SIVACRACY.NET

Tangentially, I appreciated your posts re: Linda Hirshman's half-year-old Quixotic venture against choice-feminism. I am currently a law student and my partner is about to fall into the same pit this September. We both want children in the future, and both would prefer to belong more to each other than to some firm.

We are also both are ambitious to the extent that we desire satisfying careers. But contrary to Hirshman's version of the world, it strikes neither my parter or I as an either/or proposition, nor is working about who wears the pants in our house. We hope (fingers crossed) that by both working, we can each make career choices that aren't strictly about money, and instead leverage the other's position to buy more job satisfaction and time at home.

For a minute there, Hirshman's vague and dire-sounding study sucked into a statistical melancholy even my sense of choice. But then your blog commentary righted the ship again and reminded me that, hey, people are different after all. Thanks a bunch.

Thanks! I reacted fairly negatively to Hirshman's views because I think they are divisive and counterproductive, and that she is plain wromg about some things. Ironically, though, I find myself agreeing on one point, but having trouble communicating it to women who don't want to hear it. That is the idea that women need to look out for themselves financially if they are going to stop earning salaries of their own. They need to make sure that their working partners have life insurance, they need to build up a decent "security blanket" type savings account before they stop working to the greatest extent possible, and they need to keep themselves marketable, "just in case." So for whatever it is worth, I pass that advice along to you! :>)