Back in the 1990s, I read a couple of articles asserting that a large number of 20something women were fed up with the rat race. Too much work for too little gain. Tired of paying their dues. So why not get married instead? Find a husband who can support them (and kids, if they choose to have any) in the style to which they’d like to become accustomed. Then they could stay home, work part-time or start their own business, depending on what they felt like.
After 9/11, as Susan Faludi chronicled in The Terror Dream, there were a spate of articles about how women wanted to quit their jobs and find someone — if your life could be snuffed out by a terrorist at any second, why spend it at the office? Isn’t being with your family what really matters?
Last October, Glamour published an article in the same vein: lots of women announcing online that they’re embracing their feminine nature by quitting work or at least working only as much as they have to. The rat race was designed for men: they’re women! I should add the writer is quite critical of the assumptions that being a professional is innately unfeminine and that financial dependence on a spouse/partner is a winning strategy
As several feminists have pointed out over the years, one thing articles like these have in common is gendering: nobody ever asks the men whether any of them have the same thoughts. One woman in the Glamour article says “I don’t want to hustle, I simply want to live my life slowly and lay in a bed of moss with my lover and enjoy the rest of my existence, reading books and creating art and loving the people in my life.” I suspect a lot of men might think that was cool too. A lot more men are stay-at-home dads than used to be. One study found a lot more men would like to stay home and be primary caregiver than get to do it.
There are lots of factors to consider here but very few relate to innate female nature. First, as plenty of stories since the pandemic started have pointed out (no links handy, sorry), work often sucks. Pay is low, performance under-rewarded, management pay is out of proportion to the value they deliver, and attempts to improve things get everyone’s back up (I’ve seen my friends deal with that). It’s worse for women because the old saying is often true: they have to work twice as hard to get half as far, which raises the question whether the journey is worth it. Outright sexism and harassment drive lots of women away from jobs they might otherwise enjoy.
Plus, to paraphrase America Ferrara in Barbie they have to be rational and not at all emotional yet not be an ice princess; they have to be attractive enough but not so goodlooking people don’t take them seriously; she has to be strong and assertive but not too tough to be unfeminine (these are not original insights with me). That’s a narrow path to walk.
That said, there’s nothing wrong with choosing that path (though choices based on “I’m the top rainmaker but I’ve been passed over for partner six times” isn’t exactly choice) but as Glamour noted, being dependent has its own risks. Nor should going “soft girl” (or whatever the male equivalent would be) have to mean complete rejection of careers. As one woman said “why can’t you be crushing your goals and still feel well and not absolutely burnt out?”
To close with, a few relevant links:
Many black women are still committed to entrepreneurship.
Equal division of parenting often isn’t as equal as men think. It doesn’t help that schools, sports and other kid-related organizations can’t grasp the idea of co-parenting.
For more about misogyny and sexism at work or at home, feel free to buy Undead Sexist Cliches, available for Kindle, in paperback or other ebook formats.
