Women and men both should strive to do in life the thing that they enjoy the most and that interests them the most and that they are good at doing once they have figured out what that is and however long it takes to figure that out. Society as a whole should work to subsidize schools and whatever else it takes to make that possible for mostly everyone. It would help that process a lot if we put all the warmongers like the Bushies in jail so that society could afford to constantly improve itself.

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Very powerful and articulate. I already feel better knowing that someone is opening a dialogue about this.

Sadly we live in a world where in spite of the achievements of feminism, there is still a significant wage gap between men and women.

The major problem I see today is that although women have advanced themselves in the workplace, in the salary scales, as contributing human beings, there seems to be an urge on behalf on major media players in downplaying women's achievements. Recent stories on how successful women make terrible wives/mothers; women struggling to have it all (job/husband/baby) have marginalised women further and limited the scope for ambition. Why is it these articles exist? There is not one article expressing how successful men make terrible husbands/fathers etc because it's assumed that a man is man through the job that he does and the money he earns. A man's success is not measured through his "success" within the family sphere, so why should a woman's? Why are women encouraged to "have it all"? Why not simply encourage women to succeed in areas outside of their assumed biological imperative?

This kind of thinking objectifies women further into yet again being a vessel for men, rather than an independent, successful and ambitious individual.

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One quote from the article if most revealing; "wishing for an ideal world is just an excuse for not engaging the world as it exists." It seems that the content of the article was about wishing and hoping along with blaming and resentment. As for the world as it exists I read little that would give me only a limited view of that world. And this view is basically us against them. That is not the world that I know exists.

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by continually talking about WOMEN (and never about men, unless it is in a bad way) you are doing your part to show Americans that Liberalism is for women, and therefore that conservatism is for men.

THAT'S the way to help the upper class divide and rule!

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I really appreciate this article. I have seen too many bright and creative women lose all confidence in their "public" selves after a few years in the home with the kids. These women's lives are run by toddlers, and they mildly complain, but don't go out and make a public life for themselves. If they are doing "the most important job in the world" why do they have a nagging sensation of being unfulfilled? And what message is being conveyed to the kids?

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I agree with Hirshman that work in the public sphere ought to be every woman's experience, but it seems a little premature to talk about changing the fundamental order of things until we can take ourselves seriously. If I read one more story praising some Ivy-educated woman who has decided to stay home and tend the kiddies, I think I'll puke. What a waste! Schools ought to be looking for more young women who will use the education they receive, even if they can't pay full tuition. If your daddy pays all your school bills and your husband can pay the rest, why bother?

Just recently a therapist friend said she realized how much richer women who had experienced consciousness-raising were psychologically than her younger clients who never had that experience. Maybe we need to bring back those groups.

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The problem is the way America raises its daughters...They are taught from a very yound age to help their mothers in the kitchen, to be nurturing towards their siblings, and eventually to support male athletes on high school fields as cheer-leaders...They are taught to be in the shadows, in a supportive role...never to be in the front taking lead...

Unless American family changes the way it riases its daughters, nothng will change.

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So if Ph.D.'s don't wipe their children's butts, who will? As a Ph.D.--who not only wipes butts but also changes colostomy bags, changes cat litter, and cleans up after puppies my children adore, all in the course of being a loving parent--I find it insulting to suggest these are appropriate jobs for some and not for others. Isn't it stunningly elitist to suggest that there are jobs beneath me because I have an education? I truly believe that all work has value, and particularly when it comes to my children there is NO JOB I would not do gladly.

Oh, and my wife, who is also a Ph.D., agrees with me.

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Ms. Hirschbaum has indicated that she'd be interested in hearing an argument that proves raising children is the most important thing a person can do. I believe that the argument presents itself in the form of values passed on to the children for the continuation of the society. If no one raised the children, there would be no values-including those espoused by Ms. Hirschbaum.

Further, as a man who would rather stay home and raise his children than work in the traditional work force, I believe that the statement that: men don't do it, therefore its not important, is ludicrous.

I value each person's right to express their opinion, but to express such opinion as fact when the evidence of the world runs contrary to the opinion, is zealotry.

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Exciting ideas; I definitely want to read more of what you have to say, as I think this is just a snapshot. Critique: you see success as a bigger piece of the American apple pie, genetically modified and stuffed with trans fatty acids and high fructose corn syrup, and fail to see the wider world. A public life is very important, but raising children is the most important job there is. The problem is one of degree and you have too many of them (stupid pun).

Infants and toddlers need care, and parental care is probably the best (otherwise you end up like George Bush whose parents were too important to change his diapers and hired teenagers to nanny). Otherwise kids develop neuroses and waste much of their lives filling those bottomless holes.

Kids need attention so they are picked up when they get hurt and so they don’t get abused. Or they end up like the teen moms who have such big holes in their souls they see no hope but having kids.

Once kids are five or seven or ten, parents need to back off and let them live, or rather they need to back off and live their own lives. Get a life in the public sphere, yes. Be multidimensional, don’t let family rule everything, have friends, hobbies, practical work (cooking, house repair, decorating, music) AND a public professional life. But part of being multidimensional is changing diapers, is gardening and knowing where food comes from, is caregiving for the less fortunate and the elderly (changing diapers of elders!).

We’ve made a crystal palace out of our privileges. The world can see us but we rarely see the world. Being a PhD does not mean you get to rest on your laurels, it means you’ve taken a lot of more than your share and need to pay it back. And writing books and articles is great, but a bit overspecialized, don’t you think? I like the shock value of “PhDs shouldn’t change diapers,” and “CEOs should be forced to change diapers” has already been said. Instead of being handed a piece of pie, all need to earn it by multilayered work. Otherwise our understanding of eachother is only skin deep.

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My impression of Ms. Hirshman's position as it is represented in this article, I have not yet had an opportunity to read her book, is one that although it briefly mentions the conditions that may lead women to opt-out I still feel puts the blame on this "failure of feminism" on the women who choose to leave work for the home rather than the conditions that cause these decisions. Ms. Hirshman mentions the problem of the "second shift" the fact that women who work still end up doing 70% of the housework at home but she does not put forth any ideas or sense of conviction about addressing this issue. In fact by dismissing the idea that "raising children is the most important job in the world" by recounting all the things that historically men have, presumably rightly, preferred to do and her apparent disgust over Ph.D.s "wiping butts" certainly does nothing to encourage men to take over some of these tasks. Demeaning child-rearing and the work of maintaining a home is certainly not a way to gain equal participation. Although she does mention in her interview that because of the extra demands on women it can be hard to excel as well as men in the business world but quickly transitions to women not taking their job seriously. While women who don't take their job or preparing for graduate school seriously are mentioned several times in the piece women not being taken seriously at work is barely glanced at. Many women, particularly young women enter their first job to discover an endless stream of sexual and demeaning comments, many are vague enough or not severe enough to merit a sexual harassment suit and complaints to HR are not well received others come from a companies clients or vendors, those out of the purvue of sexual harassment suits. They are shut down at meetings, treated like children, their ideas are rejected only to be accepted moments later when parroted back by a man. This is not true in every business or every part of a company but it is true for too many women. I am not a stay at home mother nor do I intend to be for a variety of reason. I am very concerned however when I see articles like these who see women who after sometimes decades of enduring the exhausting second shift, the sexual comments, and a devaluing of their work which often leaves them stuck in "service" positions like secretaries, assistants, etc, decide to "opt-out" to work in the home as the problem without really addressing the realities of the work world many women live in or putting much of the blame on the men who do not help out at home or the corporations who could care less about their employees family responsibilities. Ms. Hirshman talks about making a place for women in the world we have and not an ideal world, but yet she does not seem to consider the realities that whether or not we spend the day doing brain surgery or painting the next Last Supper, when we come the laundry and vacuuming are not magically done. She does not consider the reality that while kids get out of school at two or three many lawfirms and businesses keep their employees in the office until seven, eight, or nine at night. Women are not going to have fully realized private and public lives because of a political philosopher scoldings or because opting out makes some people "want to puke." They will not have them until child rearing and family life is actually valued by this society in more than just rhetoric and not dismissed as less than "putting the dome on St. Peter's cathedral." When society has greater value for the wiping of bottoms by Ph.D.s or others then perhaps men will do a little more of the housework and companies will not have a "mommy track". Until then don't blame the women who had to find a place for themselves in the world we really do live in and chose the home. Imagine the uproar if we suggested it was wrong for a woman to choose not to have children because of her career. Why are we so quick to accuse when it is the other way around?

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I'm from a family of PhD's (though I didn't choose that path). We've all wiped plenty of butts.

I'm a stay at home dad, music director for a church, my wife's a teacher. I'm lucky to be able to take care of my kids, and while no one enjoys the nitty-gritty of childcare all that much, I think it's a load of crap that the working world is the repository of meaning for any of us. The author has bought the goal of our mercantilist culture: reduce everyone to their usefulness to the system.

Life is for living, not measuring, and not winning.

Quit trying to tell people what should be important to them, and go back to your office and get ready to teach your next class, if that world is the one you feel is important.

It's very easy for a college prof to tell any of us, women or men, that work is where the meaning is. Might not feel so sure about that if you were picking tomatoes for piece rate, or waiting tables for tips, or working in a factory, or sitting in a cubicle taking customer service calls.

This kind of stuff is guaranteed to drive a deeper wedge between progressives and the rest of the country. People want justice, they share our concern for the environment and for civil rights, but they don't want to be told their lives are indaequate and ignorant: who does?

Basically, I could have said this all much quicker: fuck off, and let me take care of my family.

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Even Gandhi cleaned the latrine. The type of elitism that is promoted in this interview is the very thing that creates separation and deterioration in a society. Why separate people into these categories? This spewing of, I'm too good to change diapers, is more about pampering an ego than empowering women. This type of feminism that Hirshman is spewing takes a society into a downward spiral. Inclusiveness of all professions will build a society. Exclusiveness is what dictatorships are made of.

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I still think this analysis was a little glib -- yes, it is a waste of resources when someone highly qualified does work below his or her skill level, but we do not see a real gender argument evolving here. Men can go ahead and clean up those behinds, as my husband did, and it doesn't imperil their reputation or employability nearly as much as when women do it. In fact, as a former member of academics, watching my children grow is the reverse image of watching my career -- and not because I didn't perform, but because women, on the basis of their gender, are more likely to be criticized -- for everything, and having an open path, like parental responsibility, makes a woman far too susceptible to this criticism. I was actually told by my chair, when I was relieved of one job, that I had "changed" in the two years following my stellar former evaluation -- yes, I had had a child, but I was getting published and was a prominent member of my profession. At my next job, there simply weren't any mothers getting tenure -- smart ones waited, got tenure, then had babies, a complete anomaly in the biological arena. I would have liked to have seen what a great accomplishment it is to actually have and raise children while continuing to work at full capability, but doesn't seem to happen in my field anyway. The real problem is keeping those highly qualified positions AND being supported while wiping baby butts.

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I suppose the writer is herself an "air fern" who neither eats nor drinks, nor (gasp!) defecates. (har!)

If she is ever in the hospital, incapacitated, will she think the highly educated medical personnel who tend to her (including, perhaps, wiping her butt) are doing work that is beneath them? No, I don't think so.

Other than the silly, elitist remark about butts, this was a pretty good article. It's high time we revisited the feminist debate. (I suppose a good deal more silliness will be an unavoidable concomitant of it.)

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We're not talking about MALE PhD's or stay at home white fathers!!! We're talking about WOMEN. The article was about WOMEN not men. Why is it that the white male's start whining because an article dares to confront the status quo of women in society and excludeds them? It's not about you! You're already in charge, don't you understand that? You don't have to be a PhD to be in charge and the president of the US is a prime example.

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Hirshman's comments are "meant to provoke." What if a butt-wiping PhD like me just didn't bother being provoked?

This is a dogmatic second-wave feminist argument that Kim Gandy of NOW called "a minority viewpoint." Hirshman has had about six month's of air time with this book, but the so-called Mommy Wars haven't materialized.

This is one woman trying to assert her choice as moral for other women. If we let this BE the argument, then we are letting her set the agenda. This is one voice among many. I can listen to her voice, but I might be wiping my child's butt while I do it.

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I bid you to look at the article on meat industry workers, a male-dominated field, and how they are underpaid and misused. It even mentions on of the great men of American Literature.
Obama, Feingold, Gore, Murtha, and Edwards are all men and all a frequent focus of articles and opinion pieces.
AlterNet ran a piece on the right of men to reject the responsibility of child support.
There are all kinds of articles about the troops in Iraq. While some have focussed on the experiences of women, the pieces that are not explicitly about women are nearly 100% about the experiences of men.
Hilary Clinton is criticized. Barbara Boxer is mentioned rarely, and she's one of the more reliable liberal Senators.
Today's authors are Charlie, Sheldon, Eric, Mateo and Mindy. I only see one woman on that list.

The facts speak for themselves. The men who claim AlterNet marginalizes men from the left are either liars or deluded. In any case, they want to see women marginalized further. 1 writer in 5 who is a woman is too much for them. One story in five about women is too much for them.

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"I want to have a social conversation about it."... Yes, this is refreshing to hear. An actual critique ~not just sound bites and aphorisms to coddle women and reassure men.
My son is four years old and I feel I no longer meet all his intellectual and social needs. I will be going back to work to offset the cost of private education for him. He is one year away from being accepted at a public school. Because I lack a college degree I will earn pretty much just enough to pay for his education and gymnastics and piano lessons. I could never provide these things for him if I were a single mother (at my education and income level). Raising kids is so darned important because, forgive the overused phrase, they are the future. He is tomorrow's adult. I hope I am raising him to be part of the solution to the world's problems. I realize I speak as tho I am a single mother- even tho I am not. ~ But I am the one who spends 24/7 with him. While my husband works full time and teaches at night just to make ends meet. My husband is jealous of me that I get to spend so much time with our son and sometimes he is very hard on me as a result.
What I am getting at is that Families Need this conversation to liberate both men and women. To proceed consciously to an agreeable future for (today's) boys and girls.
Thanks for a refreshing discussion of this Unresolved imperative.

