first off, I can't speak for women - let alone wealthy elite-educated women - but if given the opportunity to stay home and spend time with my family and not have to worry about how to pay the bills, I'd choose staying home in about 3 seconds flat. being a working class man I'm never going to get that option, but if I had it i'd choose it.

the critical issue is one of values, the author of the article values wealth, power, and status within the existing social-economic system - already a major departure from feminism's radical roots - and is suprised and horrified that her peers do not seem to value the same things.
it is inconcievable to the author that somoene would dismiss the status and wealth of the corporate world and prefer to stay home and make apple pie with their children, and because she is unable to see this as a valid choice she must denigrate that choice as degrading the value of a strangers life. it's that kind of attitude that makes people dismiss liberals as elitist and out of touch.

if women are being forced or conditioned to stay home that's one thing, if men are refusing to help raise children that's another thing, but if women who are wealthy enough to have a choice are choosing to raise their children themselves rather then subcontract the job out to working-class women, then I have to say more power to them.

I may be somewhat biased here, My sister is a live-in nanny for a wealthy liberal family in berkeley and is essentially in charge of raising the children. the kids (especially the teenage daughter) are angry at their mother for 'abandoning' them and treat my sister like shit. It's not a healthy situation for the kids or for my sister and I can't help thinking everyone would be better off if the parents would raise their own children (notice I said parents, not mother).

if we want a society where parents divide child-rearing responsibilities more evenly we'd do well to support labor unions, demand shorter work weeks and higher wages (something Europeans have enjoyed for years), and give parents (fathers and mothers both) back their time. the answer is less time spent working, less emphasis on status, wealth, and power, and more emphasis on families and communities. to demand that women leave their children to be cared for by strangers and fall into the same carreer traps so many men have fallen into is dangerously counterproductive at best.

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Most of the people I know, do not have a choice about working or staying home. Even though I am retired, I still feel quilty because I am not working. This was my family's value. My mother, the Doctor, married down, as this article suggests is good. I did not stay home and raise my kids, because I had those kids in college. I got to face that no equal jobs for equal pay and really few jobs open to women. Too bad that little fact is lost on so many young women today, who do not understand how it used to before the feminist movement.

Of course I never married money, so did not have choice about working. I understand what the article is saying, about the glass ceiling at home. I do not see that changing anytime soon. Rich people tend to be republicans, which means they are conservatives. We all know that is the Good, Old Boys Club with middle aged white males running it, no matter what they say is true. A picture is worth a 1000 words. Look at Bush & CO top guys. Yes, there are women and people of color, but not too many as most pictures will tell you.

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I was blessed by a mother who thought one of the most pathetic things in life was "a helpless male in the kitchen." She taught me and my two brothers how to cook and run a household. I was an active participant in child-rearing, and did a stint as a "stay at home dad." My two marriages were to strong capable women: one who owned her own business, and one who is in management for a large corporation earning about twice my income. All of that is only to say that while traditional gender roles are still "viable", there are alternatives being explored. Perhaps if more focus was put on the middle and working class, more accomodation for variety regarding gender roles would be found!

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There's nothing wrong with a woman wanting to stay at home to manage the house and kids. Having worked with a younger woman with kids as a supervisor I fully endorese the concept of women staying at home while their kids are younger.

If is not a horrible social trend if women stay at home to raise the kids. Never has been, never will be.

Men and women are different. Thank the goddess for that. Feminism that urges a woman to do everything a man can do misses the point.

Respect the differences between the sexes and find ways to maximize the creative value each brings to a relationship. A caring relationship filled with love and respect is the best relationship any feminist can ask for.

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Amazing how those who would shuttle mothers with milk-swollen breasts and episiotomy stitches back to their high-powered workplaces forget some VERY important truths of motherhood:

1. Women are being strongly encouraged by health authorities to breastfeed their children on demand for at least a year. Try doing that from the office. Try giving that job to Mr. Mom.

2. We cannot expect to turn over the incredibly important job of nurturing, holding, cuddling, teaching, and guiding our children to some paid lackey or chaotic day-care center. In doing so, we renege both our responsibility and our rewards as parents. In doing so, we take a big chance that our children will not be raised in the way we want them to be raised. And the early experience of children dictates, to a large extent, the adults they will become. Is taking chances on that worth the possible fallout later?

How is it that raising intelligent, sensitive, thoughtful, generous children is less important than throwing our energies into maintaining the excesses of the American consumer culture?

I wonder whether Ms. Hirshman ever had a child herself.

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I don't turn to feminism for a moralistic mother figure. I turn to feminism to anchor my social justice work.

Mother Hirshman doled out this lovely, affirming advice for us stupid young women: "There are three rules: Prepare yourself to qualify for good work, treat work seriously, and don't put yourself in a position of unequal resources when you marry."

I don't come from a wealthy family so when I went to college - here's the shocker - I was THINKING about what kind of work I'd get afterwards. That comment about taking work seriously is insulting. But I suppose I'm not really a "woman" (according to Hirshman) because I don't come from an upper middle class background. I wonder how this article read for women who didn't have the opportunity to go to college?

Young women, if they have the resources to, are creating new lives and roles for themselves. Not all female life revolves around Corporate America or childrearing. Unfortunately Corporate America does constrain the lives of the majority of American women and working women overseas whose wedding announcements don't appear in the New York Times.

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In my case, this meant staying home with my daughter so I could actively teach, guide, love et al. and monitor her progress myself.

In the case of some other women I know, this meant modifying schedules to telecommute some days of the week, swapping days with dad.

Still others I know have either not minded the nanny/daycare routine or simply could not manage anything lese without going on the dole.

Honestly, I think that when you decide to have a child, you are making a deal with the universe: I bring forth new life with the intention of making the universe a better place, not a worse one.

Ideally, we could clone ourselves when we have kids, but we can't. We make choices and sacrifices - sometimes the outcome is good, sometimes not, sometimes a "C" average at everything we're doing is all we can muster.

It's pointless to attack other women for chosing to stay home or choosing to utilize other childcare resources. Women who do a crappy job of raising their kids with a nanny or daycare would still do a crappy job if they stayed home - they are just not engaged in the task enough to overcome the obstacles. Women who stay home sometimes do a crappy job, too.

The simple act of procreation does not make one a good parent, nor does abandoning a carrer. But staying home doesn't automatically make you better, either, it just provides you with more frequent opportunities to engage.

But in the end, while quantity certainly helps, it is the quality of that engagment that matters most.

If there is argument and criticism to be made, it really should focus on women who make babies just because, with no real mental or emotional reagrd for the seriousness of the task of raising said baby, regardless of whether they work or not.

Women who choose human beings over paychecks (or soap operas) should never be called out.

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...I don't know - I wasn't there in the 60s.

However, after respecting the principles of feminism my entire life, the idea that it was nothing more than a clarion call to get women to work has seen such levels plummet to never trodden depths.

Actually, it hasn't because I see this as an incredibly one side piece. I thought the point was that women should have the same opportunities as men - not that they would be forced into the same pattern of lifestyle on principle. If the purpose of feminism was to have 100% of the population slaving away for the benefit of a minority, then perhaps it's not such a bad thing that it's not worked out perfectly.

Just look at the proposition; rich women are staying at home so feminism has failed. It is a logical nonsense. The two are not necessarily interlinked and not in the slightest dependent on each other. The question should be - do the rich women staying at home feel in the slightest bit inferior to men? I don't know but I doubt it.

I think it's much more likely that they stay at home because they prefer it to doing a crappy job. That sounds entirely reasonable and also fits in with feminist principles - i.e. they've chosen to stay.

It's a tricky balance the family work thing. However, I do find it funny how people nowadays have wet dreams over the prospect of something like an organic vegetable, but when it comes to child rearing and the patterns that have been established over 10s of thousands of years, it's yah boo sucks to nature - you don't fit in with feminist liberal values.

Perhaps the way to do it would be to ask the kids - do you want your mum around or not?

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I don't get it.

Some women choose to stay home and be moms and suddenly this is not good enough? Suddenly feminism failed or was not radical enough. There's a "glass ceiling" at home (what does that mean? Mom can't be promoted to Dad?).

The author does make a point (implicitly), the whole "choice" debate was a fascade. The goals were to get women to choose to work. The choice to stay at home was always the wrong one.

Maybe by 2030 we will realize that men and women are different. Our bodies have different chemistries. Study after study shows men and women respond to the same stimuli differently.

Young girls will play with dolls and read "teen beat" magazines while boys will play with cars, and like action movies. Girls will wear makeup to attract boys, and boys will act like goofballs to do the same. There are individual exceptions, but it will be true in general.

So all of a sudden the fact that women choose to do something different is news? Come on.

Of course women are more likely to stay at home and be moms (and ergo take-up the responsibilities of running the household). I would think maternal instinct has something to do with it. Not all women will choose that (or have kids or husbands for that matter). Some will be CEOs or Presidents while their husbands stay at home or work along side with them.

What is the problem here again?

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is preferable to having "stay home moms"? Boy there is so much to this one I simply don't know where to begin. I guess I will start with what happened to our society because no one was home to teach, preach and care for our children.

1. This nation, as we all know is now run by more psychopaths than at any time in our history. How come?? Because no one is home to teach those lessons of honesty, ethics, integrity, loyalty and commitment and spiritual lessons that come with day to day living. I remember mega sayings from my stay home mom raising 8 children that were burned into my brain and set standards for how I was to interact with the society around me. These lessons have held me well in my life time.

2. A sense of abandonment that these latchkey kids feel at being home by themselves (not everyone can afford a nanny or day care, in fact most can't). Here is an anecdotal story. My nephew was a diabetic child and both parents HAD TO WORK CAUSE THEY HAD NO INSURANCE TO PAY FOR HIS MEDICINES. He came home every day and he and the BIG CAT bonded. I will tell how sad this was to see. He showed me how he and the cat talked together and I am telling you he was perfect in his communication and cat noises back and forth with that cat. It broke my heart.

He felt abandoned and had unbelievable sadness that came out when he came to stay with me for four months one summer. I got him into counseling.

3. These kids have no one to talk with to solve simple basic problems that teach them how to problem solve in life. The parents are tired when they come home, eat preprepared chemically ladened foods because of time constraints, they drink fluoride in the water cause no one has time to see to it that their children are not being poisoned.

4. These kids are suseptible to sexual predators due to that loneliness and I bet if someone would just do a study, we would see a serious increase in sexual abuse since the revolution of women in the work force. What happens to sexually abused children? Untreated they become abusers themselves. That would explain a lot wouldn't it.

5. There is no family history, roots or other type of grounding/sense of belonging to something bigger, provided by these parents cause they don't have the time or the energy left after an 80 hour work week.

(continued next post)

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6. The message to children when both parents work is that the MONEY is more important than the kids. That is passed on and the money becomes the highest value in society rather than the family.

There is much more but this site won't allow more than 2500 words. Those of us raised by two parent stay home moms remember what value that was to us. There is a sense of safety and security when you know your going home to a house with your mom in it. That is why we have raised a FEAR BASED AND FED POPULATION or a PREDATOR BASED AND THEY FIT EACH OTHER. JUST ASK YOURSELF, "WHAT CHANGED" THAT MADE US SO AFRAID? SO ISOLATED? SO DISCONNECTED?

The answer is obvious. I am not saying that partime work isn't ok, nor am I saying that when she wishes the woman should be able to RETURN to the work force and be valued like any man, but I am saying women are different than men.

