Intellectual women have been openly antagonistic toward traditional women in the main organs of the press for more than 50 years. And when they are not openly so, they are often subtly and cleverly so. Thus the notion that women are not intelligent unless they are paid professionals remains alive and well.

This attitude is especially disturbing when expressed by supposedly conservative women. A good example is this recent article by Kay Hymowitz in City Journal. 

Hymowitz explores the latest developments in evolutionary psychology and concludes that women are equally suited to career and home. This is the standard feminist accommodation to domesticity. Women are good at everything and thus should do everything. Hymowitz writes:

In fact, as neuroscientists and geneticists piece together the human brain’s evolution, it’s becoming clear that, if it’s natural for a woman to go crazy over her babies, it’s also natural for a woman to run the State Department. The same human female brain that’s primed with oxytocin is, like the male brain, a fantastically complex machine, capable of reasoning, innovative problem solving, and maneuvering through hugely varied social environments—whether the PTA, a corporate headquarters, or Congress.

Actually, this is not true. Scientists have found more and more neurological and genetic evidence that men are much better at running the State Department and that women’s brains are naturally empathizing, suited to the domain of interpersonal relations. [See Simon Baron Cohen’s book Essential Differences.]

Hymowitz goes on to express another seminal principle of contemporary feminism: Women stayed home in the past because they had no choice. She writes:

And so in the twentieth century, the big-brained female—Femina sapiens, if you will—found herself living in an utterly reshaped habitat, free from sepsis, unplanned children, sewing, bread baking, and arduous trips to the well. She was ready to use her brain in new ways, not coincidentally at a time when the intellectually gratifying jobs of an advanced economy were becoming more plentiful. It’s a neat coincidence that women wrote both of the papers just discussed. Men invented the antibiotic and the washing machine; today, women in economics departments calculate the benefits of these discoveries for their sex.

Working for City Journal may be an “intellectually gratifying job” but most of the women who have been driven into the workforce by the sort of glorification of career expressed by Hymowitz are doing far less glamorous things while their children are neglected by babysitters or day care centers.

It is false that women of the past had no choice but to stay home. When Tocqueville visited America in the 1830s, he was amazed at how much conscious effort when into protecting the domestic sphere of women despite the abundant potential for them to engage in commercial work. This was culture, not necessity, at work. Many well-off women of the 18th and 19th century, as well as in far more distant periods of Western history, had servants to do their household work. Victorian women lived lives of remarkable leisure, with many hours to pursue extra-domestic activities. They also knew of ways to control their fertility. Despite all this, they did not seek to enter the work world of men. Many women entered convents and embraced celibacy. These religious orders did not seek to perform the work of men.

Hymowitz acknowledges that the pull between career and home creates conflict for women and briefly admits that the needs of children remain as great, or even greater, than in the past. She continues:

The predicament of Femina sapiens poses immense practical challenges that should be a subject of public debate. How do we make it easier for working women who want more time to invest in their young children to work part time, or to return to their jobs after an extended leave? What is the proper role of government in all this?

Where has Hymowitz been for the last 50 years? Hasn’t she noticed that motherhood has been the subject of historically unprecedented public debate?

As a conservative writer, might it not be her place to enter this debate and, instead of promoting the myth that women can do everything, speak out against the commercializing of women’s lives, the glorification of career, the disparagement of domesticity and job discrimination against men? Improved technology and health have bettered the conditions of motherhood and home, but they haven’t reduced these to part-time hobbies. They remain demanding full-time jobs, unless one considers children as lacking in moral and intellectual aptitude, human nickels to be inserted into the slot machines of day care and school. 

I am disappointed in Hymowitz, who has written vividly on the neglect of children in her book, Liberation’s Children. By every indicator of social health, the welfare of children, even affluent children, has suffered in the past 50 years. It is not true that women are equally suited to running the State Department and raising children. But, if it were true, shouldn’t they, at least in the mind of a conservative writer, choose the role most needed?

                                                          — Comments —-

Hannon writes:

Perhaps you have seen this interview with Dr Thomas Sowell. In the first few minutes he explains that during the earliest part of the 20th century a surprisingly large number of women were obtaining graduate degrees in the hard sciences. This trend declined as the age of new mothers grew younger, until it “bottomed-out” in the Baby Boom era. After the advances of 1960s feminism, women professionals increased in number as births were once again put off to later years.

He posits an interesting correlation between the median age of initial motherhood and the career pursuits of women, although I’m not clear if he refers to absolute numbers or per capita numbers. He makes a similar argument for refuting the idea that women are paid less than men on average.

Please follow and like us: