The revelation that Marissa Mayer, Yahoo's newly-appointed CEO, is pregnant has ignited yet another discussion about whether or not this high profile future mother will manage to "have it all." If Anne-Marie Slaughter's recent Atlantic Monthly cover story "Why Women Still Can't Have it All" is any indication, Mayer's success is unlikely.
As a middle-aged feminist, I can't stand to read another word about this "problem." In a society with such gross social and economic inequities, why are we still talking about whether or not this or that privileged woman can "have it all?" Why is "having it all" still a feminist goal?
Slaughter is perfectly aware that she is speaking about an elite group of women. But she believes we will not "create a society that genuinely works for all women" until advantaged women first "wield power in sufficient numbers." I agree that America would be a better country if we could close the gender "leadership gap." Would I like to see a woman in the White House and fifty senators in congress and gender parity among the "ranks of corporate executives and judicial leaders"? Absolutely.
But the words "having it all" are offensive. They were once a feminist rallying cry. They should now be rejected. By any ethical standard, "having it all" is a self-interested and shallow value. For today's feminists, the words suggest an inexcusable indifference to women who have little or nothing. Nobody has it all without somebody else having less.
I see my own privileges as symptomatic of the devastating inequities feminism ignores at its peril. I am one of those Ivy League educated, co-op owning Manhattan mothers who either has or does not have it all, depending on how you rank my flexible hours as a college professor, my husband's inflexible job and higher salary, my primary responsibility for food preparation, housework and childcare, my husband's willingness to help, my successful high school and college-aged children and their fabulous former nannies.
When my children were young and I was trying to get tenure, my husband's job was so demanding I couldn't be sure he would ever come home again, much less make us dinner. Enter the "fabulous nannies." The first woman I employed -- I'll call her Marcia -- was West Indian. My daughter called her Mommy Marcia and called me Mommy Susan -- in that order. When Marcia got a better job in the public school system, I hired Wendy, also from the West Indies. Unlike his biological parents, Wendy had infinite patience for my high-maintenance son. I also had a weekly cleaning woman, Yvonne. She, too, was West Indian.
Thanks to these three women, I got tenure and finished my book on representations of mothers in early English women's novels. The book includes several chapters on West Indian slavery and the upper-class white mothers who profited from it. The women who helped me all descended from that history. That is why I could afford them. The irony did not escape me. It also did not change anything. About ten years ago, Yvonne died of ovarian cancer in Kings County Hospital. She never had health insurance.
My children are grown now. My daughter goes to an elite college. My son is in a private high school. With more time on my hands, I have been able to volunteer for an organization that helps homeless and formerly homeless individuals write their life stories as part of a life skills program.
In the three years I've been involved in this work, I have heard countless women's stories -- and the majority involve poverty, racism, child abuse and domestic violence. At one recent session, I heard a West Indian woman describe how her "white-looking" grandfather turned his black daughter into a concubine. Another night, an African-American woman reported that the courts had just given her abuser sole custody of their child. Another woman lost custody of all but her youngest child, whom she was desperately trying to win back. The only woman who had never lost custody was living with her child in a shelter the child hates. This woman is also from the West Indies. Her previous work experience? Housekeeper and nanny.
"We could have had it all," Adele sings in her smash hit about a failed romance. Now Adele, like the new CEO for Yahoo, is happily partnered and pregnant. Before we lose ourselves in yet another discussion about a high profile woman's bid for motherhood, I suggest that feminists think hard about the implications of her words. "We could have had it all" refers to a past that could have been but never was. It is a mythical possibility that was irrevocably missed.
For feminists, this kind of failure may be a gift. Maybe "having it all" never was a noble goal. Maybe it's time to start singing louder about all of us.
My husband's grandmother died of malnutrition, because she insisted on feeding her boys..for many of us ..the middle class and the luxury it brings is a new and precious thing.
Each family in our country must solve the childcare issue by itself, reinventing the wheel over and over. In France, for example, nannies are subsidized. In Tajikistan, of all places, during the Soviet Union days, state-run daycare was actually excellent. (My Tajik friend was appalled at what passes for "good" daycare here in New York City.)
Further, we don't ask ourselves "how can I give back?" We ask ourselves "how can I manage my personal goals?" Since women went into the workforce we have had a concurrent dramatic drop in volunteer work, etc that builds society. In my demographic I don't see much political/social action; nor do I see it in the working class college students I teach.
Therefore, I think some of the comments made here are a little facile. We DO profit from our class system and the least we can do is acknowledge it. In fact, it is immoral not to do so.
Thanks for your wise remarks. I agree about the importance of giving back. My Fordham students, and, I am proud to say, my own daughter, take this imperative seriously. But you are right that there needs to be more emphasis on this in our society. After all, giving back can be a "personal goal."
At the same time, when I myself do volunteer work I feel like I am being somewhat paternalistic and that, for all the service I render, I am not changing the system. That doesn't mean I should not volunteer, but even volunteer work is hierarchical and compromised I think.
While I agree with this author to a large degree, there's a dangerous, insidious theme in this piece, in my opinion. It sets up having a career as a mere luxury that wealthy women can get at the expense of poorer women, the alternative luxury being the choice to stay home. For men, neither "having it all" nor "having a choice" are even on the menu. Still standing is the default assignment of childcare responsibility to women.
I agree that for men neither "having it all" nor "having a choice" are even on the menu. The "having it all" motto is still based on the idea that somehow men have that. I don't think they do.
The real issue for most families is access to affordable quality daycare. And that is the one area in which I disagree with Greenfield's assertion that "having it all" must be at someone else's expense. While I recognize that there is ample opportunity for exploitation of nannies, I absolutely do not believe that that makes childcare work inherently unfair. We employed nannies - all paid a good wage with reasonable hours. Most of them went on to better paying careers - in nursing, hotel management etc.. by using their time with us to continue their education. Greenfield's accusation becomes part of the "mommy wars" which serve to make every woman feel guilty about her choices. If paying other people to help you care for your children is exploitative then it brands almost every woman who tries to have a career and raise a family.
You make an interesting point about the respectability of being a childcare worker. It certainly IS valuble work and I certainly valued the women I employed and tried to treat them well.
Nevertheless, the job does involve wiping someone else's kids' behind.
I have no idea when that got transmuted to " having it all":nobody can even articulate what "all" is.
I agree with you one hundred percent and have said it many times myself: the biggest impediment to most families is good, reliable and affordable childcare.
These incessant discussions simply add fuel to the fire in which women are burned at the stake and villified for their choices. It doesnt matter WHAT they choose, they are condemned by one side or the other, by men and by other women. It is nuts.
Children are resilient and adaptable and will thrive where they know they are loved.
Since nobody can define "all", I wont use the phrase.