

Why Women Still Can’t Have It All - vincvinc
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/07/why-women-still-cant-have-it-all/309020/1/?single_page=true

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martinkallstrom
Ok, so do I get this correctly... this person is shaken in her
feminist/equalist beliefs because she wants to spend more time with her family
and this doesn't fit her earlier view that women too can put their career
before the family.

The fallacy of her reasoning is twofold. First, gender equality is never
measurable in individuals. It is only possible to measure over a population.
Any individual is influenced by so many factors in her decisions that it is
impossible to say what decisions are determined by her gender and not.

Second, her view seems to be that a man could never put his family before his
career. Her realization could have been "Oh, as a human being I have a hard
time letting go of the thoughts of my son who needs me, I guess I was wrong
about humans". Instead, she thinks that it must be a purely female reaction to
a everyday dilemma.

Her belief that a man would never feel or think the same is so strong that she
rather questions her view that men and women are equal, than realizing that
she is an individual that, just as many other human beings both men and women,
cares as much about their families as they do about their jobs.

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teilo
In full disclosure: I do believe there are essential differences between men
and women in regards to their child-rearing ability. The skills that each
gender has are unique in this regard. This is a generalization, and is not
true in every case. Regardless, this means that all other things being equal,
there will still be a societal preference for women to rearing children.

But let's ignore that for the present, and pose the question: What would it
take to equalize the amount of time that parents spend rearing their children
and working outside the home, such that the children are still well-reared?
Consider it purely economically: People have a limited amount of resources and
time. One's gender has nothing to do with that. If men predominantly stayed
home and reared children, while women worked, the situation would be the same.

Rearing children is a full-time job. Either _you_ are going to do it, or you
are going to pay someone else to do it (in which case you are taking away from
your home life, and you don't have it all).

Men do not get to have it all either. They do not get to have a full-time job,
and also spend large amounts of quality time at home. That is why there has
traditionally been a compromise: the primary responsibility for child-rearing,
respective of time, falls on one parent, while the other has the primary
responsibility for earning a family's living.

So, what could change this? Employers could start expecting men with families
to work less. That would equalize men and women in the workplace - married men
and women that is. Make no mistake, though, so long as there are people who
are willing to work full-time and more than full-time, those people will be
preferred by employers and be better paid. If married-with-children workers
worked less, then childless workers will be preferred. This creates an
economic pressure on the families with children to make a choice: Someone has
to work more, or they have to live with much less.

That's the brass tax of the economics of the thing. You can't legislate that
away.

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Tichy
Couldn't read it all (very long text in very small letters), but I wonder, why
not accept that not all jobs are compatible with taking care of your kids? I
personally agree that a "work fixed schedule for somebody else" job makes it
difficult, that's why I try to freelance. But even if you could somehow change
that standard kind of job (instead of doing your own thing or choosing a
career that is compatible with your desires), there will always be jobs that
are incompatible. For example, off the top of my head: working on an oil rig.
I think that demands absence from home for several weeks in a row.

There are probably better examples. What I mean is, don't cry for the world to
change, change yourself. Pick a suitable career, and negotiate appropriate
terms. And accept that sometimes it just isn't possible.

Also, what does that have to do with women? What about men who want to spend
time with their family? That article seems very strange in it's assumptions:
on the one hand women should get everything men get, on the other hand they
should still be primarily taking care of the family? Maybe you just have to
decide...

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tallTrees
I think the author clearly stated that you can do the work and the child
raising _if_ you have the schedule control. I've found that to be largely
true. I also had my children at 38, and my husband and I were extremely
fortunate to be able to have me work part time and arrange our schedules so
the children always had a parent home. For all the time before the children
had their driver's license, we were able to get them to and from their schools
and care for them before and after school. Now I've had to switch jobs and
there are very rigid rules about being at work at their stated times.

It seems rather obvious that the whole employment culture was shaped by the
parent at home history just as the school schedule is shaped by the
agricultural history. Over time this will flatten out but it's likely that
women will continue to recognize the needs of their children (and parents, and
spouses) differently than men do.

And how much of this problem is due to understaffing? Why are people working
so many many hours, shouldn't that be taken as clear indication that the work
needs to be split or otherwise rearranged? It's not like we have a labor
shortage.

I've always joked that I wanted a wife too. Maybe that's what it would take?

~~~
Tichy
"it's likely that women will continue to recognize the needs of their children
(and parents, and spouses) differently than men do."

Why?

Apart from that, sure, it is nicer to work part time on your own schedule. I
don't think it is feasible for every kind of job, though. If you want to take
care of your children, pick a suitable job.

