Hirshman's "feminism" as masculinist ideology
Being a feminist dad can be a challenge sometimes.
Let me start by saying I know there are lots of kinds of feminism out there. But feminism is important to me in part because it opens the door for guys to escape the gender straitjacket that we've often been forced into in the past. To do so we have to question and reject the masculinist ideology we've been imbued with. It's hard, but I believe well worth it.
This brings me to writer Linda Hirschman's arguments, aired over the past several months in the American Prospect and the Washington Post (see this post at Half Changed World for details).
Hirshman is angry at well-educated women who become stay at home moms. Here are her main points, in her own words, from a recent WaPost column:
With these arguments, Hirshman is reinforcing what I call masculinist ideology of the worst kind.
First, I think it's obvious to everyone that equality of opportunity for women has been an important goal of the feminist movement from the earliest days. But in my view, that's not enough.
What's necessary is to actually change the values of our society.
Currently those values are masculinist. That is, our society values traditional masculine-defined measures of success -- power, money, competition, control -- while it devalues things that are traditionally associated with the feminine -- caring, nurturing, relationships, nonmaterial values -- which are also all crucial to the process of raising children. The lack of balance between the two makes for an unhealthy society.
Hirshman is reinforcing the skew towards masculinist values in our society, rather than trying to shift those values. Her perspective is that of a person who has all the advantages that make for success in a masculinist world -- with the sole exception of being a female.
Hirshman is arguing that women who are wealthy and educated and class privileged should be doing exactly what men in the same position do: dominate society, and be rewarded for their domination. For her it's the only rational thing to do.
And she's angry that some intelligent, educated people disagree with her masculinist priorities. She's angry that lives don't play out in the black and white way she thinks they should, that, as Miriam Peskowitz points out in her own excellent book, The Truth Behind the Mommy Wars, moms' lives are complex, women go into and out of the workforce, work part time or full time, that they change over time in response to their own priorities and needs.
According to Hirshman's reasoning, I was insane to stay at home full time with my daughter, given my graduate degree from a top university, and my potential earning power. I was crazy to downsize my career ambitions, to forego higher pay and higher status, just so I could spend time with my kids.
Well, I know she doesn't really care what I do, since I'm a guy, but that's what she's saying.
But my wife -- very much a feminist -- who quit a corporate career exactly because it required the performance and internalization of masculinist ideology, because she wanted to have a full life more than she wanted to earn a six figure salary or move up the corporate hierarchy and exercise dominance over underlings, because she wanted to spend time with her kids while they were little, because she re-careered into a traditionally female job (teacher) -- Hirshman I'm sure would condemn her to the deepest pits of "feminist" hell.
Is money important? Is a challenging job important? Yes. But just as important are our kids. Hirshman just doesn't get it.
Hirshman continues:
Think about what she's saying here.
Firstly, spending time raising my children is not a worthy goal.
Secondly, she is dissing those people who actually do those tasks -- and I think she misses the fact that though related, housekeeping and child rearing are two distinct activities that are very different in their importance. She is relegating people, men and women, who don't have the class privilege or personalities or skills to climb to the top of the class ladder, those people who from choice or necessity do those jobs, to the bottom of the heap, dismissing their contributions to society as second-rate at best.
Third, and I think most damningly, she totally negates the value of caring. She dismisses the value of spending time with children as they grow, the wonder of actively participating in their development. And that is tragic.
As a guy I'll say very clearly, I would not trade my time with my kids for the best job with the highest pay in the world. Those hours were more fulfilling and enriching to me than the best novel I've read or the most lucrative account I've ever managed. I feel sorry for Hirshman that she doesn't understand this.
This is all quite ironic given this complaint of Hirshman's:
She is right about this. But by reinforcing masculinist ideology rather than trying to change society and its values, Hirshman reinforces this glass ceiling.
How many guys are going to want to take the time and energy away from being "successful" in Hirshman's terms, when Hirshman herself is devaluing what happens at home? When Hirshman is basically confirming these guys' view that housework and childcare are not worthy pursuits for intelligent, educated humans?
What will change things? The kinds of discussions we are seeing among dads, especially stay at home dads, who have grappled with what Jeremy over at Daddy Dialectic calls the dialectics of dad-hood. The kinds of shift in values that leads guys to actually want to stay at home with their kids, to downsize career and status expectations in order to have relationships with their children.
In short, the only way forward is to reject Hirshman's masculinist feminism and reorient ourselves to a feminism of humanity, which recognizes the importance of a balance, not just of material achievement but also of nurturing, not just of dominating but also of caring.
Because only by making nurturing and caring into priorities, by privileging them over the pursuit of power, domination and money, will we truly be able to achieve the humanist goals of the feminist movement.
Cross posted at Daddy Dialectic.
Let me start by saying I know there are lots of kinds of feminism out there. But feminism is important to me in part because it opens the door for guys to escape the gender straitjacket that we've often been forced into in the past. To do so we have to question and reject the masculinist ideology we've been imbued with. It's hard, but I believe well worth it.
