- October 9, 2015
- 11:08 am
- Al Gini
- no comments
Having It All
“Having It All”
Al Gini
Gini in the Bottle
In 2012 Anne-Marie Slaughter published an article in The Atlantic that attacked the sacred feminist-mantra that women can “Have it All.” That is, that women can hold down real jobs, prestigious jobs, socially necessary and important jobs, and at the same time, be a committed partner and an involved mother.
Slaughter had been a true believer in the “Having it All” model. She has two kids, a husband, a law professorship at Princeton and for two years she served as a Director of Policy Planning for the State Department. It was in these Washington years that she saw the light and gave up trying to “Have it All.”
According to Slaughter, giving it up was easy. She had too! She simply couldn’t do it all! She realized she couldn’t be an involved parent and a loving partner when she only came home on the weekends because she was putting in eighteen hours a day five days a week in her Washington office. And so she quit!
Her article lead her to write her newly released book Unfinished Business: Women, Men, Work, Family. In the book she wants to advocate that neither men nor women can have it all. No one, man or women, she argues is able to have an A-type career as well as an intimate, caring domestic life. Men have been trying to do it for years, says Slaughter, with, at best, mixed results. And, if it did work it’s because there was a “stay at home spouse” who took care of everything else while the man pursued a career without any other domestic worries or responsibilities.
Interestingly, what Slaughter is advocating in her new book is not simply greater equity between men and women in balancing their careers. Rather, she is arguing that society and the workplace have to change so as to support the family and domestic needs of its workforce, both men and women alike. She says we need to institutionally create the conditions that reinforce both work and family.
This in part means, referring to men with careers and kids as “working fathers,” the same way we call women “working mothers.” It means advocating for paid paternity leave with the same fervor we advocate for paid maternity leave. It means pushing corporations and the federal government to support flexible hours, generous family leaves, and quality child care.
Slaughter’s overall message is clear. She is not advocating just for women. She is not just trying to be a successful women. Rather, she’s trying to be a successful person, who recognizes “Having it All” is a myth for men and women alike!!!