Who said “We could have it all?”

[salvorhardin]

American social movements tend to move from a collectivistic vision to one that emphasizes the success of the individual. That is precisely what happened between 1970 and 1980. Alongside the original women’s movement grew another kind of feminism, one that was shaped by the media, consumerism and the therapeutic self-help movements that sprang up in that decade. Among the many books that began promising such fulfillment for women, was the best seller “Having It All” by Elizabeth Gurley Brown (1982) who tried to teach every woman how to achieve everything she wanted in life.

Self-help magazines and lifestyle sections of newspapers also began to teach women how to have it all. Both turned a collectivistic vision of feminism into what I have elsewhere called Consumer Feminism and Therapeutic Feminism. Millions of women first heard of the movement when they read about the different clothes they needed to buy in order to look like a superwoman and the therapy they needed to become a confident and competent superwoman. Self-help books and magazines ignored the economic and social conditions women faced and instead emphasized the way in which each individual woman, if only she thought positively about herself, could achieve self-realization and emancipation.

By 1980, the idea of improving all women’s lives—sisterhood—had been transformed into creating individual superwomen. Early activists—like myself-- bristled at the idea that feminism was about individual transformation. But no matter how many articles feminists wrote, they couldn’t compete with all the books and magazines that taught women how to become an assertive, well-dressed independent woman—as long as she had the wealth to hire domestic and child care to assist her ascent into men’s world.

...

The feminist-- as remade by the media and popular culture-- emerged as a superwoman, who then turned into a scapegoat for a nation’s consumerism, the decline of families, and the country’s therapeutic culture. For this, the women’s movement’s was blamed, even though this selfish superwoman who neglected her family seemed bizarre, not to say repellent, to most of the early activists.

Full essay: http://www.opendemocracy.net/5050/ruth-rosen/who-said-%E2%80%9Cwe-could-have-it-all%E2%80%9D

[valerief]

1. Enjoli

[Warpy]

2. My generation of women was the one who got sold on "having it all"

at just about the time men's wages started to lag behind inflation far enough that our wages were absolutely necessary if we were to have half of what our parents had achieved under the New Deal.

Unfortunately, we found "having it all" meant DOING it all as we new women were stuck with the same old men, the ones who felt entitled to the services of a full time housekeeper, laundress, nanny, cook, and personal assistant. Something had to give and it wasn't the man, it was housework and sometimes even involvement with our children. There just weren't enough hours in the day.

The last paragraph of this article said some of it: "Missing from the media’s coverage of these Mommy Wars are the millions of working mothers who will never have it all, but still must do it all. Millions of women cannot afford to care for the children they have, work dead-end jobs, and cannot begin to imagine living the life of a superwoman. These are the women that the radical women’s liberation movement addressed and for whom they sought decent jobs, sustainable wages, and government training, social services and child care. These are the women who are stuck on the sticky floor, not held back by a glass ceiling."

I'm happy to say that younger men are pitching in a lot more than my generation did. However, "having it all" is an elusive dream for both sexes while government support for families remains lip service and not actual services.

[salvorhardin]

3. As usual, I couldn't agree with you more

"Family values" is a weapon wielded by the right without concern for either.

[Igel]

5. Government support wouldn't do it.

The VPs a friend nannied for are a good example. They "had it all"--the woman worked as a VP at a financial institution. Nice house. Nice neighborhood. (Okay: Great house. Great neighborhood.) Relatively easy commute. No government support, but enough money to mimic it in spades: Live in nanny.

Except that the woman was "wired" wrong for this. She resented the nannies because her young children considered them closer than "mommy." Kid skins her knee while playing on the weekend with mommy, and cries, asking for the nanny. Little boy accomplishes something with his father, and his father says, "Go show mommy"--and the boy says, "No, I'm going to show aunt Sue!"

So every year the mother insisted on a different nanny. Government support wouldn't help this. Reduced hours, working half-time, would have. But the mother wired to be a stay-at-home mom, the mother wasn't wired to miss seeing her kids growing up.

There's the utilitarian, practical side: money, labor, housework. That you can share. Then there's the emotional side of raising a family. Put the kids in a day care? Won't solve that problem or it'll keep the kids from bonding, which is no less a problem.

[Warpy]

6. You're talking about corporate Superwoman

I'm talking about the other 99% of us.

[jwirr]

7. I was in that generation also but saved from believing that I personally could have it all by being

a single mother with a very disabled child who prevented me from full time work that "should" have been the key. I did however, work hard to see that my daughter's had a chance at a better life. It is very painful to watch the current economic situation erode what they have gained. The two youngest girls are not only the sandwich generation but also are helping to take care of that disabled sister. They do not have any chance of "having it all".

[salvorhardin]

4. Century of the Self

Somewhat tangential, I know, but Ruth Rosen's thesis reminds me of Adam Curtis' documentary series Century of the Self. I can't recommend this series enough. You can watch all four parts online at http://archive.org/details/AdamCurtis_TheCenturyOfTheSelf.