon Lerner also touches on the much touted statistics about women’s pervasive unhappiness, suggesting that it’s related to long working hours, lack of time and the desire to “do it all.” I have a slightly different take. I don’t think women are unhappy to work, I think they’re unhappy with dead-end careers and jobs that offer little autonomy or upward growth. To the extent that women are opting out, I suspect that it’s because they no longer enjoy their work and don’t see their roles expanding, not because providing all-day childcare and housework are such attractive prospects.
So how can we create a new surge of progress in the women’s movement? As Barbara Kellerman recently wrote in The Harvard Business Review, we must start by “socially and politically, professionally and personally, unacceptable to tolerate significant imbalance [in the workplace].” We must look at primary, secondary and higher education and figure out how to encourage women and girls to embrace STEM and business fields. We need to banish the motherhood penalty by showing workplaces that mothers are as ambitious and reliable as non-mothers. And, yes, we need to revamp family policy too, because that helps women and men live better lives.
Related links:
- Hear an interview with Sharon Lerner on WNYC Radio (New York’s public radio station).
- Sharon Lerner also wrote this brilliant piece in The American Prospect on work-at-home scams — it’s an important issue that bears further discussion.
- From The Mama Bee archives: Combating the Motherhood Penalty and Are Working Mothers Better Off in Other Countries?
Good post, with lots to think about. I’m just going to comment on one tiny bit.
I actually think that the choice of majors/women “opting out” of certain fields problem is closely linked to the perceptions about motherhood.
I think some fields have the reputation as being difficult to combine with motherhood, so women who want families (or just want the option to have families) opt out of those fields.
I’m not saying that this is the only reason for the difference, but my gut tells me it is part of the reason. I am a scientist, and I hear over and over how it is “impossible” to combine motherhood with a career in science. I heard it when I was in grad school, and I was freaked out enough to include that thought in my career planning.
From where I stand now, as a mother of two working in a science field at a job that includes a fair amount of science (although I am no longer strictly a scientist- I’m a mix of scientist, techie, and manager)- the reality is nowhere near as scary as I thought it would be.
There are plenty of mothers working in all sorts of science jobs, including academic professors. I think all of us would say that it is HARD, but not that it is impossible. And I personally think that motherhood is hard no matter how you spend your days. For me personally, being a stay at home mom would be much, much harder than my current arrangement.
So, young women internalize this message about how incompatible motherhood is with certain careers and decide to do something else. And the men around us internalize this message and think mothers must be less productive than other people, because after all, everyone knows that you can’t “have it all”, whatever that means.
I think the entire thing is sexism, pure and simple, because no one thinks twice about men combining fatherhood with any career they choose. Everyone trots out the canard about how motherhood is so different from fatherhood, but I don’t think it has to be in terms of impact on career. Of course, there are biological differences, but those can be managed. My husband can’t nurse the baby, but he can do the dishes while I nurse the baby.