{"id":30426,"date":"2020-10-01T09:05:31","date_gmt":"2020-10-01T14:05:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ifamnews.com\/?p=30426"},"modified":"2020-10-01T12:34:37","modified_gmt":"2020-10-01T17:34:37","slug":"a-new-kind-of-woman-power","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ifamnews.com\/en\/a-new-kind-of-woman-power","title":{"rendered":"A New Kind of Woman Power"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

[This article originally appeared in SALVO (www.salvomag.com<\/a>) on September 30, 2020; it is reproduced here with permission. \u2013 Ed.]<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When one reflects upon the current American political climate\u2014and \u201creflecting\u201d isn\u2019t even really necessary, because that climate is being stuffed down the collective American throat right now\u2014it is easy to become disillusioned, depressed, perhaps even readier than ever to move to, say, Costa Rica.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In such reflections, Amy Coney Barrett is a welcome breath of fresh air. She has more class, brilliance, presence, and poise than either of our current presidential candidates, as was made painfully obvious in Tuesday\u2019s debate. But she is something else, too. As a POLITICO<\/em> story<\/a> puts it, she is \u201ca new feminist icon.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If this seems counterintuitive, it\u2019s because generations of American women have been told that to get ahead in life, you have to follow the life script of a man. In other words, sacrifice the very things that make you \u201cfeminine\u201d\u2014specifically, the biologically unique female ability to conceive, bear, and nurse children. But if first-wave feminism was about getting women the right to vote, and second wave feminism was about getting them cultural and workplace equality, third-wave feminism is about changing the culture itself and the place of family in the workplace. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the\u00a0POLITICO<\/em>\u00a0story noted, Senator Dianne Feinstein told Barrett at the latter\u2019s senate confirmation hearing in 2017, \u201cYou are controversial because many of us that have lived lives as women really recognize the value of finally being able to control our reproductive systems, and\u00a0Roe<\/em>\u00a0entered into that, obviously.\u201d This is the second-wave feminist script. Women can \u201clive lives as women\u201d only by gaining \u201ccontrol\u201d over reproduction. But for Feinstein, \u201ccontrol\u201d means contraception and abortion. This is the\u00a0sentiment expressed<\/a>\u00a0by Michelle Williams in her Golden Globe acceptance speech earlier this year. \u201cThings happen\u201d to women\u2019s and girls\u2019 bodies that they did not choose. Williams closed, \u201cI would not have been able to do this without employing a woman\u2019s right to choose.\u201d In this view\u2014the view held by Williams, and Feinstein, and Ginsburg, and countless others\u2014women\u2019s very bodies, their reproduction, and their reproductive timeline, are inimical to their life\u2019s dreams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Barrett, on the other hand, \u201ccontrol\u201d over career and motherhood seems to mean something far, far different. In 2019, Barrett was asked how she had managed to achieve so much, while also being the mother of seven children. Her response is that both she and her husband, Jesse (also an attorney), have taken turns at \u201cthe heavy lifting\u201d of parenting. Right now, she says, he is definitely doing more of it, but there have been times when she was the heavy lifter. \u201cWe\u2019ve gone in cycles,\u201d Barrett said. \u201cWe evaluated at every step whether things were working well for the family, for the job I was in . . . but it was always working and it worked well: the kids were very happy, I loved teaching.\u201d She continued to say that for both her and her husband, the children came first, their careers, second. But they didn\u2019t need to sacrifice either\u2014and an aunt of her husband\u2019s helped immensely with childcare.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What Barrett\u2019s marriage exemplifies is the idea of sexual complementarity in the caring of children. Author Wendell Berry wrote in The Unsettling of America<\/em><\/a> that only with the advent of the Industrial Revolution did we, for the first time, see the sexual division of labor\u2014wherein caretaking became a primarily female responsibility. Before that, both sexes partook equally in maintaining the family occupation (farming, an artisan\u2019s shop, etc.), while also caring for the children and household. Barrett and her husband get this. They have put their family first\u2014and found that when they cooperated, when caretaking was the joint responsibility of both<\/em> spouses, and when they communicated, both they and their children thrived. As POLITICO<\/em> put it, \u201cWhen greater numbers of us understand the cultural priority of caregiving, a movement will grow strong enough to challenge the dominant market mentality that disfavors family obligation for both women and men.\u201d Men do not want to spend all their time away from their family, either. Our workplaces need to reflect these deep and universal human desires.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For now, though, we can appreciate that a mother of seven children, a brilliant mind and a seemingly gracious, accomplished, and well-liked person, is a nominee for the nation\u2019s highest court. (Notably, of the four women who have been on the Supreme Court so far, only one\u2014Ruth Bader Ginsburg\u2014was a mother.) May her example lead other women to realize that they don\u2019t need to sacrifice their bodies or those of their children on the altar of career.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Generations of American women have been told that to get ahead in life, you have to follow the life script of a man. In other words, sacrifice the very things that make you \u201cfeminine\u201d\u2014specifically, the biologically unique female ability to conceive, bear, and nurse children. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":30512,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"mc4wp_mailchimp_campaign":[],"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"subtitle":"Generations of American women have been told that to get ahead in life, you have to follow the life script of a man. 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