Independent Women's Forum - Research Areas > Work and Family Balance

Thomas Sowell on Higher Education

info@iwf.org (Allison Kasic) — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 14:50:00 EST

National Review's website has featured a series of interviews with Thomas Sowell this week. In the third installment, Peter Robinson and Sowell discuss several issues pertaining to higher education including grade inflation, the problems associated with faculty tenure, and the lack of market forces within the academy. It's well worth a watch.

The video is available here.

Update: The rest of the series is great, too. Part onedeals with women in the workplace (note that Sowell's research shows, as IWF has said for years, that the key variable in women obtaining high level positions is child rearing, not discrimination as the wage gap theorists claim), part two deals with income levels and social mobility, part four tackles more issues pertaining to higher education including the price of tuition, and the final installment deals with fallacies associated with race.

New at IWF: FMLA

info@iwf.org (Allison Kasic) — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 11:24:00 EST

In the latest IWF policy paper, Who Pays for My Time Off? The Costs and Consequences of Government-Mandated Leave, Carrie Lukas makes the case against government mandates in the workplace. Here's the executive summary:

Balancing the demands of work and family life can be a challenge for any worker. Events such as severe illness or the birth of a child can make working outside the home impossible. People overwhelmingly sympathize with those facing these challenging situations and want society to support such individuals during difficult times.

In recent decades, however, the question has turned not to how civil society can support individuals in times of need, but to how the federal government can dictate how employers must accommodate employees facing these situations. Existing laws require that large employers allow qualified employees to take unpaid leave when facing such circumstances. Some policymakers want to expand these regulations so that they apply to smaller employers and to mandate the availability of additional benefits, such as paid leave.
This paper examines the Family and Medical Leave Act, which mandates that businesses provide unpaid leave to their workers, and considers some of the problems associated with its application. It will also consider the potential consequences of expanding these regulations.
This paper highlights how private entities are voluntarily providing leave benefits and considers ways that policymakers can further encourage businesses and individuals to take actions that will make it easier for individuals in need of leave, without costly government mandates.

Read the full report here.

In the News: Is maternal profiling a problem in the workplace?

Wed, 16 Jan 2008 11:43:00 EST

Atlanta Journal Constitution

Commentary

By Andrea Cornell Sarvady

Andrea Cornell Sarvady

Auto service technician Mailyn Pickler is fired a week after she tells her dealership that she ‘s pregnant. The boss informs her that it wouldn't be prudent to drive the shuttle bus in her condition. Kohl's employee Teresa Lehman gained high marks for a decade, and was assured she was on track to become store manager. Then the mother of two saw five managerial positions go to less experienced employees who were childless or indicated they would have no more children.

"Maternal Profiling," selected by the New York Times as one of their 2007 buzzwords, is definitely alive and well. Popularized by advocacy group momsrising.org, it's "employment discrimination against a woman who has, or will have, children."

"Family Responsibilities Discrimination" is the more inclusive term used at Work Life Law, a center at Hastings College of Law in California. It astutely acknowledges that not all employers who discriminate against mothers are men, and not all caregivers in need of family-friendly policies are women.

Yet mothers still get hit hardest with bias due to presumptions surrounding their caregiver status. The center's deputy director, Cynthia Thomas Calvert, helped me sort through some common offenses: Pregnant women being fired for trumped-up reasons; interview questions designed to weed out mothers and other caregivers; performance reviews designed to eliminate those employees, whether or not work has actually been affected.

Laws are in place to address these grievances, yet laws are not always followed. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission reported a nearly 40 percent increase in pregnancy discrimination complaints since 1992, even though the birthrate has been dropping. No wonder momsrising.org and the Work Life Law Center are just two of many thriving organizations designed to advocate for families, as well as assist companies grappling with this issue.

We should sympathize with the unique challenges of creating a family-friendly work environment. Yet our nation requires it, now more than ever. The recent spike in unemployment and the threat of recession puts any employee with a perceived "domestic deficit" even further at risk. As employees increasingly take on the care of aging parents in addition to their own offspring, let's continue to find solutions that work for both companies and caregivers.

