Progressive Feminism At Work In Europe
As frequent readers of The American Scene might now, a subject I hold very dear is the advancement of women in the 21st century, although I sometimes have weird views on the subject.
One of the key problems in helping women “get ahead” is the thorny problem of reconciling motherhood and professional prospects equal to those of men. While discrimination plays a role, I think the evidence is now well accepted that we need to look beyond this simplistic explanation to come up with ideas and policies that truly enable women to have children without feeling like they’re sacrificing their career, or vice versa.
Many American progressive feminists glance longingly at European countries’ policies vis-à-vis women, but I unsurprisingly think that in many cases these policies fail, or at least have unintended consequences that work against their stated objectives.
And as in many cases, culture matters a great deal. I was reminded of this last week when I went to the offices of a large financial firm to sign the lease for our new apartment.
By way of background, my wife has decided to “keep her name” after our wedding — a misnomer in and of itself, because since 1804 the French Civil Code plainly states that women keep their names throughout their lives and that women changing their last names to their husband’s is merely a tolerated tradition.
Anyway, I get to the office to look over the lease, and notice that the contract is in the name of “Monsieur Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry and Mademoiselle Marie-Laure Herold.” The following conversation with the (very kind) lady from the real estate firm follows (hereinafter using “Mrs” for “Madame”):
Me: “It’s ‘Mrs’.”
Her: “Ah, so you two are married?”
Me: “Yes.”
Her: “So we’ll put in… ‘Mr and Mrs Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry’.”
Me: “No, just put in ‘Mrs Marie-Laure Herold’.”
Her: “Oh, all right. So, ‘Mrs Marie-Laure Gobry, née Herold’.”
Me: “No, her name is Mrs Marie-Laure Herold.”
Her: “Oh, ok. So, you two aren’t married.”
Me (resisting urge to break something, waving my wedding band in front of her face): “Yes, we are!”
Her: “I…”
Me (enunciating): “My wife has decided to keep her name.”
Her: “Ah! …Ah.”
(A few seconds silence.)
And here comes the kicker — Her (kindly): “I’m sorry, it’s just that we’ve never had this situation before.”
This floored me. This woman who deals with renters all the time, and who by the way works on her firm’s “prestige” condominiums, i.e. rented out to people in higher in the educational/income buckets and therefore more (?) likely to not change their names, had never encountered a married female renter who hadn’t changed her name. Even though the law actually forbids women from legally changing their names to their husbands’, unbeknownst to most of the population and, apparently, someone who drafts and signs civil contracts for a living.
The reason the above conversation didn’t involve my wife is because she was at the time in Germany for work. My feminist wife (God I love her) inquired about the situation for women in Germany. Germany is generally not a good place to be a working mother. The school day ends at noon (German pupils graduate high school at 19 as a result), and creches and day care centers are very rare. What’s more, my wife was told, eine gute Deutsche Mutter doesn’t put her children in day care.
Germany has very generous parental leave policies. Women get a full year of paid maternal leave, which they can extend to three years of “educational” leave. Employers are mandated to retake these working mothers in the same position after they leave. And my wife was told that German mothers are culturally strongly encouraged to take the full three years’ leave — if you don’t, you are likely to be frowned upon.
This points to the conclusion that the lack of day care centers are not (just) due to a lack of subsidies or policy encouragement, but also due to lack of demand because of strong cultural norms, although of course it can be convincingly argued that more ambitious policies would over time alter these cultural norms.
The results are not hard to fathom. I have no data but I suspect these strong pro-early maternity policies discourage hiring women. My feminist wife herself exclaimed over dinner after returning from Germany: “If I was a German employer, I probably wouldn’t hire a woman for an important job!” A lot of working mothers, if it’s possible, will not in fact return to the work force at the end of their three years leave. A lot more will work only in the morning, and fetch their kids from school at lunchtime. By the end of their first three years leave, many German mothers are understandably pregnant again: childrearing happens late in Europe, and if you start having kids in your 30s and you want more than one, you’re going to have them close together. After 6 years out of the workforce, women will be loth to return and/or find their career prospects tragically but logically damaged.
