Jezebel: opting out

NY Times Columnist On Work/Life Balance: There Are "No Answers"

Jessica — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 12:20:00 EDT

Lisa Belkin is perhaps the nation's foremost chronicler of highly ambitious females and coiner of the phrase "opting out" has decided to opt out of her weekly "Life's Work" column (see what I did there? I kid). Anyway, Belkin's last column discussing the work/life balance among women and after nine years of covering this topic, she comes to the conclusion that there are "no answers — just endless and penetrating questions." But she also notes that in this time of economic peril, those questions might change entirely.

Belkin acknowledges that the idea of work/life balance is a privileged one — many women in this country don't have the option of not working, and they certainly can't easily find another job that treats them better than the one they already have. But even for women who have those high powered jobs are going to feel the burn of this economic shift. "The sorts of initiatives that make work more family friendly are also the newest, and it is likely that when cuts have to be made in companies, these kinds of programs will be the first to go," Belkin posits.

She also caught up with those women profiled in the original "Opt-Out Revolution" article, which was published almost exactly five years ago. The fates of these women who left high powered jobs to be housewives have been a mixed bag. One is going through a messy divorce, and "It was tough for her getting back to work, she said, because she had allowed a gap to open in her résumé — as tough as her critics had warned it would be." Another woman who opted out in 2003, Katherine Brokaw, "is now the dean of students at the Emory Law School, proving that you can take time out and land very well."

So what can we learn from the 9 years of Belkin's columns, besides the fact that there are no easy answers? I think we can learn that our decisions about work don't have to be so fraught or fatalistic. Portrayals of women navigating the shoals of work and life tend to be charicaturish. Women who opt out are painted by their opponents as nouveau stepford wives; women who seek the executive suite are dismissed as uncaring mothers. When I first started reading about the idea of a work/life balance it struck me that I had never really thought about the issue because my mother seemed to do it so effortlessly. She worked full time as the head of the psychiatric unit at a local hospital until I was eight or nine, all the while maintaining a private psychiatry practice. When I was older, she jettisoned the hospital job and kept her private practice, seeing patients four days a week. Did this choice keep her out of the upper echelons of her career? Undoubtedly. Does she regret it? Not at all. Did I suffer because my mom wasn't around 24/7 when I was little? Not remotely.

Looking Back, Moving On [NYT]
The Opt-Out Revolution [NYT]

Women Are Often 'Trailing Spouses' Because Of The Jobs They Choose

Jessica — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 13:30:00 EDT

Now that families with two working parents are the norm, couples are beginning to bicker over who becomes the "trailing spouse." According to CNN, the "trailing spouse" is the one whose career is subordinate. For instance, if a husband has to relocate for his job and the wife agrees to it, despite her career taking a hit, she's the trailing spouse. Mary Noonan, author of a study about working couples, says that wives are more often than not the trailing spouse because, "men and women are taught to play very different roles within marriage. Women are socialized to play a homemaking role within the family, whereas men are encouraged to focus on their careers and breadwinning." But I think the socialization goes a step further. As we've discussed, women are opting out of many science careers, and few go into other extremely demanding fields like politics. Women are choosing jobs from the get-go that are more malleable.

One of the "trailing spouses" interviewed for the CNN piece, Dayna Steele, is a former radio host who just wrote a book, and she's married to Charles Justiz, 55, a NASA research pilot. The couple has been fighting recently because Steele's media appearances are becoming a bone of contention. "I have tried very hard to schedule around my husband's full-time job and keep him posted on my schedule, confirming dates before I book them," Steele says. "Then, he started scheduling things over mine without telling me." To which her husband responds: "We've had some collisions…I can't call NASA and say, 'Excuse me, I can't come in because my wife has a book signing.'"

And really — he has a point. Steele acknowledges that Justiz's job is the one with long term stability and benefits, so it would be foolish for her job to take precedence as his is necessary for their financial solvency. It seems like a vicious cycle: women often take jobs that are innately more flexible (the other woman interviewed for the CNN story was in PR), and so they don't really have a leg to stand on. However, like all things in long term relationships, each major move a couple makes takes discussion and compromise on both parts.