Rebuttal

By Shaunti Feldhahn

Shaunti Feldhahn

I get furious when I hear a Kohl's manager asked Teresa Lehman, "Did you get your tubes tied?" after she had three kids in four years. So, apparently, was the jury in her case: they awarded her $2.1 million.

But offensive statements aside, there's often an uncomfortable but legitimate business dynamic at work in situations that look like "maternal profiling." It's easy to see something as discrimination that is actually a legitimate result of how women with families often choose to work. That's not maternal profiling; its maternal preference.

If a mom chooses a less-intense job that allows her pick up Johnny at 5:30 p.m., for example, and simply can't tackle late-night meetings or last-minute travel, she'll probably be paid and promoted less than her peers who pull the all-nighter to get the client deal finished. It is frustrating for the sidelined mom, but she is getting the benefit that she prioritizes most: Family time instead of money.

Childcare duties are more evenly distributed today, but the fact remains that most women want to be there for their kids. A study by the Center for Policy Alternatives found that 71 percent of women would rather have more flexibility and benefits than a higher wage, and almost 85 percent took flexible work arrangements when they were offered. Andy says we need a solution, but the increasing availability of part-time and flexible work arrangements is a solution. Unfortunately, those arrangements are often simply less productive and convenient for the company. We shouldn't penalize a progressive company by insisting that they pay and promote those employees the same!

Teresa Lehman was apparently a respected Kohl's employee, tracking toward management, but she had several small children, including one who tragically died. I couldn't find specific information on her case, but isn't it possible that she needed several years of special accommodation for time off work, medical visits, and wasn't able to work the long hours her peers could?

As Carrie Lukas of the Independent Women's Forum said in an interview, "I would hope employers would be able to work with [women with family realities], but they have hired employees to work, not just out of the goodness of their heart, and they have to think about their bottom line."

Maybe It's Motherhood

info@iwf.org (Carrie L. Lukas) — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 16:49:00 EST

National Review Online

For those keeping score in the battle of the sexes, women got a point last week when a study found that female corporate directors are paid more than males. But since the study also found that women are outnumbered by men in corporate board rooms 8 to 1, it's probably best to call it a draw.

It's typical for a study of women in the workplace; there's always evidence of women succeeding, but in terms of overall numbers, women lag behind. This frustrates feminists who long for women to equal men in terms of total professional prestige. They have numerous explanations for why women remain behind - including sexist workplaces and lazy husbands who pigeonhole wives into keeping house and tending children.

I expected the mother and daughter team, Mary Ann Mason and Eve Mason Ekman, to offer this typical feminist fare in Mothers on the Fast Track: How a New Generation Can Balance Family and Careers. Yet their book, surprisingly, accepted a central premise that's rejected by much of the sisterhood: most women want to have children, and spend time with those children when they are young. This reality - women's desire for children and hands-on childrearing - is at the root of why women have failed to catch up to men in most prestigious professions.

As Mason and Ekman detail, the "make-or-break years" for careers (the thirties, which tend to determine if a lawyer becomes partner or a professor gets tenure) coincide with prime childbearing years, particularly for well-educated women, who tend to get married and start families late. As a result, women face painful choices, which sideline many, and thin the ranks of those marching up the professional ladder.

While discussing the "motherhood problem," Mason and Ekman carefully state that "children are a wonder and a blessing, not a problem." This might seem an unnecessary acknowledgment to those unfamiliar with other feminist writing, but it's refreshing after books such as Linda Hirshman's Get to Work: A Manifesto for Women of The World. Hirshman's condescending nod to motherhood (she instructs women, "Have a baby. Just don't have two") is buried by her disdain for women who stay home with children, and conclusion that even a mediocre career is better than wasting your life raising children.

Hirshman's brand of feminism doesn't resonant with mothers, and Mason and Ekman know this. They aren't attempting to convince women to abandon family for the workplace, but to identify what's really going on, so that women can better navigate their own career paths.

They dismiss the narratives commonly offered by the media, that women are either "relentlessly rising to equal representation in top positions" or "dropping out at a faster rate than they can succeed," and offer an alternative picture: "...highly educated women rarely leave their chosen profession entirely. Instead they become caught in a "second tier" within or allied with their profession where they take breaks for family needs but return to work, sometimes on a reduced schedule but frequently full-time, until retirement." They offer advice to women who want to remain on the "fast track" career-wise while raising families, and discuss how workplaces can become more accommodating, by providing alternative fast tracks and "on-ramps" for those who take time off.

