Once, if a newspaper or magazine wanted to sell extra copies, it would put a banner headline ”What Do Women Want?” on the front page.
These days, the attention-grabber is ”Can Women Have It All?”
We’ve come a long way, baby.
If once we were vapid creatures who, in the view of Sigmund Freud, could not decide what we wanted, now we are voracious careerists who want the lot. That the question is even posed is, of course, gratuitous and demeaning, since the ”all” refers to having a job and a family.
If you are a bloke, you can have it ”all” without anyone raising an eyebrow – or even asking how you manage to ”do it all”.
This was a source of particular irritation to Nicola Roxon who resigned as attorney-general earlier this month and who is leaving the Parliament at the next election because she wants to be at home for her young daughter. She often mentioned in media interviews that it really riled her that she was constantly asked how she managed to combine being a cabinet minister with being a wife and mother, whereas her male colleagues who were husbands and fathers were never asked the same question.
It is not just frustrating but, in fact, scandalous that the myriad assumptions and, let’s face it, prejudices that lie behind this question have not really altered in more than half a century. If we didn’t still think, deep down, that women’s primary function is to breed and raise children, the question of ”all” simply would not arise.
If we truly accepted the proposition that women and men are equal, and equally entitled to enjoy having a family and having a job, we wouldn’t be wasting our time having this conversation.
Instead, we’d perhaps be telling our kids about the bad old days before the harmonisation of work, family and school. We’d be rolling our eyes at the memory of school holidays that were so out of sync with parental holidays, at the way school finished hours before the end of the office day, leaving parents at their wits end with how to cope.
Craziest of all, how childcare had been seemingly designed by a sadist who expected mothers – yes, you wouldn’t believe it but it was the mums who had to do it back then – to drop kids off on their way to work and then hightail it back through peak-hour traffic to pick them before the centre closed. As for what it all cost, well, women would tell their incredulous offspring, I practically worked for nothing by the time I paid childcare fees.
The kids were also amazed to hear that a society that was supposed to be managed by economic rationalists had been unable to figure out that enabling women to get into the full-time workforce in the same proportions as men would increase gross domestic product by 13 per cent (and this was after all the services needed to support women’s employment – childcare and so on – had been purchased).
There’d be other horror stories but by now the kids would be bored witless at hearing accounts of the olden days when society was so, well, stupid. They take utterly for granted that both women and men ”can have it all” because that’s the natural state of affairs, and society is organised around ensuring that it all works smoothly and equitably.
Some societies are well on their way to doing this. They tend to be in Europe. Perhaps surprisingly, countries such as France that we might have viewed as rather conservative when it came to gender matters, have worked out a way for women to combine having both fertility and workforce participation rates that far outstrip ours. As far as I know, there is no talk of ”having it all” in France. They just get on with it.
In Australia we are censorious towards women who don’t conform to our (impossible) ideals. We prefer women with children to stay home (they can worry later about losing their skills and their confidence and their super), or if they insist on combining motherhood with having a job, we expect them to be totally stressed out all the time. That’ll teach you, we seem to be saying.
Then there’s the women who have had the temerity to have successful careers and neglected to have children. Our two leading female politicians, Julia Gillard and Julie Bishop, are both alternately castigated and pitied for being in this category. Not for not ”having it all” but for choosing a different path. And seeming pretty damned satisfied with their choices, too.
Most tragic of all is the fact we are still having this conversation, a full 50 years since the publication of Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique, a landmark book that chronicled the dissatisfaction of those highly educated, middle-class women who were fulfilling what was then considered to be their female destiny as full-time wives and mothers. There was no question whatsoever of ”having it all” – and it was driving them crazy.
Friedan’s book helped give rise to the modern women’s movement which laid out a few markers for giving women some choices about their lives and equal rights to pursue where their dreams took them.
Back then, all the talk was about how to break down the barriers that had kept women out of the workforce and all the other places they wanted to be. It was about redesigning our lives so women could be everywhere (”A woman’s place is in the House. And the Senate” was an early slogan) and do everything. No one thought for a minute that it would not be possible, once the legal barriers were removed.
And it was – for a decade or so. It wasn’t until the 1980s that the backlash began and women were suddenly being told not just that they couldn’t ”have it all” but that, actually, they didn’t want it. Suddenly it was too hard, too stressful. The long march backwards had begun.
