Zeno's Bar & Grill
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Women at Work...or Not
Two articles in the NY Times today on the subject of women and work--well, actually one is about why Mommy books don't sell, but it comes back to work, promise.In an Op-Ed piece, Linda Hirshman reports on new labor statistics showing that the number of working, married mothers with preschool children is four percentage points lower than it was ten years ago. This gets back to the whole "opt-out" revolution that's been talked and blogged to death, including Hirshman's own American Prospect article from '05 and book, Get to Work. 
Taking a less inflammatory approach in today's Op-Ed piece, Hirshman stays away from advice such as "marry down"--her solution in the American Prospect article (and perhaps not a bad one, just bad-sounding) for career women who want a supportive husband. Instead, she provides a more practical suggestion to get more women working. Her idea is to remove the "but my paycheck ends up going to taxes and childcare" argument by revamping tax laws, so a woman's income would be taxed separately. Not a bad idea.
And then in the B section, an article about why Mommy books aren't selling as well as all the buzz would make you think--a recent example being Leslie Bennetts' book, "The Feminine Mistake." That book has also generated a huge amount of internet chatter--including some nasty personal attacks-- but generated only 5,000 copies in sales so far. Similarly, Linda Hirshman's book was cited as having sold only 4,000 copies.
What does it all mean? Well, if you're staying home with your kids or juggling work with family you can unite over one issue, I guess: you're too busy to read these books! One woman interviewed for the article said that declining to buy the books is one way to "protect your sanity a little bit."
--Melanie
