Feminist Looking Glass

This morning I opened up my computer to find the new cover from The Economist:

I remained skeptical, as I do of any issue praising the fact that women are now “overrepresented” in the workplace. These articles are rarely inclusive and thoughtful enough to produce a genuine analysis of how far we’re come, but also how far we still need to go.

Indeed, there are issues I take with The Economist’s covering of the issue. The article provides a pretty basic overview of the achievements of women in education and the workplace over the last generation. The Economist also acknowledges that although women are half the workforce, they are 2% of top level supervisors at America’s largest companies, and 5% in Britain. They blame this fact on child care and work balance. A lot of this is fair, but this sentence bothers me:

Motherhood, not sexism, is the issue: in America, childless women earn almost as much as men, but mothers earn significantly less.

Sexism is not the issue, huh? Well ‘sexism’ doesn’t just come in overt, easily recognizable prejudices or statements, as it may have a generation ago. It’s an issue so deeply embedded in society and institutions and beliefs that it takes an awful lot of careful thought and understanding to recognize. Having children is clearly a huge determining factor in a woman’s  life and options, but we need to recognize that it need not be so difficult for her, nor so limiting. Child care, health care, and maternity leave policies would no doubt be reevaluated and altered were women no longer on the sidelines, the parentheses, of lawmaker and policymaker’s goals.

To be fair, The Economist actually takes on this problem. The magazine lists the following as options for improving work-life balance issues for women:

German schools, for instance, close at midday. American schools shut down for two months in the summer. These things can be changed without huge cost. Some popular American charter schools now offer longer school days and shorter summer holidays. And…America could invest more in its children: it spends a lower share of its GDP on public child-care than almost any other rich country, and is the only rich country that refuses to provide mothers with paid maternity leave. Barack Obama needs to measure up to his campaign rhetoric about “real family values”.

It’s encouraging that The Economist tried to get at real solutions that involve American policy & law. The article is a little too brief and a bit too sunny, but I’m glad it’s the cover story, and does have some thoughtful information in it. What do you think?

Filed under: Feminism, Workplace Tagged: | equal pay, the economist, women, working women