More navel gazing, courtesy of the New York Times

I took two women's studies classes in college: Women's Studies 101 and another one that was upper level- basically the same thing with better books. The 101 class taught me about being a victim, how to get hysterically offended about said status and how to make the two or three men in the class feel two inches tall. What were they doing in our class anyway? The other class I found extra interesting, mostly because the books fascinated me. Women and the medical industry, women and nannies, women and staying home, women and their mothers, women and body image. The Gendered Society. I don't exactly know what I really learned in that class, but I did read some interesting stuff. I remember emailing my mom about one of the "working moms" books to ask her how in the world she pulled it off and I got some vague and unsatisfying "your grandmother helped" reply, along the lines of "You do what you have to do, dummy." (Hi Mom!)

Anyway, I absorbed enough to call myself a Raving Feminist or something like that. I was, I felt, extremely informed. I thought The Feminine Mystique was breathtaking. I read some guy the riot act in college for some obnoxious comment he made about violence against women that now... now makes me cringe. A few years later I'm still fascinated by the same stuff and think most of the same things, but the difference is I've stopped being upset about it.

So I read this article yesterday with more than the usual passing interest. Many young women set a career path to motherhood? Even women at "elite colleges"? They're supposed to be the smartest and the prettiest and turn into company CEOs and hot shot judges and little mini-Christiane Amanpours. What are we educating them for?

My first reaction to this article was a big fat resounding "DUH." Since when is it news that girls might want to have babies when they grow up and get married? And why are these dinosaur academics so surprised and indignant that some of them will choose raising kids over board meetings? Probably because they are dinosaur academics. I think it's become fairly obvious that the whole "you can have it all!" idea is, if I may steal a word from women's studies 101, somewhat of a myth. I was especially amused by the one who said she thought the work/home conundrum would be solved by now.

For many feminists, it may come as a shock to hear how unbothered many young women at the nation's top schools are by the strictures of traditional roles.

"They are still thinking of this as a private issue; they're accepting it," said Laura Wexler, a professor of American studies and women's and gender studies at Yale. "Women have been given full-time working career opportunities and encouragement with no social changes to support it.

"I really believed 25 years ago," Dr. Wexler added, "that this would be solved by now."

What social changes does she want? Universal daycare? Men who pick up their own socks?  (Ooh, cheap shot!)

I don't want to be all old-fashioned or anything, but for me and many of my friends, we are not terribly interested in full-time working careers. Well, we're interested until we have kids. And most of us plan to fit the job around the kids, not the other way around. We're pretty okay with that.

I wasn't like the girls in this article, though. It never occurred to me that I would get married as young as I did and having kids was the furthest thought from my mind. I wanted those things, some day, but first I wanted to travel a lot and maybe spend some time teaching English overseas. I wanted to get some awesome big city big girl job because I knew I could do it. I had read enough feminist literature to know that having a husband, let alone children, was a huge obstacle to Achieving My Goals.

Around the same time I took my second women's studies class I started dating an actual man. Like, for real. None of this high school stuff. He was exceptionally fabulous in every way, but I had a fairly hard shell. When he said "some day we'll have Christmas lights on our house" after dating six months, I freaked out because 1) it's too soon to talk about this stuff! and 2) he thinks we're going to get married? At that point I was still kind of "whatever, dude, I've got stuff to DO."

I don't know when I realized that I didn't want to travel around the world and maybe teach English overseas if Phillip wasn't with me. And, being the old-fashioned people we are, that meant getting married first. It took a long time for me to figure out that Phillip wasn't out to give his dreams priority over mine. Not that he ever gave me that impression. Not that he is even remotely that kind of guy. I just assumed that that's what marriage might be like. And I honestly don't know where I got this impression. (Well, actually, I think I do and that is a whole other post entirely, one entitled: Your desire shall be for your husband and he shall rule over you. BAH.)

ANYWAY. I'm different now. I REALLY want kids and when we have them I hope to work part-time at the most. I don't have a lot of interest in a "career", mostly because I can't think of a job I want more than raising a family. Sometimes I'm ashamed to think that. I'm smart and capable, I tell myself. Shouldn't I want to accomplish more than having babies? Am I only thinking this because I can't think of a job I want?  Then I get mad. Why does "having babies" mean so little?

The other day at my annual review, when my boss asked me, "Is there anything else you want to talk about?", I awkwardly muttered that I might want to start a family in a  year or two and I'd like the option of working part-time or from home. He was thrilled that I brought it up because "it's illegal for me to ask you!" and told me that he could see me working part-time for ten years and coming back full-time after that. That they'd work around whatever I wanted to do. I felt so much better. (Well, after the shock of "ten years" wore off. TEN YEARS?)

Obviously the issue's not "solved". Another tenet of the feminism I learned in college is that there are no differences between men and women and I don't believe that anymore. Women who work and have kids are always going to struggle to find balance, right?  I think women should be able to pursue whatever they want, but I think a lot of us are beginning to think that trying to "have it all" might not be worth it.

After re-reading this I've decided I need to stick to whining about my house and saying mean things about sales people. But I'll post it anyway because what's the point of having your own personal website if you can't bore people to death with the vast scope of your own highly-held well-informed opinions and spectacular profundities? (And on that note, someone chose to watch her TiVo'd Emmys (AND, YES I ADMIT IT, the E! Red Carpet) instead of attending the election night party. But it's all good because our candidate survived the primary and I'll attend the real election party in November.)

Comments

[jackie]

wow. great great post Maggie. Seriously. How did you get inside my head!?!?! These are the exact things I think every day and I'm so happy to hear other people saying them!

p.s. hope you don't mind me reading your blog. *blushes*