We are nurturers, communicators, relationship oriented people, while men are task oriented and not very good communicators, nor are they relationship oriented. They have a difference in the structure of the brain. Its a scientific fact you can't discard. There, I have had my say. LOL

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My wife was a stay at home mom, and I appreciated it. She, with some help from me, raised two beautiful women. In that career she accomplished more than I ever could in mine.

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I guess we're all agreed.

Business and politics are Men's work

Babies and housekeeping are Women's work.

All is well.

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Feminism is hardly dead or even in trouble merely because a relatively small group of ivy league law school graduates decide to stay home and enjoy the hubbie's trust fund income. These types of discussions have little to do with the actualities of most women's lives or feminism's place within them. Most women (and men) are smart enough to realize that life is full of difficult choices. Very few people can just opt out of the workforce for even a few years for any reason. This ballyhooed talk about young women deciding that feminism is a failure because marriage is their over-riding goal is a very upper class, white way of looking at the success of female empowerment. This article is simply a repeat of earlier articles that essentially seek to repudiate feminism's substantial successes. True, things are moving at a snail's pace and true, things are not perfect between men and women. However, to say that women are rejecting the movement based on such admittiedly slim evidence is akin to saying that people of color feel that racial equality has been achieved because Clarence Thomas is on the Supreme court. Nonsense.

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What drivel. What about all the single women who do and always have raised children without the "benefit" of a man, usually some sleazebag who gratuitously got them pregnant one or even many more times. These women held on and far too many were successful in raising useful citizens for it to be unusual. The set of "junior leaguer" wannabes who excuse their stay at home using a variety of justifications, such as home schooling, raising kids "right" (and to the right), as well as some roles based nonsense, ignore the simple fact that single moms are far more prevalent than they either know or care about. I also suspect that "stay at home" following the examples of women who prevailed in the workplace is based on simple lack of courage. The world today with its serious stupidities is the work of men, who have vested interests in keeping women as chattel. I for one think that women could first of all not do worse and will even more likely do better than men -- if the best and brightest, and the more emotionally stable and grounded participate in the workplace and political sphere. Although when we look at Schlafly, Coulter, etc. one has to wonder if the whole damned species is doomed anyway. So, women, get out here and control the men, who are driven by manias, hormones and egregious and unwarranted egos.

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To assert my right TO BE a real person, that was the first irresistable call of feminism in my life. It made me question everything - my name, what I wore and why, my marriage and why - until I got to the core of who I am. We are such cultural creatures it is very hard to get to that place. And then, pushing the question even further, I found the divine spark within, and my essential connectedness to all life. I married three times, changed careers and worked for 23 years as a computer programmer. I raised a beautiful daughter who now has a family of her own, and is home schooling her four children. Any real person wants to get to the essence of who she or he is. To do that, and live a vibrant life from that awareness, allowing one's God-given talents to flourish and bless others - I call that wonderful.

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I am a male, and I have held a variety of mid-level to bottom-upper-level positions and in each case I have had the sheer challenge, opportunity and downright pleasure of sharing those responsibilities with female counterparts. In fact some have been my boss. Now these accomplished women were all married, all had children and all made sure they scheduled ample time for family duties. At the same time, their husbands scheduled ample time for shared family duties as well.

Everyone of these women held advanced degrees, seven of them were professionals (lawyer, doctor, etc). They all worked very hard, and they all never batted an eye when asked if they felt unfulfilled. They replied they felt challenged by job and home, but would not quit what they were doing.

I had the opportunity to get to know both their husbands and their children. I can only describe them as happy, balanced and successful families. Stress, bad moments, etc., you bet they like the rest of us are all human. They are particularly successful because all parts of the family work at making it so. I would consider that a progressive evolution of family dynamics and if early feminism helped it happen and mature, well that is just great.

So why must feminism view the family and its glories and gripes as bad medicine for the career oriented woman? I think I have seen, in actual practice, strong career oriented women show that family and career can happily coexist and grow. Furthermore, in each case these women felt they were advancing humankind sociologically by virtue of their particular family dynamics. I could not agree more.

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of all the comments on this article, the very first group defined the problems with it the best.

-- This piece was elitist in the extreme.
-- It kowtowed to current cultural ideas of success.
-- It failed to address the fact that our current work/life setup is the primary reason women choose to stay home and raise their own children. (ie the hours are not flexible, our work-weeks are too long, etc)
-- It stops short of suggesting ways that work could be more attractive to families or how men could reasonably become more involved 'family men."
-- It ignores single mothers completely as if they have no experiences with work that can contribute to this debate.

Overall I think this article should be handed out to Ivy League women only, and kept away from the general public whose experiences it does not resemble at all.

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It is possible that the workplace is discriminatory and hostile to family life.
Are you serious? The American/European workforce is downright inimical to family life.
It is lame analysis and lack of backbone like this among feminists that has led to the widespread disillusionment with the movement.

Robert Chapman
Lansing, New York

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After receiving my doctorate from an Ivy League university, I got married and immediately had a baby. All set, right? Not. I was working 50+ hours a week as a health sciences researcher, under pressure to work at least 60 for promotion and paying a huge portion of my salary (most of it) for a nanny. I hardly ever saw my daughter.

I distinctly recall attending a workshop for female faculty called "How to Get Promoted and Keep Milk in the Refridgerator," expecting to hear the secret, the magic formula. Every single woman there described the wonderful nannies and housekeepers they had hired. The more successful women (e.g., surgeons) had teams of women on staff who kept their kids fed and their household running. My own boss, a highly successful woman, had a stay-at-home husband to look after their kids.

I wanted to be a mom, I wanted to experience parenting, I wanted to be there to help my daughter with her homework and nurse her when she was sick. After much anguish, I took a reduction in duties and downsized my career to spend more time at home with my daughter. My family took a financial hit and we actually had to move into a smaller and less expensive house.

But the saga does not end there! After (finally) securing a full time teaching position (non-tenured), I became pregnant again -- totally unexpectedly -- and now am finding that I have no rights or job security in academia. I will not lose my job, but am required to take an extended leave of absence (without pay or benefits) in order to keep my position. Other women have not been so lucky. The Chronicle of Higher Education just ran a story about a physicist who lost her post-doc due to her pregnancy.

Here is what I have learned from all this: until we reconfigure the work environment to be more friendly to women and children, women will have to choose between a high-powered career and active motherhood. Feminists of yore made the mistake of simply demanding equal access to the boardroom without reflecting on the necessity of changing what the boardroom looked like to accomodate women's needs.

Do we want to be successful on male terms, remaking ourselves into odd-looking men, or do we want to remake the world so that we can be successful as women?

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That is what it really is about. Women. Men. No matter what "road" you choose in life "they" are always there to bury you in guilt. Beware those who conveniently find something to point you towards being a "drone". "Be a sheep"! "Don't think for yourself!"

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I can think of nothing more antithetical to feminism than the notion that some women feel that they are in a better position to decide what other women's goals, desires, and choices should be. MY body, MY choice.

I personally choose not to have children or drop out of the workforce, but it's none of my business or anyone else's if other women choose differently. It is shocking to me that some in the feminist movement have turned to objectifying and infantilizing women in this way.

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so basically ladies, cut the biological strings to that kid and start sharing the wondrous soullessness of market populism. hoorah.

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Lakota Beliefs and systems were disrupted after colonialist ideas sprouted from feminism entered the political landscape in the 1970s Pine Ridge Reservation.

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First of all, the premise of this article is oversimplified. But feminism is failing now for the reason it always has: it centralizes its analysis on white, middle-class women. It is an inherently racist, classist movement. It has consistently marginalized , dismissed, and thumbed its elitist nose at everybody else. For example, most poor women of color don't CHOOSE to work; they MUST. This, as is racism in general, is a feminist issue and many white feminists have simply refused to acknowledge it. They have refused to develop a bigger analysis that incorporates other social issues facing ALL women. Indeed, the white dominated feminist movement has isolated itself. It has chosen to simply "stay at home."

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seems to me that a big part of feminism's "failure" (if it is actually that) is the fact that, although women as individuals have benefited quite a bit overall, women as mothers are still left largely to their own devices in the dysfunctional nuclear family structure. The nuclear family as our society sees it doesn't work largely b/c of isolation -- without an extended family to share some of the burdens, mothers can't effectively juggle both childrearing and jobs, so it's not surprising that one or both suffer. Rebuilding extended families (be they biological or self-chosen) will enable everyone to work less and have more time for family life and creative pursuits if we can wean ourselves from commercialism's constant push to want more...

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Women have to be prepared to support themselves. That means that they have to get an education or special skills training that will enable them to get jobs that can provide them the financial resources they need. A women does not know when she marries if that relationship will last. She may have children and find that some day she is the sole support for those children. I base my comments on my life experiences. I married young before I finished college and had a child. I was able to stay at home for a while and it was wonderful. I wouldn't trade that time for anything. My husband lost his job and I had to go to work. Later we got back on our feet financially and he decided to go find himself. He left me with a child and a job that wouldn't support us. I did go back to the university and I did whatever jobs I could find that allowed me some time to spend with my child. It was a hard time for us. I advise all women to get that education or training and to be able to support themselves. You can't depend on other people to take care of you and your children. With the economy today, I don't know how women are going to make it. If you are not part of that financially elite class you may not have the choice to stay at home. You can choose to live a life less determined by material things but you still have to be able to have a roof over your head and food in your stomachs. Of course there are also healthcare and other issues. Women will forever struggle to do what is the best for their children, frequently at great cost to themselves. There is no greater love and satisfaction than that of a mother for her children and seeing them grow into thoughtful, honest, caring adults. There are no easy answers and each woman has to make her personal choices. Those women who can stay at home and choose to do so are fortunate. Those women who choose to work or have to work to survive should be supported through worksite policies that accomodate child care issues.

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A large percentage of male/female relationships have been redefined in more egalitarian ways in the last 40 years, and women are involved in more professions. The problem is a lack of linkage between these goals and the experience men have always had of "life outside the home": IT SUCKS!! The force creating unhappiness for both men and women is not social conservatism OR feminism, it's COMMERCE.

I'm lucky enough to be a church music director/stay-at-home-dad, lucky because my wife is a school teacher and our financial goals are modest.

Before this, I worked a number of corporate and sales jobs. Every single one of them was characterized by a complete disregard for the interests of employees of both genders, and a constant barrage of insultingly dishonest attempts to create "teamwork," meaning: you do what we want and we'll pretend to care about you. Any vestige of self-direction or meaning is being steadily stripped away from work of all kinds.

If you want life to be better for women, whatever their choices, there is a model to follow: Scandinavia, which is constantly derided by our captains of industry because there are strong protections for labor rights, and generous family leave programs, combined with salaries high enough relative to the cost of living to take the edge off. Why should I give a rat's ass about the profit margins of our corporations, compared to the possibility of a healthy, family-friendly, safe and dignified life for all our citizens?

We are being lied to every day, in subtle and no-so-subtle ways, about the "costs" of worker rights. Meanwhile, our vaunted standard of living goes down and down, in both social and financial terms. And we have no one to blame but ourselves, because we allow ourselves to be distracted by bogus arguments and "values" sideshows.

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I have a girlfriend. She's in medical school. Very smart girl, IQ over 150. She will be a doctor. Very empowered, very forward-looking. She hates girls who dress sluttily, thinks it makes all women look bad.

She also, incidentally, has been forced into being a doctor by her parents, who thought she'd be a disappointment to her gender if she failed to become a doctor or lawyer. She's repeatedly complained that all she's ever really wanted is to be a mother and raise children. But she's going to be a doctor, and has no idea how she's going to raise her children properly. She considers having a job and a child "failing the children." And so she's torn right now.

Sometimes dogmatic feminism is just as restrictive as dogmatic patriarchalism.

