This past summer, Anne-Marie Slaughter wrote a widely- read
piece for
The Atlantic Magazine
entitled
Why
Women Still Can't Have It All. The gist: It’s time to question the old
adage that women can have it all (i.e., the career and the family life); those
that do manage it all are “super women, rich, or self-employed,” and if having
it all is ever going to be more accessible, certain shifts in the work place
must occur such as integrating technology, reemphasizing family values, redefining
the successful career track and reprioritizing happiness as a goal.
Was this article provocative? Yes. Did it draw attention to a work system that
favors points of privilege as a necessary means to climb the corporate ladder
and burst through ceilings? Of
course. Indeed, Slaughter showcases how
career-focused societal norms within the United States is in direct odds with
most women’s lived experiences while shining a spotlight on why it’s flawed to
push the notion that if we just work hard enough, we’ll get the career and the
kid and the “partner.”
You might be wondering why I put partner in quotes. Had Slaughter discussed any partnership
outside of hetero scripts, I wouldn’t have felt as though she was merely paying
lip service to the word. Indeed,
traditional family structures and partnerships, often couched in the context of
marriage, were the only “partnerships” Slaughter really exemplified. This, I consider, the proverbial tip of the
problematic iceberg.
While, I think that Slaughter intended to question and problematize
blaming women who do not, cannot or chose not to place career before family (I
applaud Slaughter for this), I found Slaughter’s stance to stigmatize
women-identified individuals who want to prioritize work, who chose not to or
don’t want to have a family and who might not find motherhood or partnership
status the zenith of satisfaction.
Slaughter presupposes that all women define “having it all” in the same
manner. The aftermath?: reinforcing the
notion that “true womanhood” is defined by domestic markers and a heaping
spoonful of guilt for those that fail to or chose not to abide. Slaughter warns
that if we fail to live a “balanced life” (defined as that which incorporates a
nuclear family and career aspirations), we might end up as “the angry woman on
the other side of a mahogany desk who questions her staff’s work ethic after
standard 12-hour workdays, before heading home to eat moo shoo pork in her
lonely apartment.” I was shocked to
learn that this fictitious apartment wasn't crawling with cats, since we’re
obviously relying on stereotypes.
Sarcasm aside, Slaughter managed to essentialize woman
gender identification by promulgating the Environmental Protection Agency’s
Lisa Jackson’s message: ‘“to be a strong woman, you don’t have to give up on
the things that define you as a woman. . . . Empowering yourself, doesn’t have
to mean rejecting motherhood, or eliminating the nurturing or feminine aspects
of who you are.” I certainly agree with
the last portion of this statement.
Abstaining from motherhood is certainly not necessary, but the opposite
is equally as true: Engaging in motherhood, or emphasizing family life is not a
critical component of identifying as a woman.
Slaughter only furthers the essentialized notion of woman gender
identification by suggesting that women tend to become more distraught than men
when faced with family obligations that conflict with work obligations.
Slaughter successfully addressed a flawed working society
where women are disadvantaged as well as drew some attention to the
intersection of power, career advancement and socioeconomic status. These points, despite being timely and
appropriate, may not make up for the fact that Slaughter reinforced a broad
heteronormative script to all women
by purporting that we all want the same things.
By Jessica A. Joseph, MA