In the Mittlestand company where my wife worked, only one — childless — woman held a high-level managerial role. Meanwhile Germany suffers from a very low birthrate which now threatens the very existence of their highly successful welfare state.
What lessons to draw from this? Well, it’s hard. After 50 years of various countries trying to help the cause in various ways, the results are both impressive and disappointing.
I dream of a world where child-rearing is easily combined with meaningful careers.
But I believe that active government policies, in this area as in many others, often work against their intended goals.
I also believe that the current structure of large corporations also works against women because of its expectations of a linear career path with highest commitment at the ages where women are most inclined to have children. (For more on this topic, see here.)
Here are some of the things I envision as pushing things in the right direction:
- Smart government policies at the margins as proposed in e.g. Grand New Party that recognize the economic and moral value of women’s work in the home and in the workplace, and the value of marriage and family as providing the strongest basis for human flourishing.
- The exponential growth of small-scale, global-reach entrepreneurship, enabled by globalization and new technologies. I dream of a world where risk-averse men will work quiet lives of desperation at BigCo while their business owner wives will take care of the kids from 4 to 8 and run their global internet businesses from their laptop (tablet?) from 8 to 10. Part of me thinks women won’t be able to craft their own career paths until the traditional big corporation dies or is changed radically. Shop-class-as-soulcraft type education/skills also plays a big role here.
- A different cultural and educational outlook. Somehow. I wish leadership, risk-taking and even aggressiveness audacity were viewed as female qualities. I wish girls were taught martial arts from age 3 (and, why not, horseback riding and archery). I believe that college can often be the best time to get married and have kids before jumping into the workforce. I believe that the best education for kids is mostly to just leave them alone and that helicopter parents should get a damn job. For those last two, society is fast moving in the opposite direction: for reasons of illusory personal convenience, kids are being had much later, and children are treasured and coddled ever more, since they are now, let’s face it, luxury goods. A kid has agency; a Ferrari needs to be handled and protected. (Giving kids the vote, my delenda est carthago, would play a role here.) I also believe fathers should be more involved in the home and in educating kids. Surprisingly, I’m actually not hostile to the idea of mandatory paternal leave, so that dads would be incented to change diapers and women would be less disadvantaged in the traditional career path.
- Radically transforming and unbundling education, in particular ending that most inhuman institution, the school, as we know it, while a good in and of itself, would also play a positive role here.
- No doubt hair-tearingly for some, I’m convinced a pro-life society would also be a more feminist (or “choice-feminist”) society as it would have to be more open to childbearing and do more to encourage it. If having kids is a choice and only a choice, then why should we make accomodations for that choice? If you decide to have kids, you know the tradeoff you’re making vis-à-vis your career, so why should we help you? A lot of people, particularly young men, believe this. But if kids are societally viewed not as something akin to a McMansion but as a wonderful gift and investment in the future, the society will have to change to accomodate their mothers’ prospects better.
These are a few ideas I’m throwing around, but I realize they don’t really amount to a cohesive policy, much less one that is politically envisageable (giving kids the vote and outlawing abortion and mandatory paternity leave? Yeah, Congressmen will line up to draft that bill.) I mostly believe that this shit is very complicated, that there are no easy solutions and that we need to approach these questions with humility as well as ambition. I also believe we need to look outside traditional policy features and framework. The European policies that American progressive feminists pine for have, I believe, largely failed. But the American status quo, though it gets some important things right (particularly vis à vis the labor market), also fails at many other ones. And I think this is something we need to have a good faith discussion with people with many different perspectives and sensibilities.
I haven’t even begun to discuss the tremendously important role women must play in lifting the Third World out of poverty (another hobby horse of mine).
Sorry for the long post. But you’re not done hearing about it.
“…culture matters a great deal.”
“…merely a tolerated tradition.”
Why the “merely”? Isn’t most, or even all of culture a series of tolerated traditions?
“I dream of a world where child-rearing is easily combined with meaningful careers.”
