Feminism: the Sequel

So there's a debate that's been exploding in recent days around differing views of the work-family balance. One camp says women are leaving the workforce to stay home with the kids. (Bad.) The other says this is an overblown media myth that focuses on an elite minority and scares women about the choices they're making. (Also bad.)

So, who's right?

Both sides have incredibly well respected researchers making their cases. There's the blame the women who don't work side: Linda Hirshman, a former researcher at Brandeis, and Leslie Bennetts, who just wrote The Feminine Mistake. And of course, Lisa Belkin, who wrote the NYT magazine piece about the "opt-out revolution" about women who choose to give up their professions and power. Taking the media myth argument are Claudia Goldin, a Harvard economist and E.J. Graff, a current researcher at Brandeis, along with Caryl Rivers.

As Rosie O'Donnell said to Meg Ryan in Sleepless in Seattle when disputing the media myth that more woman are likely to be struck by lightening than married over 40: It's not true, but it feels true.

Juggling work and family is hard. Tiring. Challenging. But does that mean women have decided to choose one over the other? For the majority of working moms, it isn't. Most are sticking it out. Even though the numbers are trending down, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor stats, there's no clear evidence that women will continue to leave the workforce to stay home with young kids. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

The few women I know who have traded the office for the nursery have done so to initially focus on raising young children, and are now working flexible, part-time hours. It's a workable solution. Finding good childcare and a good job that's understanding of families is really hard. Much harder, frankly, than it should be, four decades after feminism got us so many gains.

But to spend so much energy decrying women who stay home with children is not only a pretty much pointless exercise, it negates what we should be discussing, which is how working mothers are faring in the workplace, and how it can be made better.