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Reply-To: Vishal Soni <soniv &AElig umich.edu>
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References: <Pine.LNX.4.58.0509261714580.10286 &AElig celan.pirateship.org> 	 <57f1bcf9e8c721f1618af727e222b935 &AElig umich.edu> 	 <F7B4A245-79E2-44D1-995B-C120A64E953B &AElig umich.edu>
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Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2005 11:26:33 -0400
To: Robert Felty <robfelty &AElig umich.edu>
Cc: "David Morris, PhD" <thecat &AElig umich.edu>, improvetheworld &AElig umich.edu
From: Vishal Soni <soniv &AElig umich.edu>
Subject: Re: NYtimes article: Many women at elite colleges set career path to Motherhood
Status: O

Although it would be good, I don't think having a law that prevents
employers from firing people on maternity grounds would help. A large
part of the problem is that employers see women as a liability in that
they're more likely to leave then men are for their children. If, and
when, they do return to the workforce, it's after a significant time
gap during which they haven't been able to keep up their skill set.
This is somewhat of a self-perpetuating cycle because this makes it
harder for women to find jobs/promotions.

I'm not sure what a good solution here is. Maybe if men took on a
greater role in the early stages of child rearing, companies would see
women as less of a risk.

-V

On 9/27/05, Robert Felty <robfelty &AElig umich.edu> wrote:
> Thanks for the comment, Dr. Dave Morris, Ph.D.,
>
> I am plenty willing to stay at home, do laundry, cook, clean and look
> after the kids while Clare makes the big bucks being an engineer.  I
> really think that it is best if one parent can be with the kids
> pretty much full time while they are very young.  My mom went back to
> work when I entered 7th grade, and I think that was good for her.
>
> Rob
>
> On Sep 27, 2005, at 9:45 AM, David Morris, PhD wrote:
>
> > What really bothers me is not that women are planning to be stay at
> > home parents, but that so few men are. I think it's good that the
> > pendulum has swung back this way, and I think we'll see a
> > generation of better, smarter, happier, more responsible children
> > because of it. I think we need more change in that direction,
> > convincing men how critical they are to good child rearing. Ideally
> > both parents should cut back on their careers significantly to
> > raise children.
> >
> > If you have two kids spaced two years apart and stay at home until
> > they get into school, that's 8 years, or less than 10% of your
> > life. Not a big sacrifice compared to the payoff, certainly not a
> > reason not to get an excellent degree and plan a high powered
> > career. Granted it's not like you can go back to working 60 hours a
> > week after the kid starts 1st grade, but the problem becomes more
> > tractable then, especially if you can balance child-rearing time
> > with your spouse. I hate it when they make it sound like you've
> > chosen to throw away your professional life because you've had
> > children. It's an impediment, but it's not a binary switch, it's
> > not nearly as bad as they make it out to be.
> >
> > In fact it should be a law in this country that you should be able
> > to work down to 50% time and they're not allowed to fire you for it
> > if you have kids, regardless of your gender. That would really help.
> >
> > Dave
> >
> > On Sep 26, 2005, at 5:27 PM, Bethany Soule wrote:
> >
> >
> >> If you're interested in the current state of feminism/equality of the
> >> sexes:
> >>
> >> http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/20/national/20women.html?
> >> pagewanted=1&ex=3D1128225600
> >>
> >> I'm including the article below so you can read it without having to
> >> actually go to the NYTimes site, but it's going to make this e-
> >> mail hugely
> >> long. Sorry.
> >>
> >> Many Women at Elite Colleges Set Career Path to Motherhood
> >>
> >> By LOUISE STORY
> >> Published: September 20, 2005
> >>
> >> Cynthia Liu is precisely the kind of high achiever Yale wants:
> >> smart (1510
> >> SAT), disciplined (4.0 grade point average), competitive (finalist in
> >> Texas oratory competition), musical (pianist), athletic (runner) and
> >> altruistic (hospital volunteer). And at the start of her sophomore
> >> year at
> >> Yale, Ms. Liu is full of ambition, planning to go to law school.
> >>
> >> Emily Lechner, at home in North Potomac, Md., with her mother,
> >> Carol, is a
> >> student at Yale who plans to become a lawyer, but who says her
> >> career will
> >> take a back seat once she starts having children.