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Ms. Hirschman must lead a very sad life if she gets her feeling of worth from her work. Freedom to make our own choices is true equality. This article is full of victim mentality - women "must" do this and that because men have made our society the way it is. My husband stays home with our kids and I work full time. I make more money, hence our decision. We both work hard and our feelings of worth come from many arenas of life. Why do I need to work for people to benefit from my skills? If we manage to build and maintain a happy family life, isn't that a health and intellectual benefit for all of us?

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My mother worked all her life. My father too of course.
I was raised by my grandparents.
I learned their values, morals, and tastes.
They read books to me, told me stories, we worked in the garden, went on picnics, went camping, had long talks and great adventures.
I deeply loved my grandparents.


When my mother died...I felt no deep grief.
I did not really know her. She was always at work.
And her dying words to me were about her job.

This is a complex issue of course. Economics, Sexism, Social Structure...and so on. But our most important work is our children. They are the future. That this is not practiced in our society today...does not make it less true. If they don't learn what love is...well look at the results of our world today.

What we all need is meaningful work that involves the children.
We need a new kind of society.
Women joining the old one is no solution.

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"Hirshman argues that no one can lead a full and meaningful life without staking out a position in the public sphere"

And as I disagree with this on so many levels, it follows that I will not be reading any more of her writings.

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Don't get me wrong, I am for equal rights, equal oppotunity, and equal treatment for everyone, however bad-mouthing women who choose to stay at home and raise children is doing nothing for the women's rights movement.

When I was growing up, my parents took turns working part-time so that one of them could stay home with their 4 children at a time. When you have 4 kids at home, it's pretty damn hard for both parents to work full-time, unless you're wealthy enough to afford daycare. And if one or more of those kids are still breast-feeding, it's unreasonable to say that the husband should be the one staying home.
I want to get rid of gender roles and stereotypes as much as anybody else, but if a women is choosing to stay home rather than go out and get a "real" job, I respect that.

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Hirshman: Hello
If you don't know what is meant by 'raising children is the most important job you will ever have,” then you are a certified idiot. In your words, stupid. You are an insult to the female gender. You argue to put women down, degrade and belittle. You would have women competing in corrupt, mean, rape and pillage, every man for himself world just to prove they can. First, why is intelligence and importance measured by how much education you have? Or how much money you make? What does that have to do with anything? Everything you value is manufactured by the patriarchal system. What is that all about?

Women are important in their own right. You continue to justify and make excuses for our existence. Stop it. Where did men come from? Men would not be here to make war, paint the Last Supper, put a dome on St. Peter’s Cathedral, or decode DNA if it were not for women. Men have not yet figured out how to create life. That is women’s little secret and men will never forgive us for being able to do something they will never ever be able to do. And you want to dismiss that fact and measure women’s worth by corporate dollars and sense. Whose side are you on anyway? When god was a woman the world was a much kinder, gentler, peaceful, happy, loving place. Oh yea, this place is so much better now that men are playing god. Boo on you.

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She is angered that men don't take care of their kids, and thus argues that women should not either. As a single parent father who works fulltime, cares 100% for his children, and manages to work towards improving-yes-myself- in between these duties to my children- I know which task IS the most rewarding to me. And its not work or inflating my own ego through my education and my job experience. Raising children is the hardest and most deeply rewarding task for a MAN OR A WOMAN- both emotionally AND philosophically. This manifesto, if this is the work she is so proud of, is laughably Trumpian in its absolute selfworship. These are her Grand achievements?
Raise your children well, for they are your only true immortality. Shape them, imbue them with love and empathy and an appreciation for self as well as others. That is one way to improve the world. If men do less now, Is the problem NOT That women should do less as well- But that Men should do more? The tendency for Men's interest to be completely selfish is NOT something that we should all strive for. I guess she has never taken care of a child of her own to consider such things "immoral". Hirshman, worshipping at the altar of Men's Independence, gives up what is truly good for what is good for the gander.

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Is it less immoral for an undereducated person to wipe the butts of our precious progeny? Just wondering. Enjoyed the article anyway.

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to expend that kind of effort agonizing over my choices and where they fit into some massive aparently gender-spanning context of struggle. I'm sorry, I just don't feel it.

I'm 22, I'm female, I'm about to start grad school.

When I decided that I wanted to do postgrad work, what I wanted to study, and where, it didn't come after nights spent pondering my place as a woman in the modern world.

I don't do that very often. It tends not to happen until one of two things occurs: 1) I encounter overt, personally directed sexism. 2) Someone tries to remind me that I should be thinking about my place in the feminist framework.

At this point in my life, these are little more than distractors. I would take both more seriously if they actually interefered with getting where I would like to be. As it stands, neither have. If I somehow stumble into this mysterious 'Real World' so full of evil and opposition (despite the fact that after several different job and university experiences, I have not yet found), I might revisit radical feminist argument.

But the hell if I'm going to enter into a brand new academic enviroment immediately on the defensive, assuming that I am In Adversity from day one because of my sex, and letting every Mister know that boy, am I on to them.

I've watched this happen with gender and in other contexts, and it's an utterly ridiculous way to live your life.

And when it comes time for marriage and children, I'm going to have hard desicions to make. These are things I have thought about. But funnily enough it's been very personal introspection, centered around the question 'what do I really want out of that?' instead of 'what is my obligation towards Womankind'.

I have enough to worry about, thanks.

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Yes all you women holding advanced degrees, don't waste them by raising children should you elect (and possibly enjoy) to do that. Don't actually do what you want but rather stand proud of your higher learning and enter the male-dominated workforce to affect some positive change like most working men are doing.

Maybe you can work for Arthur Anderson, Enron or Global Crossing. If you're truly fortunate you can get a high paying engineering job working on optical sensors with the good folks at Northrop Grumman which will in turn be used to "lock onto" an Afghani village and destroy most of its inhabitants. Maybe you can work on building the next generation of Playstation that will babysit and rot your own progeny's brains while you and your husband are "at the office". If marketing is more your game then myriad opportunities abound. Sell sugary snacks and sodas to pre-pubescent and pre-diabetic kids or how about an oversized SUV called the Hubbard 3000? How about entertainment? Why don't you busy yourself with promoting the next ditzy role model like Paris Hilton. And if I can say one thing it's this: there aren't nearly enough plastic surgeons in the world. You too can help young women stuff saline bags into their undersized chests in order to give them that much needed "lift" of self-esteem.

You see, men have been doing all these things and more for years and mostly F'ing them up through graft, greed and oppression. I know, I know - women will be different right? That is precisely why we need more women in positions of power - just in case they are the ones who turn out to be incorruptible. Forget that generatioins of "good" men were unable to resist the temptations of "Big Biz", women will be different right? Women don't show an equivalent appetite for nice shoes and private jets. Women are more trustworthy in positions of power - perhaps but Hillary, Condi and Janet Reno haven't shown me much thus far. In the short term I do not doubt for one minute that women would be less corrupt, but notice I said "in the short term". Given time, women would also succumb to the allures of money and power. Many already have and we all know it but because they haven't done so with the Enron pension fund dime they appear cleaner.