Originally published at: http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/why-only-half-of-us-can-have-it-all-20130215-2eieu.html
The premise of this article is false. men don’t have it all – they assume that they don’t have a full connection with their kids. Its why dads coach sporting teams. THis allows at least some time where they are their child have ‘their thing’
As an older woman ,an artist ,and a single parent with a high school student still at home,I am forced to do it all because there is no other way to do it. I started with children late in life because in those days I wanted to climb up the executive ladder of the law firm to which I belonged only to be told “that I would have a family” when I asked why I had been overlooked for partnership despite earning more for the firm than the male counterparts working for the firm.Needless to say when I left the law and did start my family and I applied for legal jobs when my children were small I was nearly always asked what would I do with my children? I don’t think any man would be asked that question in an interview. Indeed he would possibly not be asked if he had children.
Yes I am not juggling childcare at present( but have done in the past on an artists income , and artists are on the lowest rung of the income ladder particularly when you are a woman artist with children) but as a woman artist with a family I am denied many opportunities. As an older woman artist with a family I am denied even more opportunities. Most artist residencies which are opportunities to network and build networks are designed for the single childless artist or the male artist.I can think of few women artist who have made it who also have families- and yet we add to the fabric of expression in our society.
Trying not to be a pathetic supporter of women’s rights (the male equivalent of a “fag hag” – what a horrible phrase!), all my life I never understood the inequality aspect of a “woman’s lot”. I come from a family of mother, father, and 7 boys. Washing and ironing the shirts, or sheets, or underpants, was a normal routine of daily life – overseen by a loving and intelligent mother. And, for me and my brothers, that was how it was, and needed to be to get on with things. We knew no different.
At university and then work (in IT), I saw no inequality amongst my peers – male or female – only to those that didn’t “measure up” – male or female. But this was at the bottom ranks of the work force, not senior management.
It was only when I got married that I saw what people were talking about. I was the main ‘bread-winner’, based on my salary. And that required sacrifices from my female partner, particularly when kids came along. To me, like at home when I was a kid, it was always a collaborative affair. Get on with what needed to be done.
I then get told that I spend too much time at work, don’t polish the floors on the weekend, don’t spend enough time with the kids, don’t earn enough for the work I do, don’t cook enough, make wrong choices on work, etc. The collaborative effort has obviously broken down!
This was purely based on expectation. Where did that expectation come from? Like me, from upbringing.
So, in my humble opinion, do not teach children to have set expectations based on their sex. There will be some obvious predispositions and impediments to this. But, always promote the idea of sharing the ‘burden’, male or female, whatever that ‘burden’ may be.
For my penance, I have three daughters (all under 10) and spend much time promoting my beliefs on how their future depends on their attitude right now – sexless as much is possible.
In conclusion, in my honest opinion, women create ‘sex inequality’. Were it not for the likes of Anne Summers and Greer, I don’t think the phrase would even exist. So, I can only hope that my girls know that it’s not about gender, it’s about ability. And ability comes from education, in so many ways.
P.S. Proud to support Gillard, but she needs to do more
“If we didn’t still think, deep down, that women’s primary function is to breed and raise children”
Um, er, yeah. I think it’s safe to say that this is women’s “primary function”. Despite all PC BS.
It is somewhat more ‘primary’ than having a job.
Utterly bizarre statement.
Hi Anne,
I am very much looking forward to hearing you speak at the International Women’s Day breakfast in Adelaide on Friday 8th March.
Thank you for your article, it’s an interesting posit but I wonder if it tells only half the story. I don’t actually believe that society assumes that men can have “it all” (if “it all” means juggling work and family) – but rather, society assumes that men will primarily focus on work and that women will primarily focus on family.
While I absolutely do not dispute your comments in relation to the assumptions (condescending and otherwise!) made about women’s role in the family and balancing all their commitments, equally we assume that men do not in fact want “it all”, or at least if they do, they are not very vocal about it.
It’s a shame we don’t ask the question, “Can Men Have it All?” because the answer may well be very interesting. In general, the men that I have worked with over the years celebrate the arrival of their first born by taking two to three days off work (paid or unpaid, and possibly still working from home) and then return to work full time. Not a further word is said on the subject. None of them juggle family and work commitments by working part time.
I am aware that there are men that go down the road of flexible work arrangements, but by and large, the very strong assumption in the workplace is that they will not.
I wonder if there are actually a growing number of men who “Want It All” but feel it is actually even more out of reach than for women, because none of us are even asking the question in the first place?