Full Time Motherhood?, How Selfish

Hartford Courant ^ | 11/05/05 | Julie Shiller

[kalee]

Full-Time Motherhood? How Selfish November 5, 2005 BY JULIE SHILLER

Across the nation, privileged young women are seeking to be competitive candidates to gain admittance to prestigious universities. Impressive SAT scores, awards, grades and extracurricular activities are of the utmost importance for college-bound high school students and their families.

The priorities of many of today's elite young women, however, are surprisingly conventional, according to one survey. The most fortunate and educated women say they will conform to traditional gender roles after completing their Ivy League degrees. They are choosing careers as full-time mothers and expect to be supported financially by their successful spouses. Such expectations are utterly selfish and a dishonor to the struggles that the Second Wave feminists (those who came of age in the '60s and '70s) endured for my generation.

ADVERTISEMENT Today, many white women who were fortunate enough to be born into wealthy families are taking their limitless opportunities for granted. In a recent article in The New York Times, "Many Women at Elite Colleges Set Career Path to Motherhood," Louise Story examines this issue. More than 60 percent of Yale women surveyed concluded that when they become mothers, they plan on working only part time or not at all. Although feminism promotes the right for these elite women to choose, they are unappreciative of their economic privilege. Story claims that they "are likely to marry men who will make enough money to give them a real choice about whether to be full-time mothers."

As a Third Wave feminist, I am embarrassed that Story could make such an assertion. Do these women feel a sense of entitlement to be entirely supported by their husbands? Although all women should be permitted to be full-time mothers, most do not have the freedom to stop working outside the home. It is not an equal choice when less wealthy and marginalized women are not granted the option. Women who were born into an unearned advantaged position are relinquishing their power and independence to patriarchy.

Females in the Victorian era were silenced and forced into restrictive feminine roles. Hartford's Charlotte Perkins Gilman wrote "The Yellow Wallpaper" in 1892 during a time when even well-off women were forced into domestic roles that did not challenge their intellectual abilities. The protagonist, a privileged white woman, was labeled a "hysteric" by a male-dominated scientific community that desperately sought a way to repress her for questioning her forced submission. In reality, she was merely responding to being suppressed by her husband and the controlling patriarchy. Now young women are choosing to return to the silence.

Today's liberated, Ivy-League-educated women are willing to sacrifice their privilege and their opportunities to become independent leaders of the 21st century. They are eschewing the opportunities that Gilman's protagonist and other oppressed women of the time yearned for. Ivy League women are not taking advantage of the ability they have to make incredible strides in the fight for gender equality that would benefit women from all backgrounds. Instead, they are choosing to use their power for their own selfish desires.

In the Victorian era, women were forced by men to adhere to submissive, weak and emotional roles as a way for males to maintain ultimate control and status. Now young, dominant women are in a commanding position to enhance the civil liberties granted to disadvantaged women and other minority groups. Unfortunately, the future of our nation has been placed in the hands of elite young women who have chosen to thoughtlessly improve their own lives while jeopardizing the future of those that they had the power to assist.

Julie Shiller, 20, of West Orange, N.J., is a junior majoring in sociology at the University of Hartford.

[4mycountry]

Barf

[klva]

Of course, it's so selfish to want to raise your own children instead of
contracting that job out. I guess making sacrifices like living in a smaller
house, traveling less, and having less disposable income is selfish too.

Her message is that a career is, without question, more important than
a child.

I hope she chooses never to have children. What an idiot!

[N3WBI3]

LOL! I think these women who are getting Ivy league educations and then staying home are a tribute to how wonderful motherhood can be. Best of all they are in a position that if for some reason they have to support their kids (the death of their husband) they are prepared..

Best of all its pissing off liberal feminist..

[paudio]

This article will bite her later when she decides to have a kid... Providing she wants.

[joesnuffy]

majoring in sociology

$100,000 for a Sociology degree?....

Who cares... it's not like "I'm" actually paying for it.....

giggle giggle...

[Slings and Arrows]

Julie Shiller, 20, of West Orange, N.J., is a junior majoring in sociology at the University of Hartford.

Miss Shiller will be supported by the phrase "You want fries with that?"

