I don’t buy the response that because most people work to eat, this debate is moot. I don’t think it’s irrelevant to consider the choices and experiences of a small, elite class of women who, for better or for worse, do set an example. Hirshman rightly points out that elites often work for the decison-makers, the agenda-shapers. So if legions of elite women get on the (condescendingly termed) “Mommy Track,” that leaves mostly men to fill these positions of tremendous influence.

Hirshman also cites the regime effect, which does exist. While it is charming to believe that we all make choices (when we are afforded choices) that are best for us, and everyone else’s opinions be damned…well, methinks there are a LOT of guilty feelings out there, conscious or otherwise, among working moms, whether they work by choice or not.

With all the rampant materialism, overconsumption and competitiveness in our culture, most of us succumb to some degree of comparison with our peers. So, to insist that “The Joneses” don’t influence our thinking or our major decisions just reeks of denial. If elite, educated women are dropping out of the workforce in greater numbers, how are they NOT reinforcing the idea that to stay at home is preferrable? How are they NOT perpetuating the perception that being a SAH is a luxury? I submit that many women who ‘work to eat’ aren’t afforded the ‘luxury’ of not feeling guilty about having to put their kids in daycare, even if they like their jobs or profess to not care what other people think.

Thirdly, maybe it’s my naivete, but I find it really bizarre that women would bother to bust their butts and wallets getting elaborately educated only to work casually or not at all. And I’m not satisfied with the breezy explanation that they’re simply exercising their choices, daaahling.

Baloney.

I want to know why we shouldn’t wonder if something’s rotten in Genderland, both in the workplace AND at home. Hirshman makes the case that it is STILL women who bear the bulk of the childcare and household responsibilities. And others have made the case that the workplace is still not family friendly (for either gender). So I think it’s worth questioning whether these elite women are really making choices and examining to what extent they are influenced by slow-shifting expectations and persistent limitations of gender roles.

Yeah, my choices are mine, and ultimately no one else bears responsibility for them but me. However, I DO worry about the impact of my choices on other women. Yet some of my female friends practically shriek that they should not have to sacrifice their personal happiness to advance the cause of feminism–and I find that knee-jerk, debate-dousing response MOST alarming.

Now granted, even *I* don’t expect anyone to be miserable for the sake of feminism, but to not even be willing to consider the social and historical forces that shape your individual choices, or to not acknowledge that the choices you make may have an impact that’s at least worth discussing?…These are choices I cannot abide.

I really don’t think feminism is about whether or not women participate in the workforce as it stands, but about changing the workforce, and the division of unpaid labour.

See Amp’s other post about ‘privilege’.

I agree with you that anxiously wanting to please strangers is stupid–see the fable about the father and the son taking their donkey to market–but it’s naive to think that one needn’t worry about the opinions of anyone else, ever. (Unless you are independently wealthy and thus really don’t have to.) The opinions of employers is not something you can shrug off as you might ignore blatherings on a Usenet group, for example.

Since a judge in a custody hearing is not psychic and cannot know how any of this will shake out, the existence of a new stepparent should be deemed irrelevant.

Yeah. I think what sometimes raises the hackles of women who opt for childlessness is the societal assumption that babies and children are such a non-stop joy that any random woman really wants to be tapped for the task of raising them– no matter how much she might protest. Deep down, it’s what she really wants, don’t you know… Yarrghh.

I don’t think that perception should be dumped solely at the door of feminism, however. It’s a general problem.

And I agree wholeheartedly that monetary support in the form of taxation is important, and that there’s no legitimate reason for me to duck out of it simply because I have no kids of my own. Truth is, I would rather be compelled to offer money than time. Money is easier to get back once it’s gone than time is– at least in my experience.

I need to apologize to you. I just went back and read the entire thread, and now I understand why you say “And once again relegated to invisibility”. I am sorry that I didn’t include the happily childless woman in my list of choices for women. Of course your choice is valid, and so I am guilty of the same cardinal sin I see in so many other debates. Though in truth I was responding the the tone of the original post that visiblity is a goal that all women should strive for above motherhood or anything else.

So, please accept my heartfelt apology, and I will make certain in the future to include every group in a list of feminist choices.

And as a mother, I find it helpful to have insights from women who aren’t mothers (by choice or not). Their insights sometimes help me understand that feminism isn’t soley about working women without kids, sah moms, or about woking moms…feminism is about equality for all women, and about making those choices available to all women.

Why do I have to back her up ? Where the hell are the men in her life ? If tending to children is beneath their dignity, why is that my problem?”

