Janet CollinsTwenty-first Century Women
January 14th 2011 03:49
Marrying a rich man, having his kids and staying home to mind them – are these old fashioned ideas or the goals of the 21st century woman?
Catherine Hakim, a doctor of sociology from the London School of Economics,has once again challenged the notion that women aspire to top level positions and boardroom roles – and sparked a lot of debate - saying in a recent published paper that most women today would rather stay at home and mind the kids.
Hakim, no stranger to controversy, was once a champion of feminist causes particularly cultures that discriminated against women in the work place. Around 15 years ago she changed tack and has been arguing since that it is not necessarily discrimination that holds a lot of women back in their careers but a choice to put family ahead of ambition.
In 1995 Hakim’s address on Five Feminist Myths about Women’s Employment challenged contemporary feminist thinking and urged academics and social scientists to review their policies about women in the workforce. In a recently released paper Feminist Myths and Magic Medicine, Hakim argues that women still want to marry men who are richer and cleverer than themselves, despite social scientists telling us otherwise.
Her recent paper grabbed the attention of newspaper editors around the globe and was reported generally as a theory that reflected 1950s thinking when women quit work as soon as they married and devoted their lives to looking after the home, the husband and the family.
While Hakim’s views, in some circles, are being credited for undoing a lot of the good that has been done to combat gender discrimination in the workforce and sending us all back to the dark ages, even the most diehard feminist would have to admit – even if quietly – that there is some truth in her argument.
For one thing, not all women aspire to high level positions or aim to have a board position on a listed company. In fact, many of us do work to earn a living and that work may not necessarily be something that we love doing. It is simply a job, not a career. This is the same for men of course and just like women, many of them may not have the ambition or even the opportunity to get to the top. For many people work is simply that – work.
If most social scientists were to look at the whole situation this way, Hakim’s comments would not seem so antiquated and outdated. There is nothing to suggest in Hakim’s arguments that we should go back to an early 20th century societal trend where the male was the boss and the woman obeyed him or even that women should revert to being some sort of slave at home. Maybe though there are some who may yearn for a time when a woman could stay home without guilt or judgement even if they may not have been around at the time.
I would have considered myself a feminist in the past but I have to say that I have softened some of my views over the years. While I do not have children myself I watched many a friend juggle work and family life because women were supposed to have ambition too.
The reality, however, is that there are lots of women who loathe having to juggle work and family and the idea of not spending days under the critical eye of a demanding or unappreciative boss has a lot of appeal. The problem is that where staying at home was the norm for most married women in the 1950s, it is virtually impossible on a ongoing basis, for many women to stay at home now. The cost of living and material expectations prohibit most women from staying at home, even if they want to.
So the argument Hakim raises about women wanting to marry men who are richer is not so difficult to believe or to understand. Staying at home doesn’t really have the stigma it did more than a decade ago. In fact, it has become something of a luxury – a luxury that only those who have wealth or marry it can afford.
They often say that art imitates life and some of our movies and television series have done that and there seems to be a current fascination with the 50s and 60s on screen. A 1953 movie How to Marry a Millionaire was made into a television series that aired later in that decade. It has been rumoured that our own Nicole Kidman will be starring in a remake of that movie this year.
The series Mad Men, of which I am a fully fledged fan, has been gaining a rather large following after chalking up so many awards since it began a few years back. It starts in 1960 and centres around ad man, Don Draper, a man with a past who has reached the level of creative director with a prestigious advertising agency on Madison Avenue. The story lines are based around his work and his home and are reflective of the mood and social trends at the time where women were expected to stay home, particularly those who had the means to do so.
I have always believed that in some ways feminism diminished the importance of the role of mother which surely must be the important role of all. Feminism should be about choice but unfortunately in most of the arguments and in reality, choice has little to do with it.
Maybe it’s not only in our films and television shows that we have found a taste for an era past but let's not gloss over the fact that in these years many government agencies and large corporations had policies that gave women no choice but to resign as soon as they married and very few had a higher education.
There were definitely good sides to a woman's life in the 50s and 60s, particularly if she had a successful husband. For others it was a kind of entrapment. Let's not forget that.
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Comment by Journeywoman
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This is definitely a controversial topic but I think it really highlights how important it is for women to follow their hearts, and do what they know (deep down) is the right thing for them - whether that be a career, motherhood, or a combination of the two.
I hear quite often of women (Gen Xs, usually) who have been taught that true life satisfaction comes from having a great career, only to discover that it's not as fulfilling as what they'd hoped for. By then it's too late and they're unable to bear children, and they find themselves feeling like feminism has dudded them.
On the other hand, while the idea of being a 50s-style housewife and SAHM obviously has a lot of appeal for the overworked young women of today, it's not going to be a perfect fit for every woman either (which is why the Betty Friedans of the world encouraged women to break into the "man's world" of the workplace to begin with). We're not all designed to be housewives and many of us just wouldn't tolerate being under the thumb of our husbands and partners.
For me personally (a 28-year-old with my first baby arriving in June) I've been fortunate enough to have it both ways. Because I spent several years after Uni working full-time, I became financially stable on my own and was able to partner for love, not money. But because I knew that my own true calling in life was to be a mother, I was more than happy to ditch my full-time job and do freelancing and blogging instead while my partner and I tried for a baby, and he took on the role of breadwinner. The beauty of having such a choice (one that the early feminists provided for me) is that I can always pick up my career where I left off, should I still desire that once my children have grown up.
The only thing more important than knowing that you have a choice, and doing what your heart truly desires, is being respectful of other women's choices as well. A career woman is no better than a SAHM (and vice versa) and as women we'd do well to recognise that, and support each other regardless of how different another woman's decisions may be to our own. I don't think the results of this study will be damaging to feminism in that sense; in fact I'm hoping it will be exactly the opposite.
Comment by Janet Collins
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Congratulations to you too. You seem to have worked out a really good arrangement for a future family life too.
Regarding Hakim's new paper, I am actually glad she is stirring the pot even if some of her ideas are shunned as going backwards instead of forwards for women. Some attitudes we left behind (not all) weren't all that bad and may just come into vogue again.
Thanks again for your response to my post. It was really appreciated.
Janet