Lean Out

Bored, emotionally stunted housewife? Ambitious career woman who gave up her baby--and all hope of marriage and a family--in exchange for success? Ambitious career woman who tries to do it all, and ends up prostituting herself (emotionally, literally) to everyone? Forty something years later and these three pretty much still summarize a woman's "choice." (You know, white middle class women who actually have the freedom to choose.) But the fact that we are still employing these tired cliches when discussing this issue just goes to show how little shit has changed.

So, feminism has actually been deemed newsworthy for the past few weeks. Yes, I realize that most of this is fake controversy generated to sell books and magazines, but I'm still thrilled that discussions of feminism are reaching beyond if Taylor Swift identifies herself as a feminist or not (because really, who cares? She's not even a woman. She's a unicorn cupcake fairy princess, obviously.)

That said, what the hell is the conversation about anyway? Why, you guessed it! Should a woman stay home (Betty), work (Peggy), or try to do both, knowing she will fail miserably and never get as far as her male counterparts (Joan)? I'm so glad we've progressed so much in the past half century!

In case you have been asleep for the past few weeks, the "controversy" is centered around Sheryl Sanberg's book Lean In--a self-proclaimed/promoted feminist manifesto urging women to acknowledge internalized gender biases while seeking leadership positions and Lisa Miller's article for New York Magazine about "feminist housewives": women who are choosing to give up careers to stay home with their children. I haven't read Sanberg's book, just the reviews (rants) about it, but her TED Talk is truly amazing and actually helped me rethink my own decision to continue working after my son is born. I have read the Miller article and found most of it infuriating. Not  that women are choosing to leave unrewarding jobs in order to stay home with their families, but the fact that this choice is described as both a biological imperative (women are just better at nurturing children and keeping house) AND a feminist choice. I'm sorry, but if you choose to stay home because you have a vagina, there ain't nothing feminist about that.

Anyway, just the fact that Sanberg's book keeps getting thrown into these "debates" about whether women should work and stay home just proves how stalled this conversation is. This is a false choice! Sanberg's whole point is that women are earning almost 60% of the degrees in this country, but are in less than 20% of the leadership positions, and she blames this on internalized sexism. She is not advocating for women to work, but rather encouraging women who do work to "lean in" to help break the complicated gender conditioning that is holding women back. Even the fact that choosing to have a career or stay home is still portrayed as a woman's choice--rather than a parent's choice--just proves Sanberg's argument!

So now Miller is going around on the morning talk shows advocating "leaning out," a clever if misappropriated term for women choosing not to work. As if women giving up their careers and staying home is a really an innovative thing.

Anyway, her terminology is all wrong. If anybody is "leaning out," it's me. I don't really have a career. I gave up a stressful teaching job so I could sit in an office all day reading the internet in between spreadsheets and then go home at a decent hour to play with my kid. I am not vying for a promotion. If there is a meeting, I happily sit to the side and watch the better paid people stress out about stuff. I feel no guilt whatsoever calling in sick to stay with my coughing child or leaving early because I want to get to the pool at a decent hour. If I leaned anymore out, I'd be out the damn window.