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Anne-Marie Slaughter—the Bert G. Kerstetter ’66 University Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University—recently wrote a piece for The Atlantic called “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All.” In her article, Slaughter talks about why she left her position of power in Washington D.C. to focus on her family in Princeton, N.J., and why women “can have it all”—“But not today, not with the way America’s economy and society are currently structured. My experiences over the past three years have forced me to confront a number of uncomfortable facts that need to be widely acknowledged—and quickly changed.”
When I told them I was writing this article, the lawyer said, “I look for role models and can’t find any.” She said the women in her firm who had become partners and taken on management positions had made tremendous sacrifices, “many of which they don’t even seem to realize … They take two years off when their kids are young but then work like crazy to get back on track professionally, which means that they see their kids when they are toddlers but not teenagers, or really barely at all.” Her friend nodded, mentioning the top professional women she knew, all of whom essentially relied on round-the-clock nannies. Both were very clear that they did not want that life, but could not figure out how to combine professional success and satisfaction with a real commitment to family.
The Mamma Bee reacts to this piece on her blog, saying it is “serious, but framed in a way that is so inflammatory, it’s difficult to parse the good from the bad. ” While Mamma Bee doesn’t agree with the piece and even calls it “disappointing” she does say that there are some good points made.
And yet there are some gem moments in the piece, particularly the section titled “Revaluing Family Values” that points out the tremendous double standard women face when they talk about caring for children in their non-working hours versus their peers who talk about training for a marathon. Slaughter tells the story of a male Orthodox colleague who negotiated a Sabbath-observant work schedule, and rightly notes that the same negotiation based on “family time” versus religious observance would damage a woman’s credibility. Slaughter highlights this effectively, though I wish she would have been more forthright in pointing out that’s it is nothing less than sexism.
Lisa Belkin, senior columnist for Huffington Post, wrote her support for Slaughter and commends her for the suggestionsshe make so that women really can have it all.
Some are nuts and bolts and practical. “MAKE SCHOOL SCHEDULES MATCH WORK SCHEDULES,” she writes — capitalization is hers. Or, at least, “schedule in-person meetings, whenever possible, during the hours of the school day,” and make it the norm for workers to call-in for meetings held at other times. Others are a shift of the lens on how our society defines and values work. Why is “face time” still a measure of any employee’s worth, she asks, when technology has freed so many of us to work remotely?
What do you think of Slaughter’s opinion on women in the workplace and if they really can have it all?
