Let Them Eat Cake

Last month, the Federal Employees Paid Parental Leave Act was reintroduced in the House of Representatives in a bid to raise maternal leave compensation from 12 weeks to six months. Though addressed mainly to those women for whom working is not a choice, the bill also responds to a larger issue: Namely, the stubborn remnants of a corporate culture that has yet to yield to maternal imperatives.

For those well-educated, well-off women fortunate enough to have a choice between a family and a career, a stagnant male-dominated world still drives over 40 percent of professional female graduates back into their kitchens, unable to reconcile their intellectual and familial goals.

Conversation about this decision, specifically for girls graduating from top universities, has occupied much media attention—most notably New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd—as female Ivy League alums are accused of “opting out” of high-powered career jobs in favor of housewifery. These women are lambasted by many for selfishly casting aside the hard-earned rewards of the feminist movement—namely, unprecedented educational and job opportunities.

Yet, the fault lies not with women, but with institutions. The working world is still a man’s world in which women have only recently been let in, like children entering a theme park but finding many of the rides off-limits to them.

What is needed now is what has worked before and what has always been needed: institutional change to increase women’s life choices. The women of the ’60s and ’70s were able to force employers and, to a degree, the law itself, to recognize that women must not be confined to just chores or childcare. The women of the ’90s and of today face a different but largely related problem: Women shouldn’t be forced to abandon maternity in order to find equity with men in the workplace.

The new frontier is to accommodate the ambitions of the group we have encouraged thus far. And institutions should do so not only in the interests of these women, but also in their own interest—to reverse the “brain drain” of highly qualified women who are pushed off their career tracks by inflexible corporations.

Women are willing to work, and work just as hard as men. But to do so, corporate cultures must change to accommodate non-traditional work styles; corporations will not be taking a hit, but yielding the same productivity. For example, many companies—among them Deloitte & Touche, Ernst & Young, and I.B.M.—have begun to not only increase the amount of paid family leave time, but also encourage telecommuting and video conferencing, and deemphasizing face-time and late-night office hours.

It is apparent that the roadblock to change isn’t economic; if anything, the companies that have begun to change their work climate recognize the advantage in making use of the forty-six percent of the workforce who are women. Rather, as tends to be the case, a cultural stagnancy with a long legacy is to blame. As late as 1971, Richard Nixon vetoed a bill to create a national child-care system, deeming it a threat to the American family.

Well, the American family is under threat today. The very women who were told they could climb the corporate ladder, and indeed encouraged to do so, must now partake in a Sophie’s choice between equally desirable public and private ends. This is not ideal. Women should, so to speak, be able to bake their cake and buy it too.


Ramya Parthasarathy ’09, a Crimson editorial editor, lives in Stoughton Hall.