To hell with opting out
The recession is an opportune moment to refocus the narrative about women and work on the majority of women who work -- those who don't have multiple degrees or high-powered careers -- housecleaners, caregivers, night-shift workers. The women who are stuck in occupations that are primarily female — without union representation or competitive pay. The women who never had a 401(k) in the first place.
If there’s an upside to living in a time when people are feeling more broke than usual, it’s that writers on family life are becoming far more curious about people who sat out the boom years — if that’s what they were — feeling pretty broke all along. Last week, we pointed out that even Lisa Belkin of the New York Times had declared an end to the era of overparenting. Taking a cue from the title of Belkin’s most famous article, a series in the American Prospect this week (June 14-20) titled “When Opting Out Isn’t an Option” takes a long overdue look at the women who make up the vast majority of women who work.
“For too long,” writes Heather Boushey in her introduction to the series, “the narrative about working women has centered on professionals with children.” These women, she points out, make up only about 10 percent of women aged 25 to 44. And yet throughout the past decade, the other 90 percent of female workers were largely absent from what we talked about when we talked about women who work. It may be, Boushey concedes, that it was much “sexier” to trump up a false war between those who “chose” to stay at home and those who “chose” to work because at least it gave us something to argue about. “After all,” she writes, “most women must balance work with caregiving. They don’t have the option of opting out. Where’s the debate in that?”