This brings me to writer Linda Hirschman's arguments, aired over the past several months in the American Prospect and the Washington Post (see this post at Half Changed World for details).
Hirshman is angry at well-educated women who become stay at home moms. Here are her main points, in her own words, from a recent WaPost column:
... women who quit their jobs to stay home with their children were making a mistake. ... I said that the tasks of housekeeping and child rearing were not worthy of the full time and talents of intelligent and educated human beings. They do not require a great intellect, they are not honored and they do not involve risks and the rewards that risk brings.
With these arguments, Hirshman is reinforcing what I call masculinist ideology of the worst kind.
First, I think it's obvious to everyone that equality of opportunity for women has been an important goal of the feminist movement from the earliest days. But in my view, that's not enough.
What's necessary is to actually change the values of our society.
Currently those values are masculinist. That is, our society values traditional masculine-defined measures of success -- power, money, competition, control -- while it devalues things that are traditionally associated with the feminine -- caring, nurturing, relationships, nonmaterial values -- which are also all crucial to the process of raising children. The lack of balance between the two makes for an unhealthy society.
Hirshman is reinforcing the skew towards masculinist values in our society, rather than trying to shift those values. Her perspective is that of a person who has all the advantages that make for success in a masculinist world -- with the sole exception of being a female.
Hirshman is arguing that women who are wealthy and educated and class privileged should be doing exactly what men in the same position do: dominate society, and be rewarded for their domination. For her it's the only rational thing to do.
And she's angry that some intelligent, educated people disagree with her masculinist priorities. She's angry that lives don't play out in the black and white way she thinks they should, that, as Miriam Peskowitz points out in her own excellent book, The Truth Behind the Mommy Wars, moms' lives are complex, women go into and out of the workforce, work part time or full time, that they change over time in response to their own priorities and needs.
According to Hirshman's reasoning, I was insane to stay at home full time with my daughter, given my graduate degree from a top university, and my potential earning power. I was crazy to downsize my career ambitions, to forego higher pay and higher status, just so I could spend time with my kids.
Well, I know she doesn't really care what I do, since I'm a guy, but that's what she's saying.
But my wife -- very much a feminist -- who quit a corporate career exactly because it required the performance and internalization of masculinist ideology, because she wanted to have a full life more than she wanted to earn a six figure salary or move up the corporate hierarchy and exercise dominance over underlings, because she wanted to spend time with her kids while they were little, because she re-careered into a traditionally female job (teacher) -- Hirshman I'm sure would condemn her to the deepest pits of "feminist" hell.
Is money important? Is a challenging job important? Yes. But just as important are our kids. Hirshman just doesn't get it.
Hirshman continues:
the tasks of housekeeping and child rearing [are] not worthy of the full time and talents of intelligent and educated human beingsI have to admit that this was one of the most offensive parts of her argument for me.
Think about what she's saying here.
Firstly, spending time raising my children is not a worthy goal.
Secondly, she is dissing those people who actually do those tasks -- and I think she misses the fact that though related, housekeeping and child rearing are two distinct activities that are very different in their importance. She is relegating people, men and women, who don't have the class privilege or personalities or skills to climb to the top of the class ladder, those people who from choice or necessity do those jobs, to the bottom of the heap, dismissing their contributions to society as second-rate at best.
Third, and I think most damningly, she totally negates the value of caring. She dismisses the value of spending time with children as they grow, the wonder of actively participating in their development. And that is tragic.
As a guy I'll say very clearly, I would not trade my time with my kids for the best job with the highest pay in the world. Those hours were more fulfilling and enriching to me than the best novel I've read or the most lucrative account I've ever managed. I feel sorry for Hirshman that she doesn't understand this.
This is all quite ironic given this complaint of Hirshman's:
Oh, and by the way, where were the dads when all this household labor was being distributed? Maybe the thickest glass ceiling, I wrote, is at home.
She is right about this. But by reinforcing masculinist ideology rather than trying to change society and its values, Hirshman reinforces this glass ceiling.
How many guys are going to want to take the time and energy away from being "successful" in Hirshman's terms, when Hirshman herself is devaluing what happens at home? When Hirshman is basically confirming these guys' view that housework and childcare are not worthy pursuits for intelligent, educated humans?
What will change things? The kinds of discussions we are seeing among dads, especially stay at home dads, who have grappled with what Jeremy over at Daddy Dialectic calls the dialectics of dad-hood. The kinds of shift in values that leads guys to actually want to stay at home with their kids, to downsize career and status expectations in order to have relationships with their children.
In short, the only way forward is to reject Hirshman's masculinist feminism and reorient ourselves to a feminism of humanity, which recognizes the importance of a balance, not just of material achievement but also of nurturing, not just of dominating but also of caring.
Because only by making nurturing and caring into priorities, by privileging them over the pursuit of power, domination and money, will we truly be able to achieve the humanist goals of the feminist movement.
Cross posted at Daddy Dialectic.
posted by Chip at 9:26 AM / Permanent link /
12 Comments:
Yes. Yes. Yes.
