Women Can "Have it All"

They just need a supportive husband

The following is the transcript of my troop deployment (i.e. ending rant) from episode 66 of my news podcast The Mind Killer. If you like it, please consider subscribing to the podcast

Louise Perry has a book out called The Case Against the Sexual Revolution. I haven’t read it, but Ozy from Thing of Things says it’s quite bad. But whatever. As Scott Alexander recently explained, writing a book is just an excuse to do a media tour, and Perry has hit that out of the park. She’s been everywhere.

She had a lot of different points, but one that keeps getting repeated is that it was a lie when women were told they could “have it all.” That is, it’s not really possible for a woman to have a career and a family with children, so society was wrong to ever pretend that was a reasonable goal.

This is, quite frankly, bullshit. The only biological reality is that women need some time off around the time the child is born, but we have laws guaranteeing maternity leave. They could stand to be more generous, but most women who want to have a child, then go back to work, can do so with minimal interference. Breast feeding is important for a few weeks, but there’s no significant evidence that it’s better than formula after a month or two.

Lots of people have been arguing that the real impediment to new mothers working is daycare. It’s expensive, it’s a hassle, and lots of people think it’s not great for really young children. And in the half dozen or so conversations I’ve heard about this, not one has mentioned the obvious solution - fathers! Aside from a few tragic situations, every child who has a mother also has a father, and fathers are just as capable of taking care of children as mothers. 

Not to make this personal, but I am a stay-at-home dad. I still have a career, but I’ve scaled it back some and I work from home while my wife goes to work. Her career hasn’t suffered at all from having a child because we both decided that her career was the one to prioritize. 

In almost every childcare situation, there are two parents, either of whom could take primary responsibility for the child. People like Perry talk as if there is some kind of biological programming making fathers care less about their children. Inevitably evolutionary psychology gets brought up. It isn’t true. Fathers are capable of caring just as much for their children as mothers. 

I agree with Perry that the promises of feminism haven’t been kept yet. I disagree that the solution is to give up on them. We shouldn’t be encouraging women to abandon their dreams of having a career and a family. We should be encouraging men to give up on those dreams! No, wait, what I meant was that we should be popularizing the idea that sacrificing your career for a family is not a “female” thing, it’s not even necessary in every situation, and it’s just as valid an option for dads. Women can have it all just as much as men can, and we should be encouraging that outlook instead of advocating a return to 1950’s gender roles.