January 04, 2006, 8:48 a.m.
Hirshman@Home
A feminist admits the truth.

A refreshingly honest piece in The American Prospect about women's progress concedes an important point that feminists typically deny. In "Homeward Bound," Linda R. Hirshman, a women's-studies professor who is working on a book about marriage after feminism, allows that "the public world has changed, albeit imperfectly, to accommodate women among the elite." While women have enjoyed parity in professional schools for decades, they aren't equally represented in elite workplaces. Hirshman looks at the significant number of women with professional degrees who aren't law partners or CEOs and recognizes that they have chosen to step off the career fast track. That's a choice she strongly disapproves of, but at least she admits that the career differences between the professional men and women she writes about aren't the result of widespread sex discrimination. So, "What do Women Want?" Hirshman candidly answers, "Not what they should."

She cites the census data that shows a decline over the past several years in the number of women with children who work outside the home. A survey of female Harvard MBAs found only 38 percent were working full-time. And, Hirshman conducted her own survey of "the brilliantly educated and accomplished brides" whose wedding announcements appeared in the "Sunday Styles" section of the New York Times. She looked at some of the brides of 1996, figuring they were about 40-years-old now. After all, "Who was more likely than they to be reaping feminism's promise of opportunity?" She was "shocked" to find almost all of yesterday's promising brides at home with their children.

The women and their husbands seem happy, so why should we care? Hirshman asks. "We care because what they do is bad for them, is certainly bad for society, and is widely imitated, even by people who never get their weddings in the Times." Given that "the real glass ceiling is at home," Hirshman argues that feminism should have been more radical in its aims. "It changed the workplace but it didn't change men, and, more importantly, it didn't fundamentally change how women related to men." (As if!) And, "feminists must acknowledge that the family is to 2005 what the workplace was to 1964 and the vote to 1920."

Because family life provides few opportunities for "full human flourishing," it is unjust to assign women to this sphere and "women assigning it to themselves is equally unjust." Wrong. But there is an important breakthrough here. Some of the feminists I cite in my new book, Women Who Make the World Worse argue that mothers who choose to stay at home with children are either timid or damaged, even "slightly mentally ill." The feminist fallacy holds that healthy, self-assured women all want the same thing, i.e. whatever men have. Hirshman refuses to pretend that is the case. She has seen the enemy of the modern women's movement's gender-blind nirvana — and she is us.

— Kate O'Beirne is the author of Women Who Make the World Worse: and How Their Radical Feminist Assault Is Ruining Our Schools, Families, Military, and Sports.

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