Unbending Gender

Author Joan Williams on a new type of family-friendly feminism supporting both at-home and working mothers

by Debra Levy

Debra Levy, Manager of Local Advocacy, talks with author Joan Williams, Co-Director of the Gender, Work & Family Project at American University, about her new book, Unbending Gender: Why Family and Work Conflict and What to Do About It.

Q: How did your book, Unbending Gender come about? How did you become a commentator and force for change in the area of work and family life?

A: I have been in academic life from the beginning of my career. I used to specialize in local government law, until I had a child. Then gender issues and service to women's issues began to determine the course of my work. That's really the context for this book.

Q: What exactly do you mean by the term "unbending gender"?

A: The term "unbending gender" refers to two different trends. The first is that, to date, gender roles in this country have been unbending and unyielding; there has been a lot less change than we had hoped for 20 or 30 years ago. The second is that, to the (significant) extent that things have changed, changes have been achieved not by moving towards androgyny, but by widening out the range of socially acceptable masculinities and femininities-preserving "la difference" between men and women.

Q: What do the terms "market work" and "family work" mean? How are these two kinds of work important in the way we view gender issues?

A: "Market work" is any work performed for payment, or any paid work outside the home. "Family work" includes childcare, housework, eldercare and other forms of caring work. To this basic definition we can add what sociologists call "kin work"-keeping in touch with relations, preparing holiday celebrations and remembering birthdays. Another aspect of family work is being attentive to the emotions within a family-what sociologists call "emotion work." This means being attentive to the emotional tone among family members, troubleshooting, and facing problems in a constructive way. In our society, women do a disproportionate amount of this important work. If any one of these activities is performed outside the home, it is called work-management work, psychiatry, event planning, advance works-and often highly remunerated. The key point here is that most adults do two important kinds of work: market work and family work, and that both kinds of work are required to make the world go 'round.

Q: What is the process of marginalization? How does it affect both mothers who are at home raising their children and mothers who are performing paid work and also raising their children?

A: Mothers who stay at home often feel they are taken less seriously by other adults. One example I cited in my book is of an at-home mother who was very active in her children's preschool, and was hurt when the preschool asked not her but her husband to join its Board, because (she sensed) she was "just a housewife," while he was a child psychiatrist. Many mothers at home have experienced similar affronts to their dignity, which stem from the devaluation of the important family work of mothers. These affronts reflect the fact that work roles provide the key marker not only of economic status, but also of social status, so that mothers at home often feel their contributions are not valued.

Even mothers who work full time often find themselves on the "mommy track," which means depressed pay rates, fewer benefits, and blocked advancement. Thus all mothers, whether employed or not, suffer as a result of the current system. Ironically, the current system often hurts non-mothers as well, when employers refuse to take them seriously because of the assumption that they will eventually become mothers and "drop out."

Q: It seems that many women of today leave the work force as a form of resistance to a work culture that makes it difficult to raise their children as they think best. What role did feminism play in the development of this type of work culture?

A: Mainstream feminism asked women to perform like men. It did not start from where women are-caring for their children with a strong value system that dictates that desire. The movement for equality devalued mothers and the ideal of caregiving in our society. But it is also true that the push for work/family balance has come from within feminism. One of the things I do is critique full-commodification feminism, which is the sense that women's equality lies in performing as ideal workers along with men, and delegating childcare to outsiders.

Q: There are also many mothers who leave work gladly, not wanting or feeling able to balance the demands of career and family. Do you think that we, as mothers, have limited expectations for ourselves or that we circumscribe our professional goals once we become mothers? And is this because of maternal instinct or because of the prevailing workplace environment?

A: Most people, when assessing their choices, choose the choices they have, not what they should have. They can be away from home and see their children before they fall asleep, or they can work part-time or reduced hours in a very punitive atmosphere or they can drop out of the workforce. The choices that mothers make with these three options might be different if they had a real choice, not a "false choice." If they had a choice to cut back their hours or reduce them without marginalization, they might. Many women who are at home might add paid work to their lives, if they had a real choice. Many mothers who are committed to being ideal workers might cut back if they had the option to do so.

Q: Early feminists seemed to ignore that somebody had to care for children, or felt that anybody could replace a mother's caregiving role. How has feminism changed?

A: Today many women who wouldn't necessarily call themselves feminists believe in the ideal of gender equality. More women would be comfortable identifying with feminism if they found feminism more "family friendly."

Q: You talk about "deconstructing the 'ideal worker norm.'" Who is the ideal worker? How do the ideals of the working world conflict with our ideals as parents?

A The term "ideal worker" is designed to focus people's attention on how we define our ideals at work. Good jobs typically assume an ideal worker who is willing and able to work for 40 years straight, taking no time off for childbearing or childrearing. This ideal is framed around men's bodies-for they need no time off for childbirth- and men's life patterns-for American women still do 80% of the childcare. Not surprisingly, many mothers find it difficult, if not impossible, to meet a standard designed around men's bodies, and around the assumption that workers are supported by a flow of childcare and other family work from their spouses that many men enjoy, but most women do not.