> >>
> >> So will she join the long tradition of famous Ivy League
> >> graduates? Not
> >> likely. By the time she is 30, this accomplished 19-year-old
> >> expects to be
> >> a stay-at-home mom.
> >>
> >> "My mother's always told me you can't be the best career woman and
> >> the
> >> best mother at the same time," Ms. Liu said matter-of-factly. "You
> >> always
> >> have to choose one over the other."
> >>
> >> At Yale and other top colleges, women are being groomed to take their
> >> place in an ever more diverse professional elite. It is almost
> >> taken for
> >> granted that, just as they make up half the students at these
> >> institutions, they will move into leadership roles on an equal
> >> basis with
> >> their male classmates.
> >>
> >> There is just one problem with this scenario: many of these women
> >> say that
> >> is not what they want.
> >>
> >> Many women at the nation's most elite colleges say they have already
> >> decided that they will put aside their careers in favor of raising
> >> children. Though some of these students are not planning to have
> >> children
> >> and some hope to have a family and work full time, many others,
> >> like Ms.
> >> Liu, say they will happily play a traditional female role, with
> >> motherhood
> >> their main commitment.
> >>
> >> [Some readers have asked about the reporting that went into this
> >> article.
> >> The reporter, Louise Story, explains in a separate article
> >> published Sept.
> >> 23.]
> >>
> >> Much attention has been focused on career women who leave the work
> >> force
> >> to rear children. What seems to be changing is that while many
> >> women in
> >> college two or three decades ago expected to have full-time
> >> careers, their
> >> daughters, while still in college, say they have already decided to
> >> suspend or end their careers when they have children.
> >>
> >> "At the height of the women's movement and shortly thereafter,
> >> women were
> >> much more firm in their expectation that they could somehow combine
> >> full-time work with child rearing," said Cynthia E. Russett, a
> >> professor
> >> of American history who has taught at Yale since 1967. "The women
> >> today
> >> are, in effect, turning realistic."
> >>
> >> Dr. Russett is among more than a dozen faculty members and
> >> administrators
> >> at the most exclusive institutions who have been on campus for
> >> decades and
> >> who said in interviews that they had noticed the changing attitude.
> >>
> >> Many students say staying home is not a shocking idea among their
> >> friends.
> >> Shannon Flynn, an 18-year-old from Guilford, Conn., who is a
> >> freshman at
> >> Harvard, says many of her girlfriends do not want to work full time.
> >>
> >> "Most probably do feel like me, maybe even tending toward wanting
> >> to not
> >> work at all," said Ms. Flynn, who plans to work part time after
> >> having
> >> children, though she is torn because she has worked so hard in
> >> school.
> >>
> >> "Men really aren't put in that position," she said.
> >>
> >> Uzezi Abugo, a freshman at the University of Pennsylvania who
> >> hopes to
> >> become a lawyer, says she, too, wants to be home with her children at
> >> least until they are in school.
> >>
> >> "I've seen the difference between kids who did have their mother
> >> stay at
> >> home and kids who didn't, and it's kind of like an obvious
> >> difference when
> >> you look at it," said Ms. Abugo, whose mother, a nurse, stayed
> >> home until
> >> Ms. Abugo was in first grade.
> >>
> >> While the changing attitudes are difficult to quantify, the shift
> >> emerges
> >> repeatedly in interviews with Ivy League students, including 138
> >> freshman
> >> and senior females at Yale who replied to e-mail questions sent to
> >> members
> >> of two residential colleges over the last school year.
> >>
> >> The interviews found that 85 of the students, or roughly 60
> >> percent, said
> >> that when they had children, they planned to cut back on work or stop
> >> working entirely. About half of those women said they planned to
> >> work part
> >> time, and about half wanted to stop work for at least a few years.
> >>
> >> Two of the women interviewed said they expected their husbands to
> >> stay
> >> home with the children while they pursued their careers. Two
> >> others said
> >> either they or their husbands would stay home, depending on whose
> >> career
> >> was furthest along.
> >>
> >> The women said that pursuing a rigorous college education was
> >> worth the
> >> time and money because it would help position them to work in
> >> meaningful
> >> part-time jobs when their children are young or to attain good
> >> jobs when
> >> their children leave home.
> >>
> >> In recent years, elite colleges have emphasized the important
> >> roles they
> >> expect their alumni - both men and women - to play in society.
