Over the weekend, I got myself into a zen place. Things that were enraging me last week were put into perspective; I figured out how to deal with some problems without nuclear showdowns. Life’s short.
But then Jeremy alerted me to the fact that Linda Hirshman was over at TAPPED flogging her book. I went over and read. Pissed off again.
As I read her posts, sometimes it seemed like she had softened her message. In one instance, I thought she pointed out that many women weren’t working after they had kids, because they faced real obstacles. But then she reverted back to that ugly side that we saw over the winter. She really hates women who stop working after they have kids. Mindless cows. Those without interesting jobs aren’t even worthy of mention.
I don’t get how you can call yourself a feminist and hate such a large proportion of women. Don’t get it.
I suggest checking it out. Linda’s displaying her trademark sense of humor (cough) and proudly stirring up the mommy wars.
Apt. 11d 
I’m starting to think that Linda Hirshman is a bot–or at least a product of the vast right wing conspiracy. She’s a spot-on ringer for the infamous Straw Feminist: abrasive, man-hating, hostile to children and families, concerned only with status and workplace advancement.
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Reading Hirshman reminds me of a scene in Spartacus, when Spartacus is put in a gladiatorial ring to battle a fellow gladiator-slave to the death for the amusement of some depraved Roman. The second gladiator refuses to fight, instead turning his weapon on the Roman. That’s roughly how I’m starting to feel about Linda Hirshman. The most annoying thing about her commentary is that she fails to realize that to a great extent, SAHMs and WOTHs aren’t entirely separate species, but the same women at different stages in their life cycle.
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Yeah, she’s every right winger’s wet dream. Real poison for the women’s movement.
I’m surprised that she’s blogging. I’m surprised that TAPPED is hosting her. For the most part, both the liberal and conservative blogosphere hated her last winter. For a little while, I even felt sorry for her. I thought that she was too old to really get it.
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The American Prospect is a media organization like any other. Hirshman’s original article probably drove them a lot of traffic. So why not provide her with a blogging platform?
She’s so snide and superior, she makes me want to spit nails.
As Lyra the Wonder Toddler would say, “Probably she and Caitlin Flanagan can have a Celebrity Death Match?”
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I would love to see that Celebrity Deathmatch! And the rainbow afterparty.
At least Hirshman is consistent: the SAHMs can’t fully flourish as humans. Their subhuman status is what motiviates Hirshman. I wonder if she knows that she’s part of the patriarchy?
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Hirshman is also a philistine. “Don’t study art!” Tell that to my aunt, the art teacher, who loves her job and is good at it.
And when it comes down to it, there are plenty of people in business who have humanities and social science degrees/backgrounds. Very few people go into jobs related to their majors anyway. Where does Hirshman get off on telling all women that they should only study business, law, medicine or other “practical” areas? Sure, we need doctors and executives lawyers, but not everyone can be a doctor or business executive.
Hirshman’s philistinism gets my goat.
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Absolutely. Her notion of fulfillment is too narrow, too achievement oriented, too much based on the zeroes on a paycheck. My cousin the cellist isn’t making much money, but you should see the look on his face when he’s playing Mozart.
I do love my professional life, when I have the chance to do it. But I also do get enormous fulfillment from my raising my kids. This week I’ve gotten a glowing review from my kid’s 1st grade teacher. She said he was a “neat kid.” The other kid’s new speech therapist said he’s doing great. I did that. Take a bow.
What Hirshman does get right is that it’s hard to do both — have a high flight career and a successful family life. Some people do manage to do both well, but they possess more skills that the average mortal. She’s right that if you want to take over the business world, you have to limit your responsibilities at home. But not everybody is cut out to take over the world.
I wish she didn’t show such disrepect for the majority of women in the world — the artists, the parents, the shopgirls, the secretaries, the nurses.
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I don’t think Hirshman is anti-men. Her career tips are things that men generally do anyway. The things she says seem perfectly reasonable to me. The main reason that women are not in more positions of power in the US is due to the additional work women do at home rather than any conspiracy or inate female weakness.
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I don’t care if Hirshman is anti-men. I only care if she’s anti-women.
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Her use of flourishing strikes me as somewhat Aristotelian, with all the attendent problems therein. I actually think there are some points she makes in this article that are worthwhile, but her reflexively elitist teleological notion of flourishing is a bit too much. I’ve much more to say but I’ll say it at my blog…
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Yay. Great post, djw. Really loved it.
I’m on child duty all day, but I’m going to ignore the kid in the afternoon for an hour or so. I really need to do a brain purge on the blog.
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I’ve jumped into the debate on RoH (just can’t resist) and on LGM. More thoughts in both locations…
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It is interesting that Hirshman is blogging, considering her snide comments about “internet weirdos” and how rude they were last fall. I guess she’s fallen off one part of her high horse. We can only hope that she’ll fall the rest of the way off.
And how interesting is it that her book title also has “manifesto” in it? I wonder if it was in deliberate opposition to “The Motherhood Manifesto” or just coincidence.
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HIRSHMAN HULLABALLOO, PART 3: LINK ROUND-UP
I am bringing up the Hirshman article now because I missed my chance to comment last November, because Hirshman just published a book expanding on her article, and because there has been more recent discussion of this in the blogosphere
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