Giving Feminism Life: CREATING A LIFE; PROFESSIONAL WOMEN AND THE QUEST FOR CHILDREN by Sylvia Ann Hewlett

In: Dissent: a journal devoted to radical ideas and the values of socialism and democracy, Band 49, Heft 4, S. 95

Abstract

To be sure, not just any attack will do: attacks from the left are dismissed as cranky, while religious conservative antifeminism, for all its political clout, has no media cachet. What flies is 'facts'--statistics and anecdotes drawn from biological, sociological, or psychological studies or from journalistic surveys--purporting to reveal that one or another aspect of the feminist project has unforeseen troubling consequences and that the quest to 'have it all' (that is, have as much as men take for granted) must bow to intractable limits. Bonus points if you can get the facts to show that failure to recognize those limits has hurt women themselves, not just children or society, so that it's in women's interest to rethink their aspirations. The journalists who publicize these reports usually do so with a sympathetic and sober mien: it's a shame women can't get what they want, but what can you do--facts are facts! Still, there's no denying the undercurrent of relish, characteristic of those who mouth the conventional wisdom but have never really reconciled themselves to it. Which is why, as feminist critics are quick to point out, reporters so eagerly swallow questionable 'facts' as well as interpretations that may be faulty even if the data are correct. The book proposes a number of legal and corporate reforms aimed at curbing the imperialistic claims of work on women's time, but these would hardly have inspired headlines like 'Baby Panic.' Rather, the irresistible hook is Hewlett's exhortation to women themselves: while she speaks of empowering young women with knowledge, giving them freedom to make the choices that will allow them to have work and children too, her practical advice boils down to Katha Pollitt's acerbic summary in the Nation: 'Spend your twenties snagging a husband, put your career on the back burner and have a baby ASAP.' Toward this end, the achievement-oriented, feminist-minded woman may need an attitude adjustment; Hewlett lauds the example of an interviewee who, in the middle of a grueling medical residency, hosted business dinners for her lover several times a week. (Reader, he married her.) Hewlett recognizes that men contribute to women's 'time crunch,' whether by asking them to host dinners or by not doing housework; she ruefully acknowledges their tendency to prefer 'younger, less-accomplished and more-easily-impressed women' to female peers with ambitions of their own. But she offers no proposals for changing male behavior; evidently it just comes with the y chromosome. Rhetorically, the dilemma reveals itself in the ubiquitous 'yes, but ...' construction of antibacklash critiques. Yes, the critics concede, Hewlett raises some real issues. Women do pay a price for achievement, and many do end up involuntarily childless. But ... Some of the 'buts' have to do with Hewlett's numbers (her claim that the 'vast majority' of childless professional women are unhappy about their state is based on the fact, of dubious relevance, that only 14 percent of her interviewees knew in college that they didn't want children; according to a study cited in the American Prospect, the only difference in the birth rates of high-achievers and working women in general reflects the former's greater reluctance to be single mothers). But mostly they add up to a defense of female achievers' priorities. We (that is, those of us who want children or male partners or both) would rather postpone childbearing till we're really ready and take our chances; would rather throw ourselves into our work and hold out for a man who will make room for it; would, indeed, rather be alone than like the hostess of those dinners, 'willing to surrender part of her own identity to enhance that of the man she wanted to be with.' Furthermore, we take responsibility for our choices and refuse to make melodrama out of the rough spots. We know the difference, as Joan Walsh put it in Buzzle.com, between 'an occasional twinge of regret and life-darkening despair.'.