> >>
> >> (Page 2 of 3)
> >>
> >> For example, earlier this month, Shirley M. Tilghman, the
> >> president of
> >> Princeton University, welcomed new freshmen, saying: "The goal of a
> >> Princeton education is to prepare young men and women to take up
> >> positions
> >> of leadership in the 21st century. Of course, the word 'leadership'
> >> conjures up images of presidents and C.E.O.'s, but I want to
> >> stress that
> >> my idea of a leader is much broader than that."
> >>
> >> She listed education, medicine and engineering as other areas where
> >> students could become leaders.
> >>
> >> In an e-mail response to a question, Dr. Tilghman added: "There is
> >> nothing
> >> inconsistent with being a leader and a stay-at-home parent. Some
> >> women
> >> (and a handful of men) whom I have known who have done this have
> >> had a
> >> powerful impact on their communities."
> >>
> >> Yet the likelihood that so many young women plan to opt out of
> >> high-powered careers presents a conundrum.
> >>
> >> "It really does raise this question for all of us and for the
> >> country:
> >> when we work so hard to open academics and other opportunities for
> >> women,
> >> what kind of return do we expect to get for that?" said Marlyn
> >> McGrath
> >> Lewis, director of undergraduate admissions at Harvard, who served
> >> as dean
> >> for coeducation in the late 1970's and early 1980's.
> >>
> >> It is a complicated issue and one that most schools have not
> >> addressed.
> >> The women they are counting on to lead society are likely to marry
> >> men who
> >> will make enough money to give them a real choice about whether to be
> >> full-time mothers, unlike those women who must work out of economic
> >> necessity.
> >>
> >> It is less than clear what universities should, or could, do about
> >> it. For
> >> one, a person's expectations at age 18 are less than perfect
> >> predictors of
> >> their life choices 10 years later. And in any case, admissions
> >> officers
> >> are not likely to ask applicants whether they plan to become stay-
> >> at-home
> >> moms.
> >>
> >> University officials said that success meant different things to
> >> different
> >> people and that universities were trying to broaden students'
> >> minds, not
> >> simply prepare them for jobs.
> >>
> >> "What does concern me," said Peter Salovey, the dean of Yale
> >> College, "is
> >> that so few students seem to be able to think outside the box; so few
> >> students seem to be able to imagine a life for themselves that isn't
> >> constructed along traditional gender roles."
> >>
> >> There is, of course, nothing new about women being more likely
> >> than men to
> >> stay home to rear children.
> >>
> >> According to a 2000 survey of Yale alumni from the classes of
> >> 1979, 1984,
> >> 1989 and 1994, conducted by the Yale Office of Institutional
> >> Research,
> >> more men from each of those classes than women said that work was
> >> their
> >> primary activity - a gap that was small among alumni in their 20's
> >> but
> >> widened as women moved into their prime child-rearing years. Among
> >> the
> >> alumni surveyed who had reached their 40's, only 56 percent of the
> >> women
> >> still worked, compared with 90 percent of the men.
> >>
> >> A 2005 study of comparable Yale alumni classes found that the
> >> pattern had
> >> not changed. Among the alumni who had reached their early 40's,
> >> just over
> >> half said work was their primary activity, compared with 90
> >> percent of the
> >> men. Among the women who had reached their late 40's, some said
> >> they had
> >> returned to work, but the percentage of women working was still
> >> far behind
> >> the percentage of men.
> >>
> >> A 2001 survey of Harvard Business School graduates found that 31
> >> percent
> >> of the women from the classes of 1981, 1985 and 1991 who answered the
> >> survey worked only part time or on contract, and another 31
> >> percent did
> >> not work at all, levels strikingly similar to the percentages of
> >> the Yale
> >> students interviewed who predicted they would stay at home or work
> >> part
> >> time in their 30's and 40's.
> >>
> >> What seems new is that while many of their mothers expected to have
> >> hard-charging careers, then scaled back their professional plans only
> >> after having children, the women of this generation expect their
> >> careers
> >> to take second place to child rearing.
> >>
> >> "It never occurred to me," Rebecca W. Bushnell, dean of the School
> >> of Arts
> >> and Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania, said about working
> >> versus
> >> raising children. "Thirty years ago when I was heading out, I
> >> guess I was
> >> just taking it one step at a time."
> >>
> >> Many Women at Elite Colleges Set Career Path to Motherhood
> >>
> >> (Page 3 of 3)
> >>
> >> Dr. Bushnell said young women today, in contrast, are thinking and
> >> talking
> >> about part-time or flexible work options for when they have children.
