It certainly is odd that the ideological set now claiming not to know what a woman is once claimed to know precisely what a woman’s role should be. But it did. And, boy, was it ever a coup, in league with convincing eagles they shouldn’t fly or sunfish they shouldn’t swim. In fact, generations of women have been sold the lie of careerism — to their own detriment (and our civilization’s).
So says commentator and new mother Sarah Wilder, whose words certainly could make feminists wilder. As she wrote Sunday at 1819 News:
There’s an entire generation of women who have been sold a specific lie.
Sixty years after the second wave feminism of women like Gloria Steinem, the idea that women must have a career that looks just like a man’s in order to not squander their brains and talents still exists. The daughters of the women who grew up under Steinem’s brand of feminism understand that there are undeniable benefits of having children but have not shaken the sense that they would be giving up something at least as good, if not better, when sacrificing a career.
In such an environment, a woman suffers a bit of a whiplash when she finds that the same career standard applied to men and women is significantly harder for her to meet.
Be in the House — and the Home?
In other words, you can’t really “have it all.” But this doesn’t stop many women from trying — even in Congress. As Wilder writes about a case in point:
U.S. Rep. Brittany Pettersen (D-Colo.) is leading a bipartisan group of lawmakers in advocating for remote voting options for congresswomen who have recently given birth. Parading her newborn around the Capitol, Pettersen is giving floor speeches and TV interviews to emphasize what she sees as the absurdity of the requirement for in-person voting.
Wilder then presents the video below of Pettersen doing just that.
Wilder also laments how many Republicans are rallying behind Pettersen. Never mind that remote voting is apparently unconstitutional. Never mind that representatives find it hard enough reading and comprehending the gargantuan bills Congress disgorges even when devoting full attention. Feminism has spoken. Why, next we can allow female pilots — also being DEI-demanded — to fly jumbo jets remotely while suckling a babe. Women can multitask, right?
Wilder notes that the Republicans opposing Pettersen’s mission do mention the in-person-work imperative (somewhat less polemically than I did). But that’s all they mention. What they don’t do is state what Wilder calls the “obvious.”
Pettersen could “honor her own biology and step out of this intense role in the first place,” she writes.
That, though, would require opposing Big Feminism. And, listen, comedian/commentator Bill Maher once said that if you cross the “gay mafia … you do get whacked.” Well, Big Feminism’s hit “men” (and womyn) make the former’s look like pikers. (Example: The oh-so woke “trans” agenda was marching forth unimpeded. That is, until it trod upon a feminist sacred cow: Females in sports and women’s opportunities, generally. Then it learned about, as Darth Vader might say, the “true power of the dark side.”)
Sacrifice and Sanity
Wilder points out that true devotion to motherhood would require career sacrifices of Pettersen, sacrifices the writer knows firsthand. Her decision to be totally present for her baby, she says, has meant becoming only a part-time commentator. (E.g., she’s no longer at the Daily Caller.)
Wilder also emphasizes, though, that women realistic about the motherhood imperative generally enjoy greater happiness than careerism’s victims. They certainly don’t experience the stress and inner conflict Pettersen apparently endures, as evidenced by her plaintive House-floor plea.
For Pettersen’s part, she spoke of what she values in her speech. She said that it’s one of her “greatest honors” to be a mom. It’s also one of her “greatest honors” to be in Congress.
But should she perhaps decide which is greater?
(And, more significantly, which can only be done justice by her.)
As to this, Pettersen could help rule the country — or consider that, as is said, the “hand that rocks the cradle rules the world.” She can do both part time, too, of course.
Then a nanny or babysitter will be rocking that cradle much of the time.
Great and Greater
But perhaps no one explained motherhood’s beauty better than happy-warrior philosopher G.K. Chesterton. As he wrote in his book What’s Wrong with the World? (1910):
When domesticity, for instance, is called drudgery, all the difficulty arises from a double meaning in the word. If drudgery only means dreadfully hard work, I admit the woman drudges in the home, as a man might drudge at the Cathedral of Amiens or drudge behind a gun at Trafalgar. But if it means that the hard work is more heavy because it is trifling, colourless and of small import to the soul, then as I say, I give it up; I do not know what the words mean. To be Queen Elizabeth within a definite area, deciding sales, banquets, labours, and holidays; to be Whiteley within a certain area, providing toys, boots, sheets, cakes, and books, to be Aristotle within a certain area, teaching morals, manners, theology, and hygiene; I can understand how this might exhaust the mind, but I cannot imagine how it could narrow it. How can it be a large career to tell other people’s children about the Rule of Three, and a small career to tell one’s own children about the universe? How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone, and narrow to be everything to someone? No; a woman’s function is laborious, but because it is gigantic, not because it is minute.
Some of Chesterton’s references are dated, of course (though their meaning is evident from context). But the ideas are timeless.
The Other Option
Of course, we could just listen to people such as feminist icon Simone de Beauvoir. She said women shouldn’t be allowed to stay at home because, otherwise, too many wives would choose to do so. But when pondering who’s right and which is the greater calling, do note something. There is a reason there’s a film called I Remember Mama and not I Remember Call-center Worker Debbie From Cubicle C.