This article is so far off the mark it's sad. We just don't get it do we? This article of course is assuming that all women endowed with Ph.D's will be going to work for Amnesty International and the ACLU but we all know that many of them will eventually (yes I think given the preponderance of highly educated women and declining rates for men) end up behind that huge oak desk above the glass ceiling pulling the same shit men have been pulling a thousand years before. Yes we all need to be working for corporate America. We haven't enriched the IBM's and Wal-Mart's enough yet have we. Better to get more men and women alike out there and in the fray, mixing it up, fucking over those average and underwhelming stay at home moms and dads. We need more women learning the tricks of the trade - raiding corporate pensions, pump and dump, cooking the books. Let's really get America going in the right direction. I mean what could be more American than having men and women both screwing over their fellow man with equal zest . . .

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How dare this person set herself up as judge and jury? Since when do HER INTERESTS ("When women opt out...they're doing harm to two interests I have.") supersede everyone else's?! When was she elected master of my, or your, conscience? Following one's own conscience is true freedom, not marching along doing what someone else wants or thinks is best. We each have the right and the responsibility to choose what is best, based on our own particular point of view. That is NOT "opting out," it's opting IN to life!

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It is no wonder we (homo sapiens) have devolved, having become so culturally deprived/emotionally constricted. We must each, with as much conscientiousness as can possibly be mustered, ask ourselves: "What IS the purpose of human life??" Personally, I've had plenty of time to consider my worth as a human mother, as I have a Masters' Degree, but have remained chronically underemployed since Reagan et al dismantled what was left of the social infrastructure and what was becoming a wholesome transformation toward ecological sanity among baby boomers. I have concluded "the purpose" is to acknowledge and respect the mysterious miracle of interdependent existence. From this perspective of "cosmic wonder" we can become physically, intellectually and emotionally mutualistic and Healthy in the profound knowledge that nothing and no one is "more important" than anything or anyone else! Fear is therefore dispelled: greed, status-seeking, conflict, war and other forms of selfishness are precluded and compassionate co-creativity and companionship can be enjoyed during our brief lifetimes. So simple! So complex! So impossible?

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Everybody talks about the lack of respect that women get. They don't realize that is because there is such a thing as marriage.

Marriage isn't only for the rearing of families, you know. It is historically also a way for males to have household slaves that are legal and also cheap to support.

Fix marriage first and the respect will follow.

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I really appreciated this article because it is a subject about which I have been thinking a lot lately. Obviously, this does not apply to the great majority of families who cannot afford to have one parent stay home with the children. And I really believe that everyone should make the best decisions for one's own family. However, I have noticed a somewhat disheartening trend among the highly-educated women of my generation (I'm 27). I know more than one woman who attended medical or dental or law school (or another highly competitive graduate program), who graduated and practiced her vocation for a few years, who decided that, because her husband makes enough money to support a family, she would leave the work force altogether. Why is her work/vocation less important than her husband's? If I were an applicant to medical, dental or law school, and was wait-listed or rejected, only to have a woman who was accepted just decide to quit as soon as she got pregnant, I would be very upset. I feel as if those women took graduate school positions from other women who would use their degrees. I realize that this is not a popular position, but that seems like a waste to me.

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I totally support her on this issue.

I quit Wall Street after 5 years -- to become self-employed as a full-time real estate investor. I never married and I've had no children.

I am now preparing to semi-retire and go into fulltime charity work (getting ready to volunteer in Ghana) at age 48.

I'd advise such a lifepath to anyone. I think I'm much better off than women who have allowed themselves to be drawn into these wifely roles which destroy their income, wealth levels and control.

It's been really tough, but I've made far more money than I ever would have in the biased environment of int'l finance. At the same time, I've had control.

There are alternatives to "putting up with the crap" in corporate America which are far more fulfilling and financially rewarding than earning nothing as a dependent wife. Going into business for oneself is a way to both refuse to be utilized and exploited by these sexist organizations and to refuse to be utilized and exploited by a husband and society which rewards women for adopting these old-fashioned roles -- roles which leave them debilitated and without a strong bargaining position once the children are raised and they are in their 50s.

Stick with it!!

I'm disgusted by the trend toward "preemptive give-up" which is some well-educated, elite girls have taken. It undercuts middle and working class women, who HAVE to work.

I think they are just lazy.

To all those who say, "All mothers are working women," ya know, cut the crap. We all know that 70% of working and middle class women are mothers AND work fulltime, so just what kind of arithmetic tells us that women who are ONLY mothers are working as hard as the average women, who is a mother AND working fulltime.

It makes no sense. These stay-at-home Moms are just NOT working as hard as working Moms, can't be, no matter how you cut the cake. As far as whether they are working less or more than women with jobs and no children, that totally depends on the job, but something tells me . . . they have it pretty easy.

The upper-income stay-at-home Moms I know have it VERY VERY easy, if they want it that way . . . and then end up spending a lot of time with the psycholatrist, the couselor and the pharmacist, for some reason. Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft . . .

Then, the divorce, the paltry alimony, the pathetic job, the shocking drop in living standards??? Hits a lot of them.

It's not the easy out so many girls think it is, when one gets a little older and all the chickens have come home to roost.

Jan VanDenBerg

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Try this on for size. Pay mom's or dad's that choose to raise the kids because they can do a better job of it than a women who doesn't know her ass from the hole in the ground, to stay home. Pay them what they would earn if they had a PhD. Now how important is staying at home and raising the kids?

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this interview really bummed me out. if hirshman hasn't heard a good argument for why childrearing is an incredibly important job, i can only conclude she has not been listening. why she thinks that an individual who chooses to parent fulltime is not contributing to the public sphere is utterly beyond me, as is her failure to examine questions such as why the public sphere is not more child- and parent- friendly.

applause to the women and men who posted comments affirming that they, like gandhi, have chosen not to take hirshman's stunningly insulting position that uneducated people, rather than phd-holders, are the appropriate caste to be wiping butts. i'm glad to see there continue to be people out there with the intellectual creativity to see that a problem - the undervaluing of women - must have many different solutions. people like hirshman learning to show some respect for people of different means and with different values is one of them.

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As a woman who's been practicing law for over 20 years, and a mother of 2 (ages 11 and 8), there is no question that raising my children is by far the most important job I've ever done - as well as the most gratifying. If Hirschman never had children - I feel sorry for her. If she did, I feel sorry for them.

And for all the "never had children/never wanted them" posters -- you don't know what you're missing ....

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This "philosopher" has a narrow interest and that is her own validation of her life choices and not that of the society as a whole. If she did, she'd be talking about the intrinsic social value of domestic work and the need to make that a national policy.

