Destiny’s Child
To paraphrase a basic rule of physics--a class I never took because girls rarely did that sort of thing when I was in high school--for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. When women got tired of the wife-and-mother model, the pendulum swung as far in the other direction as possible: The early days of feminism were all about quantifiable equality: equal pay, equal opportunity in the workplace, dollar-for-dollar parity on the college athletic field. We wanted to be just like the guys, down to what now seems like a parody of their power suits, with silk bows to mimic their neckties.
Life is never as simple as a new suit of clothes and good intentions, though, and in the decades since Betty Friedan wrote “The Feminine Mystique,” we have learned just how elusive equality can be. Women crack their skulls on the glass ceiling, switch onto the mommy track so that they can catch a glimpse of their children and find too often that they work what sociologist Arlie Hochschild calls “the second shift”--a full day at work, bracketed by another eight hours raising a family. Women who stay at home too often spar with their working sisters about whose life has more meaning.
Any sane parent yearns for better times for a daughter. Michael Gurian’s “The Wonder of Girls” says that the solution is a philosophy he calls “womanism.” Be forewarned, weary parents: What is clearly a well-intentioned attempt to do right by our girls is in fact another swing of the pendulum. There are bits of wonderfully useful advice along the way--Gurian is at his best when it comes to the nuts and bolts of rearing a daughter--but he packages them in a philosophy that chills my heart.
It boils down to this: Recent biological research confirms that girls and boys are different in profound physiological ways. We can do one of two things with this information: either refine the process that gets us to equality, so it serves both sexes well, or use biology to dignify what is essentially a return to a double standard. Womanism suggests that biology is destiny and, as Gurian explains it, “provides for the equal status of girls and women without robbing them of the natural need for dependency on men.” Gurian uses science not to alter the process of parenting but to redefine the goal.
And how is tomorrow’s woman supposed to feel if she cannot live up to her destiny? Let’s say she cannot have children. Let’s say she cannot find Mr. Right, or that after they have children he turns into Mr. Wrong. Let’s say she cannot afford to stay at home or to find that lovely nanny or enlightened child-care center to provide her child with an extended family. Must she go through her life feeling that she has failed?
Gurian’s daughter asks which is better, being a mother or being a lawyer. He and his wife answer, “Being a mother is more important than being a lawyer in our family’s value system, but you don’t have to see them as better or worse. If you want to, you can do both things at different stages of your life.” Privileged girls will continue to have choices, thanks in great part to the women’s movement; the rest will have to settle for wishing that they did.
Gurian’s earnest optimism is sadly at odds with daily life. Yes, it would be lovely to live in a world where women could choose to check out of the workplace long enough to have and raise their children. But we do our daughters a tremendous wrong if we let them believe that they will have that chance.
We live in a country that pays lip service to family values and does little to encourage them: Most women work, and even those who work full time make less than their male counterparts do; the divorce rate suggests that no one can count on having a guy around to subsidize the mothering experience; the landscape is littered with women who tried to go back to work only to find that their professions had passed them by.
Gurian writes, “a woman can do both during the season of life in which her nature guides her to do each; and the essential job of a civilization is to protect both the women’s right to professional success during those seasons of her life, and her right to mothering during its season.” Perhaps it is civilization, and not feminism, that has let us down.
Having quarreled with Gurian’s conclusion, I was relieved and grateful to get to the advice section of the book, which categorizes girls by age; Gurian’s tips to dads seem particularly useful. He gets credit for being at least willing to look at the new research, which is more than the first-wave feminists are prepared to do, as though ignoring it would make it go away. But if the purpose of knowledge is to expand our universe, not constrict it, then it is too soon for some of this book’s conclusions.
*
Karen Stabiner is the author of “All Girls: Single-Sex Education and Why It Matters,” forthcoming from Riverhead Books.
