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From: rao@cdrsun.stanford.EDU (Subbarao Kambhampati)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: Women and Career
Message-ID: <9106271731.AA28851@cdrsun.stanford.edu>
Date: 27 Jun 91 19:47:06 GMT
References: <143634@unix.cis.pitt.edu>
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[This is w.r.t. an article posted from bcwst@unix.cis.pitt.edu's
account.  An article, which was uncannily similar to this one, was
posted to soc.culture.indian a couple of days ago from the same
account, under the name of Viswambara (and not prasad, as this one was
posted). Far be it for me to suggest any "mischievous intent"--but it
does seem strange that the name of the poster keeps changing.
Anyways, here is my (serious) response to the posting on
soc.culture.indian.  -Rao[Jun 27, 1991]]
---------------

In article <144654@unix.cis.pitt.edu> bcwst@unix.cis.pitt.edu
(Viswambara) writes expressing doubts about "these liberated women":

>I have also observed that those women who think they are the
>independent kind seem to be the most confused or worst effected ones
>since they take their sense of independence and convert it into a
>unbending and non compromising attitude which if married kills the
>marriage or else if unmarried they become extremely closed to
>compromise and they get rigid and most end up getting more and more
>cynical about Men. But again all these are general observations and
>personal experience.

Hmm.. Let's see--it stands to reason to assume that there are at least
as many men who think they are the independent kind as there are women
who think that way, right? And yet, you seem to imply that marriages
fall apart only if the women are the independent type! Is it possible
that independence, even if it is of the "uncompromising variety" is
supported in men, but punished in women?

>Is this what our Modern India coming to?  Are we socially suited for
>taking on this kind of Marriage -Divorce on finding small
>Compromisable faults.  No I am not talking of keeping marriage alive
>where there is physical or Mental Abuse on either side constantly, But
>breaking up on trival issues or for convienence seems

This seems to be the familiar ploy of "Are we ready to endorse freedom
of choice for women, 'cuz if we do, then, Aiiyyayyo we will have
OOODLES OF DIVORCES in our midst"!!

First, let me ask if Mr. Viswambara can point out some portentous
statistics that would convince us that marriages are falling apart for
trivialest of reasons because of the "independent" women?

Second, let me add that the pitfalls of this type of argument are
many. Suffice it to say that I would rather stay with a system where
people are "free" and divorce rate is slightly higher, than a system
that provides artificial stability by denying freedom of choice to
half the population!

Finally, let me get to the first para of his message..

>  I would though
>like to know how many of these woman have successfully managed
>their career and their Family life? I have come to know of lots
>of women have had either to give up one or another and they have
>always seemed to do this with some regret.

If Mr. Viswambara ever asked himself the same question about men, then
he would have realized the glaringly lopsided state of affairs. The
fact of the matter is that for generations upon generations, men were
able to have career *as well as* family!! They were able to do that
because women *by societal pressure or out of choice*, stayed at home
and took care of everything.

Now that women have fought for and got a chance to exercise their
freedom of choice vis a vis their careers--we are turning back and
telling them:

 "look, we are all for your career etc, of course--but we
  hope you take care of all the family matters that you used to take
  care of before!!"

In other words, to exercise their freedom of choice, women have to be
"superhuman"!  This after all is the message that is drummed in by the
popular media--such as a Femina interview where Mrs. X. says that she
has built her 100M business, but still puts her family first before
her business.  All this succeeds remarkably well making "career-women"
(yet another play of words--did you ever hear an appellation
"career-men"?) feel guilty about their choices.  What is more, we are
quite good at telling them that it is all somehow *their* fault--that
the anguish and guilty feelings that they are having to deal with are
things that they had brought upon themselves! [** I heard an
interesting anecdote on a radio interview with an NYT columnist
recently. Apparently, this woman (whose name I forgot), used to write
a family advice column for NYT and was quite well received by her
readers. That is until the day when she wrote in her column that she
has a baby sitter to take care of her infant and toddler for several
hours of the day, when she is at "WORK". Suddenly, she got angry
letters from her readers saying that she should be *ASHAMED* of
leaving such small kids with babysitters that way, and that they would
no longer take her family advice seriously. This woman wonders: "When
do these people think I write the advice column? At 3 AM in the
morning, after all my family goes off to sleep??***]

Is it any surprise then, that more and more women, who can't afford to
be superwomen, are faced with the "Sophie's Choice" of family or
career--a choice that most men never had to make?

This state of matters will not change as long as we continue this
position of "If women want careers, women can get careers--as long as
they don't ask us men to change our life styles because of them".

Equality should mean equal responsibility.  Things aren't going to be
"the same" for men. We cannot afford to cling on to the lifestyles and
work-place ethics that were designed to suit an eigteenth century man,
with his hugely supportive family infrastructure.  Men should be just
as responsible for their families, and bringing up children etc. as
women should be. The quandaries of juggling family and career should
be SHARED by both the partners.

Rao
[Subbarao Kambhampati]