See: Kathryn Jean Lopez, “Aborting Parental Rights,” National Review Online, June 8, 2005
While this finding may provide comfort to women considering an abortion, it shouldn’t be taken as evidence that abortion is no big deal. Abortion is still a painful procedure, with potentially serious consequences. The National Right to Life Committee highlights the finding that 97 percent of women report experiencing pain during abortion and more than one-third describe that pain as intense. The complications that can occur as a result of an abortion can affect future pregnancies and have long term health consequences.11
Young women should be aware also of research into a potential link between abortion and higher incidents of breast cancer. Some studies suggest that there could be a relationship that puts women who undergo an abortion at greater risk of developing cancer; other studies have found no correlation. This issue, and the research surrounding it, is controversial. But given that abortion is an elective procedure, it’s worth young women knowing of this potential risk to their long-term health.
Just because the risk of long-term health damage or death from an early abortion is low doesn’t mean that it isn’t a serious health issue. Young women considering abortion—or contemplating sexual intercourse before they’re ready for pregnancy—should be aware that abortion is a serious medical procedure that entails real discomfort for the patient and is not without risks.
The health of the mother exception
While Roe v. Wade is commonly understood as protecting abortion rights, the judges writing this decision recognized that the state may have an interest in restricting abortion after the fetus is viable, or capable of living on its own outside of the womb. Roe also included a caveat that any restriction of abortion may not stop what is necessary to preserve a woman’s life or health.
It’s pretty clear what that means in terms of preserving a woman’s life, but what about her health? “Health” is a murky term because the process of giving birth clearly affects a woman’s physical health in the short-term, as well as her mental and emotional health. Another case handed down on the same day as Roe, Doe vs. Bolton, clarified the definition of health: “The medical judgment may be exercised in the light of all factors—physical, emotional, psychological, familial, and the woman’s age—relevant to the well-being of the patient. All these factors may relate to health.”12
In other words, the definition of health is so broad that the restriction on abortion is essentially meaningless: Just about any abortion could be justified as necessary for “health” reasons.
An Alan Guttmacher Institute survey asked women their reasons for having an abortion; 3 percent of women respondent that a health problem was the reason for terminating the pregnancy. There is no data to distinguish how health was defined in these cases—whether it was related to lasting physical health or if the health issue concerned the mother’s emotional or mental health.13
There are certainly health conditions that may be complicated by pregnancy. A woman diagnosed with breast cancer while pregnant has a limited ability to treat her condition without endangering the health of the baby. Radiation therapy can lead to complications, premature delivery, and increased risk of birth defects. Some doctors may encourage a woman in this situation to consider abortion so that she can undergo immediate treatment. Women with other conditions, such as sickle cell disease and hypertension, face physical risks during pregnancy.
However, those who support the right of women who face serious physical health risks to opt for an abortion should understand that the definition of “health” used by abortion rights supporters usually is not limited to physical health, but includes more nebulous “mental” health.
An informed choice
Young women should be familiar with the arguments of both those on the pro-life and the pro-choice sides of the abortion issue. Unfortunately, much of the information that young women receive—particularly on campus in courses such as women’s studies—present only pro-choice arguments. With abortion, as with all issues, women need more information so that they can make an informed choice consistent with their personal beliefs.
Chapter Eleven
WORK IN THE REAL WORLD
In politically correct TV-land, most women have high powered jobs today: they’re lawyers, surgeons, or impeccably dressed advertising executives. In the real world, most women hold less than thrilling—and surprisingly traditional—jobs.
Women are thriving in America’s education system and, in the years to come, will increasingly enter into and excel in all industries and professions. But it’s important for women to have a realistic idea of the role that work plays in most women’s lives.
The feminist working girl fairytale
In the 1988 film Working Girl, Melanie Griffith is a secretary struggling to break into the executive suite. She has to overcome challenges like an overbearing boss who steals her ideas, a boyfriend who cheats on her, and the stereotypes that comes with being a “secretary.” The story is in many ways a fairytale. But in this modern tale, winning the love of the handsome prince, played by Harrison Ford, is a secondary triumph. Instead of ending with a trip to the altar or even a schmaltzy kiss, the movie closes with Griffith’s discovering that she has finally earned the keys to the new version of a palace: a windowed office with a secretary of her own.
Guess what?
Women have made great strides in the workplace but most women are still working in traditional fields and are motivated by financial need.
The most frequent occupation for women is secretary or administrative assistant.
It will surprise few outside of NOW that most women actually find paid work less fulfilling than other, more personal activities.