A parent who stays home to care for children saves tax dollars--dollars spent on education--fewer infants and toddlers in institutional day care, fewer children left unsupervised after school, less tax dollars spent on after school programs, fewer children abandoned to neighborhood gangs and the violence and social deconstruction that involves, fewer drug programs to administer, fewer juvenial detention centers in which to house children who have been abandoned to the streets because no one is at HOME to care for them--child attachment disorder is the foundation of adult anti-social behavior and crime, and the grief of mental health problems in adult hood.

For a child, just knowing that the he/she means more to the parent than an other turn on the wheel in the mechanization of humanity in the corporate world is a savings in dollars that hasn't yet been measured, if it can be measured at all.

This woman is in denial of her true self, her inherent nature. She's been infected with the worst kind of dis-ease there is APATHY. For her to debase those who wisely choose to leave the placard of PhD and take on that of MOM or DAD shows she is sub-human and her "philosophy" is no better than a reptile's.

Intelligence is not like money in the bank where you have to use it and manipulate it to gain more of it. Intelligence is only of worth when it is shared and if we don't share the intelligence we gain with the children we have in society, then we will become more ignorant and less tolerant and less capable of meeting the needs of the future.

At the root of the whole matter is love. What do you love? Money, power, fame, prestige, noteriety? Then stay in the corporate dog pile and show off all you shiney stuff. But if you love humanity--it is the weak, the defenseless, the curious eyes of a child that will full your life with treasures none can take away.

FR

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I have a Ph.D., two children, and a position as a lecturer in a top-tier university. I self-demoted after about five years as research faculty, realizing that I could not be both a great mom and a great academician.

When my daughter asks me what her first sentence was, or where she was when she took her first steps, I honestly don't know, since I was working 50 hour weeks at the time.

Now I have a six-month old and am extremely ambivalent about where to put my time and energy. I think there is something sacred about serving one's children. There is a spiritual aspect to mothering that few in the U.S. ever discuss. Where does all that love come from? The kind of selfless devotion required to parent infants and toddlers does not just get squeezed out of the endocrine system. It is an ego-busting, heart-expanding experience.

Still, I have a lot more to offer professionally and am frustrated by my current situation, teaching freshman seminars when I could have been "somebody" in the academic hierarchy.

Frankly, I think the workplace needs to be more family - friendly -- more humane -- for everyone's sakes.

Maybe I'll write a book about it.

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So is it okay if highly educated people work with and for other people's children? If they're paid pittance for that work? It's not "making war, making foreign policy, inventing nuclear weapons, decoding DNA, painting The Last Supper, or putting the dome on St. Peter's Cathedral," after all. As a highly educated woman, I've struggled too long with the idea that only the things that bring public acclaim are worth doing. I'm a lot happier now that I'm a homeschooler and an unpaid nature educator than I ever was as a big firm corporate lawyer. And I suspect that I'm making a greater contribution to the world around me is much greater now as well.

How dare Hirshman pronounce that only things that males value is worth doing. Yes, the workplace needs to change, and yes, staying at home is not a good choice for every person or at every stage of life. But to say that focusing my efforts on children (both mine and others') is not "engaging in the world as it exists [so that I can] make it better a little at a time" is foolishness.

Perhaps we could start by including unpaid work in the gross national product, as many countries do, and giving social security benefits based on the value of that work. Doing laundry or changing diapers is valuable no matter who does it - let's at least count it accurately.

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Society in general heaps praise and status on 'breadwinners' but takes 'mothering' absolutely for granted -- basically because it CAN. Women will become mothers and do the best they can by their offspring, under the most godawful conditions imaginable -- and encourage their daughters to do likewise. Or at least, this has been so for the past 8,000 years.

Let's face it: there are no pre-qualifications for being a mother. Any woman is entitled to take a try. The only reward for being good at it is the appreciation of her immediate family and the gratitude of her successful children. But if the family is indifferent, or the children ungrateful, the society will not step in make up the difference. The 'law of supply and demand' guarantees that it will be this way in virtually any imaginable culture that does not have a Bureau of Women's Affairs with the power to make it otherwise.

As mentioned by several women in this thread, our society DOES punish high-achievment women for becoming mothers. And because of the concerns that women may become mothers, and therefore not devote as much energy and devotion to 'productive' endeavors -- women are punished with for motherhood, beforehand as well. Hence the under representation of women in certain academic and business fields.


Punishing women either for earning advanced degrees, or for having children was never part of anyone's feminist agenda ... but the recognition that such punishment WILL be visited on the woman who tries to 'have it all' has to be part of any remotely realistic feminist understanding.

Now, if any particular woman prefers an "every woman for herself' philosophy ... inventing her personal strategies for her personal success independentent of the past experience or theoretical constructs of anyone else -- best of British Luck to her!

She will need a lot of it.

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Re: raising children, the author states, "If, in fact, it were the most important thing a human being could do, then why are no men doing it?" I did it, as lots of other American men have, without a penny in child-support (and certainly no alimony). The author's high opinion of PhD holders and her apparent disregard for lesser beings, including followers of Islam, is just more 60's neo-feminist elitist crap. This woman is unkind and ungenerous. I'd love to see where the chips fall if, one winter day, the lights go out and stay out. I and my low-class pals will be out skinning rabbits to feed our kids while this ego-bloat is casting a blank stare at her dead cellphone.

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... I had to stop writing because my baby woke up and then he pooped, so I am returned *directly* from wiping my baby's butt, and I'm so happy because he had been constipated (due to the formula I've been supplementing with since my return to work). Not only that, but this Ph.D. actually stood at the changing table and sang the poop song to her baby to celebrate his b.m. !

Being a mother is wonderful, it just is, poop and all.

I would have liked to have kept my office, my T.A., my research coordinator, and my status, but I would not trade my kids for that stuff.

Now, I must make dinner.

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"...she takes the highest of high roads, focusing only on highly educated, elite women, and taking them to task for staying home and out of the workforce."

This article doesn't apply to me, it doesn't apply to most of the women I know, and I seriously doubt it applies to many of the readers of Alternet. It looks to me like it applies to a very small segment of the population: elite (whatever is meant by this--wealth I imagine) women with PhDs. Why even bother reprinting it?

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Since the Boomers, the gap between men and women has narrowed significantly. I see equality and acceptance on almost every front. It is only people who sit in ivory towers who whine about very old issues. I see mixed couples of every race, religion, sexual orientaiton. I see couples who are saying no to marriage and raising children. I see men taking on the lions share when it comes to household things. I personally think at 62, the writer is WAY behind what is really happening in society. Equality IS growing, and growing fast. It is the old time, stuck in the mud, out of it people who have to categorize, delineate, certify everything and make everything in little boxes, but the box is changing and has been changing for a long time. Hopefully we won't need any more boxes in life.

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This is not a manifesto for women. This is a manifesto for elitism, sexim and narcissism. This woman needs to be stopped and we need to stop talking about what she's saying as if it's anything other than stealth mysogeny. Women have often profited by selling out other women. It's the lowest form of betrayal. It's like Black republicans, but worse.