You don’t have to back her up, in the sense of actually babysitting or providing childcare. But you need to realize that there are moms out there that do not have men in their life either by choice (adoptive moms, moms that used AI without a partner) or by life’s design (death of partner, abandonment by partner). These women often need support from the women in their lives.

I’m not slamming you or anyone else. I just believe that things cannot change until we have an open discourse about the needs of all women in this country without dividing ourselves along the lines of reproductive choice or professional choice.

I don’t know what to tell you, Mendy. I agree that finger-pointing is not helpful, but OTOH, we are all different, and not discussing our differences won’t make them magically disappear. :/ LYMC is right about the “dickless man” perception in the sense that women who don’t want children often feel that we’re looked at askance in feminism by women who do. My feelings are often along the lines of, “I want to be supportive, but this mom over here probably would rather hear from some other Mom who actually shares her experiences. I’m just gonna’ look like some clown whose slumming. Plus, I don’t want to be chosen as her permanent backup, because that just seems like stereotyping all over again. Why do I have to back her up ? Where the hell are the men in her life ? If tending to children is beneath their dignity, why is that my problem?”

This is not a slam at you, or LYMC, or anyone else this board. But as I said before, this sort of discussion inevitably ends up bruising all parties involved. I wish there was a way to have it without that being the case, because not having it won’t help us, either.

Where in my statements did I not validate your choice. Where did I call those that make similar choices “freaks”?

I also work a full time job, and when I finish my degree and begin in my chosen field, I will be subject to that same wage gap, the same sexist behavior.

I am still at risk for rape, breast cancer, and the ills that befall everyother woman. I don’t marginalize the choices you’ve made. Despite what you may think I still need feminism as well.

When I speak about validating a woman’s choice, this is the kind of thing I am talking about. I have a great number of friends that are childless by choice and not partnered.

Visibility, money, status, and power are not my personal goals. If they are your goals that is fine, and I won’t belittle you for making those decisions. But don’t, in turn, treat my decision to blend the traditional with a career as a less feminist choice than yours.

This is what I mean when I talk about women dividing the movement to the point that as a group we aren’t as effective as we were in the beginning. I don’t see us able to effectively fight patriarchy if we are busy fighting amongst ourselves. Is there not room at the table for everyone?

Yeah, you’ll end up like me. A happy social life, disposable income, time to spend on things I love, and friends that I value above gold. Along with that loveliest of things: independence.

And yet we either disappear from the frigging discourse every single time, or we’re used like Star Trek fans use the geeks with the Spock ears: we may be a little weird, but we aren’t like those freaks over there. As long as we’re out there on the crazy-lunatic fringe of career-no-husband-no-kids (whoo-ee, we’re just batshit nuts) we make any woman who’s ever been insecure and defensive about her life choices look like Mother Theresa. We’re like drag queens are to the gay rights movement.

And whenever the possibility comes up that we are actually growing in number, the right wing rushes in to condemn us as selfish, unnatural harpies, and the left wing rushes in right with them to say, “Now, the growth of that segment of the female population is ust an unfortunate side effect of empowering women.” We’re the ones that took all that empowerment advice a little too far, didn’t we?

Problem is, as a woman, I’m still exposed to the wage gap, still being paid less than a man would be, still open to all the accusations of being less smart, too emotional, and still stuck working for the occasional psychotic woman-hating CEO who changes his trophy babes once a month. Happily, I’ve found jobs without that sort of blatant woman-hating, but I coudl tell you some stories, and I’m still at risk for it as a woman.

I’m still at risk for rape. I’m still at risk for breast cancer — more than most since my mother had survived it. I’m still at risk for harassment. I still live in a country where some embarrassingly low percentage of people like me are in ANY decision-making capacity in the government or business. Implying that my desire to be visible in the feminist arena despite having the nerve to not reproduce is childish (”Thanks, but *I* don’t NEED visibility” scoff-scoff) is disgusting.

I’m sick of being left out of all of these damned debates. I need feminism, as much as any mother. Every woman does, whether she’s used her genitals in the heterosexually approved way or not.

Speaking as a woman who has been offered such a ‘position’, I concur.

“Hey! I’m looking for a woman who will quit her job to cook, clean, do laundry and run errands, so that I can take my three kids away from their b*tch of a mother!” is not the best foundation I can think of for a marriage, but I’ve had a guy make the offer. On the first date, no less.

And then he wondered why I didn’t want a second date.

I wish you had a useful screen name instead of the credibility-destroying “nobody.really” so that I could use that as a tagline.