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My husband and I are both academics; both work fulltime, and we have two small children (the younger under two years of age). We were both offered parental leave, but only I took it (8 weeks). I think both parents should have the option to remain at home for a time with their children, and should be encouraged to do so. Indeed, my husband did not take official leave because he felt it would reflect badly on him. Our careers are busy, but scheduling was flexible and child-friendly. I brought my infant son with me to a number of conferences, and once gave a short talk while he slept in my arms. No one concluded on the basis of this that I "wasn't serious about science". On the contrary, students came up to me afterwards and told me that they found my example encouraging.
** Our society could also make it a priority to provide good worksite based (or worksite proximate) childcare. This allows a breast-feeding mother to nurse regularly during the day, and parents to visit the baby whenever they so desire. We have had such care - it's expensive, but well worth the price. At our community childcare center, the fees are on a sliding scale, so the same quality of care is available (affordably), for example, to the children of graduate students, secretarial staff, and the son of the guy who works at the local jiffylube.
** Our marital relationships need to evolve as well: there's the issue of the second shift, and of how useful our men allow themselves to be when it comes to traditionally female work-roles around the home. We split many of the traditionally male tasks, but I still find that much of the daily work of caring for the household ("women's work") falls on me. I now leave some portion of it for him, and when he doesn't do it, then it doesn't get done. And there are usually consequences for chores left undone (e.g. if the kitchen isn't clean, I won't cook in it).
The point isn't that feminism is somehow failed women, it's that our society moves at a glacial pace. Consider how long, for example, it took American women to achieve the right to vote . We arrived there in 1920, after nearly 250 years of effort, i.e.,:
***1776 Abigail Adams writes to her husband, John Adams, asking him to "remember the ladies" in the new code of laws.
***1920 The Nineteenth Amendment (giving women the right to vote in every state of the union) becomes law on August 26, 1920.

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For the past 10 + years, I have been researching life in rural Canada in the 19th and 20th Centuries.

In the 19th and early 20th centures, a family survived only if women were strong, capable and hardworking. The men disappeared in late fall to work in the woods (felling trees) surfaced for Christmas, and returned to the woods until Spring. During the spring freshet, they returned as river hogs, guiding those logs down river, then returned home to plow and plant the fields. In the summers they worked on the booms- sometimes near home, often many miles away.

The women, originally living in drafty log houses, and constantly bearing children, were responsible for raising the children on their own ( since the husbands were gone much of the year), running the farm, spinning the wool (from their sheep) then weaving this, to make clothing and blankets, doing the baking, etc. They harvested berries near the woods, gathered nuts and wild apples, brought in much of the harvest and stored food for the winter. The one advantage they had was that some activities were done with other women so they weren't isolated from adult company.

This rural community no longer farms or works in the woods, but descendents of the pioneer families remain in the area. The example of women working in the past is accepted so they expect to work. While thewomen remain primarily responsible for running the house, they also work (usually in poorly paid service jobs) to add to the family income. The children, usually with neither parent at home, are well brought up, respectful, studious, self directing, polite, and have very positive and loving relationships with their parents.

There is also the example of World War II in the US when men went off to war, and the women worked in the facotires. Children were left alone, but they grew up fine.

The point of this is that no one choice of lifestyle fits all. Some women have no choice but to work- and this can set a good example for the children. Likewise a parent out of the home does not necessarilly mean that children will grow up mal adjusted.

In these two situations, close communities made the difference. Likewise particular circumstances and the quality of the relationship between parents and children determine what works best.

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I am proud to be a male and a feminist. I think feminism has accomplished much and has much left to do. But where we have failed is to liberate men. They labor under a huge sense of duty that denies them basic human emotions and the ability to follow them....and they inflict the same on everyone else...women and other men included. Perhaps its time for feminists to spend a little time liberating the men they care about and let them see a whole new world.

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I completely agree with Ms Hirshman that these highly-educated women who "opt out" of elite careers are choosing a "lesser life," even if taking care of Baby is the most fulfilling and important job in the world -- for one reason: divorce.

While these "elite" women may have it made in the shade while married to the most overpaid, undertaxed and under-regulated elite men on the planet, once they are divorced they will have to fight tooth and nail to get alimony (if any) and child support (meager) and once the children turn 18, the child support is over and these women are . . . yes, BROKE. They don't have the skills to uptake well-paying jobs.

It is unfair that women are forced by social convention and competitive pressures on the marriage market to face the high risk of financial and social destruction if a marriage fails, while a man's "choice" to continue to work will allow him to survive a divorce with his status, income, and marketable job experience quite intact. Many women take this "choice" because failing to send clear signals before marriage that one will take this "choice" will frequently result in movement toward said marriage hitting a brick wall. Highly-paid, ambitious men insist on women who will make this "choice." (Lower-class men may want to, but they can't really afford it; they select women who indicate that they will do 90% of the childcare AND work.)

These well-born young girls cannot resist these competitive pressures alone without disrupting their "marriage prospects." Plus, they are tempted by the prospect of short-term leisure and "easy money;" they may regret their weakness in the long-run, when the marriage falls apart.

Why is this old pattern recently become a "new trend?" Because we have in the past 15 years allowed after-tax pay inequity to reach such extremes that we have a large, overpaid, undertaxed class of mostly males which can afford to live different lifestyles with different social and sexual norms than the population in general. These girls are marrying into that caste, the caste which benefitted greatly from the Reagan and Bush tax cuts for the rich, the concentration of wealth due to the 90s booms in stock and real estate values and the obscene ballooning of corporate CEO pay while lower incomes have stagnated. As a result, we have no leadership in the feminist movement. Our "elites" are all bought off.

continued below . . .

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Working and middle-class women HAVE to work. Their husbands HAVE to let them. For money to live. But because these "elite" girls prefer conventionality and a life of comfort to struggling in resistance to social norms all their lives, these poorer women must work under a managerial caste which is 95% men with homelives out of the 18th c.

How to blunt this? First, we need a more progressive tax system. If we tax away 60% or 70% of all income over, say, $150,000 per year, we would remove the reward fueling the ratrace which is pushing out anyone who doesn't want to work 80 hours per week. We would also de-fund these "elite" households of drop-out wives and uber-competitive men.

We need to look at European-style limitations on allowable hours of work per week. If no one could work more than 35, as in France, both parents could work and share childcare. More realistically, we could prohibit anyone working more than 55 hours per week.

We need to enact laws which require part-time jobs to have benefits equal to similar fulltime jobs, pro-rated. So, a half-time job would get half the benefits of a fulltime job.

And, we need to create and fund a national child care system.

We need to enact and enforce mandatory family leave for BOTH parents. Breastfeeding is important and women who take six months to a year to do that should not have to give up 35-year careers which require 6-year degrees. Corporations gratuitously punish women for child-related needs out of simple sexism. This should be punished. Men should required to take some family leave or family leave will create another reason to discriminate against women of childbearing age (She is going to get pregnant and hit us with this big bill!). Parents should be allowed to get a a check from the unemployment system while out on family leave and then return to their job with no reduction in status.

-- Jan VanDenBerg

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I simply can't believe that any person, educated or otherwise, could possibly describe the healthy upbringing of future generations as "a loss of hope for the future -- a loss of hope that the role of women in society will continue to increase." Raising children well is by far the most important task to accomplish in society. Alternet, how on the one hand can you advocate the strengthening of communities, and on the other hand, help disseminate the idea that women raising their own children is a detriment to society?? That just doesn't make any sense.

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Ah yes, yet another discussion about how women of the elite aren't high powered CEOs and how this is a fatal blow for feminism. Too bad nobody seems to give a hoot about all the other women in the world, most of whom are (and have ever been) bound by financial constraint and social convention to hold down a full-time job and be responsible for the full-time task of housework and child rearing. How is it feminism to force women into even greater servitude? Whether it is the father or the mother who stays home with the children, two parent families who are able to comfortably survive on a single income have a distinct advantage, both for the mental health of the primary caregiver and the children. Forcing a mother to choose between her children and her job, and trying to make her feel like she's 'not a real feminist' for choosing the kids, is facile and inhuman. I am so tired of the Camille Paglia/Germaine Greer dichotomy in feminism. Either people are proclaiming that feminism is dead, or they're implying that one must be a butch charicature of a man, wheeling and dealing and scorning any traditionally feminine pursuits in order to be a true feminist.
If and when I have children, I will try as hard as I can to stay home with them for at least the first year, in order to be able to breastfeed and in order to not have a stranger raise my babies. This will probably mean me working at home, as I am not a member of the economic elite. I shall probably spend time knitting, sewing and cooking. Because I like it. And anyone who dares to try and imply that any of this makes me less of a feminist, is themselves a misogynist, who has fully missed the point of the equal rights movement.

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my mom stayed at home, and my brother and I never shot anyone at school. coincidence? I think not.

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Dr. Hirshman, this article is so good. Thank you. Having read it, I feel prepared to face Thanksgiving dinner with my family and deflect their questions about why I am not pregnant yet with skill and grace. Why shouldn't I? I don't have anything to feel ashamed of. I believe in equality, and not in the same way they do. I believe in it for real. I'm not elite, I'm working class; I'm not destined for wealth, I'm committed to teaching high school. That's why I don't have children. Though I do love them, they're not worth giving up my autonomy for. There's no reason to apologize or feel awkward about that.

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Divorce - the hitch in the plan of the featured NYT Society Brides. When their husbands decide it is time for a newer model, wifey gets kicked out with little to no support. The joke is on women who choose to enter this "choice". At least as the first or second wife.

In these times of oligarchy, we are all slaves to the male elite. The success of the elite males with no domestic responsibilities makes it harder for women chained to the second shift at home to compete in the business and political marketplace.

With domestic servants (wives) at home and professional servants (female assistants) in the workplace, these men become ever more chauvinistic, despite the occasional "feminazi" they may come across in the business and/or political sphere who has shunned what such men see as her natural role as a servant to male comfort (and pleasure).

These men adopt a Calvanistic sense of superiority as they become drunk on their own power, wealth and status. The rest of us get things like "welfare reform" and "healthcare reform" and "tax reform" while they carve and re-carve the pie into bigger and bigger pieces for fewer mouths, raising the stakes between the haves and the have-nots to feudal levels.

The solution is not for women to band together as feminists and participate in the increasingly cut-throat marketplace of business and politics, with children and the non-elite as unfortunate casualties along the way, but to band together across genders, races and classes to demand structural change.

Highly unlikely though. Hello, post-modern feudalism.

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There is so much that is wrong with this article and so much that is right among the reader comments. Ms. Kirschman, I think you should come interview me and my co-hort of early-90s Wellesley grads. Allow me to share a few anecdotes from my own life. I am 36 with a liberal arts degree and my salary puts me in the 95th percentile. I was also a latch-key kid in a poor home who turned out to be a law-abiding, upstanding citizen. I am in corporate management and every day I pray that someone or thing will take me off this merry-go-round of a nightmare. I love the work that I do and take it seriously, but so what if it allows me to buy Gucci. I am single and want nothing more than to care for a family. And volunteering DOES NOT fulfill this longing.
The corporate workplace is a cesspool of lies, deceipt, corruption, stupidity, low morals/ethics, and alpha-male strutting. The behaviors are outrageous and disgusting, and ANYONE with half a sense of decency and standards will run away as fast as possible. To tie the success of feminism to women's success in the male/capitalist workplace is BEYOND WRONG. Succeeding in that model/culture is NOT PROGRESS but REGRESS for women and feminism. More later. I'm just getting warmed up here.

