Roles

Jessica Beck

Eng 1022.55

Project #2 continued...

Every woman has certain roles that she is expected to fill. Some women choose to accept their roles, some women choose to rebel against them, and yet some choose to change their roles. Women need to be happy in their roles and must do what it takes in order to find such happiness. Feminism has been a huge force in helping women change their roles. Because of the feminist movement, women can now go to elite colleges and pursue their careers. Isn't it great? Well, that depends, once again, on the woman. For a long time women's colleges educated their student's on how to be "proper" women (good cooks, good cleaners, good wives, good mothers…). In essence being educated during this time was an aid to marrying well and thus had nothing to do with pursuing a career. Has this changed? Not as much as one would think. "In 2000, Harvard Business School professor Myra Hart surveyed the women of the classes of 1981, 1986, and 1991 and found that only 38 percent of female Harvard MBAs were working full time" (America's Stay-at-Home Feminists). The reasons that so many of the women weren't working is because they either got married, or had a child, or both. This isn't a problem for me. I think its great that such women were dedicated to educating themselves. I can also easily relate to the idea of not wanting to leave the children. Either way as long as woman truly wants and chooses her role- there shouldn't be controversy surrounding it. Of course there often is the issue of the "second-shift", this refers to all of the household work that even working women are (often) expected to do. For some women, the pressures of the "second-shift" and working are too much; in many cases these women opt to leave the workforce. This is a problem. In fact, " According to Phyllis Moen and Patricia Roehling's Career Mystique, 'When couples marry, the amount of time that a woman spends doing housework increases by approximately 17 percent, while a man's decreases by 33 percent'" (America's Stay-at-home Feminists). It's hard, the workforce has changed so much to accommodate women, but household roles haven't changed alongside. Often times, women are torn by between working and staying at home as a result. The article America's Stay-at-home Feminists by Linda Hirshman lays out some pretty controversial solutions to such problems stating, " You can either find a spouse with less social power than you or find one with an ideological commitment to gender equality. Taking the easier path first, marry down". As I first read this article I thought the end was a joke- I was wrong. The article analyses various trend in women leaving the workforce. Ultimately Hirshman chooses to take a stand against stay-at-home mothers/wives. She believes that it is a waste for women to go to school and then leave the workforce; she goes as far as to say it is a downward spiral for society. Part of her reasoning is that women cannot achieve their full potential by staying at home. I contend that Hirshman needs to look at what life is all about. I know when I'm on my death bed I am not going to regret business deals that I didn't close, I am going to regret not having more time with my family. Also, intellectually it is not a waste of time for women to leave the workforce; there are plenty of ways to satisfy a women's thirst for intellectual challenges without working. For example, I am a stay at home mother and I also am a full-time student. Either way the main flaw with Hirshman's arguments is that she fails to realize that women should have the choice, just because staying at home isn't for her doesn't mean it's not for other women. The ultimate reality, the reality that I feminists have been fighting for, is that women should be given the opportunity to be happy in their various roles- whatever roles those may be.

Works Cited:

Hirshman, Linda. " America's Stay-at-Home Feminists." Alternet, 24 November 2005. Web. 7 Feb 2010.

http://www.alternet.org/story/28621/?page=1