While conflict continues in Iraq and North Korea tests long range missiles, the “mommy wars” rage on in North America. Holly Yeager of the Financial Times has been embedded with forces on both sides and provides a fascinating report from the front lines.
Yeager has been observing a development often covered by the Contrarian: professional women of intelligence and accomplishment who find there is more to life than long hours at a law firm and decide they want to be stay-at-home mothers. Such women exemplify a “choice feminism,” which, as Yeager notes, now has its own magazine.
Total 180! is “the magazine for the professional woman, turned stay-at-home mom.” Founded by three California women, the publication gives advice to a family’s “Chief Household Officer.” These CHOs find another reality the Contrarian has often noted: raising children is the most difficult and demanding task a woman can undertake. Giving assignments to high-powered colleagues in the office, some find, is not as difficult as managing a defiant child.
Yeager herself is a full-time working mother with a full-time working husband and a daughter in school. That was her choice, of course, but she shows some uneasiness with the concept of choice feminism. As Yeager notes, so does the one who takes credit for coining the phrase.
Linda R. Hirshman, a retired Brandeis professor, tracked dozens of accomplished women who married in 1996. Eight years later, of the 30 who had children, only five were working full time and only half were working at all. This counted as “feminism” as long as it was what the woman chose. On the other hand, Hirshman worried that Betty Friedan-style feminism had lost its edge.
Hirshman concedes that the family is a necessary part of life but believes it allows “fewer opportunities for full human flourishing.” Further, this less-flourishing sphere is not the natural or moral responsibility only of women, “therefore assigning it to women is unjust.” It appears to make little difference if women assign it to themselves, a rather strange position for an advocate of choice feminism. Speaking of assignments, Hirshman’s new book, Get to Work: A Manifesto for Women of the World, contains quite a few—one might even call them direct orders.
Don’t major in arts subjects, the author says. When choosing a career, follow the money. Marry much younger, or much older. Have one baby but not two.
That’s a downright pushy command-and-control position for the inventor of something called choice feminism. Hirshman seems more intent on becoming the successor to Betty Friedan, a kind of Chief Feminist Officer (CFO) who also purported to know more about women’s choices than the very women who made them. What gives the author of Get to Work the authority to issue orders remains to be seen. Like Friedan, she certainly wasn’t elected by anybody. “Mind your own business,” one wants to respond, or maybe, “Get a life.”
Missing in action here is the debate over comparable worth. Those who want it must believe that managing a household and raising children is every bit as valuable as other work. So why maintain the double standard between the demanding duties of Chief Household Officer and so-called “full-time” professions? The publishers of Total 180! certainly see no need to do so. That’s what choice feminism is all about, despite the title, “Is This Really Feminism?” on Holly Yeager’s June 10 Financial Times article. Despite misgivings about the mommy wars, that piece provides a valuable service of identification.
The great divide is not between militant feminists versus moderates, or gender feminists versus the equity kind. The real standoff is between choice feminists and the anti-choice kind, the self-appointed Chief Feminist Officers who talk down to women and tell them how to live their lives.
Sally Pipes is President and CEO at the California-based Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy. She can be reached via email at spipes@pacificresearch.org.