[Image via CA Magazine]

Career Couples Fight Over Who's The 'Trailing Spouse' [CNN]

Earlier: Why Women Are Opting Out Of The Hard Sciences

Why Women Are Opting Out Of The Hard Sciences

Jessica — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 16:30:00 EDT

American women are few and far between at the upper levels in the "hard" sciences, otherwise known as physics and chemistry as opposed to biology and medicine. A new group of studies suggest that women — who, according to the Boston Globe constitute "20 percent of the nation's engineers, fewer than one-third of chemists, and only about a quarter of computer and math professionals" — are rarities in these fields because they are opting out of them, not because of the paucity of opportunities available. "Substantial numbers of women - highly qualified for the work - stay out of those careers because they would simply rather do something else," the Globe's Elaine McArdle writes. In countries where women have fewer economic choices, like the Philippines, Thailand and Russia, the disparity between men and women in the hard sciences is far less substantial.

Of course, these studies also mention the culturally ingrained messages we receive from the cradle. Even if female PhD students are encouraged in the same way as male students, it's entirely possible that the way they've been socialized affects the "choices" they're making when opting out of soaring science career paths. The effect of socialization shows up in studies like one mentioned on Salon, which shows that "In Sweden, about the closest thing we've got to a 'gender-equal society,' the difference between boys' and girls' [math] scores is negligible."

Writing in Wired, Anna Kushnir, PhD, doesn't suggest a complete societal overhaul, but she does put forth some very reasonable measures that might help keep women in the hard sciences. "Institute reasonable day care at universities. Allow for extended maternity leave and the option of paternity leave. Don’t cut women any breaks," she reasons. "They are no less inherently able to achieve than men, regardless of what certain Nobel Prize winners and heads of major Universities may say. They don’t need pity or hand me downs. They just need the freedom to choose."

The Freedom To Say 'No' [Boston Globe]
The Education Gender Gap [Salon]
Why Are Senior Female Scientists So Heavily Outnumbered by Men? [Wired]

Earlier: Do We Suck At Math Because Of Biology Or The Patriarchy?

70s Feminist: "The Most Liberated Woman Is The Singleton"

Jessica — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 14:30:00 EST

Back in the 70s, Valerie Grove wrote a book called Compleat Woman, about 20 women who supposedly "had it all" — more than three children, blossoming careers, stable marriages. (Grove said she chose women with that number of kids because "the real test begins once the children outnumber their parents." ) Anyway, in today's Times of London Grove answers the question posed by the subtitle of her book: "Marriage, Motherhood, Career Can She Have It All?" The answer might surprise you.

The answer is no, she can't have it all. Not in the least, according to Grove. "Having it all (as a life-plan) is a chimera," Grove says, usually because real life interferes. Of the 20 women who appeared in the original book, some of their marriages have ended up failing; some feel guilty for not having spent more time with their children as wee ones; some think not that much has changed in the intervening thirty years.

"As for having it all - perish the phrase," Grove now writes. "I would never write that book today, knowing that women who appear to have everything sewn-up still have moments - or years - of guilt and self-reproach, of feeling stretched and torn in too many directions. Hence the high-powered women who give up on the career. My interest in this subject has dwindled to the point where I go along with Margaret Drabble (mother of three): 'If I get into a railway carriage with a child in it, I get straight out.'"

How over child-rearing is Grove? She ends the essay with a sober note about how women end up alone anyway, so in the long run singletons may be better off. "The most liberated woman is the singleton: independent and free of anxieties about menfolk and offspring," Grove reasons. "Children are hostages to fortune: the larger the family, the more hostages for fortune to play with."

Jesus Christ, fatalistic much? Children are "hostages for fortune to play with?" I mean, I understand arguing for fewer than three children — for a working couple, attention resources can be stretched mighty thin when you have a passel of rugrats — but she's basically arguing that life is wretched and bringing children into this cold, hard world is pointless. I can get behind her notion that "having it all" is an illusion, but damn, woman, our prospects are not so bleak.

How Did Seventies Feminists Fare? [Times of London]