Juggling Work and Family

Two recent articles, both by feminists, suggest contemporary feminism is struggling to find its way. In Female Ivy League Graduates Have a Duty to Stay in the Workforce, Keli Goff posits an extreme view, arguing women have a greater obligation to their gender, and those who wish to be wives and mothers should stay out of Ivy League schools entirely:

There's nothing wrong with someone saying that her dream is to become a full-time mother by 30. That is an admirable goal. What is not admirable is for her to take a slot at Yale Law School that could have gone to a young woman whose dream is to be in the Senate by age 40 and in the White House by age 50.

In Why Women Should Embrace the Good Enough Life, Elsa Walsh argues that the periodic "discussion about women and feminism, work and family" has become "a narrow conversation, centered largely on work, as though feminism is about nothing more than becoming a smart and productive employee and rising to the top."

Parenthood and family are much more central to our lives than this conversation lets on. The debate has become twisted and simplistic, as if we’re merely trying to figure out how women can become more like men. Instead, let’s ask: How can women have full lives, not just one squeezed around a career? It helps to take a longer view of a woman’s life...

Walsh offers a bit more conservative advice to her own daughter based on that longer view.