An example more familiar to today’s twenty-somethings will be Rachel Green of Friends. In the early episodes, Rachel arrived at Central Perk coffee house to join the rest of the gang as a spoiled rich girl from Long Island who left her fiancé at the altar. She was prepared for no activity other than shopping. She got her first job waitressing at Central Perk, and even when she finally breaks into fashion, she’s shown once again making coffee for the boss.
By the end of the series, Rachel has transformed into a high powered fashion executive. When she gives birth to her child, she cuts short her maternity leave out of concern that she’s losing prestige within her office. In the concluding episodes, Rachel considers moving to Paris with her baby (away from Ross, the baby’s father) for a new job. Even though ultimately Rachel opts to stay in New York (presumably to live happily ever after with Ross and in a higher-paying job), her basic personae is of an ambitious career woman.
Professional women in movies and on television rarely work in the nine-to-five world inhabited by most women. Legally Blonde shows the ever-fashionable Elle Woods as a law student tracking down criminals and taking charge in the courtroom. Television legal dramas tell a similar tale: the lawyers are constantly engaged in high stakes battles, bringing the bad guys to justice. In reality, just a fraction of lawyers end up in the courtroom—most of their time is spent performing grueling research and combing through tedious contracts.
What most women do
During the past several decades, women have entered the formal workforce in droves. In 1970, just four out of every ten women were participating in the paid workforce. By 2004, nearly six in ten women were employed—that’s an increase of nearly 50 percent and represents millions more women entering the paid labor force.1
20 Leading Occupations of Employed Full-time Working Women in 2003
Rank Occupation Total Women (in thousands)% of Women
1 Secretaries and administrative assistants 2692 6.1%
2 Elementary and middle school teachers 1780 4.0%
3 Registered nurses 1650 3.7%
4 Nursing, psychiatric, and home health aides 1144 2.6%
5 Cashiers 1040 2.4%
6 Customer service representatives 1038 2.4%
7 First-line supervisors/mana
gers of office and adm support 984 2.2%
8 First-line supervisors/managers of retail sales workers 938 2.1%
9 Bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing clerks 894 2.0%
10 Receptionists and information clerks 831 1.9%
11 Accountant and auditors 784 1.8%
12 Retail salespersons 765 1.7%
13 Maids and housekeeping cleaners 682 1.5%
14 Secondary school teachers 540 1.2%
15 Waitresses 528 1.2%
16 Teacher assistants 527 1.2%
17 Office clerks, general 511 1.2%
18 Financial Managers 491 1.1%
19 Preschool and kindergarten teachers 476 1.1%
20 Cooks 452 1.0%
Total Percent 42.5%
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics
The increase is even more dramatic among younger women: 72 percent of women between the ages 25 to 54 are now in the paid workforce.2 This includes a majority of the women with young children: In 2002, 65 percent of women with children under age six were employed.3 This is nearly the double the portion of mothers with children under six (34 percent) who were working in 1975.4
What a Feminist Icon Said:
“I like the idea of young women being mothers. It is easier to get down on the floor with kids if you are a kid yourself.”
—Germaine Greer supporting young mothers, who place motherhood ahead of their careers
http://www.cathnews.com/news/208/86.php
While many events contributed to this social trend, the women’s movement played a critical role in encouraging the change. Betty Friedan’s watershed book, The Feminist Mystique, challenged women to consider taking on roles outside of housewife and mother. Feminists fought against social biases that prevented women from competing and succeeding in fields like medicine, science, politics, and the law. Today, their success is obvious: Women are thriving in industries and professions that just a few decades ago were almost exclusively the domain of men.
Women are now earning more than half of all bachelor’s degrees and master’s degrees, and 40 percent of doctoral degrees. They also earn four in ten degrees in medicine and nearly half of all law degrees. This academic achievement indicates that women will play a significant role in these prestigious fields in the years to come. But already, women are fast becoming leaders in the new economy. There are more than 8.5 million women-owned businesses in the United States.
Women have made great strides in the workforce and will continue to do so in the future. But it’s important to remember that when we talk about working women, most are working in traditional fields and are motivated by financial need.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the most frequent occupation for women is secretary or administrative assistant. The top twenty professions for full-time working women—which together employ more than 40 percent of all full-time working women—are strikingly traditional, including elementary school teachers, nurses, cashiers, and waitresses. 5 Lawyers and physicians/surgeons don’t make the list: Each profession employs well below half the number of women as the twentieth most frequent profession, which is serving as a cook.
Many women employed in these occupations find their jobs personally fulfilling and work because they love it, not simply out of necessity. But this list of occupations stands in stark contrast to the depiction of working women commonly found on television and in women’s magazines.
