A week ago the Washington Post did a spread on Linda Hirshman’s article in the American Prospect, championing working mothers. Well, that’s looking at the glass half-full; conservatives saw Hirshman on a campaign against the American mother, flag waving in the background, apple pie in the oven. There was a huge tirade of stay-at-home mothers expressing hate over the blogs but today I found the first article championing Hirshman’s viewpoint on Slate.com.

I believe all sides will just defend their own mothers and to be upfront about it- my mother is a working mother. (and somehow I didn’t end up a crack dealer.) So I guess I took it personally when all these mothers were attacking Hirshman, herself a working mother, trying to show how their logic was so much better than Hirshman’s though, and not saying Hirshman’s was perfect either, the mothers’ logic is just based on stereotypes.

Consider some of these arguments:

 "It is unnatural and benefeits no one when women rebel against nature"

 Since when is working, rebelling against nature? Actually backtrack- does this mean that not conceiving a child is against nature? That would lead me to conclude that barren women are unnatural. However, I would think that artificial insemination and surrogate mothers are really what’s unnatural- hence their adjectives.

But also, working is hardly unnatural, even in the Christian community. Eve was created for Adam as "a helper to be his partner". Arguably, since this was said before the fall and the curse of pain in childbirth, conception was not supposed to be the "help" that Eve was created to offer. Furthermore, women were given generally the same capabilities as men- arms that could hold more things than toys, legs that could run after more things than babies and brains that could think about more things than diapers. I fully believe these were given for a purpose, though they do deteriorate without use.

 "Caring for children isn’t valued in our society".

If that were true, would Linda Hirshman have received such a backlash? 

 "Saying that women don’t have the choice between stay-at-home motherhood and working is a step backwards for feminism which originally stood for "the advocacy of women’s rights on the grounds of political, social, and economic equality to men"

 Yet, stay-at-home moms are certainly not politically, socially, or economically equal to men. First they have no money because they dont’ work- they are completely dependent on their husbands. Second, they cannot socialize with the vast majority of the populace which is employed- almost all the men and many women. Third, politicians don’t care about stay-at-home mothers except as a symbol, or insomuch as it pleases their husbands. Stay-at-home mothers have no leveraging power and are really only an easy target as consumers. So Hirshman’s opinion is an attempt to realize that stay-at-home motherhood is not empowering to women as a whole or individually. Not only are you impacting yourself but, according to the Slate article, making it harder for women who need to work for the money, who may have lower education and fewer connections- from having bargaining power or role models with which to break the glass ceiling.

 "It’s wrong of her to say her way is right and the only way"

Isn’t this the argument most often used against Christianity? Honestly one only says this if they’re offended personally and don’t have any factual way to back up what they do or who they are. I mean, if she’s right then she’s just a woman publishing her research and you’re just a woman reacting.

"She differentiates between her biological children and her step children."
"I bet she never had children."
"I bet she has never worked in the corporate workforce."
"She doesn’t know anything about academia or argument"

These arguments are all irrelevant and are just catty and most often untrue. (Hirshman has 3 children, practiced law for 12 years in a firm and who cares if she differentiates between her biological children and step children for clarity in an interview?/) 

Honestly, I accomplish nothing but I do look to be a role model in the workforce just like my mother