First, why do careers need to be “meaningful”? And what does that even mean? My job is OK. BUt if I didn’t get paid I probably wouldn’t show up. It “means” my kids eat. More than being “enough,” that is a fantastic, mind-blowing reality. If they would eat better if I worked in a coal mine, I would take the job in the coal mine.
Second, what does it mean for them to be “easily combined”? That seems like a ridiculous bar to set. Nothing is easily combined with child-rearing. Bridge club, poker night, community activism, maintian friendships are all INCREDIBLY difficult to combine with child-rearing. Friends that you have had for life will fade into the ether. People you don’t like will start hanging around. Your wardrobe and everything else will suffer. So… why should the standard for career maintenance be different?
— Sam M · Aug 29, 12:19 PM · #
I don’t think your casual mechanism for a pro-life society leading to better opportunities for women with children follows. If having children or not is no longer a choice, then those not wishing to make accommodation for mothers would simply blame the initial choice to have sex for the negative consequences of child rearing.
Regardless, this does seem to be a falsifiable premise. Check out the correlation between states with greater abortion restrictions and how well the accommodate women in the work force. Look at pay gaps, maternity/paternity leave, early childhood government programs, etc.
— Greg Sanders · Aug 29, 12:27 PM · #
Does it worry you that you’re proposing some far-reaching social changes that will have at least as many unintended consequences as the European policies you lament?
— Consumatopia · Aug 29, 09:54 PM · #
Let’s run down the list:
1. No school
2. Lots of kids sired by a driven sovereign under semi-feral, every-tadpole-for-her/himself circumstances
3. Extended job leave for dad
4. Daughters welcomed to join sons in studly acts of self-empowerment, like bringing entire waves to heel
Apparently, Gobry subscribes to the “Doc” Paskowitz model of upbringing.
— turnbuckle · Aug 29, 10:11 PM · #
Greg, that would work if correlation implied causation.
— JAB · Aug 29, 11:39 PM · #
JAB: Correlation is evidence to consider when looking at causation. If there isn’t a correlation, then absent overwhelming third factor or the like, your hypothesis can be be rejected. And if there is an overwhelming third factor than it’s probably worth thinking most about that first.
In short, I’d be surprised if, controlling for levels of development and such, societies with more abortion restrictions also had better career opportunities for mothers. Such a finding wouldn’t be proof but would demonstrate perhaps I’d need to put a bit more work behind my fairly quick rejection of the casual mechanism.
— Greg Sanders · Aug 30, 01:38 AM · #
Turning girls into boys doesn’t work. They adamantly resist becoming the aggressive, physically violent, unfeeling, silent, and hierarchical creatures M. Gobry wants them to be. He would do better to shift his energies to making a new soviet man instead of trying to create a new kind of girl, as the former project has better prospects.
— y81 · Aug 30, 02:56 AM · #
y81, on the upside, your reply is mildly amusing instead of being merely obnoxious and wrong, as usual.
On the downside, it’s still wrong.
For one, Gobry’s vision of the super-internet-entrepreneur femme, whether or not it pans out, makes it clear he doesn’t see this as a matter of simply making girls the cold, arrogant analogues of successful men. To his credit, he actually imagines the facility with which different business structures could change the prospects of women workers.
Yes, yes, I understand a “new kind of girl” is a partial sentiment, but it unfairly reduces the entirety of his somewhat rambling project.
By the way, I hope my earlier comment was taken in the tongue-in-cheek-if-obscure-and-potentially-lame vein it was intended.
— turnbuckle · Aug 30, 03:47 AM · #
While I appreciate many of the ideas PEG presents here, this post seems to me to be barking up the wrong tree in principle.
It seems to me that the main focus of child care and labor law reform in Europe ought to be to raise the fertility rate up to levels that will be able to sustain their current social obligations. I rather doubt that making “a world where child-rearing is easily combined with meaningful careers” would accomplish that. If child rearing is seen as just one lifestyle choice for personal fulfillment, a way of seeking “meaning” in the same way one might seek it in a career, that won’t be a strong enough incentive to break the cultural condition that has led to the present state of affairs.
