Krish blogs:
Is this what feminism looks like, or what capitalism can only accommodate for the educated woman in new millenium? Sandra Tsing Loh writes a compelling rebuttal to Linda Hirshman’s “marvelously cranky ‘Get to Work … And Get a Life, Before It’s Too Late’ ” book that asserts the workplace as a highly-fulfilling, nonstop thrill ride to becoming a complete human being; an almost revist to bell hook’s critique of the Feminine Mystique: what job do you have and why the hell isn’t mine as fulfilling and pleasurable as yours?!
I found that article to be so illuminating. Feminism should be about validating the choice of women. Working in the the public sector is only seen as more valuable because it produces a product that can be sold for profit, yet the work in the private sphere is absolutely essential. Women like Hirshmen forget that without the labor of women in the private sphere the public sphere as we understand it today would fail to exist.
I don’t think women like Hirschman forget that at all. They just ask why all this meaningful, fulfilling, low-paid work is delegated to women, while men are apparently just so dumb that they’d rather take jobs that pay ten times as much.