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If a family is wealthy enough for one parent to stay home, why shouldn't they choose it? And why has feminism "failed" if a woman decides the best life choice for her is to take time to raise her children? What better way to pass her values along to the next generation, including the values that say education is good and so is family?

I thought we progressives didn't like the capitalist valuing of a person solely in terms of being a productive market force. I thought we supported people doing things for themselves instead of hiring others to serve them. (Nannies, day care, etc.)

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So many issues in the article and the comments:
The differences between men and women are largely socially constructed, so stop essentializing! We learn our roles in a patriarchal society and then have the illusions that we have "chosen" our lives. Secondly, fulfilling lives are rarely the result of working in a high powered corporate environment (just read Bait and Switch, Ehrenreich's latest book). Third, Betty Freidan was on to something--that patriarchy and capitalism both decrease the enjoyment and creativity that humans should enjoy. Viva the socialist and feminist revolutions!

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while the author makes some good points I cant help but wonder why the hell this article appeared at all in Alternet, a progressive site.
Excuse me , but I really dont give a rats how the wives of the wealthy elite spend their time. The rest of us on planet earth struggle to pay our mortgage and bills.
The author seems to think a corporate ladder climb is the ultimate for a young woman, whilst an arts degree only hinders their career prospects. Bloody hell, is this what its all about.
My wife studied Business I studied History, she regrets never doing a degree in the arts , I am glad I never did one in Business.
Life for a woman isnt all about a career and making lots of money, its a shame the author thinks it is.

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The world needs more nuturing, caring, compassion and forgiveness. I am female and have noticed for a long time, most of the women who have made it to the top are agressive and almost vicious, especially those on TV talk shows. I have read that the female is the conscience of the male. The women who are shaping the lives and standards of women today are not the kind of woman I want to be or want my daughters to be.

Half the women, those who work because one pay check won't support the family, have been duped. The standard of living has been raised and the average paycheck can't support it.

I have watched my daughters have to leave their little ones, to go back to work. It is sad and it is wrong.

It would be nice if there was a way that women could start their career after their children are older, but expenses don't stand still.

They used to retire older workers to open jobs for the younger men. One size doesn't fit all and we need more family choices.

There are a lot of small topics that could be discussed under the main topic of working mothers.

We have a long way to go and may have to revalue and rethink a lot of what is going on for young mothers and the young men too. After a divorce, an average man has every extra penny he earns, taken for child support.

There are a lot of tragic happenings in people's everyday lives that people didn't have to deal with until the last 20 or so years.

The only thing I notice about the difference between men and women is that men do listen to other men's opinions more than they do women's opinions. My mother said they can't help that, beecause it is born in them. She said it is like how you want to find a reason to go outside on the first pretty days of spring. That is the same way men are when it comes to women. A lot of men like to dominate and feel men know more. A smart woman can get around that:)

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As a man who expects to be caring for his children equally with a partner, thank you for your considered and on point criticism. I don't know what world the author is living in, but it surely doesn't have my values.

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As women, as people, as equal citizens of this world we seek dignity, humanity, and equal access to education, to opportunity, and to life-sustaining and life-enriching services. We seek choice.

Caring for children, whether full-time or part-time, is a noble choice. It is not a side-line position. One could further argue that the life at home, as a mother or father or caretaker of children, is the real action in this world, this life.

Personally, I can't speak from the perspective of an elitist, classist person who would give a hoot what was published or not published about her in a society page. I also cannot fathom a researcher using these people as her sole source of population for a study about feminism and women in the workplace.

As someone who has left the executive-track of an extremely high paid, high status, male-dominated profession requiring many years of post-graduate education and much corporate competition, I cannot imagine a more rewarding, fulfilling, and soul-sustaining endeavor than full-time child raising.

As a feminist and a founding member a national feminist organization, I affirm the validity, the oneness, and the commitment to the feminine and masculine of any person, independent of gender, who places the happiness and well-being of their family, themselves, and their children above the consuming greed, shallow status-seeking, and misery of classism.

Finally, in my humble but happy and fulfilling life -- one of few, few regrets -- were I to list my contributions and successes, ahead of rewards, publications, and the degrees I've earned, I would cite that I've given my children a wonderful childhood in a safe, secure, warm, loving home where they've seen, by how we choose to spend our time, that they are important and loved.

I count many feminists among my friends and acquaintances. Some are bitter. Some are happy. Those with children, by and large, who are happy, have made their children a priority. This has meant, without exception, that one parent is working part-time or at-home.

I'm proud to be raising feminists myself. They know that "Mom" and "Dad" are titles unparalled by others such as PhD or upper-middle-class.

Those that chase status deny death. Those that compete with others deny death. No one worries about being a CEO on their deathbed, but they do worry about whether or not they were a good parent ...

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I agree that feminism has not been successful in changing men's attitudes about their role in the home. I work from home and help raise my child without daycare help. I have learned that the situation in my family is not isolated. It appears that more men are actively participating in raising children and sharing in domestic chores, some even staying home fulltime. I believe that it is because men have come to realize that burning out in the rat race is not an acceptable quality of life choice. Mainstream feminism has been so focussed on achieving equality in the workplace that it has not questioned whether men are getting a good deal to begin with. Instead, women are being asked to compete in a man's workplace, under rules already proven to be bad for men who are increasingly stressed out, succumbing to stress related illnesses, unable to find time for the family, depressed etc. I think that feminism should address men directly. There is currently no active engagement of men in the mainstream feminist movement. And without an active dialog the only choices for women will be either the old nuclear family model of breadwinner man and homemaker woman or women continuing to compete in worklife situations that have already failed men. Feminism won't be so much of an uphill battle if men are made to recognize that it is not just about women's rights, its about human rights.

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The point of the article is that by dropping out of Corporate America and politics (those would be the institutions in our society with the most social, cultural, legal and political influence), an entire half of our population is left out of the decision-making process.

Think about it: if there were scads of women at the policy-making level for Fortune 500 companies, maybe we'd *gasp* actually have family-friendly work policies.

If there were scads of women in politics, maybe we'd *gasp* actually have a sensible national program of reproductive health.

No women = no say. Men do now, can not, or just plain will not get it when it comes to women's issues. We need women in positions of power to get those issues on the table.

The more potential power-broker women we lose to the "choice" of child-rearing and homemaking -- something I've found men to be equally capable of -- the more all women get screwed.

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I applaud the posters who decry elite workplace values.

However, I think most of the posters and the author miss an important point. Isn't the purpose of spending all that time and money acquiring a professional degree and credentials to be able to carry on one's own career on one's own terms?

When I began reading about women's careers over twenty years ago, I found many stories of women being elected to public office and enjoying equivalent work successes after taking a long period off to raise their families. A lawyer in my church had done just that, rejoining her husband's firm after an over 20-year break. She has a lot of energy and passion at an age when lifelong careerists her age are burning out.

Ms. Hirschfeld may still be here to witness a "grey revolution" when these women return to their fields.

Reformers may find it more productive to work on the hypercompetitiveness and age discrimination which does not allow professionals to cut back or drop out and come back at a later time to accommodate personal needs.

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As a professor of behavioral science, I find it amusing how many academics can get so wrapped up in their ideas that they simple fail to acknowledge reality. Most academics love going to work, but if you surveyed working women with menial jobs, most would prefer to be able to stay home. And when a family decides one income is enough so that she can be allowed to do that, the man is portrayed by academic feminists as a villain. Try working 8 focused, hard, unenriching hours a day, working out problems with day care and transportation, followed by your children's need for attention from both parents, and 50% of the house chores. As an academic at a R1 university, its teaching a 6 hours of class a week, and spending a lot of time in the research and exploration of ideas and writing about it, and chit chatting on a few worthless committees. For us professors, it is easy to see why staying at home might seem less rewarding. By the way, my wife would like to stay home. But heck, I like the extra income. I guess that makes me a proud supporter of the Hirshman version of feminism, which is not about liberation but about forcing women to be more like men. Strangely, she'd probably call me the sexist.

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I'm a mom. Childrearing is an incredibly important and noble role. However, if our larger society truly believes this, then why aren't more men clamoring to be stay-at-home dads?

To the men who would love to choose not to work and to raise the kids instead: why don't you do it? I suspect it's because you have to earn a living. I also suspect it's because you do lose all social power once you make that choice.

I think this article is right on. All of my experience concurs exactly with the authors' points.

It's impossible for women to work after having kid/s unless the father (or elder relative) cares for the kid or she has money enough to hire a nanny or pay for daycare. The elite women who do have these opportunites are squandering them, in my opinion, in favor of the short end of the elite status bargain.

Another casualty of the bargain made by elite home-staying women is not just the dashed possibility of a feminist restructuring of the family, but the feminist inroads into a re-evaluation of beauty. With the honest spectre of divorce, especially age-related divorce in the elite-level strata, plastic surgery, botox, and obsessive dieting are but the tip of an enormous industry which follows the money.

The word "choice" needs to be jettisoned from a sincere feminist agenda because it is disingenous. In the elite society, if childrearing was as valued as the opt-outers say it is, women would have to fight hard to have a chance to do it. If elite women are valued for their intellectual contibutions and for their contribution to the future generation, then why isn't there a rash in the publishing industry of elite women's philosophical pronouncements, grand novels, or symphonic compositions? Why also do the mainstream rags not publish regular articles on great mothers, or female elders? If womens' intellect were truly valued there would be as much media attention given to it as there is cellulite, fashion, and sex.

Feminism hasn't failed so much as elite women have failed feminism. They are not "choosing" anything other than to comply with the stauts quo, which is not good for children or the future, no matter how much quality stay-at-home-mothering they get.

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I'm a graduate of an Ivy-League college, and I have a graduate degree from a pretigious university...

There's another conversation to be had--I like as well the one about men's liberation, but the one that interests me here is:

What about gay women (queers, lesbians, bi-sexuals, however one self-defines)... there's a lot to be said about wanting out of corporate, male (even if they don't "really" want it) cultural and economic systems, but what about the gay women that find no comfortable home in that corporate system, while also bowing out of the hetero (or hetero-sexist or hetero-consumer) system that supports it? No stay at home mom here without a mom out there working in that system.

The conversation -- yes, agreed here in comments numerous times -- needs to expand to include a disection of the basic aspects of the problem, which for me also largely includes those hetero-sexist and hetero-consumer structures--without which, I doubt the "straight" stay at home moms (my sister included, another ivy-league grad (yes she's a part time worker one)) would be having any shame (**if** they do have) about their personal, and self-empowered, choices.

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I could only read halfway through this article. Exactly what is the goal of feminism? And how can a man possibly nurse an infant? I didn't know that a mom who chose to stay home did so by virtue of unwittingly subscribing to conservative cultural role model values. It's the infant Ms. Hirshman; try seeing the forest for the trees.

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I almost want to laugh when I hear some feminist whine and moan about "being forced to stay home". HEY! At least you have the choice! You think it's so much easier being a man? Newsflash darling, IT'S NOT!!
For women there are all kinds of choices in life:
If Single:
work full time
work part-time and go to school
work part time and volunteer
work full time and volunteer

If Married:
work full time and have children
work part time and have children
work part time have children and go to school
work full time and go to school part time
stay at home with the kids part time and work part time
stay at home full time
stay at home full time and volunteer
stay at home and shop
stay at home and join clubs
stay at home and work out of the home full time
stay at home with the kids and work out of the home full time
stay at home with the kids and work out of the home part time

Men's choices?
Work
Prison

So sorry if my heart doesn't bleed for you feminists, but you seem to have missed something on your way from the kitchen to the protests; CHOICE = POWER
You have so much more power than you seem to want to realize. You want to talk about social norms? How many stay at home dads do you know? Seriously, and I dont mean the ones you see on a sitcom or "hear" or "read" about. I mean how many do you actually know personally?
What kind of stigma do you think that has attached to it? In our society if you're a male and you don't work, then you're not a "man".
How many of you feminists would date or even marry a man who said he wants to stay home and raise the children (if you want any) so you can work full time? How many of you would even talk to a guy who said he would love to be a stay at home dad?

