Raise Your Kids or Go to Work: Feminism vs. Post-Feminism in Modern America

I own a ring that belonged to my great aunt, Leslie. I love the ring because the delicate setting of the ring sings a vintage lullaby. I love the ring because it is pink (my true favorite color, as much as I try to tell everyone it’s blue). Mostly, I love the ring because it belonged to my great aunt, who was a lovely and incredible woman. I often catch myself looking at the ring and thinking of the life my aunt led compared to the life I lead. Though my aunt was very fortunate in her role as a lifelong socialite – she had the ability to travel, volunteer on various women’s committees, and briefly owned her own boutique – whenever I look at her ring, I realize that whereas I have a multitude of choices for how to live my life, my aunt’s choices were realistically quite limited.

The fact that I, as a woman of the twenty-first century, have options is due in large part to the feminist movements that begin in the United States during the 1960s. These bra-burning ladies certainly advanced the rights of women, and I think that each woman should say a little “Hallelujah!” and “Thank you!” to the women who stood up and demanded that all women be given equal wages, equal opportunities, and equal rights across the board. Thanks to these feminists, women are now actually allowed to sit across the board table from men, and are doing so in increasingly large numbers.

Growing up within the public school system, I was always intrigued and a bit confused when it came time to talk about feminism and women’s rights. I knew I despised the twerp two lockers down from me who popped girls’ bra straps (as if having to wear a bra for the first time wasn’t bad enough!), but I could never fully get behind the banner cause of Feminism with a capital ‘f’. Even as I went to high school and then college, I understood the importance of the feminist movement that began in the 1960s, but I could never picture myself as one of them. Now, this isn’t to say that I haven’t encountered sexism and it isn’t to say that I don’t believe in women’s rights – I absolutely do! It’s just that I never felt as though feminism fully incorporated my beliefs about women and their right to choose their life path.

Let me tell you a brief story to explain and illuminate my thoughts. During my first year in college, a hall mate pinned a postcard to my wall that featured a smiling 1950’s bombshell saying, “Make your own damn dinner.”

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Upon returning to my dorm room to find this card, my heart sank – was this really her impression of me? I actually love to cook, and I had always admired my mom and my aunt for cooking dinner for their families; to me, cooking dinner didn’t seem to be a sign of repression, but rather a sign of devotion and love for one’s family. It was at that moment that I realized the clear disconnect between feminism and my personal beliefs. It took until my senior year of college to hear the word “post-feminism,” and it has taken until now for me to be able to articulate my closely held beliefs about women’s rights, the need for an expanded form of feminism, and the hazards of old fashioned feminist ideology in modern day politics.

Feminism refers to a variety of movements that have worked to garner support for equal political, social, and economic rights as well as equal opportunities for women. These movements have been tremendously important throughout the history of women, and feature such key individuals as Mary Wollstonecraft and Susan B. Anthony. Post-feminism is a much more disputed term, and, depending on who you speak to, is either thought to be a form of feminism or a critique of feminism. Moreover, post-feminism can refer to a number of various beliefs that range from the idea that women’s rights have been achieved and we should all move on with our lives (think Carrie Bradshaw) to the idea that we shouldn’t focus on “women’s rights” versus “men’s rights,” but rather “people’s rights.”

I’d like to present myself as a feminist who believes in a different kind of post-feminism, which you’ll find traces of elsewhere in feminist literature. My view may be more closely aligned with the Carrie Bradshaw form of feminism, but I absolutely believe that women have more to accomplish and still need to focus on women’s rights. Trust me, if you’ve ever spent time in office hours in an old-boys-club university, you’ll see just how sexist academia still is and how much more ground needs to be gained.

However, I do not believe that being a feminist must lead every woman down the same path – and that is exactly where my views differ from the majority of feminists. I believe that a woman’s right to choose her life path is exactly that – her right and her choice. I cannot agree with any woman who believes that another woman is “lesser” because she has chosen to stay home, raise her children, and cook dinner rather than climb the corporate ladder. Feminists work for equality between the genders, but what about equality within the female gender? Every woman, as a member of the female sex, should be an equal with her neighbor and should be able to make her own decision about which life she wants to pursue. This element of choice is a major problem for the feminist movement, and will come to a head in the political arena as more women from all backgrounds heed the call and enter into public service.

If I were to begin a lecture with the phrase “Women in politics,” I’m sure you would immediately have a couple of women come to mind. Secretary of State Hilary Rodham Clinton and former Alaska governor Sarah Palin made headlines during our last U.S. presidential election as major players in the political arena. Even today, Ms. Palin continues to make headlines as the speculation about whether she’ll run in 2012 is debated by the media (check out Ryan’s post Sarah Palin’s America, Pt 1 for a great overview of her potential candidacy). These two women can provide an extremely insightful case study into how the American media and the American public understood the two women and their priorities.

Ms. Clinton was portrayed as a working woman; Ms. Palin was portrayed as a working mom. The difference in vocabulary is slight, but the difference in perception by the American people is vast. Conservatives portrayed Ms. Clinton as a high-powered political shrew; liberals portrayed Ms. Palin as an ignorant stay at home mom turned politician. (“Besides,” the liberals might say, “she wasn’t very good at being a mom, now was she? Might as well try something new.” As if your child never made a mistake…) Neither portrayal is very accurate, but when it comes to the current state of American media, accuracy is so last season and sensationalism is the new black.

What these portrayals can teach us is that liberal America doesn’t see a place in politics for women who chose the family path, and conservative America wants to see women who have achieved work-life balance and have personal ambition. Liberal America had such an easy time laughing at and writing off “Hockey Moms for Sarah Palin” signs, but I’m afraid they won’t have such an easy time laughing at their losses when more women align themselves with the life stories of conservative women politicians. As more intellectuals turned mothers turned politicians enter into the political world, it will be the conservative base that accepts these women. The liberal base will have a difficult time retaining women’s votes if they continue to shun the intellectual turned stay at home mom as a “waste of talent.”

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If the liberal base continues to disparage the choice and right of a woman to stay home and raise her children, then they will have quite the tough time gaining the votes of these women. As more women enter into the political arena within the next decade, it will become more and more important for women voters to identify personally with the woman they vote for – this is a trait that almost all women have, whether or not they’ll own up to it. Women like women who they feel as though they have something in common with, and as more women advance in politics, female voters will want to identify with their political candidate. If a stay at home mom feels and understands that her party’s political candidate believes that women who value family over career have made the wrong choice, then she will be more apt to consider the alternative party.

As more women earn college and postgraduate degrees, it will be their vote that becomes important to capture. The liberal base needs to reconsider their hardcore perception of feminists as those women who are “breaking the glass ceiling” and understand that every mother, volunteer, and career woman who leaves work early three days a week to chauffer her kids to soccer practice and the science fair can be just as much of a feminist (one who believes in choice!) as the woman who is dogged on becoming the CEO of a Fortune 500 company.

Let me finish with this thought: when I was in high school, I told a close pair of family friends, who are quite liberal, that I wanted to attend college, work, and then stay home to raise my children while they were young (as green as I was, I envisioned the perfect job that would let me work from home and still advance my career). Instead of responding with positive encouragement, they said to me, “Why would you waste your time going to college if all you want to do is be a stay at home mom?” That, ladies and gentlemen, is one small glimpse into the liberal mindset of motherhood versus career; and that, ladies and gentlemen, is why liberals will have a difficult time retaining the female vote as more mothers turned politicians enter into the American political arena.

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