Get To Work: A Manifesto for Women of the World

Posted on 12.19.06 in Family General and there are 5 comments.

I just read an interview with an author named Linda Hirshman. Linda is a highly educated woman who quotes the likes of Plato and Aristotle and uses words like egalitarian frequently. She’s far more knowledgable about many things than I am.

Linda Hirshman has written a book entitled Get to Work: A Manifesto for Women of the World. In this book, she asserts that women who have given up careers to stay at home with their children have made a mistake and are doing “more harm than good to society”.

Here is an excerpt from the interview:

You say that you have a moral message to deliver. What is it, and in what sense is it a moral message?


It has to do with the fundamental question of morality: What is the content of a good human life? 
At present, it seems to me what we have is a devilish divide between religion on the one hand and relativism on the other. And in choosing between those two options, people make the mistake of thinking that nothing’s either bad or good on the one hand, or thinking that the only source of understanding of what is a good life is the Bible or some variation of the Bible. 



You’re asking what makes for a good life for women. How do you define “good life”? 

Plato and Aristotle asked the first question: Does it fully use the capacities that make you human, specifically, the capacity for speech and reason? 



And many centuries later, thinkers of the Enlightenment asked, ”Does it allow you to be free and independent and morally autonomous? Do you get to make decisions about your life yourself rather than having them dictated to you by others?” 



The third standard came out in the 18th and 19th centuries as industrialization spread throughout Europe: Does the life that you lead do more good than harm? 



The particular thing that interested me was American society: It’s my society, and many philosophical schools of thought believe that it’s a philosopher’s obligation to address her own society. So, taking that seriously, I started researching what I thought would be a very different book—to see how families were making egalitarian marriages a generation after feminism. And I learned in fact that they weren’t. I stumbled across the information that educated women who are in a position to have a whole range of choices about their lives were choosing to marry and stay home with their children instead of remaining in the world of work. 



What they actually had done was recreate the 1950s life. Then I asked the question, “Is this good?” according to the standards of secular Western goodness. 



I applied those standards to the decision to stay home and tend children and the household, and I found that they were, in fact, lacking. These women are not using their full human capacity. They are not independent, and they are not doing more social good than harm. 



Are you angry or frustrated with women who stay home with their kids? 



I think they’re making a mistake. The most frustrating thing about the whole business is the nonsensical stories that they tell themselves and me about what they think they’re doing. The delusional quality of it is a little weird. 


Read the rest here…

Before I write more about my thoughts on the subject, I’m interested to know what you all think about it. Does she have a point? Is she sadly mistaken? Is there any truth in what she’s said? Do you think she really believes all this or is this just a marketing ploy to sell books and generate discussion on feminism?

The Comments:

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Well, I may be one of the very few fairly-conservative Christian, well-educated, stay-at-home moms to say I think she is right.

That is, if you agree with her basic, underlying value--secular power--it makes no sense for a woman to stay at home and serve her family when she has means to do otherwise.  Now that I’ve stayed home for nearly three years, I can see how my life does not fit into her ideal of female power, specifically these questions:

“Does it allow you to be free and independent and morally autonomous? Do you get to make decisions about your life yourself rather than having them dictated to you by others?”

I am certainly not as free and independent as I have been in my life, and most of my decisions are dictated by others.  Am I advancing her notion of female power?  By no means.

However, (and this is a big however) there is more to my choice than advancing feminism and seeking self-fulfillment or even advancing society.  I seek to be pleasing to God and to raise my children as well as I can in His ways.

There is one flaw I do find in her claim about societal advancement.  For the advancement of the generation of women who are currently of child-bearing or “work-bearing” age, her argument that we do not advance society by foregoing work makes sense.  But I think the jury is still out regarding the societal benefits of raising children well.  (or shall I say biological parents raising their own children)

A cousin of mine works as a child therapist and most of her children with behavioral disorders come from what she calls “neglectful” parents who prioritize their own needs above their child’s.  By the time their children are teenagers, these parents pay the price, according to my cousin.

At any rate, I have no absolute instruction as to whether a woman should work or stay home.  I only know that if you want to be the next CEO and you spend your time serving juice to the guys in the mail room, you’re definitely in the wrong place--unless those mail room guys are your kids! 

And I’d venture to say that there are many working women out there who are trying to become a CEO and serve juice in the mail room.

Here’s a link to Hirshman’s extended article at American Prospect.

http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=10659

Crystal,

I just read that article and, frankly, I’m just dumbfounded. I have a number of thoughts running through my head in response, but I’ve been unable to contain them in anything resembling a concise comment.

What were some of your thoughts, when you read the article?

What did you think of her rules for changing the course of women’s role in society?

I found her rules hideous.  And I too am dumbfounded by her vision of an advanced society.

But my experience of the last few years causes me not to be suprised by her position.  They are the natural outcome of a life bent on personal success, power, and pride alone.

Several years ago I entered a doctoral program at the University of Michigan.  I didn’t realize it at the time, but this fine university is a mecca for post-modernist and feminist thought.  Everywhere I turned, meaning was absolutely in flux and women were vicitimized by men--even in the opening a door for a woman kind of way.  What I’m saying is that in general, they start with a theory and easily find sociological evidence to support the theory.

I endured this ideological saturation until I was pregnant with my first child and had to come to terms with what I was going to do.  When I happily announced the pregnancy, my advisor pulled me aside to talk about “my choice.”

I left the program and am happy I did. 

One funny thing is that the women Hirshman studied were happy with their choices, but she just skips over this element.  She isn’t looking for personal happiness and fulfillment, she is looking for the abuses of the patriarchy and she finds it.  She doesn’t seem to care that the children of the women she studied might be happy and healthy too or that the marriages might be stable, she wans to see women in power.

Hirshman and her kind cannot imagine that a life of service, domenstic or otherwise, is anything but abuse.  I simply cannot see how they cannot come to terms with the needs of their children and their families--not that women need be responsible for every facet of these arenas, but Hirshman ignores the needs of others absolutely.  I really wonder why she even recommends having one child.

I think Crystal is exactly right.  Her three criteria, pulled from Greek thought, Enlightenment thought, and industrialist-era thought, were basically “are you living for yourself”, and “are you living up to your possible potential?” Now, I’d be interested to see how she argues that child-raising isn’t a life that does “more good than harm” ... perhaps in a utilitarian view of good, a more high-visibility job than parenting could do good to more people.
Needless to say, self-sacrifice, or pouring yourself completely into a small number of people, and “doing nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility considering others better than yourselves” (phil 2:3) does not rate highly by those criteria of “a good life”.  But then, neither do the lives of many people we consider “morally good”.

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