The Opt Out Revolution

Extra Credit Blog:

My Summary:

The article started off describing a scene about these women who all live together and each have a degree from Princeton University and then received law degrees from Harvard and Columbia. They have families who are very supportive of their careers and allow them to have a family. The only problem is that these women do not think going to the next level in their careers is what they consider to be success. They are thankful for the escape that maternity provides from the stress of careers that are not completely fulfilling. The problem that the article points out is the fact that this was not the way it was supposed to be. Women (educated women) were supposed to achieve like men. Because once the barriers were gone these women were supposed to march toward the future and take rightful ownership of the universe, or ownership of their half. This is what the women’s movement was largely about grabbing a fair share of power, making equal money, standing at the helm in the macho realms of business and government and law. It was about running the world. It goes on to say how there were thoughts that there would have been a woman president by now along with being CEOs of major companies. The article goes on to say that these women go through all the necessary training and education to become these successful women and all of a sudden they just stop.

This is because many women never get near the glass ceiling because they are stopped long before by the maternal wall. It is shown now that between one-quarter and one-third are out of the work force. The number of children being cared for by stay-at-home moms has increase nearly 13 percent in less than a decade. But at the same time, the percentage of new mothers who go back to work fell from 59 percent in 1998 to 55 percent in 2000. Look, too, at the mothers who have not left completely but have scaled down or redefined their roles in the crucial career-building years (25 to 44). Two-thirds of those mothers work fewer than 40 hours a week -- in other words, part time. Only 5 percent work 50 or more hours weekly. Women leave the workplace to strike out on their own at equally telling rates; the number of businesses owned or co-owned by women jumped 11 percent since 1997, nearly twice the rate of businesses in general. This is a good example of the way we value work—full time, professional. The conclusion that most social scientists come to is that the workplace has failed women, but it’s not just that the workplace has failed women, but that women are rejecting the workplace.

My Opinions:

I say this with the full understanding that there are ambitious, achieving women out there who are the emotional and professional equals of any man, and that there are also women who stayed the course, climbed the work ladder without pause and were thwarted by lingering double standards and chauvinism. I also say this knowing that to suggest that women work differently than men -- that they leave more easily and find other parts of life more fulfilling -- is a dangerous and loaded statement. And lastly, I am very aware that, for the moment, this is true mostly of elite, successful women who can afford real choice making it easy to dismiss them as exceptions. To that I would argue that these are the very women who were supposed to be the professional equals of men right now, so the fact that so many are choosing otherwise is explosive. As these women look up at the ''top,'' they are increasingly deciding that they don't want to do what it takes to get there. Women today have the equal right to make the same bargain that men have made for centuries -- to take time from their family in pursuit of success. Instead, women are redefining success. Time was when a woman's definition of success. Success was about the male definition of money and power.

Questions:

What do you define as success?

Is there truly a way to be successful and have a family?