Women’s greatest source of fulfillment: not their jobs
Given this reality, it’s not surprising that many women—in particular women with children—are ambivalent about their jobs. In 1996, the Independent Women’s Forum commissioned a poll that asked the question: “If you had enough money to live as comfortably as you’d like, would you prefer to work full time, work part time, do volunteer work, or work at home caring for your family?” One third replied that part-time work would be their ideal. Nearly another third preferred staying home with children. Twenty percent said ideally they’d do volunteer work and just 15 percent wanted to work full-time.6
The Pew Research Center for the People & the Press received a similar response when they surveyed 1,101 American women in 1997 on contemporary motherhood. They asked mothers of children under age eighteen if in their ideal situation they would prefer to work full-time, part-time or not at all. Part-time was the number one choice for these women, earning 44 percent of the responses. Three in ten preferred to work full-time. But in reality, more than half of these mothers were working full-time or more than they would prefer. 7
It will surprise few outside of NOW that most women actually find paid-work less fulfilling than other, more personal activities. Responses to the Pew survey clearly indicate that women who value time with love ones over their careers are acting rationally in terms of promoting their long-term happiness. Women, regardless of their living situation, rate relationships with loved ones as their greatest source of personal happiness and fulfillment.
Work, on the other hand, is disproportionately responsible for women’s frustrations. Two out of ten women responded to the Pew survey that their jobs were frustrating all or most of the time and another 50 percent were frustrated at least some of the time. Jobs were still a source of happiness for 60 percent of working women—but that makes careers the least consistent source of happiness of all the aspects of life included in the poll.
No doubt some of the work-related frustrations that women face are a byproduct of having to juggle work responsibilities with family duties. The Pew survey also found women frustrated by the lack of affordable, quality daycare. The fact that women with higher incomes derive more satisfaction from their jobs also suggests that as women continue to invest in education and obtain higher level positions, jobs may become a more satisfying part of their lives. But these responses suggest that for most women, family and relationships will eclipse career as the top priority during their lives.
Feminists often try to deny this reality. Their misconceptions or unwillingness to recognize the roles that work and family play in real women’s lives are more than just an annoyance, with feminists grand-standing about women’s oppression. They have serious policy implications. Feminists push policymakers to embrace programs and regulations designed to drive women into the workforce, even if that isn’t what women want.
Chapter Twelve
THE MYTH OF HAVING IT ALL
Young women have been taught from the time they were born that all doors are open to them: They can be astronauts, political leaders, athletes, or financial tycoons. The fact that today women have so many choices in life is worth celebrating.
But having choices requires making choices. Reaching the heights of professional or political success requires a great deal of dedication and sacrifice. Women and men both face tradeoffs and must decide how they’re going to spend their time.
Women, who bear children and traditionally serve as primary caregivers to their offspring, often feel they face different choices and tradeoffs than men. This may be partly due to societal expectations, but biology and women’s strong impulse to nurture their children surely plays a role. Whatever the reasons are, women and men are often going to make different choices about how to prioritize their time.
Feminist groups like to pretend that women can have it all—work full-time and become leaders of industries, without sacrificing time with families. It’s politically incorrect to suggest that one of these areas of life has to come at the expense of, or have an impact on, another.
Yet life involves trade-offs. A gangbuster career typically requires long hours and other inconveniences, like travel and relocation—sacrifices many women don’t want to make. That’s not a problem that needs solving. So long as women are making choices based on their own preferences, their choices deserve respect.
Guess what?
Feminist groups like to pretend that women can have it all without sacrificing time with families. This is false and most women know it.
As surveys indicate,
many women sincerely want to spend more time with their families.
Many women don’t want to have to work outside of the home and do so only out of financial necessity.
Feminist frustrations about what women really want
Feminists are often irritated when women choose family over career. In the book Not Guilty! The Good News for Working Mothers, Betty Holcomb describes with some alarm an essay written by a Harvard sophomore who felt as though she faced a crossroads—one path marked career and the other marked home life—and felt pulled toward home.
The Harvard undergrad wrote that she knows what it will take to make it to the top of her profession—long hours and complete dedication—and isn’t sure if it’s the course she wants to follow or if she’d rather reserve more time for her family:If I want to succeed, I mean really succeed, in my career, then I have to throw myself into it, heart and soul. I have to be the one working overtime so I will be eligible for promotion. I have to bring home work if need be. I have to travel if that’s what it takes. No matter what career I decide upon, I have to give it my all.
The Politically Incorrect Guide to Women, Sex, and Feminism Page 14