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Here's a point I think the author overlooks:

There is a profound and deep sense of PERSONAL SATISFACTION that comes from interacting with and raising one's own. It goes WAY BEYOND work, money, power, biology, social change, feminism, and any message one can construe from "Sex And The City" reruns.

IMO, the author has overlooked the fact that for many well-educated, high-powered, elite women, it's not about making a choice to do rudimentary and mundane childcare and housework -- like diapering and vacuuming out of some sense of "duty." It's about joyful interaction each and every day with their children.

Many former career-track women bring their knowledge and experience with them to the act of child-rearing and managing a household. They have changed the very definition of what it means to be a SAHM today. They aren't the stereotypical housewife from the sitcoms of the 1950s that feminists rebelled against. In the interviews the author conducted, these moms talk about what they do with their kids. They are not "tolerating" their kids presence or dragging clinging babies around the house as they move from washload to stove day-in and day-out. They're happily engaged -- going to museums and movement classes in addition to baking apple pies. In the 21st century, being a SAHM does not have to mean mindless, unchallenging, non-creative drudgery.

More importantly, it's not about "choice." It's about desire. These moms desire, yearn, and long to be with their children in meaningful measures of time. By doing so, they achieve a deeper sense of personal satisfaction than they ever could on a career track. There is no "glass ceiling" -- the act of raising one's own takes us to infinity and beyond.

By virtue of doing this highly specialized, personal, and soul-satisfying work -- society benefits as well. The children of many of these women will grow up to be healthier and happier citizens of the world precisely because their moms freely gave them the gift of their undivided time and attention.

Diane Keith
http://www.UniversalPreschool.com

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What better life is there for a woman, wife & mother than to fluff her nest and nurture her family? This lifestyle is the natural inclination of the female nature because it is so emotionally rewarding. Feminism got the door open to educations at elite schools and an opportunity to achieve high paying, intellectually rewarding work. But let's look at this "novella" from a more basic perspective. Feminists of the 60's & 70's fought for these opportunities because they saw their elder generation of women in lives where they had no power to choose the directions and conditions of their lives. The most important point of feminist gains is that a career outside the home is the only guarantee of financial security. Not one word about divorce & single parenthood was mentioned in this analysis. With divorce running at least 50% of all marriages, at least 50% of them will be supporting themselves and their children without a man putting a roof over their head and food on the table. Although this new generation of women has acquired educations that will keep them from being a "greeter" at WalMart if they divorce, reentering the workforce as an older woman or younger woman with children at home will never manifest into a high paying job with a comfortable retirement nest egg. Every financial model will bear out the facts, there isn't enough time to build a financially lucrative career and retirement nest egg if half of a woman's work life is spent in an "occupation" for which she is not paid and receives no marketable work experience.

I know from where I speak. As a feminist in the 70's, a college educated woman who chose to stay home and take care of my family for 24 years, I am living proof of this model. When a woman reenters the workforce in her 40's or 50's, she's starting just as she did when she first graduated college but with one big disadvantage, she's not 22 anymore. The prime jobs go to those graduates in their 20's and the more experienced women in their 30's. The years a woman spends in the careers of motherhood and wifehood better have earned her some financial security she can own when she is on her own or she's no better off than the generations of women before her who had no choices in their lives and no security except the very slippery and elusive ones implied in a marriage license. These facts are as true in 2005 as they were 1905.

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Maybe Third World people identify children with security. I have always seen it as just another of the risks one takes as an inevitable part of life. If we are lucky, we can choose our risks; no one avoids them.

As a father, I was dragged kicking and screaming into childcare from the moment my two were born. That was one of the best things that ever happened for me. And not because it was all fun and games (although it was a whole lot of that). I wasn't able to exhale until my youngest reached about 25 (when adult auto insurance rates came into play).

There was alot, and I mean 'alot,' of hell to pay along the way. Now that they are around 40, I cannot begin to describe the payoff. All along there were rewards, but today it's more than I ever imagined. No guarantees. Never. And those who are peddling some form of 'guarantee' hassle me every day. No thanks. Return to your cave, vampires!

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I consider myself a strong, intelligent, and independent woman. I was totally put off by this article. This woman in no way speaks for me, or any woman I know for that matter. I was offended by so many points made in this article that I don't even know where to begin....

For starters, the whole article is based on the concept that every woman's drive in life (and man's for that matter) should be based on some obsessive fixation with money and social status, above any other endeavor.

I am 29, married, and a stay at home mother of two. My husband is a carpenter, who works his ass off, and loves his career choice. He washes dishes, runs the sweeper, does laundry, and cooks dinner right along with me. He makes about $40,000/yr. before taxes, which doesn't go far for a family of 4. I didn't choose him based on income level or social status (obviously), it was based on mutual love, friendship, and respect. The author's suggestions for "picking" a husband (as if you just go to a husband tree and pull one off) are degrading to women AND men, not to mention totally shallow.

I chose to stay home, a CHOICE my husband supported - and appreciated - even though it meant we had to be thrifty to do it - it's not just a choice made by people with lots of money. I have a hand in raising the next generation, and consider that a noble and effective way to make an impact on the world around me. When I think of success for us (my husband and I), I think of being able to just be. To enjoy the life we've been blessed with. I have no desire to live the life depicted in this article.

I am an active, outspoken, well fullfilled member of society, a "modern woman" in a sense not represented by this author's idea of feminism. That I am not only denied consideration, but labeled a hindrance to the movement by my life CHOICES, is what is so offensive about this article.

I totally support women who choose to work while having children, and just as important, those who have no choice (I started out a single mom), as well as women who choose not to have kids at all. And, women who choose to stay home with their kids, and fill the role of homemaker, should, at the very least, have the support of other women. It IS a job, you know. Just as challenging and respectable as one outside of the home.

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I always found raising my children, working in my garden and being an activist in my community far more rewarding than the corporate jobs I had. Why should having others raise my children and working at a job for a company that contributes to wealth inequality be concidered the "right" life choice?

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Before anyone starts crying and painting the women in this country as "victims" let's take a real hard look at the differences in roles and responsibilities between the genders.
In commmercials and the media, women are protrayed as know-it-all sages who can do it all and are vital to the survival of any and all men in their lives. Men, however, are portrayed as simple-minded neanderthals who will endanger the lives of their children and themselves if left to their own devices and are worthy of disrespect and ridicule at every turn. For example, the Verizon commercials that ran for years with the father who doesn't know the first amendment from the 7th amendment and is mocked by his daughter. The same husband character is later told by his wife to "leave her alone" when he tries to help his daughter with her homework. The message" fathers are idiots and don't deserve any respect from their children or their wives.
Another commercial that I absolutely hate is one for cold medicine. The mother is sick in bed and the father is left to clothe and feed the children before sending them off to school. The father character is dressed in a suit and tie (obviously educated) but when his children ask him what they should wear to school, he sees a pile of laundry and tells them to wear whatever they want. They tear off their pajamas and immediately put on beach clothes, sunglasses and flipflops before running out the door into a freexing blizzard. The message: Dads are such imbecils that they endanger the lives of their children through their laziness and stupidity.
Another one that clearly shows the "progress" of the feminist movement: a national pharmacy commercial that ran for a number of years. It shows a woman taking pictures of her face close up while making "piggy" faces. She takes the film to the pharmacy and has it developed. Next, it shows her husband (a somewhat husky looking fellow) opening the fridge and finding a snack with one of the photos taped to it. He rolls his eyes and puts the snack back. The message: men are fat pigs and should be ridiculed by women. NOTE: the wife character in this commercial was, herself, rather portly.
Now imagine if you reversed the roles in these commercials. Imagine if women were protrayed as clueless, ignorant, moronic or even a danger to their children. Can you imagine the outcry?

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But we men are supposed to just take it "like a man" and allow these negative images to be perpetuated over and over again. We work all day and support our families and deal with the responsibilities we face every day and for it all, we are supposed to sit silently as we are portrayed as lazy, clueless idiots who will probably end up killing ourselves or our own children through our ignorance. And if we were to speak up, we would be told that it's all in good humor and that we shouldn't take it so "personally". Well, I dont know any other way to take it.

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I'm a stay at home dad who gave up a 95K job building a supercomputer to stay at home with my kids while my sweety pursues her carrier. We aren't married. I'm not a chauvinist nor is she a feminist.

The problem isn't women leaving the work force. The problems are first, being in the work force sucks and second we don't need to have every one in the work force to begin with.

Pay people to stay at home and raise kids if you worry about family values.
Pay people to stay at home and do philosophy, art, literature, music, and all those things a culture needs to survive.

Not just a tiny elete, every one who wishes to.

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The problem I see is that work is taking from us far more than it's giving us. It's usually boring (especially if it's business); real wages have declined ever since the 70s; and other benefits, such as health insurance and vacation, are getting skimpier and more grudging by the year.

Make work more worth our while, and maybe we'll give it more of ourselves. As it is now, if a woman loves her husband and children and feels like she's getting something good back for all the work she does for them, of course she'll care more about them.

And also, re: telling women in college not to major in something interesting, like psychology or art, but instead to ruin her college years with craap like business: if everybody followed that advice, we would have no culture left at all. There's more to life than making a profit. We NEED art, music, literature, and the social sciences to make us fully human. Instead of discouraging people from studying those things, we need to somehow increase the respect (and money) that these people get. A world that's all-business would be a very sterile, depressing place to live.

I only work because I need the money. If it was up to me, I'd spend all my time reading detective stories and fooling around with my boyfriend.

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Judging from the number of posts to Linda Hirschman's article, you have hit a raw nerve. I teach creative writing and world lit to college freshmen and sophomores, and this is one topic we frequently discuss, and as much as we discuss it, I always learn something new.

The definition of being male and female will continue to change and as they do, so will the institutions of marriage, parenthood and work. Unfortunately, the arguments Linda is making are simply out of touch with how kids feel. Being "feminist" the way she continues to present it means little when most female students are now staying in school and finishing more than their male counterparts. Change may be slower coming in the work world, but in a few more years, more American women will be having careers while the cohort from which they have to pick a partner will continue to dwindle.

By 2030, will being "feminist" simply turn against a "L word" world, and what will politically correct mean then ? We have learnt much from the rise and fall of extreme-right idiots; why will left-wing progressives now want to make the same mistake ?

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Women have always worked outside the home - in fact, the majority of women throughout history have had no choice but to share raising children with paid employment. The choice to stay at home or take paid employment is still only available to lucky women like myself, whose partners make enough money to cover them (in my case, because of long-term chronic illness, not motherhood). My parents both worked outside the home, and both pulled their weight in the home; my grandparents did the same. There was no choice except get paid or starve.

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Yngcelt, I have your family salary pegged as being in the upper 40%, just from your description. If you make below that, then you have been duped and are keeping those in power that will make your life harder.

You seem to think the Republicans are superior. Think about this. You can be a Democrat and not have to have an abortion. Abortion has been highly overplayed in the biased right wing media. It is more about the right to have the choice. It may surprise you to learn, that many do not believe that life starts at conception. An embryo is the potential for life, but it is not life. Your sperm is the potential for life too. Think about that. Do you value the lives of those children who we have bombed and are bombing overseas? See, when you vote for and support war, you are voting for many dead babies and children.