As Sam M. said, children are too big of a responsibility to be “easily combined” with some other lifestyle choice. If the state can have a role in this area, it should be to encourage mothers and fathers to both devote themselves totally to their children (plural!) and be willing to forgo many of the idyllic pleasures of an easy and interesting job. There are certainly ways to make this easier, but I think it would look rather different from dangling the fantasy of baby+career=no problem in front of couples who will soon know better.
— Ethan C. · Aug 30, 07:52 AM · #
Thanks everyone for the comments.
Sam M:
Point taken.
I don’t mean “meaningful” in the sense of “making one feel good,” although I believe that’s certainly a laudable objective. I mean “meaningful” in the sense of “more women CEOs of Fortune 500 companies.” Perhaps “noteworthy” would have been a better word.
Point taken. How about “less difficult to combine”?
Consumatopia:
It does, which is why I’m putting them out there as starting points for discussion, some of which are consciously outlandish and/or contradictory, not as a coherent political agenda.
y81:
I think turnbuckle‘s response to your comment is pretty on-spot, particularly this:
Also:
I would not use the “new kind of girl” phraseology. I am talking about changing the culture a little bit, not a pseudo-Marxist “new woman” philosophy.
And i fully admit that my project is quite rambling at this stage.
Ethan C.:
Agreed.
My goal with family policy is not to sustain welfare states that I think should be majorly transformed and scaled down anyway. It’s certainly not to make child rearing be seen as a “lifestyle choice,” or only insofar as a vocation is a “lifestyle choice.”
My goal with family policy is to create just, thriving societies where individuals, families and communities can flourish.
Of course plenty of people would agree with that mission statement and disagree with most of the ideas I put forward in my post, but that’s my starting point anyway.
All right, fine, “easily combined” was a poor choice of words. “Less difficult to combine” will do.
I do think the state has a role in making it easier (or less hard) for parents who wish so to stay in the home, but I also believe it has a role in helping out parents, particularly mothers, who do want to combine a job and child rearing, whether for economic or personal reasons.
I also think that it is morally just to strive for a world with more women leaders, where it is less hard for young girls to believe that they can be CEOs of large companies or heads of state or just partners at law firms or owners of half a dozen fast food restaurant franchises and have children and not neglect them.
Is this unrealistic? Is it having your cake and eating it too? Is it free-lunchism? I call it ambition. I think we should be humble about the means to achieving certain moral and/or policy objectives, but not the ends.
If you share this moral conviction I also believe it is time to recognize that the usual policies that have been tried are failing, and to explore alternative, sometimes outlandish ideas.
— PEG · Aug 30, 11:10 AM · #
P.S. You know what, I take it back. I can dream of a work where career and family are “easily combined.” We should be ambitious.
And you know what? With robot nannies, we might get there sooner than we think.
I do take back “aggressiveness” as a desirable female attribute. Audacity is the word I was looking for.
— PEG · Aug 30, 11:30 AM · #
Howe’s observations on composite farming in the US in the early 1800s offer clues to how rearing children might better be integrated with the need to provide for them.
But mostly this post/thread points out what a sausage fest TAS is. Probably some insights to be gleened there as well.
— Tony Comstock · Aug 30, 12:30 PM · #
Define “sausage.”
— Tony Artaud · Aug 30, 12:52 PM · #
Yes, sadly.
— PEG · Aug 30, 01:06 PM · #
What about men? What about culturally rearing boys and men to take an equal role in parenting so the burden is not only borne by women??? How come no one talks about this???
— AS · Aug 30, 04:45 PM · #
Tony Artaud: Sausage = penis. Comstock is pointing out that TAS — like so much of ambitious conservatism (and liberalism!) — needs female voices.
— Erik Vanderhoff · Aug 30, 07:12 PM · #
Since I find myself suddenly and violently single, mark me down as approving this comment. Likewise with this next comment, only the exact opposite:
— Kristoffer V. Sargent · Aug 30, 08:53 PM · #
And, Comstock, that means I’ll be coming to see you.
