So the woman can work as hard in her career—or rather, harder and for less pay—than the man, and then just accept the fact that she is the one who must keep every little life detail in her head? She can then delegate tasks to her “helper” husband who then, no doubt, cracks jokes to his buddies about the chores his wife makes him perform?
That doesn’t seem like home equity, and it sounds terrible to me.
She writes about Lisa Belkin’s controversial front-page 2003 New York Times Magazine article titled “The Opt-Out Revolution,” which chronicles Ivy League graduates who choose to exit their demanding careers and stay home with their babies. She counters Belkin’s cultural documentation with a chapter on “Opting Back In,” in which she writes: “It’s nice to be at home when your child loses her fourth tooth, but is it worth the price you might pay if your breadwinner dies or divorces you, and you end up losing that home entirely?”
According to Bennetts (who, divorce aside, has apparently never heard of life insurance), there is only one answer to that question.
I disagree. I think if we women keep judging each other like this, we’re really never going to achieve equity in any arena. We have to realize that women today are extremely lucky. We can choose how we spend our lives. We can work or not. We can have babies or not. There are risks involved in any decision—financial, mental, marital, parental. But I’ll take the risks with the freedom inherent in being able to pick my own destiny. Most men don’t have that freedom.
Let me end with this: My husband, a lawyer, makes more than three times what I made as a full-time editor at a newspaper. That is the only reason I am the one working part-time so that I can be home with our baby almost three days a week. Had he been the journalist and I the lawyer, I truly believe that he would be home with our son, making grocery runs and keeping the house in order. And both of us think he would be extremely happy in that role—maybe happier than he is now as the primary breadwinner.
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