Blog Option 3: Can Women Have It All?

            A Short History of Women by Kate Walbert is a novel ripe with the theme of feminism and seems to ask the question whether women can “have it all.” This question has been haunting me as my husband and I contemplate having a family, potentially juggling law school, as well as his career. While scouring the internet searching for a news story/political issue to correlate with the novel I came across an article written by Ann-Marie Slaughter called “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All.” Slaughter is a career woman, wife and mother who once held what she described as “a foreign policy dream job” (para. 1) in the State Department. She mentions in the article that having a job with a flexible schedule is key to having it all. Her job as a professor at Princeton offered her that flexibility so she was able to be there with her children and be at work while her children were away. She goes on to say that women like her, who hold powerful positions, are the reason “millions of women feel  that they are to blame if they cannot manage to rise up the ladder as fast as men and also have a family and an active home life (and be thin and beautiful to boot” (para. 5).

            This immediately reminded me of Caroline Townsend Barrett Deel’s chapter in A Short History of Women. Caroline is a career driven divorcee with one daughter away at college. At the end of her chapter the book describes a scene when Caroline is just coming home from work: “Her briefcase bulged on the side table; she might steal a few hours before bed. Too much to do. There was too much to do. For, what? Money? Yes, and no. It was beyond that” (Walbert, 222). It seems as Caroline reflects back on her life that she regrets working so much. She regrets divorcing her husband and not spending time with her daughter while she had the chance.

            The struggle demonstrated by Caroline in the novel and Slaughter in reality seem similar. Both are feminists that value career driven women and look down upon those who might have the audacity to choose family over the commitment to their career. It is important to note that Slaughter left her government position and went back to a tenured position at Princeton in order to be there for her husband and children. She also believes women can have it all and at the same time just not in this economy and societal structure. She mentions two remedies to the issue of feminism and having it all of which I can fully agree with. Firstly, women need to stop looking down on other women who consider family time when considering career options. Lastly, she recommends rallying behind representative female influences in the government because only women will understand the struggles their fellow women go through. Then and only then will women truly be able to have it all.

            The article is wonderfully written. If you care to read it Click here for the article.