AUSTIN, Texas -- In 1901, a Henry T. Finch, writing in The
Independent, reported: "Women's participation in political life would
involve the domestic calamity of a deserted home and the loss of the womanly
qualities for which refined men adore women and marry them. ... Doctors tell
us, too, that thousands of children would be harmed or killed before birth
by the injurious effect of untimely political excitement on their mothers."
I'm trying to imagine an Al Gore speech that would provoke
"untimely political excitement."
Actually, what I'm trying to do is remind y'all of the fine
American tradition of everybody and his hamster feeling free to make vast,
sweeping prescriptions for the entire female gender. We have just been
through a modest little media orgy over both Karen Hughes' decision to
resign from the White House and Sylvia Hewlett's book pointing out that it
gets harder to have babies as we get older.
Everybody gets to have an opinion about Karen Hughes'
resignation, as though we were somehow entitled to sit in judgment of her.
Feminists supposedly feel (although I haven't been able to find one who
does) that Hughes somehow "let down the side" by resigning, as though she
had some obligation to prove she could handle a high-profile political
career and mom-dom. Anti-feminists supposedly feel great vindication: This
proves no one can do it and stay-at-home moms are best.
Sometimes I think the media just make stuff up. Every woman I've
talked to around the country has said: "Good for Karen Hughes. She made her
own decision." And since Karen Hughes is an especially sensible person, I'm
sure it's the right decision for her.
The only other thing to add is, "How nice that she was able to
make that choice." So many working women don't have that option. Wouldn't it
be good if this society responded to the needs of its' hardest-working and
most stressed-out citizens, working mothers, with some of the measures
common in other rich democracies -- paid leave, reduced hours, career
breaks, day-care, etc.
For some reason, I thought we were already past this one -- of
course you can have it all, of course you have both a career and a family.
You will, however, be tired for about 20 years. There is a critical need for
structural changes in this society to accommodate working mothers, which is
why we need more women in public office. Look at President Bush's new
budget: It cuts money for job training for women trying to get off welfare,
cuts money for child-care for women trying to get off welfare. That's moving
backward.
Our second flappette is over the Hewlett book, "Creating a Life:
Professional Women and the Quest for Children." How many women are actually
on a quest to have children? Hewlett seems to have been -- she has four
children, and in order to have the last, she went through five years of
fertility treatment and produced the baby at 51. How nice that she had that
choice. As a woman of a certain age (57), I certainly find that game of her.
Any questions I may have about her sanity are being rigidly suppressed by my
support of a sister to make her own choices.
The mystery here is why the book wound up on the cover of Time
magazine, and on "Good Morning America," "60 Minutes," etc. Were there
actually a lot of people out there who thought a woman could easily have a
child in her 50s?
Peggy Orenstein, author of "Flux: Women on Sex, Work, Love and
Kids in a Half-Changed World," said: "Where were the women at Time? Where
the women at 'Good Morning America'? Where were the women at '60 Minutes'?"
Her point being that women who are editors and news producers, as well as
mothers and non-mothers, are in quite a good position to make news judgments
about Hewlett's book. New or not new? Well researched or not?
Hewlett cites the notoriously bad 1986 Harvard-Yale study that
claimed a woman's chances of marrying after 40 were less than that of being
killed by terrorist. The study has been thoroughly discredited -- although
it did lead to Kaye Northcott's immortal response, "Well, we'll just have to
get cracking."
As Katha Pollitt points out, Hewlett's "study" fails to take
into account those women --and men -- who say they want children but conduct
their lives as though "have kids" were on to-do list between "learn Italian"
and "exercise." They probably don't really want kids that much, don't you
think?
Like "senioritis" and "the ticking biological clock," the
media's promotion of this book seems to designed to induce panic in women,
though I'm hard put to see about what. If you want to have kids, have kids.
If you don't want to have kids, don't have kids. Don't do anything until
you've lived long enough to make an intelligent choice. Don't leave the
choice until too late. That's the advice from my hamster.
To find out more about Molly Ivins and read features by other
Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web
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