This isn't about PhD's and it's not about feminism; it's about the complete devaluation of children. Children matter. Their needs matter. That we can no longer even recognize that children are our future is a frightening testament to the extreme degree of cultural narcisism that is killing our culture and leaving us with corporate totalitarianism. We are destroying our planet because all we really value is the right to profit today. That mentality is producing fat, depressed, disconnected and dangerous kids. Daycare isn't the solution to that. Parenting is. Connection is. Caring for children is NEVER immoral. Mysogeny ALWAYS is.

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Whereas I, as a man, can be.

It's said that feminists are humorless, but that's not true -- which is why they all appreciate my (very) little witticism here.

But seriously, folks, you (co-) breed 'em, you wipe 'em.

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You won't make any points as a human harassing these women who are not living up to your standards, in fact I daresay that a great majority would be more than happy to knock you on your sanctimonious ass. As for me, I am a stay-at-home dad while the ex-wife works as a nurse. we evolved this setup because when she was getting child support it was not enough to cover daycare. Now, with me doing the childcare and household chores and such we have a good system going that pleases us both. The issues with division of labor are still the same but I do have to cut her some slack on whining about whose turn it is to cook because the children exact their toll on her and they will not be denied. Daddy is ok for making dinner and some light reading and horseplay but Mommy is the giver of all satisfying hugs and snuggles,no matter how much time you spent curled up with dad and Dr.Suess.

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This is a clear quote from another article about Hirshman from slate.com. The link is here. Please check it out.

Quote:
"The reason all this matters, Hirshman persuasively argues, is that choice feminism creates a "mutually reinforcing" cycle. Affluent and well-educated men rarely leave the workforce (and when they do, it's usually to return to school or start a business); a portion of affluent and well-educated women do opt out (and when they do, it's almost exclusively to raise children). When these women choose to devote their skills to childcare rather than to the workplace, they are "perpetuating a mostly male ruling class"—precisely the type unlikely to help make the case for more flexible work arrangements that would allow more women back into the workforce. The result is disempowering for less-well-off women, who have fewer public female role models, and for the opt-outers themselves, who find it hard to re-enter the work place and, if divorced, may have to depend on their husbands for support. None of this, Hirshman points out, dovetails with the aims of feminism. "

Everyone who is attacking Hirshman needs to read this piece. Hirshman maybe isn't making her points as clearly as she should, but she is not wrong.

For once and for all, she is not saying that Ph.D.'s should hire people to take care of their kids. She is not saying that raising children is worthless. She is saying that elite women who "choose" to stay home are doing a disservice to society because they are the very women who could be serving as role models for lower-class working women in terms of fighting for family-friendly policies in the workplace. She is also saying (and this is the controversial part) that these women do a disservice to themselves by asserting that they've made a "choice" when their choices usually include (1) both parents working and paying for daycare or (2) Mom staying home with the kids. Not because childcare is inherently bad. But because childcare and housework are bad when they are passively assigned to women through societal roles. In other words, why is there no third choice given - i.e., Dad stays home with the kids? Some families may consider this, but not many. Her argument is that society has not changed as much as feminism asserts that it has, and I think it's a good argument.

Again, she's not arguing that women with Ph.D's are too good to change diapers. She's arguing that there's something wrong with society when women are expected to stay home with the kids - and that elite women bear some responsibility for changing society. Because if the work situation changes for Ph.D's, it may change for lower-class workers as well. The more elite women who stay home, the more it pathologizes women who choose to work and the more unfriendly the workplace will remain to women (and men) with families.

I'm disgusted by how misunderstood her arguments have been. Please read the linked article if you're finding yourself angry at Hirshman in this Alternet piece.

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This is a clear quote from another article about Hirshman from slate.com. The link is here. Please check it out.

Quote:
"The reason all this matters, Hirshman persuasively argues, is that choice feminism creates a "mutually reinforcing" cycle. Affluent and well-educated men rarely leave the workforce (and when they do, it's usually to return to school or start a business); a portion of affluent and well-educated women do opt out (and when they do, it's almost exclusively to raise children). When these women choose to devote their skills to childcare rather than to the workplace, they are "perpetuating a mostly male ruling class"—precisely the type unlikely to help make the case for more flexible work arrangements that would allow more women back into the workforce. The result is disempowering for less-well-off women, who have fewer public female role models, and for the opt-outers themselves, who find it hard to re-enter the work place and, if divorced, may have to depend on their husbands for support. None of this, Hirshman points out, dovetails with the aims of feminism. "

Everyone who is attacking Hirshman needs to read this piece. Hirshman maybe isn't making her points as clearly as she should, but she is not wrong.

For once and for all, she is not saying that Ph.D.'s should hire people to take care of their kids. She is not saying that raising children is worthless. She is saying that elite women who "choose" to stay home are doing a disservice to society because they are the very women who could be serving as role models for lower-class working women in terms of fighting for family-friendly policies in the workplace. She is also saying (and this is the controversial part) that these women do a disservice to themselves by asserting that they've made a "choice" when their choices usually include (1) both parents working and paying for daycare or (2) Mom staying home with the kids. Not because childcare is inherently bad. But because childcare and housework are bad when they are passively assigned to women through societal roles. In other words, why is there no third choice given - i.e., Dad stays home with the kids? Some families may consider this, but not many. Her argument is that society has not changed as much as feminism asserts that it has, and I think it's a good argument.

Again, she's not arguing that women with Ph.D's are too good to change diapers. She's arguing that there's something wrong with society when women are expected to stay home with the kids - and that elite women bear some responsibility for changing society. Because if the work situation changes for Ph.D's, it may change for lower-class workers as well. The more elite women who stay home, the more it pathologizes women who choose to work and the more unfriendly the workplace will remain to women (and men) with families.

I'm disgusted by how misunderstood her arguments have been. Please read the linked article if you're finding yourself angry at Hirshman in this Alternet piece.

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Perhaps if more mothers AND fathers paid attention to the home, then many of the social problems we are showing now wouldn't be happening. When a person becomes a parent, they have a special responsibility that doesn't compare to all that stuff Hirshman describes...and parenting shouldn't have to be validated by the philosphers, political or otherwise. Like it or not, women are going to have babies, and they're going to want to stay home, love and nurture their children...and NO amount of education or social engineering is going to change that natural desire...thank God for that! I stayed home with my daughter until she was 6 and I don't regret it one bit. Why bother having kids if you're not going to take care of it...sure you start with wiping butt, but if you do it right, it ends with seeing them become Ph.D's or perhaps presenting you with a grandchild...and there's no shame or immorality in that.

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I find this statement most telling:

"If, in fact, it were the most important thing a human being could do, then why are no men doing it?"

Talk about your Freudian slip showing! What feminist defines ultimate
importance by what men do? Obviously, one who
buys into a man's world, with all its major defects.

And in her world, the rest of the uneducated women may
raise the kids, because their talents aren't wasted on them.

So we get the "most valuable" women as wage slaves and
the rest raising the next generation (PhD students, one
assumes)...

I'm sure I could see something wrong with that picture if I
weren't at home raising a toddler instead of getting paid great money to write
technical manuals that nobody ever read.