— Kristoffer V. Sargent · Aug 30, 09:15 PM · #
AS:
You’re absolutely right that this is important. My post explicitly states that it doesn’t touch upon all the necessary issues.
— PEG · Aug 31, 12:01 AM · #
We need more outlandish ideas. More of them and more outlandish.
PEG, you might enjoy Professor Byrne’s short piece at Online Opinion –
http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=10782
— Ell · Aug 31, 12:21 PM · #
I hate pseudo feminist who think they know best. How much longer must we be exposed to Mr PEG ramblings on how feminist he is? Enough is enough.
— Ija · Aug 31, 01:45 PM · #
<i>What about culturally rearing boys and men to take an equal role in parenting so the burden is not only borne by women??? How come no one talks about this???</i>
Though I don’t think it was done intentionally by my parents, that’s what happened with me. My father retired early, when I was about 5, and became the stay at home parent. My situation was pretty uncommon, so people were often surprised. But pretty early on my reaction was “why is this surprising? Why is this wierd?”
If there was going to be a stay-at-home parent for our daughter, it would’ve been me. Ultimately, I took 4 months off unpaid (after my wife’s leave ended) and came back to work, but the option was seriously considered. Childcare (and housework) is split as evenly as possible (w/o using a spreadsheet) between us. I’m surprised that this is in any way remarkable.
RE: pro-life = more feminist… I think that depends rather strongly on how you define “pro-life” and “feminist.”
— Rob in CT · Aug 31, 02:58 PM · #
Sweden has generous paternity leave in addition to generous maternity leave, maintains a high birth rate, and does well by other feminist standards (e.g. percentage of women in the legislature).
— Brad · Aug 31, 10:04 PM · #
Thanks for the responses to the responses. Well said. Although:
“… where it is less hard for young girls to believe that they can be CEOs of large companies or heads of state or just partners at law firms… and have children and not neglect them. Is this unrealistic?”
Yes. Well, a qualified yes. The only way to do this is to make the boys more likely to take care of the kids. Which is probably possible. But look… I lived in DC for a while. I was on the “political” track and was offered a really good speech-writing gig. Awesome job. Just… perfect. Well paid, too. Know what? I tunred it down. It was a 90-hour-a-week job. Tons of travel. My wife was pregnant. So… no. I could have asked her to basically be a single parent for 10 years or so. But that’s not what she signed on for. And it’s not what I wanted.
So I guess I mean… yes. That is asking too much. Unless you hire a Mr. Mom, you can’t be the CEO of a major corporation and raise kids. Now, would the world be better if more guys agreed to be Mr. Moms? Probably. But it’s also true that a lot of guys should probably turn down jobs they get because of the hours.
Either way, the trade-off is never easy. Or even less-hard. Some people manage to raise kids while working as a partner at a major law firm. But I know people who do and I wouldn’t recommend it. I also think it might be a mistake to change society in such a way that this choice becomes easier to make instead of harder.
— Sam M · Aug 31, 10:44 PM · #
Sam’s more or less hit it. The elite have never done their own cooking, cleaning, yard-care, or child rearing; hell, in days gone by, not even teh middle class did those things (What is “a wetnurse”, Alex?)
You want to be a high-powered whatever? Good luck and god bless, but man or woman, you’re not going to spend that much time with your kids. That’s not anti-feminist, that’s a fact.
— Tony Comstock · Aug 31, 11:16 PM · #
i don’t quite see how women choosing to start a family (or not) and having rights over their own reproductive health are symptoms of our status-driven culture, as PEG apparently believes. moreover, the argument in favor of taking away those rights to change how society accommodates mothers seems to be based on wishful thinking, at best.
i’m with ija; i think PEG’s pseudo-feminism rings hollow.
— kate · Sep 1, 05:08 AM · #
I totally agree 100 percent with article. Especailly with the quote, “ we need to look outside traditional policy features and framework”. I thought we had moved passed the whole traditional housewive/mother label well in mid 1900’s? I think that if you are a women and currently have a job, and would like to share the gift of having a child, then the woman should be able to do that. In many countries you are allowed that but i cannot believe what its like to be a working mother in Germany…that is now just ridculous.
