LOL Feminism with Elizabeth Wurtzel

Elizabeth Wurtzel, author of Prozac Nation, has written an article for The Atlantic about “1% wives”, the rich women with nannies who lunch and shop and are ruining feminism by staying out of the job market. In Wurtzel’s mind, educated women should be in the workplace, pulling their own weight. All I could think while reading it was “Oh, Elizabeth. I always thought you’d be more likeable once you had time to mature a bit.”

I doubt whether the women she is speaking of really had all that much career potential to begin with. A woman who spends her free time shopping at Chanel and getting facials at Tracy Martyn probably wasn’t going to set the workplace on fire. However, Wurtzel labels women who do not work outside the home as women who are hurting feminism, and that is a concern. It’s an excellent example of a feminist getting distracted by an easy issue, rather than addressing the difficult questions that modern women face. Most women don’t fall into the “1% wives” category, and it’s nonsensical to spend time ranting about the few, rich women who are frittering their lives away when the vast majority of women face tougher questions.

Here’s the reality for today’s woman: Women can have it all. They just have to work 20 hours a day, seven days a week to have it.  Do you want to be the modern, fulfilled woman that you always wanted to be? Adoring husband, loving children, rewarding career? Here’s reality: You will have to work 60 hours a week minimum at work to keep up with the childless people. Then, you’ll need to spend quality time with the children who insist on being fed, loved, and educated. If you’d like to have any sort of sex or romantic life, you better budget in some hours to deal with that. You need to go to the gym to keep up your physique, as well. You’d better stay organized around the house and cook a meal once in a while, too. When, exactly, are you planning to sleep?

The problem with feminism is not women who take time off from the workplace. The real problem with feminism is dealing with the systemic realities that affect us at work and home. Here are some of my real world problems, none of which can be easily solved.

  • I really want that promotion at work. I am up against two single, childless guys who can dedicate their life full-time to the office. I can put in more hours for the next several weeks to look good but what happens if one of the kids gets sick? My husband is in a competitive job as well and someone will have to take care of the child. How do we decide who stays home with the sick kid?
  • After we had baby number two, I went back to work for a while but I got laid off. I’m the only one in my department that got laid off and of course, they acted like maternity leave had nothing to do with it. I can’t prove anything. So, the economy sucks and I haven’t found anything comparable to that job so far.
  • I heard one of the vice-presidents in my office say “Women with small children are not very focused on their jobs.” What is going to happen when she finds out I’m pregnant? Am I actually naïve enough to believe that this won’t affect my prospects here?
  • I just started back at work after our third baby. I spend half an hour each way commuting. The baby sleeps in 3.5 hour stretches. I have to be in the office from 8:30-6:00 or people will think that I am slacking off. I drop the baby off at daycare and my husband takes the kids to school. One of us always seems to run late for work. Someone has to pick the baby by six or we get fined. I have no vacation time left. I’m exhausted and I want to die.
  • The other day, I noticed that my daughter seems more bonded to her nanny than to me. This is probably because I leave the house half an hour after she gets up and I see her for about half an hour before bed. This bothers me.
  • I buried both my parents before the age of 40, and I’ve concluded that time is irreplaceable. I’d rather earn less and have more time at home. Does this mean I have pooped on women’s rights everywhere?

Elizabeth Wurtzel thinks I’m being a bad feminist for whining about any of this. It is very difficult for parents of small children to keep up with childless people in the workplace. Nannies take days off. Children constantly get sick. Babysitters are late. Daycares close. These realities are going to affect someone’s performance at work, whether it is mom or dad. I don’t care how great your daycare is, they will send a child with a fever home. Your co-workers will notice when you are late due to daycare problems, sick kids, school events or any of the myriad inconveniences that go along with having a child.

Why should life be so unbelievably difficult for mothers or families in general? I think the only way to achieve the kind of equality that she is talking about is for women to stop marrying and having children. That would solve the whole problem. But what if you want a family?

The debate, in my mind, needs to be a bit larger than “Should Mom Work?” The question is, how should families function while the children are young? Does it always need to be at the expense of the mother’s career?  Why don’t we have better options? Why do all are choices have to be so difficult? And why are people hiring women without families to write about how mothers should behave?

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