Last week’s debate at The Economist over the motion “This house believes that in the developed world, women have never had it so good” was frustrating to observe. The end result was a strong majority in favor of the aforementioned statement despite the best efforts of Terry O’Neill, president of NOW, to point out the many challenges that still face women from all walks of life. Her opponent, author Richard Donkin, did acknowledge that women have a long way to go in many respects, but maintained that women had more choices now than ever before, and “it is how [women] have handled these choices and how they feel about their decisions that leaves the proposition open to debate.”
The major issue with this debate, which most of those involved noted, was the phrasing of the motion. “Women have never had it so good” only asks whether women’s lives are better than they used to be. It’s certainly true that, generally speaking, conditions for women have improved over the last three decades, thanks to advances like equal pay legislation, the availability of contraceptives, and reform of divorce laws. But while I’m all for celebrating what women have achieved, a back-patting festival doesn’t make any real room for the more important debate about what we still need to do. It’s like saying that because we had a civil rights movement and Barack Obama was elected president, we don’t need to talk about eradicating racism anymore and should just bask in the glow of those milestones.
As O’Neill and some of the guest posters noted, many of the hurdles that women still face are the direct result of workplace designed by and for men. But today, more women than ever are entering the work force, most households basically require two breadwinners to make ends meet, and women are still making less than men; furthermore, the changing workplace composition has not altered the popular belief that regardless of whether she works outside the home, the mother is responsible for the children. A “never had it so good” society knows that families are the ones who should make those decisions and gives them opportunities to do so. As O’Neill pointed out in rebuking Donkin’s “choice” thesis, “Is it really a choice when a woman drops out of the workforce because her employer won’t make any accommodations for her need to care for kids or other family members?”
There’s also the persistent stereotypes about working women, some of which made unfortunate appearances in the comments. Unlike women with high-powered careers, male CEOs can devote their lives to climbing the corporate ladder without having anyone ask why they are “abandoning” their family (or, if they’re unmarried, whether they are truly “feminine”). You’ll never hear a man be referred to derisively as a “ball-buster” if he’s good at his job and demands respect. Men with both jobs and young families aren’t ever told to compete over who can be the best “Superdad.” If a man happens to be good-looking, he isn’t presumed to be sleeping his way to the top, nor do people hesitate to trust him.
I’m optimistic that we can create an economy that works for all families, as well as a culture that doesn’t devalue women based on looks or sexuality, but it starts with having an honest conversation about where we are in the present and where we need to go, rather than congratulating ourselves because women are no longer (totally) confined to typing pools. I also can’t help but wonder how much changes to the law have actually become a part of our culture; I’m glad that there are now legal routes for dealing with sexual harassment in the workplace, for instance, but I’ll say we’ve “never had it better” when we raise a generation of men who refuse to engage in such behavior because it’s wrong, not because they’re afraid of an expensive lawsuit. If only Dorkin and O’Neill had been given a motion that allowed them to consider the impact of sexual harassment laws on the workplace, or the need for family-friendly work policies, or whether the leadership styles of male and female CEOs are in fact distinct. There’s a lot more that needs to be said about women in the work force than simply “we’re there.”
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