Do you really respect the value of life, when you support the elite who want to destroy what little quality of life we still have? As you know, war is caused by a failure to communicate. Do you think the Republicans did all they could to keep from war? Democrats can support the troops, without supporting the war, because the troops are pawns of the Republican war machine.

Are you proud to be a Republican, when they are making life more and more difficult for those who make average wages? Do you think it is right to use the money we have all paid in for Social Security retirement to give tax cuts to the rich and not plan on paying it back?

I am a Democrat and I believe in God and Jesus and I love the nativity scene. I really think the roots of outlawing "Merry Christmas" and the nativity scene started with big business not wanting to offend those of other religions and from other countries. Notice what the store workers say the next time you go shopping. See if they say "Merry Christmas" or the generic "Happy Holidays"

Do yourself a favor and read some of the articles on "Sojourners.com" There is more to being a Christian than supporting war and waving the flag and being against the choices women make.

Democrats want to make life better for families. The Republicans want to make this country a great place to do business. Which do you think God would prefer?

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Our current round of feminism began with consciousnes raising that came out of the civil rights movement and the anti-war movement, not from The Feminine Mystique's lament about the emptiness of educated women's lives as empty nest housekeepers, which did speak to a generation of middle class women whose children were out of the house and in school.

Ms. Hirschman looks at only one criteria when she judges women's lives by her so called feminist standard--salary. There are documented cases of women who have higher salaries staying in abusive relationships. By the salary standard one would assume such a woman was a better feminist than a homemaker in a mutually respectful relationship, raising her children to ignore gender stereotypes and doing pro-bono work for the local Rape Crisis Center.

Women spoke from their own experience and discovered that wpersonal problems (abuse, illegal abortions, date rapes, frustrations about aspirations limited by quotas AGAINST women and pay discrimination) were really social problems that required social change. Unfortuantely most 60's pioneers of feminism were young affluent students, not mothers or working women or working class women. Most had not yet encoutered had incredibly hard it is to combine working with parenthood. Those voices were not heard.

And they still need to be heard. A woman (or man's) desire to care for their child is just as important and intrinsically feminist as a woman (or man's) desire to achieve in the marketplace.

Some of Ms. H's career advice for young women is sound. Her marital advice sounds like a satire against feminism and her denigration of the caring professions in society would be detrimental to society in general if anyone took her seriously.

Ms H. will be dismissed. Rightfully the affluent audience she writes for will decide that she should mind her own business. Unfortunately at the same time, they may dismiss feminism which Ms. H claims to represent along with her bad advice. Real feminism is about better choices for women and men, and cares about people in all economic strata. Real feminism looks to examples like Scandinavia and admits that our current corporate model isn't working for overworked Americans. Not for professional women wanting to start a family and not for single parents struggling to survive on two jobs--or none! Feminism has its roots in human freedom movements--in LIBERATION.

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Yngcelt, I too, grew up poor. I am talking about your family income now. I still think you are in the upper 40% of income or are voting against your best interests. You being a teacher, you would be too smart to vote for those who will take away from you in many areas, surely.

You say Republicans care about life. They are cutting the welfare bill now that helps support all those new babies that young women are having. The Democrats said they would not support it.

You really need to pray about your misguided beliefs.

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I can not believe that I just read this load of misogynistic diatribe. Have you always hated women and wanted to be a man? You sure sound like one from the dark ages. Feminisim has failed for you Ms. Hirschman, that is certain. As the well educated, 40 something, homeschooling, mother of three wonderful beings I pity your sad existence. Feminism is not just about being the winner, the ruler. It's about the power to make this choice on your own. How is turning your child as an infant over to some underpaid lackey to raise making you a feminist, a strong, successful woman? I have the power to guide and nurture my children to make a better future for this planet, there is no greater power or gift than that. Why would I give that up to go be another cog in the great machine of capitalism? I think for myself, thank you! And my daughters will never need your brainwashing tactics to be feminists because I will raise them to be true women who need no labels to confirm their selfworth. I sincerely hope that you never give birth Ms. Hirschman.

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What feminism got wrong is that its goals are based on a vacuous argument, and proponents of the movement fail to understand that. What feminism, as described in this article, proposes is that there is something inherently superior about being successful in the "elite" world dominated by men.

Feminists of the 70s seem to have adopted wholesale the male assessment of female roles, as evidenced by this statement midway through the article: "The family -- with its repetitious, socially invisible, physical tasks -- is a necessary part of life, but it allows fewer opportunities for full human flourishing than public spheres like the market or the government." This comment reflects total buy-in to what men believe about women's roles, and it shows absolutely no respect for what women traditionally do. As a woman with an M.A. in Professional Writing, who chose to be a mother over pursuing a career, my direct observation was that there was no work in the domain of the "elites" that offered more "opportunities for human flourishing" than did motherhood. The following statement also reflects the same assessment of traditional female roles as viewed from a male perspective: ""Housekeeping and child-rearing in the nuclear family is not interesting and not socially validated. Justice requires that it not be assigned to women on the basis of their gender and at the sacrifice of their access to money, power, and honor."

There is great honor in raising a family and tending a home, and the fact that doing so is not "socially validated" is a problem of perception, further aggravated by feminist theorists who don't realize they blindly support male contempt for the traditional female role, whether occupied by a man or a woman.
The real failure of feminism is that feminists want women to adopt traditional male values, which includes contempt for female roles. Perhaps women, highly educated or not, reject that. Perhaps they took a look at the "corridors of power" and the lives of the "elite" and wanted no part of it. And if that's correct, the theory that feminism wasn't radical enough applies. If feminists wanted to be really radical, they might have begun by honoring traditional female roles and by trying to bring the qualities of nurturing and care-giving into the world of the elite, rather than trying to transform women into people who denigrate those qualities in order to pursue more "interesting" work.

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Certainly women should be able to achieve in any sphere they wish, and one of the victories of feminism is that women do now have a world of possibilities opened to them. The failure that feminism, though, is that it doesn't want to recognize that many women have seen the wizard; they pulled back the curtain and found that "Oz" is just some blowhard from Kansas, and he's no one to emulate--at least not without sacrificing self-respect.

Women have much to offer, but in that regard, I would much rather be a Cindy Sheehan than the CEO of any corporation you could name. Cindy is all about nurturing and caring and moral outrage at the excesses of the elites that feminists want women to ape. She supports "feminine" values outside the power structure that wants to deny, denigrate and destroy the values that women traditionally support. She doesn't walk the halls of power, she challenges them, and if feminists want to do something radical and successful, they ought to do the same.

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To the author: In addition, women are actually independent beings with brains. Consequently, they don't need to be guided by: a) men; or b) feminists with a paucity of real ideas.

They don't need to be persuaded into lifestyles that are better for society. They are entirely capable of deciding on their own what their roles should be.

But thanks anyway.

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I don't know much about the ACLU except that they do try to protect the freedom of speech. I don't know any Democrats that support man child sex. I do know that parents are making a mistake if they depend on "Megan's law". Megan's Law posts the known pedophiles and many rely on that as far as the safety of their neigborhood. It gives them a false sense of security. There could be a pedophile next door that hasn't been caught yet. Parents should be as careful with their children in neigborhoods where no known pedophiles live. Pedophiles can drive and they can walk. They don't stay in the posted neighborhood.

Porn is responsible for serial rapists, killers and some pedophiles. It is a big business in our country. Why don't the Republicans out law that? Because it is big business in our country. As far as "defending those sick bastards", not all who are accused are guilty.

With a Republican majority, no Democrat can bring up any bill unless the Republicans want it too.

My son in law has made a career out of the military. He loves this country and would die for it. All the more reason, we need leaders that will not put them in harms way unless it is necessary. The terrorists usually wait 5 years to attack our country again. I don't buy the argument "we are fighting them over there, so we don't have to fight them over here." Ever heard of multi tasking?

Clinton had Saddam contained. He wasn't going anywhere. 2100 of our soldiers would still be alive, if Bush and Cheney hadn't came up with "pre emptive strikes." Cheney wanted to "pre emptive strike" Russia during the Cold War. How dumb was that?

Republicans are cutting programs for poor children such as health care (medicaid) and food stamps and the wic program which furnishes milk to babies.

You say you support the woman's right to choose whether to work or not. There really isn't a lot of choice for many since the deregulation of the cost of our utilities and gas plus the high prices of homes and rents.

The Democrats are keeping the Republicans from dismantling Social Security, a program we have all put money in from our pay check and dedicated to our retirement. The Republicans are determined not to pay Social Security back and put us at the mercy of the stock market. That will make the choices even harder for women and men.

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I was interested in what this writer had to say until she blamed liberal arts educations for sending women to the homefront.

It's true that getting a liberal arts education is not widely considered the first step to being a CEO, but it's also true that there's nothing wrong with anyone not wanting to become a CEO at all.

Courses in accounting, business, etc. usually include information, learning formats/pedagogies, and methods of critical thinking that value masculine thinking over feminine thinking; whereas liberal arts are better suited to feminine thought.

This is not to say that all men think masculinely and all women femininely, but looking at tendencies, that is how a majority of us fall. Personally, I think a woman who chooses to stay out of powerful corporate positions is smart enough to know that it's all an economic game of inequality, which feminine-thinking would be unable to perpetrate--and rightly so.

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As I read this article, I couldn't help seeing it as more a critique of our capitalist system rather than pointing out a problem with feminism.

While there is certainly still a problem with gender bias in our society, I think this article's approach was fundamentally flawed.

I'm a stay-at-home dad who works part-time from home to take care of the kids. I was happy to give up a job I didn't really care about to do this (though some days I reconsider).

My wife and I came to this arrangement not out of any concern for gender roles, but rather because she makes more money than I did - even though we have the same education level.

To be honest, neither she, nor I have any aspirations to climb any corporate ladder and devote our lives to an endless pursuit of wealth and power. She just happens to be in a profession that pays better.

I find anyone devoting 80 hours a week or more to a life of stress, conflict and political maneuvering kind of sad. In my opinion that is not what anyone should be striving for.

I think the reason that so many affluent, educated women choose to stay home to raise children is because they can.

I think the fact that more women than men do it is a testament to the fact that women generally DO wield the power in the home. They get the more fulfilling job while their poor husband has to go out into the workforce to earn the money.

Things may be different for the top rung of our economic ladder. But the jobs available to 90 percent of us are just not that fulfilling.

Not to mention the obvious biological factors such as nursing, which men simply cannot do. And many people don't consider pouring some corporate, chemical-filled formula down their children's gullets a viable alternative.

If my wife and I had earned the same amount of money, she would have lobbied hard to stay at home. She still hopes I might find a job that pays well enough that she can quit and stay home.

If 30 hour work weeks with at least 6 weeks paid vacation were the norm in our workforce, things might be a little different. But the way things are its no wonder people would opt out if given the choice.

For the record, even here in Indiana, almost every boss I've ever had in my career (before my current position at home) was female.

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The fact that SOME white women feel inclined to stay at home and raise their kids on a trust fund is perfectly fine and an acceptable CHOICE for them. However, for the rest of us - women of color, working poor white women, single moms, there isn't the luxury of choice. We have to work in order to make ends meet with our husbands/life partners, or to just have the basic necessities of life - food, clothing and shelter - if we're single parents, and then we are condemned by the right-wing media for doing so, and our kids are blamed for everything from gang violence to teenage pregnancy.

