Anne-Marie Slaughter recently wrote a long article in the The Atlantic, entitled ‘Why Women Still Can’t have it All’. It describes the difficult dilemmas and decisions that professional women (and men) have, trying to combine their responsibilities to their jobs on the one hand and to their families on the other. I (along with many other women who have tried to do both throughout their lives) have had a positive response to this article. It nicely captured some of my own internal struggles, as well as the sacrifices I’ve (sometimes unwittingly) imposed on my children and husband[s].
I’ve been intrigued by the somewhat negative response that has also emerged, from some younger women (google Slaughter’s article to find them): One issue has been the title itself, which on further reflection does seem rather unfortunate. There’s no doubt that the author was not literally arguing for ‘women [not men] to have it all’, but rather that women could work both inside and outside the home. The ambiguity of the title seems to have led to some misinterpretation.
Another major complaint was its focus on mothers (not all women are mothers). She acknowledges this in several places, as well as the fact that many of the issues she raises also trouble men who would prefer to have more active parenting roles. As a mother myself, Slaughter’s observations hit home; her favoring of mothers over non-mothers did not disturb me. Most women do in fact become mothers, and most working women are mothers—so I think it’s fine that an article should address the issues they (we) face.
For myself, I found the article quite excellent. Its central point is that the way the professional and domestic worlds are currently structured, one cannot avoid the home/work balancing dilemmas and conflicts that have so troubled most professional women and many professional men. She argues cogently that we are lying to ourselves and others—especially aspiring young women—when we continue to ignore the fact that doing both high-level, demanding professional jobs and a good job of parenting is currently very very difficult and in many cases impossible. I agree with Slaughter’s conclusion that we have been ‘air-brushing’ reality. I believe that such air-brushing is contributing to our inability to address these dilemmas and difficulties with effective systemic change.
Slaughter analyzes a number of factors that make parenting relatively incompatible with professional work, as ‘the system’ now functions (her central point is about our need to change the system). She writes of other workers’ and bosses’ (sometimes subtle) disapproval of workers who have to respond to domestic emergencies (recurrent when one has small children—and I would add, when one has elders who can need assistance at any time). She writes of the guilt one feels when one opts for either area of responsibility over the other. She cogently addresses the solutions we’ve tried (she calls them myths): ‘just being motivated enough’, ‘marrying the right person,’ and ‘sequencing things right’—all elements we have tried, all helpful but incomplete. She provides ample examples from her own experience and that of her colleagues—examples that hit home for those of us who have struggled with these incompatibilities for decades.
She concludes we need to change the structure and values of the working world. I agree. This is not an argument that anyone needs to go back to a life of domestic drudgery in an intellectual wasteland. It’s an argument for us all both to be more honest about the difficulties of combining work (as it now stands) and motherhood, and to get our creative juices flowing to develop more congenial, people-friendly work structures and values. Slaughter outlines a number of concrete steps that can contribute to a better balance between paid and domestic work, and that can render the home life of children (and workers) more comfortable, more humane (and most likely more productive too!). There is already, in fact, considerable evidence that people-friendly, flexible, accepting policies, bosses and co-workers can increase the motivation, productivity and creativity of all workers.
Her conclusion, that we need to change our work structure and values, harkens back at least to the 1960s—a time when we believed (as Obama argued nearly fifty years later in 2008) that we could change the world. I do not deny an element of naiveté in such utopian ideals. As we’ve seen with both my generation’s attempts and with Obama’s, the task is not easy. But having spent a lot of my life in other countries, I believe that a major part of America’s successes derives from our willingness to dream and to believe in our ability to make things better. I still value the fact that we have dreamed and we have tried to realize our dreams of gender equality; and I still dream of a world in which women and men everywhere can do the things that excite and strengthen them. To make such a world a reality, we need to continue re-examining the values that drive us and to re-structure work accordingly. We have come a long way (in some parts of the world), but we still have a long way to go—if we really want to spare young people the difficulties that my generation (and our own children) have endured. Acknowledging and analyzing such difficulties is a first step toward creating a world where all people can realize their dreams while responsibly caring for the young and the old.
Nicely written.