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The idea that so many women are using our educational resources only to hide behind their baby's stinky behind after marriage is actually a very interesting one. The part that I find most interesting is the assumption that after reaping the benefits of an education, there is an obligation to work in the public arena or work at all. Since when? People choose their educational paths for a variety of reasons. The author may have public discourse and ivy league education close to her heart, but why does this place responsibility on me to further their combined importance in this world? Perhaps my post should have been titled "taking up educational space=obligation to make it worthwhile for other educated adults"

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There certainly are quite a few PhDs on this board.

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Like Hirschman, Plato was also a political philosopher who didn't keep his opinions about what women should be doing to himself. When people criticize Plato, they generally do so on reasoned, philosophical grounds. Why are people so emotional, then, in their criticism of Hirschman? Imagine yourself in her situation. You're a philosopher. Your job is to ponder big questions, and you love it. In your time, you have taught many intelligent, passionate students. You had high hopes for all of them, but only a few of them went on to do anything exceptional, and the vast majority of those were men, because the women opted out in order to "raise a family." I don't think Hirschman is saying there is something wrong with having kids, but she is saying that it's wasteful to abandon your dreams and let your skills fall into disuse, regardless of your family situation. According to the rules of her own game, you're welcome to disagree with her, but you have to come up with a convincing counter-argument, and "I abandoned my dreams and see how happy I am you bitch" doesn't really cut it.

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I think that the real issue and what needs to be talked about is our children. I'm an educated woman and decided to stay home, even though financially it didn't make much sense, to raise my by then 10 month old.

I don't miss my job a little bit. Although I have to confess I'm freelancing a little bit but even that now I realize is not as fulfilling and as easy as I thought. Seeing my daughter give her first steps, learn to say "gracias" and other wonderful things is the most rewarding experience I have ever had in my 35 years of life.

Granted I don't believe everyone has to have them or even get married. But that's the great thing about this era and this country WE DO HAVE CHOICES. And that's the way it should always be. And when she starts going to school I'll still have the choice of going back to work or get involved at her school or community or city or state... you get my drift... But for now all of my energy is going to be invested in raising a healthy, intelligent and capable woman. That in time will make her own decisions.

Day in and day out I read about how our youth has no respect for adults, teachers and so forth. How sexed up they are. How violent they are. How isolated they can be. (remember Columbine?) How our education system is so behind the times. I mean our public system still believes a child can't learn more that one language at a time. Then you go to a tiny island in the Caribbean like Aruba and you have them speaking 4 languages on a regular basis. I have also read studies that confirm that having at least one parent at home (be it dad or mom) is the best thing you can do for your kids.

And here we go again, diminishing the value of being a stay-at-home mom/dad. As if that wasn't a contribution enough. At home you can teach our future leaders about diversity, respect, the environment. They way you want and not the way this country wants it with its religious right at the top.

So, I feel no shame by staying at home, actually it's been the hardest job I ever had and the most satisfying. One that will last a lifetime, and hopefully more with grandchildren.

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I haven't read the book, but the summary before the interview seems to imply that Hirshman doesn't feel every woman should be out there lovin' her job.

The intro states that Hirshman "takes the highest of high roads, focusing only on highly educated, elite women, and taking them to task for staying home and out of the workforce. This is meant to inform, but not judge, women of other means and education who largely cannot afford to stay at home."

I believe her point is, if women (as a class or group) are ever going to be found in equal numbers in Congress, in boardrooms, or in any other seats of power, then those women who have been lucky enough to be blessed with an elite education and the financial means to secure exceptional childcare arrangements are going to have to stay in the workforce without taking the "Mommy Track" that derails so many careers. Maybe this is the feminist equivalent of taking one for the team.

Hirshman is trying to suggest that these women do something for the good of all women instead of taking the American capitalist approach of "what's in it for me" and letting the feminist movement suffer in the process. She is suggesting that because they do have the means to secure alternative childcare solutions (as many women of lesser financial means do not) they are in a position to "have it all" while staying in the workforce. And we're not talking about picking tomatoes or stocking shelves here--we're talking about attorneys and doctors and CEOs.

While her tone is harsh, I think Hirshman has done what she intended to do--stir up debate and get people talking. Her point is that feminism is NOT dead. Here we are, talking about it again.

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if you want to have children and stay at home with them, don't waste your time, public money and faculty time by getting an advanced degree. in addition, go ahead and feel horrible for taking the place of someone who was actually going to USE their degree.
i'm not saying that raising children and teaching them manners, etc is not important, but i am saying that it does not require any formal education to do properly.

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...that raising respectful and intelligent kids requires one parent to stay home full time to see that happen. This is an absolute myth and demeaning to those who can't afford to stay home or choose not to. My mother had to go back to work when I was two weeks old in order to keep her job at, ironically, a major women's magazine in the 1960s. She did an excellent job of raising two perfectly decent and intelligent women who learned about equality firsthand and grew up knowing that women are strong, independent and capable. It's not a black or white issue and I am tired of people of all opinions taking the high ground about parenting.

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This is more elitist trash by women who are so sheltered from the way the vast majority of people live, they actually believe women in the real world can "choose" to stay home or have "careers."

Clue to the clueless: The vast majority of people in this country do NOT have college degrees, do NOT make big money, do NOT have glamorous "careers" (ALWAYS male-dominated, for traditional women's fields are always pissed upon by self-described "feminists"), and CANNOT afford to stay home; in fact, Third Worldism is increasingly the trend in this country.

Get a clue Hirshman and Alternet readers.

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What I seem to be finding is that the culture has taught women that they don't need to work.

Has the author of this article ever held a real job? Like in a sweatshop or cubicle or on a construction gang? That is what "work" is for most people. It's mind numbing and physically debilitating. I do not blame women for NOT wanting to work, and for wanting to stay home and take care of the children.

I would love to see ivory tower feminists be required to spend one year of their lives in the type of work that real people do -- perhaps as a coal miner or infantryman -- and see how quickly they would be running for their kitchens.

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The bottom line is that women who dare to take care of their own children are deprived of public life because public life is set up that way, not because there is anything inherently antisocial about raising children. Now do you understand why feminists rant about a patriarchy? Because it actually exists.

And thanks for upholding it, by the way. Thanks for buying into the patriarchal tendency to divide and conquer women by dividing and conquering our individual selves such that we can't be complete human beings because we have to choose between having families and having lives.

It does the same thing to men, but men at least gain more power out of being divided.

Also, by saying that changing diapers is beneath a woman with a PhD, you're saying that lower-class women who change diapers are scum. This lower-class woman thanks you profusely and invites you never to visit her neighborhood, where you would make one spectacular over-educated speed bump. We need a few of those. People speed too much here.

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This woman does not represent any flavor of feminism worth upholding. I am a feminist and proud of it and women like this make me sick. Women would be able to work and take care of our own children if we had more help from the men in our lives, and if society were set up to reward social behavior such as starting families and having friends rather than trying to make good little worker-bots out of all of us. Anyone who tries to separate the mother from the woman and pit us against our own children is not a feminist. She's not even asking the hard questions about why women get the short end of the stick for choosing to be there for our kids.