— Andrea · Sep 3, 04:55 AM · #
Although I agree with this article in respect to the call for a reconsideration of women’s role in American households (and possibly European ones, too, but the cultures and schools are considerably different, so I’ll refrain from commenting on that), what M. Golby is suggesting is a bit ambitious and most likely dismissible by many because of the slightly radical package of proposals.
A society where women are capable of “having it all” is probably what is exactly wrong with America. Articles appear on the internet advertising to women what can be called the woman’s “American dream.” A perfect life, perfect job, and obedient children who are successful in school and in their communities through the undying will of their parents in childrearing is probably never going to happen if the mother chooses to pursue a high-powered career. I’m not saying that it is impossible, just improbable. There are certain aspects of womanhood that are prime for raising a child, and to simply suggest that we need to teach young girls more “masculine”
Why must they be more masculine in the first place? Isn’t having “leadership, risk-taking, and audacity” great for either gender? Characterizing these traits as a part of either gender would contain both sexes to society-approved norms, which is no different from assuming that women will be housewives and men will be the money-earners, a view which is still somewhat prevalent in our current society.
Finally, I can’t say I agree with the title of this post. To me it seems like feminism is actually lacking quite a bit in Europe. From the surprise at the different last names to a recommended maternity leave of “x” amount of years, it seems like Europe is still very much keeping to the historically accepted definition of a woman’s role. Maybe M. Golby is trying to demonstrate his own contribution to feminism, but either way, we still have a ways to go if women are to be considered equals to men or even just individuals who are capable of making independent decisions.
— Alice · Sep 3, 07:23 AM · #
As much as I agree with Gobry on this topic it does feel somewhat contradictory at times as it feels as if he is asking women to be superwomen as mothers and providers. However, I do understand that he hopes for more equality in the workplace for women who want it, via a somewhat cultural revolution of sorts in Europe. But I also do hope he respects the wishes of women who do wish to stay in the home as caretakers of their families.
— JH_AHS · Sep 3, 09:54 AM · #
“I wish leadership, risk-taking and even aggressiveness audacity were viewed as female qualities”
It is an odd thing, to wish a society to “view” things as they are not. This is what people are referring to when they criticize liberals for dealing with the world as they wish it was (i.e. as they were taught, by television, to believe it should be) rather than as it is.
— S.L. Toddard · Sep 3, 12:57 PM · #
There are still a long way to go for feminism, but still this is a good push by women. Many issues linger like how men still get paid over women and how a majority of them still have better jobs. Although it is good to have more quality in this day and age, still women should not be the ultimate bread makers of the household and some have that maternal characteristic that help them to nurture children well that children need in households.
— CHAN_AHS · Sep 3, 03:22 PM · #
Ell:
Thanks for the link. I’ll read it.
Rob in CT:
Well, yes.
Brad:
The Swedish picture is actually much more complicated.
The high birth rate is mostly due to first and second generation immigrant populations, whose integration is not assured.
Much more importantly, while Sweden has enviably high rates of women in the workforce, these jobs are actually not the kind of jobs that feminists would envision as ideal. They are often part-time jobs, and they are often jobs in what might be called the “caretaking economy” — day care, schools, social services, etc. Megan McArdle has written at length on this subject. To paraphrase her, in Sweden most women are employed by the welfare state that was created so that they could work while having children.
I do believe Sweden is an interesting model, but I don’t think it should — or even could — exactly be replicated in other societies. But, for example, I cautiously endorsed mandatory paternal leave.
Sam M:
Thanks for sharing your experience and for a thoughtful and useful comment.
First of all: there is a difference between something being hard and something being impossible. If in 1950 you’d called for the kind of female labor participation rates we have today, people would have looked at you like you were crazy and raised all kinds of legitimate reasons why that’s not possible. But, things changed.
Again, I think a big part of the answer to making it easier to reconcile family and work is changing work.