> >> "People have a heightened awareness of trying to get the right
> >> balance
> >> between work and family."
> >>
> >> Sarah Currie, a senior at Harvard, said many of the men in her
> >> American
> >> Family class last fall approved of women's plans to stay home with
> >> their
> >> children.
> >>
> >> "A lot of the guys were like, 'I think that's really great,' " Ms.
> >> Currie
> >> said. "One of the guys was like, 'I think that's sexy.' Staying at
> >> home
> >> with your children isn't as polarizing of an issue as I envision
> >> it is for
> >> women who are in their 30's now."
> >>
> >> For most of the young women who responded to e-mail questions, a
> >> major
> >> factor shaping their attitudes seemed to be their experience with
> >> their
> >> own mothers, about three out of five of whom did not work at all,
> >> took
> >> several years off or worked only part time.
> >>
> >> "My stepmom's very proud of my choice because it makes her feel more
> >> valuable," said Kellie Zesch, a Texan who graduated from the
> >> University of
> >> North Carolina two years ago and who said that once she had
> >> children, she
> >> intended to stay home for at least five years and then consider
> >> working
> >> part time. "It justified it to her, that I don't look down on her
> >> for not
> >> having a career."
> >>
> >> Similarly, students who are committed to full-time careers, without
> >> breaks, also cited their mothers as influences. Laura Sullivan, a
> >> sophomore at Yale who wants to be a lawyer, called her mother's
> >> choice to
> >> work full time the "greatest gift."
> >>
> >> "She showed me what it meant to be an amazing mother and maintain a
> >> career," Ms. Sullivan said.
> >>
> >> Some of these women's mothers, who said they did not think about
> >> these
> >> issues so early in their lives, said they were surprised to hear that
> >> their college-age daughters had already formed their plans.
> >>
> >> Emily Lechner, one of Ms. Liu's roommates, hopes to stay home a
> >> few years,
> >> then work part time as a lawyer once her children are in school.
> >>
> >> Her mother, Carol, who once thought she would have a full-time
> >> career but
> >> gave it up when her children were born, was pleasantly surprised
> >> to hear
> >> that. "I do have this bias that the parents can do it best," she
> >> said. "I
> >> see a lot of women in their 30's who have full-time nannies, and I
> >> just
> >> question if their kids are getting the best."
> >>
> >> For many feminists, it may come as a shock to hear how unbothered
> >> many
> >> young women at the nation's top schools are by the strictures of
> >> traditional roles.
> >>
> >> "They are still thinking of this as a private issue; they're
> >> accepting
> >> it," said Laura Wexler, a professor of American studies and
> >> women's and
> >> gender studies at Yale. "Women have been given full-time working
> >> career
> >> opportunities and encouragement with no social changes to support it.
> >>
> >> "I really believed 25 years ago," Dr. Wexler added, "that this
> >> would be
> >> solved by now."
> >>
> >> Angie Ku, another of Ms. Liu's roommates who had a stay-at-home
> >> mom, talks
> >> nonchalantly about attending law or business school, having perhaps a
> >> 10-year career and then staying home with her children.
> >>
> >> "Parents have such an influence on their children," Ms. Ku said.
> >> "I want
> >> to have that influence. Me!"
> >>
> >> She said she did not mind if that limited her career potential.
> >>
> >> "I'll have a career until I have two kids," she said. "It doesn't
> >> necessarily matter how far you get. It's kind of like the
> >> experience: I
> >> have tried what I wanted to do."
> >>
> >> Ms. Ku added that she did not think it was a problem that women
> >> usually do
> >> most of the work raising kids.
> >>
> >> "I accept things how they are," she said. "I don't mind the status
> >> quo. I
> >> don't see why I have to go against it."
> >>
> >> After all, she added, those roles got her where she is.
> >>
> >> "It worked so well for me," she said, "and I don't see in my life
> >> why it
> >> wouldn't work."
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> > David P. Morris, PhD
> > aka thecat &AElig umich.edu, aka KB8PWY
> > home: 734-995-5525  UofM (2104 SPRL): 734-763-5357  fax: 734-763-5567
> > ElectroDynamic Applications Inc.
> > phone: (734) 786-1434 fax: (734) 786-3235
> > morris &AElig edapplications.com
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
>