As for women who in no way would ever be happy taking care of children, the obvious answer is to not have them, and quite a few unhappy moms knew before they conceived that they didn't really want to go that route. Again, feminism can answer that: Society keeps mothers down and wants to keep women down, hence makes it easier to become a mom (and influences women to want to become moms) than to become a CEO. But it's not encoded in law--yet. Make your own choices and to hell with what society tells you. It's easier to make choices for yourself only than to have to make them for yourself and someone small and helpless.

But for those of us who want kids it should not be a capital offense, in which we give up our lives to be sequestered at home, either utterly dependent on a man or living in poverty. That is no kind of choice.

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She lost me when she wrote: "If, in fact, [raising children] were the most important thing a human being could do, then why are no men doing it? They'd rather make war, make foreign policy, invent nuclear weapons, decode DNA, paint The Last Supper, put the dome on St. Peter's Cathedral; they'd prefer to do all those things that are much less important than raising babies?"

Yeah, that's me, I'd rather be stoking my narcissistic ambition than spending time with my son. At least, that's what feminism appears to want us to believe in order to manufacture the demon patriarchy they so desperately want to fight. They've largely acheived it because, guys, try to convince a family court that you have an interest in your children when the mother says she doesn't want you to.

I used to call myself a feminist, now I can't listen to one without hearing this kind of hypocrisy sooner or later.

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Hey Linda... Go play with your friend Germaine Greer and leave the rest of us alone.

Some of these feminists have their heads stuck so far up their own asses its hard to believe they still exist.

You want to do something REAL to help women out? How about you stop slinging mud at each other and encourage women to encourage other women instead of stabbing each other in the back all the time eh? Women are in the majority but they are too busy attacking each other and not trusting each other to get anything done (politically). Men gave up this fight years ago and if you feministas would just stop beating the crap out of every woman you see who isn't doing exactly the same thing you did you would have the chance to celebrate your victory... instead you choose to continue spewing hate speech at each other (and at men too for that matter). Aren't you tired of rolling around in the mud yet?

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"elect a congressman who doesn't tax you more if you work than if you don't work,"

Pardon my confusion, but if someone doesn't work, they don't earn money and therefore they don't (can't!) pay tax.

Is anyone _not_ confused by her statement? If so - could you please explain it to me?

------------

And I think she's wrong - raising children properly is VITAL and if men are out there inventing nuclear weapons it's because the world and the values of many of its citizens are TOO SCREWED UP (mostly by stupid men) to _not_ invent nuclear weapons, not because child-rearing is less important.

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Hirshmann delivered a pile of steaming crap, loaded with contempt for ordinary working people, and for most women's real lives. Intellectual elitists like her are part of the reason the left loses in this country, and people who actually work for a living never get the benefit of good government and social justice. She should go get a job at a restaurant or in a cubicle for a year, and then come back and talk about what people should or shouldn't do in response to the working world. If people get the chance to be with their families more, and would rather raise their kids than help some corporation build its empire, who is she to tell them they are wrong? Lots of people, not just those with six-figure incomes, are making these choices every year. sometimes it's the woman who stays home, sometimes it's the man. And you know what, someone has to wipe butts, don't they?

It's profoundly ANTI-FEMINIST, as well as expressing a great deal of class hatred, for Hirshmann to say that the work women have traditionally done, and which some men are now also engaged more actively in, is of lesser value than what she does, or what executives or lawyers or doctors do.

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I see many comments here from people who read this very schort interview but have not read the book. I urge you - and everyone else I talk to - to actually READ IT. It is the best feminist writing I have seen in two decades. The author steps beyond the absurd limits of gender feminism and the narrow mindedness of the modern "left" (which is so hamstrung as to be anything but liberal). Women must realize - whether it is the Right telling you to stay home because God wants it that way, or the Left telling you to stay home because women are naturally nurturing than men -- the crux is the same. Get home and make sure you know your only truly valid role is reproduction and housekeeping. You won't be fully fulfilled as a woman until you have a baby and make your man happy.
Feminism has been slaughtered by the right (which pointed out its nonsensical excesses) and the left (which buried it in politically correct posturing and feel-good gender biases). When the women of the left went home to raise babies, the conservative right effectively won the ideological debate about whether women can be equal to men in the workplace.
We surely cannot if we aren't even there.

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I am male, and practiced law for 15 years before our first child was born. When my spouse and I had our first child, we wanted one of us to stay home with her - and we both wanted it to be me. My wife and I knew that she was very ambitious, and needed to strive and compete - and succeed. She and I also knew that I was the more nurturing one, and the one who was more patient and accepting (and able to deal with blood and other messy things).

After doing this for fifteen years, I believe that taking care of our two kids was the most important work I will ever do. My wife, on the other hand, had the ability and time (as well as knowledge that her kids were well taken care of), to thrive and succeed magnificently in her work - and certainly more competently than I could have done. We each did what we were better at doing.

And, by the way, caring for and nurturing kids is a lot more than wiping butts. Opening doors to the world for children, supporting them in becoming themselves, and giving them opportunities - and showing them that they deserve them and can respond to their challenges - is very important. So is being there for them, during all the tribulations of childhood and adolescence.

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As a stay-at-home wife and mother I find this article disheartening. First of all, Hirshman conveys the message that the only women who can contribute to society and feminism are master's program graduates who will become lawyers, doctors and Fortune 500 CEOs. What about the working class, high school graduate? Is it acceptable for them to be mothers and housewives because they are not educated or complex enough to make a difference in the world?

Hirshman's extreme elitism is nauseating, to say the least. In essence, she is saying that if you're wealthy, have "good breeding" and Ivy League educated that you have something to offer the world, but if you're not any of the above you may as well just stay barefoot and pregnant.

Just because the thought of actually staying home and *gasps* cooking, cleaning, wiping butts, and catering to the immediate whims of a screaming child makes some women cringe does not give them the right to accuse women, like myself, of being liars. Contrary to what Hirshman wants to believe, I am more fulfilled being home with my son and being here when my husband gets home from work than I ever was having a career. My day is very full and very challenging. My job description changes every minute. I don't feel resentful or like I'm missing out on anything. What am I missing out on? The excessive amount of money I had to fork out every year for gas to commute, lunches out, career-appropriate attire, and other work-related expenses? Corporate drama? For what ultimate reward, pray tell? Having the corner office, a business card with a fancy title and some extra money? Unless you own your own lucrative business, no matter how high up on the corporate ladder you go, you're still whoring yourself out to make someone else richer by the day. At least my work isn't in vain. I'm not busting my rear every day to make someone more money. I work my butt off all day so that my son will know that I am here for him when he needs me and so that my husband can come home to a clean, welcoming home. Gee, sorry if I've just set women back fifty years.

To those who want to say that career is more important and that your kids are in school all day anyway, so why not go out and make more money, more power to you. To those who applaud Hirshman and you don't have kids yet - do yourself and the future of our nation a favor and don't spawn offspring. Children deserve so much better than a "mother" who thinks getting ahead of the men in the office is more important than being there when they get home from school.

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