Letters to the Editor

Rethinking the 'glass ceiling'

I was highly offended by OWL's vindictive response to what I considered a thoughtful editorial on campus feminism. Beyond the OWL officers' attacking tone (For example, "The editorial was very typical of the Princeton student body — quick to analyze and criticize, but more reluctant to become involved and attempt to make a change." Considering that among the editorial's authors were some of this campus's most involved students in a variety of progressive causes, this was quite an unfair criticism, as well as unnecessary.), I was bothered by their claim, wholly unbased in fact, that because there is no "glass ceiling" for homemakers, this option is "always" available to women.

Actually, for most women, single mothers but also the majority of married women, the choice to remain home with their children is not at all an option, because it is simply not financially viable — nor would it be viable to have the father stay home, if he wanted to. As real wages have stagnated in the past decades, it has become a virtual necessity for all but the most affluent classes that both parents have some sort of employment. And for both men and women, climbing the corporate ladder is made almost prohibitively difficult when children's needs must be balanced. Career women (and men) who wish to have a family must, almost without exception, make choices throughout their career trajectory between work and children, and choosing children often has negative consequences for promotions, pay raises, etc. The result is that, for instance, the pay gap between working women with children and working women without children is currently far wider than that between men and women, and very few female CEO's have children.

In a sense, the glass ceiling has been broken — but only for women who are willing to act like men; that is, to make their career their number one project, and put off having children until later in life (at potential risk to their health), or never have children at all. If OWL is truly committed to embracing a 21st-Century model of feminism, it would do well to recognize, as many thoughtful scholars of feminism have, that the next (and perhaps last) great feminist challenge will be finding a way for women to act like women and still have successful or at least financially viable careers. For the most affluent women, this could mean Fortune 500 companies allowing women longer maternity leave, and without penalty; for impoverished women, this could mean allowing single mothers on welfare the choice to stay home with their children rather than requiring them to seek employment, at least when the children are very young. While women should not be required to stay at home, neither should they be required to work, especially before their children reach school age; this should be a choice that each woman makes, and OWL's contention that it is an available choice blatantly ignores the reality for the vast majority of American women.

As the earlier editorial rightly pointed out, issues such as these have not yet seemed to inform much of OWL's dialogue. Of course OWL does not need to embrace every facet of feminism, but if it does choose to virtually ignore one of the most important feminist issues of the day — and asking speakers how they balance work and family at Q&A sessions is hardly a comprehensive treatment of the issue — then it need not criticize those who rightly question this decision. Sara Mayeux '05