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The concept of "masculinism" is spot on. Even before I became a dad at all, I had rejected many of the tenets of that philosophy. I've been a feminist for a long time, and I always thought that true feminism was about equal opportunities for women.
Is Hirshman's ideal that children should be raised by people who simply couldn't hack more demanding careers? What an apalling thought!
To treat caring for children as some sort of christian fundamentalist conspiracy seems ridiculous to me. I think she got some bad data there, or something. Does anyone know the statistics on that? As a former high school teacher, I found that a good number of homeschooled children were from extremely religious families, but is that necessarily true for SAHMs?
Great piece, Chip!
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Hirshman couldn't be more wrong if she tried. I'll go out on a limb here and say she's most likely not a really happy person. Anyone who doesn't see the value in raising one's own children, teaching them, nurturing, bringing them up in a way that actually contributes to the greater good, is really missing the point of being human. I'm well educated, as are most of the the SAHPs I know. We are wasting nothing. Yes, there is tedium to my day at times, but a thousand times more than that I challenged beyond my own wits, and put all of my skills to use more than in any job I ever got paid for. And there is joy in every day I am with my kids. No, it's not every second of the day, but there is so much more happiness, so much more purpose in what I do now. I'm not going to be like Hirshman at 85 and thinking, "what the hell did I do with my life?" People work because they have to. Not because it gives up "purpose". Our families give us purpose.
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Jo(e), thanks, thanks, thanks!
Dave R., excellent points. As for the fundies, she claims she checked out websites/mommy blogs and they all were fundy sites, which is obviously not true. I think she's ignoring data that she doesn't want to have to deal with. I mean, how could she acknowledge that smart intelligent thinking feminist people absolutely disagree with her? If she were serious of course she'd engage the ideas, but that's not what we're seeing, is it, so instead she avoids the debate of ideas and attacks and distorts. Sad.
Kristen, based on what I've read I think she's really been infected by that masculinist virus of too much focus on traditionally defined success to the exclusion of all else. What she is doing is projecting, and it is for some reason very disturbing to her that people she otherwise identifies with are making very different choices than she did.
I totally agree with you, I feel, as does my wife, that nothing is being "wasted" by us choosing to stay at home or downsize our career expectations. The other thing to remember is that childhood is so fleeting! Before you know it your little toddler is a teen, and then out of the house, and then it's too late.
I do think that jobs / careers can give us a sense of purpose, or at least some jobs and some people. And maybe for some people that is all they want, which is fine. My problem with Hirshman is that she is denouncing as traitors women who have different balance of values than she does (and I guess she's denouncing as stupid men who do).
Thanks for stopping by!
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Yes, she does make us out to sound like traitors to the women's movement. What she doesn't understand is that women are now in a position where they really can do whatever they want. They can work, stay home, do both at different time. So many options and so many different situations for different people. And let me correct my comment in that I did not mean to say that jobs are devoid of purpose. I've held some really enjoyable positions and have learned a lot from them. I just meant that when it comes right down to it, given a choice, most of us would prefer to spend less time at work and more with our families, since they are a good part of the purpose behind our work. This was a great post, by the way...thanks!
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Great post. I have flogged the point about the intellectual value of childcare multiple times at various pro-Hirshman blogs, asking again and again, "How do you feel about SAHDs? If women are wasting themselves, then what about men who care for children?" and also pointing out that painting all things domestic as horrid drudgery does little to draw men into contributing equally to the domestic world. The latter point is usually ignored completely, while the SAHD point, if addressed, is answered with "It's different because they're going against traditional gender roles" or "There aren't enough of them to matter," neither of which are germane to the question.
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kristen, thanks again!
Mrs. C, thanks. It's interesting that you don't get any direct answers to your question about SAHDs. And I think there's a reason for that. I think it really points to the contradictions and classist, elitist perspective of Hershman's position. I have to say, as a guy and former SAHD this is the point that struck me most strongly about her argument: "what about me???" It would be interesting to actually get an answer from her or her apologists.
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I've been looking for another daddy blog and I just found it.
I came over from Blogging Baby to thank you for your comment about L. Hirshman. You were exactly right.
My generation devalued women and that's what we were working so hard to change.
She's doing the same thing.
Ann Adams (aka granny)
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Ann, thanks for stopping by, and thanks for affirming my view. I appreciate it.
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If anyone is interested in more discussion of this post, over at Daddy Dialectic there are more comments posted, be sure to check them out!
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Gawd, what an unhappy person that Hirshman is.I hope she finds peace some day.
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Oh, man. I agree with you 100%; and I must say that being a parent has been both more challenging than anything I have ever done and more rewarding.
I would agree with her if we SAH Feminists were *trapped* and *devalued* in our positions: since she seems to be a trapping and devaluing force, she can go.. do a thing to another thing. If you see my point.
I love staying at home. I am also beginning to come to the point where I'm thinking of what else I'd like to do in the community, in my career. Since people routinely change careers these days several times over the course of their work, I don't think I'm badly hampered; excepting with attitudes like hers.
Also, I enjoy that you're daddychip2 blogging...
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