“Working from home” was one of the most overhyped ideas of past decades. The idea that most people would hold the same corporate jobs but do them from home thanks to the interwebs lived and died an ignominous death, but part of the reason is that people thought of “working from home” as part of the same corporate structure we have today. If working from home can work, it must entail a different nature of “work.” As I said, small-scale but global reach entrepreneurship, and entrepreneurship in general, is a huge transformation here. Entrepreneurship demands very hard work, but it also entails flexibility about when and how you work. The “workplace” will have to change radically but, fortunately, I think this is already happening, and women’s liberation will be a lucky side effect.
Tony Comstock:
Maybe, but is that a bad thing?
My reply to Sam M above shows I believe work can be both harder and more flexible. But also, in my original post I point out that childrearing today, at least for the overclass, means something completely different than it used to. I believe the most precious thing children can have is alone time, down time, unstructured time.
The new crop of the high-powered professional A-type overclass is the disordered product of helicopter parenting, and I believe this will be disastrous.
Since we’re sharing personal experience: my mother is a high-powered corporate lawyer, and when I was growing up she didn’t spend a lot of time with me — and I was better for it! Sitting in front of the TV and the internet taught me English and sowed the seeds of my professional career.
First she worked for a firm, and then started her own firm. When she did so, she worked even harder than before. I would wake up at 6 and find her in the living room in her PJs on her laptop. No more lunch breaks. Home later. Most saturdays worked. But here’s the thing: 1- she was more flexible; she was around less pound for pound, but she was there for the important times, and 2- and this is most important, she was happy. I’ve never seen my mom happier, at least professionally, as after she started her own business. She worked harder but she loved the work, which wasn’t the case before. You won’t have me believe that also doesn’t have a positive effect on education.
kate:
For the record, I don’t think abortion rights are a symptom of the status-driven culture, I think it’s the other way around.
And I love women’s reproductive health and want them to have lots and lots of it. I care about the health of babies too, though.
Andrea:
Thanks. Usually the commenters who agree with the authors are also selling shoes and handbags so that’s a relief.
Alice:
Thanks for your comment.
I hope that I’m more than “a bit” ambitious and I’m not sure I would want to live in a world where posing ambitious questions in a blog post is enough to be dismissible.
Also, I’d love to meet that M. Golby, he sounds like a swell guy.
60 years ago it was impossible. Now it’s just improbable. I’d say we’re making lots of progress.
I don’t believe in having “a perfect job” and certainly not “a perfect life” but I do believe in leveraging important economic, social and technological trends in empowering people, particularly the disadvantaged — in this case, women — and promoting more thriving families and communities.
As I said above, helicopter parenting will probably have to go, and so I’d agree that the “perfect life, perfect job” envisioned by the upper-middle isn’t possible because it won’t include oboe and squash lessons. As I’ve repeated, I also believe the definition of “work” will have to change.
Undoubtedly, good virtues are good for all genders.
But fact of the matter is that today, subconsciously at least, these virtues are mainly viewed as male qualities. I don’t think they should be.
While I admire what you’re saying and certainly agree with the intent, I’m not sure that a completely culturally gender neutral society is possible to be achieved, although I do think it’s a worthy goal to strive for.
The point I was making was not to make girls more masculine, but precisely that if, say, “audacity” is viewed as more “girly”, making girls more audacious won’t be making them masculine.
My contention was that slightly emphasizing some traditionally “male” virtuous as “female” would be a worthy “stop-gap” to push forward a more gender-neutral society. I don’t believe that this must entail making girls more masculine, though I may be wrong.
Yes, that is precisely my point. It should better be titled “Progressive Feminist Policies At work In Europe”, which I didnt’ for brevity’s sake.
The point I was trying to make with the title and the anecdotes is that US progressive feminists tend to assume that feminist policies in Europe have succeeded in creating a feminist culture, but I don’t believe that to be the case.
JH_AHS:
Thanks for a very well considered comment. Agreed.
— PEG · Sep 4, 09:56 AM · #