[BenLurkin]

It'll disappear just like Hillary's graduation thesis.

[Northern Yankee]

Although all women should be permitted to be full-time mothers, most do not have the freedom to stop working outside the home. It is not an equal choice when less wealthy and marginalized women are not granted the option. Women who were born into an unearned advantaged position are relinquishing their power and independence to patriarchy.

So... let me get this straight... women who opt to stay at home to raise families, thereby giving other women who may have that choice, an opening into the job market, are considered selfish?

I am having trouble with the logic.

[vbmoneyspender]

I've never understood this idea that women are repressed in marriage. Anyone who says that has never spent anytime married women, let alone married women. Most women have strong wills and can be quite relentless in achieving their goals.

[I still care]

I remember years ago, while working in a hospital, a conversation a large group of nurses was having. It ran something on the level of this:

"This career crap is bs. I want to get married, have babies, and be supported by my husband. I think this lib stuff is garbage. I think someone is putting something over on women."

[Lizavetta]

Do these women feel a sense of entitlement to be entirely supported by their husbands?

Women who were born into an unearned advantaged position are relinquishing their power and independence to patriarchy.

Ms. Schiller: Please please please never marry. No man deserves such a hell.

Isn't it amazing that a college junior is so undertrained in logic that she doesn't see the foolishness of her argument. She calls the ones who choose motherhood, which is to serve others, selfish.....and feminism, which is to cater to self, the right path.

[WV Mountain Mama]

By the way, let's do the math. How much does it cost to have a live in nanny, now add in a house keeper to do the laundry twice a week, clean the house 3 times a week (we are talking about top to bottom cleaning, not just one room), and a full time chef. Let's use an approximate cost of $800/week. The cost of childcare alone in the daycare I worked for would be $400/week for my children for a 6 am to 6 pm day.

800 x 52=41600. Now let's factor in taxes, how much would I have to make in order to afford this? Not to mention how much my children are getting from having me at home, which is incalculable.

[kstewskis]

Julie Shiller, 20, of West Orange, N.J., is a junior majoring in sociology at the University of Hartford.

'nuff said.

You cannot argue ration with an irrational mind.

Maybe someday she'll get it.

[RobbyS]

The idiot don't even know their history. before WWII the graduates of the seven sisters knew that if you wanted a career, that marriage was an impediment, so if they chose a career, they didn't expect to have a conventional family. Katherine Hepburn was typical. Then after WWII, the philosophy was to turn marriage into a profession. Then we get the Betty Fireman types who were bored stiff int he suburbs and demanded their "freedom." from male tyranny. Now many women have found that male tyranny is not so tyrannical, or no worse than the "tyranny" of a career.

[evolved_rage]

Julie Shiller, 20, of West Orange, N.J., is a junior majoring in sociology at the University of Hartford.

Another lesbo in the making. I wonder if she lusts after successful womyn like Andrea Dworkin....shudder.

[klva]

Having a career is sometimes a necessity. That's why it helps to have
a baby within a stable marriage.

But to argue that women are selfish not to work is absurd. It is clearly much
more fulfilling to get up at 5 AM, feed and dress a baby, rush to day care, rush to work, get off at 6, rush back to day care, rush back home, feed family, wash baby, but baby to sleep, try to clean or do necessary household tasks, finish at 11 pm, get up at 2 for baby, and start all over again. That sounds like the
perfect life (sarc). Those feminists sure know how to live...

[auusn]

Julie Shiller, 20, of West Orange, N.J., is a junior majoring in sociology at the University of Hartford.

The sentence is not complete.......Julie was raised in her elitist Connecticut home by her loving nanny.

Now it's finished.

[RobbyS]

My wife is from West Virginia, too. Yeah, repressed all right ;-)

[Bernard]

Wait a minute - my daughter graduated with a Bachelor degree in sociology in May 2004 and is not like this person. Of course, she went to a small liberal arts college in western Illinois where Bush 41 was the commencement speaker the spring before she started there. So, there may be something in the choice of schools after all.

[austinaero]

I think it's wonderful too. Just imagine the wealth of knowledge and resources that are made available to their children because either parent, in this case the mother, is educated. What a wonderful thing!