Two-thirds of mothers aged 25 to 45 do not perform as ideal workers even in the minimal sense of working full time all year. Ninety-three percent of mothers do not work substantial overtime during the key years of child (and career) development.

Also, many parents feel caught between the way we define our ideals at work, and the way we define them as parents. In an age of high overtime, in a family with two parents performing as ideal workers, children would be without their parents at home from 8 am to 6, 7, or 8 pm. This conflicts with our sense that children need and deserve time with their parents. Not too many people seem interested in changing this time our children need and deserve. So what we must change is the way we define our ideals at work.

Q: Why is the ideal worker norm so damaging to mothers in our society?

A: Most women with children cannot live up to a norm designed around the model of a man without childcare responsibilities. This is not to say that women need special treatment or accommodation. What they need is what men already get: institutions that include them-both their physical characteristics and their social characteristics.

Q: Are men still striving to be "the ideal worker" or are we all looking for something more?

A: Men are split-as a group and often within themselves. Many fathers feel torn in mutually exclusive directions. On the one hand, they are under tremendous pressure to be successful workers, both because we link manhood with career success, and because most men and many women see a good father first and foremost as a good provider. On the other hand, many men are completely fed up with performing as ideal workers. A 1990 study stated that half would gladly make trade-offs for family and more personal time. Our work set-up entails a terrible price; 33% of men work 49 hours per week. That's one-third of male workers who are marginalized in their own ability to have a family life.

Q: You have said a lot about what you see that you don't think is ideal. What would be ideal?

A: In many ways, the ideal would be a world where both parents could spend significant amounts of time with their children, without either parent suffering adverse consequences on the job. That's the kind of world that would emerge if companies used what I call the "principle of proportionality:" if they offered proportional pay, proportional benefits and proportional advancement for part-time work-keeping in mind that in many workplaces 40 hours per week would qualify as part-time.

Q: When did the concept of work/family balance for both men and women come into play? Has it made a significant difference in our quality of life?

A: In the last 15 years, work/life consultants have developed a specialty of creating workable work/life policies for individual employers-and indeed most large companies now have "family friendly" policies. The problem is that most of these policies still offer flexibility at the price of marginalization (although that was not the original intention). What we need now is to replace those "mommy track" policies with policies that observe the principle of proportionality, and offer high-quality work on reduced hours schedules that offer slower, but still steady, advancement, as well an equal pay rate and proportional benefits.

Q: What policies and initiatives do you propose so that the corporate world views the role of motherhood seriously?

A: Many government benefits, from unemployment benefits to the Family and Medical Leave Act, only cover workers who work full time. This means they exclude many, many mothers. They should be changed to cover anyone who is in the labor force. Social Security needs to be changed to give people credit towards Social Security not only for any paid work they perform, but for periods when adults are doing the important family work of caring full time for their children, or elderly parents, or others.

Q: What are the goals of the Gender, Work & Family Project; where do you see your impact?

A: Our goals are, in a sweeping way, to encourage the view that the present way we structure work, with an ideal worker defined as someone who takes no time off for caregiving, discriminates against women and creates a system that hurts men and children as well. Secondly, our goal is to create a new conversation within feminism, one that takes into account women's different priorities and that will be better for everyone.

One of our major initiatives right now is to create quality part-time work within law firms. This does not mean a "mommy track" without good work or advancement potential, but a work option that is truly "family friendly."

Finally, there is a research component to our work. There is a lot of work to be done with economists, historians and other theorists to get people to think about gender and work in different ways-to get people to come at this problem differently-to open up our options.

Q: You say that every generation will fight the "mommy wars" until we restructure work and resolve the conflict between work and family life. How important is it that we mothers band together? Why is it hard for us to do this?

A: This is really important. We have a system that disadvantages everybody, and we criticize everybody. There is a lot of anger floating around. We need to be more self-conscious in order to change the system.

In my introductory class of 100 students, at the beginning of the term, I ask all those who intend to work full time for their entire careers to raise their hands. All the men do. Only one-tenth of the women raise their hands. They know that they cannot be ideal workers as society has defined it. I do not minimize the importance of the decision to stay home with children-but the choices we have today aren't the only choices we should have.

Q: What are your hopes for the next generation of mothers?

A: My hope is that they'll be able to have rewarding work and a rewarding family life without feeling extraordinarily torn, overworked or having to choose. Men do not have to choose. They can have both. Women should have choices too. In order to create these choices, we must change the definition of the ideal worker. The ideal worker definition should not be one that excludes women because they have children and provide care for their children. To define the ideal worker in any other way discriminates against all women.