Articles like this, and the support it seems to generate from those who agree totally illustrate what I've said and believed all along - that most white feminists, especially those who are upper middle class - have no CLUE as to the realities of the lives of other women. Worse, they don't seem to care all that much. If these women want to do something meaningful in their lives, outside of being 'desparate soccer moms', perhaps they should join the fight for better and more family-friendly working conditions so that the women on the bottom of the socio-economic scale can have it a little easier.

Yes, I'm a staunch feminist, but sometimes...sometimes I wonder as a woman of color if my voice even matters. Maybe Camille Paglia was right after all...

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Linda Hirshman has written a very wise article. Sadly, most people are missing the point. The point is this:

- everytime you read about new legislation and policies being proposed or enacted that marginalizes or harms women and children, thank the gender-based division of labor and the people who "choose" it.
- everytime you hear about theories proposing how women are intellectually deficient in something or the other, thank the gender-based division of labor and the people who "choose" it.
- everytime you read statistics of poverty showing women and children to be disproportionately among the poor, thank the gender-based division of labor and the people who "choose" it.
- everytime womens' rights are cut back or social/family/community support systems are defunded, thank the gender-based division of labor and the people who "choose" it.
- everytime you read of sharia-based laws and taliban-like restrictions on women, thank the gender-based division of labor and the people who "choose" it.
- everytime you read of honor-killings, female-infanticide and neglect of female children, dowry deaths, thank the gender-based division of labor and the people who "choose" it.

People making a "choice" to follow gender-based division of labor is the "trees". Social and economic marginalization of women and children (especially girl children) is the "forest". Women and caregivers would not be so abused, disparaged and marginalized if they had equal participation in the corporations and institutions that determine the very structure of our lives. Simply hating and name-calling those corporations and institutions does not diminish their power over our lives. We may pooh-pooh the ambitions leading to the supreme court, or the presidency, or ownership of major media organisations - but guess what, these are the people deciding the laws and policies and social/cultural visions that you have to live with.

When you consciously attempt to overcome and eliminate gender-based division of labor, i.e. equal sharing of childcare and career-building between men and women, then the advantages are double-fold: a) People who run the public world have more knowledge and sensitivity to needs of children and dependents because they are also caregivers, and b) caregivers have more public power and resources, because they also run the public world in addition to caregiving.

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...to anyone who has been insulted or challenged by "owleyes" that "owleyes" is a man. He admitted it to me in a posting. So consider that when he attacks you for stating your pride in motherhood, your choice to raise your children or your criticism of this article.
Thank you and have a great day!

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If women are rejecting the patriarchal capitalist definition of individuation as a career then feminism has triumphed- not failed.

Most women don't currently self-identify as feminists because of the popularization of this writer's anti-family views.

As the son of a feminist who remembers the consciousness raising meetings in the living room, I learned that feminism is about choices and not being held back. This is what my mother and my wife live by. They have keen eyes for unmasking the subtle and unsubtle sexism in our society. And they both have careers. But they both stayed home with their kids until the children were school aged.

And they stayed home BECAUSE they were feminists. Because they valued the family and the home.

In the seventies women agitated for our society to acknowledge caretaking of family and hearth as work. Feminists advocated for a guaranteed minimum wage.

Only the most careerist professional, blinded by capitalism, could possibly interpret women's increasing choice to stay home as a failure of feminism.

Capitalism wants women to outsource their children. Capitalism wants women to outsource the home. Capitalism wants to invade and privatize the home because the family is the last remaining piece of the commons that hasn't been paved over and turned over to commercial transactions.

It shouldn't be up to us men to argue against this kind of careerist feminism.

What do other women think?

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Jon, I think you have written a great article and I agree with everything.

Yngcelt , you are using a Rove tactic when you say that “Dems like Ted Kennedy have their hand in the cookie jar.” Kennedy has not profited from anything the government does. If TK or any Democrat did the least thing, he would be a poster boy on every news show.

The truth is the tax cuts for the wealthy cause the cuts to be made on the young poor babies and children for food and medical care. If you want proof on the reductions for the poor, go read the bills on Thomas.gov that they are passing and have passed. Or google Medicaid cuts.

If you think this war is o.k., then maybe you will encourage your daughters to go fight it, Yngcelt.

Kym525, I am sorry that happened. There may be more to it than the fact she was black. Some of these feminists are terrible women, not because they are feminist or women, but they are just a mean type of person. I have been treated badly at times and have thought "if I were black, I would think this was racism." Whites can be mean to other whites, too.

Most of the feminists that represent women, in politics and on the talk shows, are mostly vicious, uncompassionate Bs and act like the worst of the macho males. The world needs more compassion and forgiveness and women need the female leaders to help them in the workplace and at home. So do the men. We need all leaders to consider the family. It may be what we have now on TV and in politics are corporate representatives and lobbyists, not feminists.

There are many women and men who are compassionate and caring. I don't mean to say that the women are the only ones, but there are probably more nurturing women because they are made to nurture babies. There is a difference between most men and women and we should at least admit that.

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Yngcelt, you only have to be 18 to join the military. 21 to vote. What would you do, if your daughters came home from school and said they had enlisted? That is what is happening all over. The recruiters are going into the high schools and enlisting new fighters. The basic training is 6-8 weeks and if you are going to be one that dismantles bombs on the side of the roads, then you get more specialized training for those jobs.

Guess who signs up? Mostly those who can’t afford college and not much hope of getting a job. The poor.

If you really believe the news is liberal then there is no point in discussing it. If you believe Kerry got a better press than Bush, then you see what you want to see, not reality. The press didn’t ask about Viet Nam, because Kerry could have told his side of it. What about the swift boat vets and their distorted story?

I know where you are coming from Kym. I know some of the elite that think it is just the ignorant or criminals that are getting shafted. I know that isn’t true. For many women, all feminism has done is cause them to have to get a job and leave their children with bad child care. And they work at hard or boring jobs. The same with globalization. It is helping those who already had and hurting those who didn’t have much. I can’t say we have benefited from it at all.

We have been duped. That is why I was so happy to see the article and read the comments. I don't like it any more than you do. I keep pointing out that our leaders especially the feminists need to help the others. To me that means better, affordable child care and fair tax laws and health care and all the things that help the families. In a tax bill recently introduced they proposed to not count each individual as a deduction, but have only one deduction per family and take away all credits. (That would hurt working parents.) The deduction for child care is not nearly enough, already. Also young men who pay child support are not allowed to count the child, they pay child support for, as a deduction on their taxes. Both parents should be able to count them.

We need national health insurance. If you add up what we pay for insurance for our politicians in office, medicare, medicaid and veterans with taxes, then national health insurance doesn't seem that impossible.

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This debate at times took mind-numbing turns because the focus on criticising policy - something that impacts our lives far more than the lifestyle choices of a few well-off (white) women - got lost.

A more productive debate would find its basis in women's human rights. That way we can begin talking about issues that affect the majority of women and not just a priveleged few as Hirshman chose to do.

The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and the Beijing Platform for Action are a good starting point. (The current US administration is working to undermine this international framework for women's human rights by the way. We should be outraged by that.)

Then we could start talking about what our government and corportions should be doing for us women and our families. That is a feminist debate.

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I went to law school because I want to change things. I'm a full-time legal aid lawyer today and I love it. I'm raising twins and I love that, too. There are many dimensions to my life. I see no reason to choose among them or privilege some over others, and I don't value being at home with my kids more than using my brains and talent to make the world a better place for them.

Conservatives want educated, well-off women to stay at home and make babies. They also want less educated, poor women to get out in the minimum-wage workforce and leave their children with poorly paid babysitters. Why does their reverence for motherhood end when the woman in question is poor? Because poor, uneducated women have little power to change things, unlike rich, educated women.

Feminism isn't about choices -- it's about making feminist choices. Conservatives want to keep women's hands off the levers of power. Based on the comments here, I'd say they are succeeding wildly.

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I just wanted to say that the author fully understands and addresses what it's like to be 23 and beginning a career in an overwhelmingly male-dominated field. When I read this article I nearly cried out of relief. She's not condemning women who stay at home, merely pointing out the immense covert pressure on highly educated, qualified women to step aside and let a man fill that space. I will not accept a second shift if I ever choose to get married. There is NO REASON for the household to be a woman's domain. There is nothing wrong with a woman who wants to make her own success without giving up hope of ever sharing a life with a partner. I think a lot of people are not willing to look at this article with enough of an open mind to see those things, and that leaves me with more desperation than before...

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Reason, yes you only have to be 18 to join the military, but the voting age is 18 as well, not 21. If my daughters came home and told me they enlisted I would laugh because my daughters are in grade school. You talk about the recruiters going into high schools and enlisting new fighters. The recruiters are going into schools to offer career and educational CHOICES that many of these young people may not have in the private sector. The ASVAB is mandatory for military enlistment and helps to assess which career areas an applicant is possibly qualified for. Not everyone who joins the military goes into the infantry.
And yes, it does give children from poor families opportunities. I, for one, signed up after high school because I knew I could never afford college. I didnt get high enough grades for scholarships and I didnt want to face a lifetime of loan debt. And I did not serve in the infantry. I was dirt poor and I served proudly just like my father, my uncles, my grandfathers, my great grandfathers, etc.
Basic training is 6-8 weeks for Air Force and ARMY. Basic is 15 weeks for Marines and about the same for the NAVY.
Here's a little fact you seem to want to ignore, not EVERYONE can join the military. People with disabilities, history of psychiatric problems or disorders, drug abusers, people with histories of felonies, etc.
But this goes back to the main problem with this article. And that is the subject of choice.
You villify the military for recruiting in high schools and poor areas. You obviously get all your "facts" from Michael Moore and Cindy Sheehan. I work in a high school and I can tell you right now that the military recruiters are more interested in the valadictorians and straight A students because they are more likely to qualify for higher level jobs and have more potential for advancement.
Recruiters are also very active in recruiting in colleges as well. Where do you think they get their officers from? Not all come from academies, you know.
The bottom line is that the military is a CHOICE!! It's not mandatory like in many other countries. And for a kid growing up in poverty, the military offers him or her free room and board, a steady paycheck, job opportunities and schooling. I don't see YOU going into the ghettos or trailer parks offering poor people jobs!
My question for you is what do you have against women and poor people having opportunities?

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..."If you think this war is o.k., then maybe you will encourage your daughters to go fight it, Yngcelt."
Well, here's my challenge to you, "reason" and to anyone else who uses this argument against the war:
If you think abortion is OK, then go have one or encourage your daughters to have them.
If you think socialized medicine is OK, then pay my medical bills.
If you think women need to stay out of the home to chase CEO jobs and climb the corporate ladder to justify feminism, then you go pay for their childcare.
If you think the terrorists are "freedom fighters", "minute men" or simply misunderstood, then travel on over to Iraq and Afghanistan and tell them that!
If you think this is an "unjust" or "illegal" war, then tell the troops when they return. Go to your nearest military base and protest outside of it. Tell the soldiers there they are fighting an "unjust" war.
Even better yet, why don't you go to the nearest VA Hospital and tell the wounded soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan they are war criminals because they are fighting an "illegal" war.
If you truly believe our military is killing innocent people, then go tell Cindy Sheehan her son, Casey, was a war criminal for participating in this war and actually reenlisting.
Or just attack people on a website from the comforts of your home.

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The most dismal aspect of this article and ensuing thread is the way it pits women against one another.
It seems that a woman is "damned if she does, damned if she doesn't" once the baby is born. If she returns to work, the right wing zealots berate her. In their world ONLY wealthy women should reproduce, since they damn anyone else for having to work post partum. Conversely, if a woman decides to stay at home with her child, she is damned by feminists of Ms. Hirshman's stripe for being a Stepford wife -- even if she worked for years before motherhood and only leaves the workforce for a few preschool years.

