Can Women Really Have it All?
A controversial article by a former government official says it's not possible. What do you think?
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“Why Women Can’t Have it All,” an article published last week in Atlantic Monthly, has been attracting a lot of controversy, and rightly so. It shines a spotlight on the lives of women in the workplace, challenging the long-held -- and hard fought-for – belief that women can, in fact, have it all.
The writer knows what she’s talking about. Anne Marie Slaughter, a mother of two, is a law professor and the dean of Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. Before that she was the Director of Policy Planning at the State Department. Speaking from her own experience, she attempts to debunk the myth of the post-feminist era "superwoman."
As an example, Slaughter remembers one particular evening at a glamorous reception hosted by the President and Mrs. Obama. “I sipped champagne, greeted foreign dignitaries, and mingled,” she writes. “But I could not stop thinking about my 14-year-old son, who had started eighth grade three weeks earlier and was already resuming what had become his pattern of skipping homework, disrupting classes, failing math, and tuning out any adult who tried to reach him.”
After two years at the State Department, commuting from Washington DC to Princeton, Slaughter quit her job to be near her husband and sons. She now says her decision brought into sharp focus the question faced by so many women today, whether it is truly possible to have everything. At one time she believed it was, she says, if one was committed enough to making it work and made the right choice in a partner, while being mindful of sequencing child bearing with her career trajectory.
However, she concludes now that it is not possible to ‘have it all’, and further states that most women of her generation already know this. However, society continues to promote the fiction that it is possible, she says, because younger women want to believe it is so.
In the article, she says, “Here I step onto treacherous ground. I’ve come to believe that men and women respond quite differently when problems at home force them to recognize that their absence is hurting a child, or at least that their presence would likely help. I do not believe fathers love their children any less than mothers do, but men do seem more likely to choose their job at a cost to their family, while women seem more likely to choose their family at a cost to their job.”
What do you think? Is it possible for women to really have it all, or is it a modern myth? What has your experience been? Tell us in the comments.
Dr. Laurie Roemmele
10:01 am on Monday, June 25, 2012
As a single Mom not being fully supported by my young sons' father...it has been a blessing to be chosen for a wonderful position!!! However, my entire extistence in all honesty revolves around WHO is watching them; where will they be; what do I do when they get sick; are they safe....total distraction from the busy life at my workplace!! I applaud all Mothers truly...however,if you have help from a Mother, In law, Husband, etc....your life is easier, no matter what anyone tells me....it is soooo hard! But I wouldn't have it any other way. I LOVE MY SONS! But I love my career too!!!
MaleMatters
10:26 am on Monday, June 25, 2012
Re: "men do seem more likely to choose their job at a cost to their family, while women seem more likely to choose their family at a cost to their job."
Men don't choose their job at a cost to their family. They choose their job to help their family -- by earning enough to give their wife the option of staying at home.
Women who are more likely to choose their family are women who choose a husband who earns enough to give them the option of staying at home at their choosing.
As usual in such discussions, the husband's input is ignored.
See "Wives belong at home with the children" at http://malemattersusa.wordpress.com/2012/01/23/wives-belong-at-home-with-the-kids/
Pete Mock
2:26 pm on Monday, June 25, 2012
I love it when commenters take issue with overly broad generalizations and then go ahead and make their own overly broad generalizations.
Jillian
11:24 am on Monday, June 25, 2012
To be a person who "has it all" does not mean that you you will necessarily have it all at the same time. Life is not a snapshot of one moment in time: It is a long and multi-textured journey. Everyone should seek balance in home and career but there will be days, even years, that will seem heavily weighted to one side or the other. Children are resilient and as long as they are safe and loved, will thrive. No matter who you are or what you do for a living, the home-work balance will be greatly shifted the moment you start a family. The challenge is to breathe, support, forgive and possibly shift our definition of what it means to "have it all" .
steve jones
1:23 pm on Monday, June 25, 2012
I look around my office and often the most "successful" people professionally are the ones, whether man or woman, who aren't married, don't have kids, often times don't have a partner or any kind, and frequently don't seem to have any real friends. Anyone who is a good parent will pay a price in their workplace when compared to these others. I am a father and, unlike some of my single coworkers, am not looking around on weekends to fill time with another article I could write or another business pitch to dream up. But that's how I balance things in my life. Why can't people just be content with the choices they made and stop worrying about how society screwed them out of something someone told them they were entitled to when they were 18 years old. No one has it all. Male or female. Only 5 year old children think they are entitled to "it all".
bbbnto
5:20 pm on Monday, June 25, 2012
I think the real focus of this article should be priorities.
As a man, I know that before I had a family (children), in matters that I vehemently disagreed, I could make my opinion known at the office, and then face the consequences. It didn't matter - too much - if I didn't get that raise. Now with children, the responsibility and priorities are significantly shifted. Now, I have to keep my mouth shut, suck it up and do the job, and strive for that raise. So, what exactly does that mean now, 'too have it all'?
I think that the sacrifices that workers with family's make, both women and men, are worth it for their family. I agree with some of the posters that say that the many successful people aren't married, or don't have kids. To have or not have children is a personal choice, and everyone has a right to make their own decision. But like anything in life, there are good and bad consequences of all decisions - the outcome all depends on what you really want. For that, you need to ask that question, answer honestly, than act accordingly.
Either way, this is a very good article, that spawns thinking about it. I have to admit though that I haven't thought like this in many years.