None of this mud slinging is good for women and SHAME on any of us for participating in it!

We need more choice for EVERYONE...better and more easily accessible daycare (NO. It is not easy to find in many markets. I found that full time infant care would be the equivalent of a second mortgage.)-- On-site daycare in the workplace, more opportunities to work flex time or part time, job sharing, and better paternity leave.

When I looked at my 2 hour per day commute, the costs involved in full time daycare, transportation, parking, gas and car repairs incurred from all the driving I did for work, and the inevitible meals out that we would eat because nobody was home before 6:00 PM to put a meal on the table, I knew that I would basically be working around the clock for free if I stayed on the job. Ten hours per day with work/commute, the all night baby shift and hardly any pay that we could actually keep? Somehow I could not find the self discipline to do this. I also worried about my daughter seeing her parents only for an hour before bed and on weekends.

I am lucky. I used effective birth control and planned my family. I worked full time for 14 years and saved money. My husband works full time and has health insurance. We live a frugal lifestyle -- rarely eat out, drive older cars not new SUVs, live in a modest home etc. We knew we needed to plan carefully for our child and thought ahead about ways in which we could afford to have a decent life with our daughter. We are also planning to stop at one child.

We made choices because we had options that did not exist in our grandparent's day. There is still much work to be done. It is up to women to advocate for more choice not less. Trading one set of inflexible rules for another is not the answer

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I know why women with money chose to stay home - because nobody likes to work. Women without money have to go to work. They don't work to get satisfaction or advance the cause of female empowerment - they work to pay bills.

I'm a guy, and if I had money, I'd stay home.

Sometimes questions really do have simple answers....

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Okay, so I've had my say and have vented my anger at white middle-class and upper class feminists, who seem to be dominating this issue. Now I can address a few points that have been made here.

Firstly - lest any of us forget, at the end of the day, feminism is all about CHOICE. It is about women choosing for themselves whether to stay at home and be mothers or to be in the working world carving a niche for themselves. Now, for many women on the bottom rung of the economic scale, the choices we make have less to do with freedom and more to do with necessity, and that's how it always has been. Still, our choices to work shouldn't be held against us, nor should a society that supposedly values children make it so hard for working moms and dads to share in the joys and the responsibilities of child rearing. Also, working women shouldn't be guilt-tripped by overblown statistics that blame the problems of teenagers (pregnancy, drugs, etc.) on the lack of a mother not being at home. I know quite a few stay-at-home moms who'd be pretty shocked if they could see what their kids actually do when they think no one's watching.

I will admit freely that in its zeal to give women choices as to how they wish to conduct their lives, some feminists did alienate those women who enjoyed and continue to enjoy staying home. That was a mistake, and I think most feminists will concede to this. However, I don't believe feminist were attacking them personally, but wanted to shake them up and say "hey, you DON'T have to live like that". Keep in mind that it's only been within the last thirty years that a woman could have her own credit card without her husband's permission. We have indeed come a long way baby.

Secondly, parenting is a difficult job, so why is it still thought of as 'women's work'? Hey men, get on the ball and start behaving like responsible adults rather than overhormonal teenagers who just decided to have kids. Give the wife a break and take Johnny and Susie to soccer practice. Cook dinner for the family (Hamburger Helper is really easy to make, you don't have to be Emeril Lagasse). Instead of watching ESPN, share quality time with your kids, especially your sons. When you set a good example for them, they'll be more inclined to follow it and to be better men because of it.

(con't)

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Lastly - FEMINISM IS NOT DEAD!!! Like all progressive movements, it will continue to have its share of pitfalls and setbacks, but for those of you eagerly salivating for its death knell, hell will freeze over before that happens. The clock will NOT be turned back. The taste of freedom is far too heady for that. My advice to you is to get used to that fact and to start supporting policies that are family-friendly and good for the overall health of our society.

Peace.

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This article is well-meaning but so off base on so many levels. I am one woman who chose not to have children and forge down the career path. I have a friend who is the family breadwinner and her husband stays home with the kids and another who left her job to become a stay at home mom. All of us are happy with what we chose. Wasn't that the point of feminism? To allow everyone the chance to do what they want with their life? I also believe the liberal arts degree theory is way off base. I work for a high tech company and am extremely successful as a sales person WHY?? Because I learned to think critically and see the big picture and communicate well which is what a Liberal Arts degree brings to the table. The technical stuff isn't that difficult to learn. The name of the game in sales is to follow the money and understand the business drivers behind the technical problems. The last fallacy I am sick of hearing is that men are the enemy. My husband doesn't like housework, neither do I. Therefore, we make our budget accomodate a maid. In the business world I have had numerous males who have taught me, cheered for my accomplishments, and given me the opportunity to rise in the ranks. I was born in the late 60s and my mom who was a stay at home feminist told me feminism was about choice. Education was critical so you could always stand on your own two feet no matter what and for personal development. While there are few women in my field doing what I am doing-as long as you bring revenue into the company and produce you are rewarded. This will never be a perfect world but I haven't felt held back from anything I wanted to achieve and my other friends in our late 30s feel the same way. To me, that is a huge success we should all be celebrating. This author doesn't give women or men enough credit.

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We don't need feminism to give us "choices." That's what we already have. Being forced to "chose" between your arm and your leg is just about what the patriarchy has already given us.

I'd like to NOT HAVE TO CHOSE. Or, to have BETTER OPTIONS from which to chose.

We need shorter work weeks, more vacation time, a national child care system, more male contribution to childcare and housework, paid family leave, school days that go to 5.30pm, less intra-female backbiting and competition, complete child support and paternity payment collection, larger child support awards, bigger alimony settlements, the right to return to work without undue discrimination after taking a short time off for family, credit toward Social Security for time spent raising small children, fair hiring and promotion at work, more women in power -- by god, we need BETTER CHOICES!!

I'll be darned if I'm going to accept a feminism so reduced and gutted that all it is about is abandoning me to "chose" or forcing me to "chose" between the rotten, unfair, split-brain, inadequate, incompatible, half-assed, not-as-good-as-man-has options I have before me today.

MY feminism is about refusing to chose between these bits of broken trash -- it's about working hard, getting political and demanding BETTER OPTIONS.

Jan VanDenBerg

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Am I the only one who is offended at constantly hearing that only the "wealthy, Ivy-league, upperclass" women are able/choosing to stay home? Sorry, but that is not the case in my world. My dh brings home less than 40K a year, and we make the necessary sacrifices in order for me to be home with our two children. New houses, new clothes, restaurant meals, fancy vacations, new cars, babysitters...what are those? Things that are less important than my being here to teach, nurture, guide, and support the next generation. Most of my friends are stay at home moms or work part time, and their husbands are NOT Wall Street Lawyers or CEOs or surgeons. It CAN be done if you value it enough, unless maybe you are a single parent (although I also have friends who are single parents who work from home or work part time in order to put their kids first). I am just tired of being insulted by hearing that only "upper class white women" can afford to have choices. We all have choices, we just make different ones.

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I just stumbled upon this ridiculous article and wanted to put my two cents worth in for posterity's sake. I am a college educated EX-career woman who loves, LOVES being a SAHM. I love, LOVE my husband who works his rear-end off to take care of us. And he is happy to do it. I am so thankful that I married a man who doesn't want me to go back to work to help pay the bills. He is willing to sacrifice for me and our children, and I appreciate it and do everything within my power to make our home a peaceful and happy place that we all enjoy (which I love doing). I manage the home, he manages the finaces and together, we try to manage the yard:) We are a great team and together, we're making a wonderful life for our family and ENJOYING it . No babysitter, nanny, or daycare center is good enough for our children so PLEASE don't suggest that I leave them and go back to work for the sake of women everywhere.

I believe that family should come first. It seems to me that feminism asks women to be more loyal to other women than they are to their own husbands and children. If that is the case (and it sure looks like it from this article) then the world would be a much happier and safer place if feminism dies.

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I agree with those who say that feminism is all about having the right to choose...and hopefully women (AND MEN for that matter!) are choosing those life paths that lead to a more fulfilled self, marriage, and family life. I am a working mom of a 2 year old daughter who has made a great deal of adjustments in my life in order fulfill all of not only my family's by my needs. I have a degree as a certified physician's assistant, but I teach high school science and fitness classes. I stepped away from the medical field simply because it's rigors were not family friendly in my book. Teaching is very difficult AND fulfilling to me personally. Also, the schedule allows me to be a good mom. FEMINISM GIVES US CHOICES TO PURSUE WHAT WORKS BEST FOR US AS INDIVIDUALS. What works for me may not work for someone else, and that's ok. We are devaluing all the gain women have made when we belittle each other's choices. What we need to do as parents is take a good honest look at our family life and then adjust our lives. The motto at our house is "Work to live don't live to work."
I am lucky enough to have my child watched over by one of her grandmothers every day. This is the tie that binds.
I have just got done reading a book entitled When Mother's Work: How to Love your Children Without Sacrificing Yourself. It was the most fulfilling book I have ever read. What is asks for from society and men and other women is understanding and acceptance for each woman's CHOICE. That, my friends, is what it is all about.

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This is the saddest article I’ve read in a long time. What exactly does CHOICE mean to feminists? Webster’s defined it as follows. “The power, right, or liberty to choose; option.” So if one has an option, who is to say they cannot opt out. Just because someone chooses to do something that others would not, does not make them wrong.
As a dad, who has stayed at home while my wife worked, I can say that being a stay at home parent was probably the most difficult job I’ve ever done. When I started working, my wife and I made the decision together that she should be there for the children. While it means that we sometimes struggle financially you just cannot quantify the human touch.
What has the me, me, me attitude brought us except latch key kids, who have no concept of right and wrong, emotionally distant parents, who put work ahead of family, and a society that devalues the family? Any parent, be it mother or father, that puts a career ahead of family is failing as a parent, and I feel that success as a parent is much more important to the survival of our race than success in business. If we don’t make $40 billion this year, the world will not end. But if we raise children, who’s only example is a self absorbed workaholic, that doesn’t even show them love, then all we are doing is passing along the wrong example.
There is a huge difference between nanny and mommy/daddy. One is paid to tolerate and care for the child. The others are required to do so, and should do so or not have children. Stay at home mothers do no fail women for staying at home just as stay at home dads do not fail men. They fill a need for love and individual attention that should be met by the parent, whenever possible.

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WOW. I didn't know that FemiNazis actually existed. I thought they were mythical demons invented to antagonize progressives. But now I see that such beasts actually exist.

What I don't understand is why people assume stay-at-home work is mindless. The woman who compared being a stay-at-home spouse to being a CFO is really onto something. If I could afford it, I'd stay home and decorate, cook, sew clothes, research investment opportunities, travel with my children, teach them foreign languages, volunteer in the community, and all sorts of cool stuff.

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I think many younger women today feel as if women's lib was shoved down their throats - between our mothers in the workforce and being latchkey or daycare kids and feeling less than adequate as we grew older due some people's belief that women can and should do anything and everything (be a wife, mother, employee and do them all well). I think the turn towards stay at home moms is a backlash against women's lib.
Women, no matter whether they choose to stay home with children or go into the workforce, should go to college if they choose to. You don't know what the future holds. Spouse dying, bankruptcy, and tough times in general may require a spouse to return to work. Although a mom who has been home for awhile may need to polish her skills, she will more quickly be able to get into the workforce than one who chose to not attend college in the first place.
Additionally, pretty much any degree will help you with your chosen profession, whether it's at home or in the workplace. Paying bills, budgeting, problem solving, time management, personal/social skills, etc are needed regardless of home or work.

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