They cite examples of companies that are doing just this: Pfizer, for example, offers working mothers three-day work weeks with the option of returning to full-time. Hewlett-Packard encourages flextime, job sharing, and telecommuting. Mason and Ekman argue that such practices help retain quality workers and are therefore good for the bottom line.

Yet apparently they don't trust that companies will arrive at this conclusion on their own, and therefore call for government to mandate family-friendly policies. They want the government to require companies to offer paid leave policies and subsidize daycare, and speak glowingly of European countries that have taken these "progressive" measures, while ignoring the high unemployment rates and economic lethargy that always accompany such mandates. Mason and Ekman, like so many feminist writers before them, imagine a world in which men and women are equally likely to utilize whatever parental leave benefits that the government forces companies to offer, but in the real world, women will always disproportionately use these benefits and employers know it.

The flaw in this book is that no amount of advice; and no number of clever strategies, or family-friendly policies will change the reality - those with divided attention will generally not be as productive as those devoted entirely to their careers. Mason and Ekman lament that the vision of the "ideal worker" conflicts with the lives of many working parents. Yet the attributes associated with an "ideal worker" are not constructed to marginalize working parents; they are based on experience of who is most valuable to a company. If companies are truly mistaken - if those who work fewer hours or work from home provide more value in a business sense - then ultimately the definition of "ideal worker" will change, since those companies that embrace this new vision will be rewarded in the marketplace.

It seems likely, for example, that many companies may place too much emphasis on time spent in the office when evaluating employees. Evaluating output will prove a better business model. This will benefit at-home workers, many of whom are women. Yet it seems a stretch to imagine that there isn't a relationship between number of hours dedicated to a job, and a worker's value.

An Olympic runner dedicates her life to her sport. In return, she may be rewarded with a medal. Those unwilling to make those sacrifices can't expect to compete at the same level. It works the same way in the business world; women and men who take time out, whether it's for family or for another pursuit, likely won't reach the same level as those who dedicate themselves fully to their jobs. Rewarding some isn't the same as penalizing others.

Mason and Ekman's book is an interesting look at the real challenges that mothers face in balancing work and family in a variety of professions. Their tips for navigating these challenges may be helpful at the margin, but no book is going to change the underlying dilemma that we all face in having only one life to live.

- Carrie Lukas is the vice president for policy and economics at the Independent Women's Forum and the author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Women, Sex, and Feminism.

IWF Policy Brief #5: Senator Clinton's Plan to Expand Family and Medical Leave

info@iwf.org (Carrie L. Lukas) — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 13:36:00 EDT

Download the complete Policy Brief below.

Executive Summary

Last week, Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) presented a plan for expanding family and medical leave. Specifically, she proposed changing the current Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) so that it applies to businesses with more than 25 workers (instead of the current requirement of at least 50 workers). She would also use federal dollars to encourage states to provide paid family leave.

Everyone understands the challenge of balancing the demands of work and family life, and that there are situations when individuals need time off from their jobs. While it is tempting to address this legitimate need through government action, there are significant costs to doing so.

In the years that FMLA has been in force, many businesses have struggled to make sense of the regulations and have had to bear increased financial and administrative burdens to comply with this law. Small businesses will likely experience greater disruptions if FMLA is expanded to apply to them since they are less likely to be able to shift work from those taking leave to their co-workers. These companies are also more financially vulnerable than large companies so will be more affected by the additional financial burden associated with FMLA.

Mandating benefits has costs for employers and ultimately for employees. An increasing portion of employee compensation is consumed by benefits, which means workers have less take-home pay. Rising costs of employment also discourage employers from offering new jobs and encourages outsourcing.

There are other ways for policymakers to help individuals sustain themselves during times of leave. First, the federal government ought to stop penalizing savings. Currently, the government discourages individuals from taking the responsible action of setting aside income that can be drawn upon during a period when they cannot work. Policymakers could also explore programs that encourage savings specifically to provide for paid leave. Policymakers have already created tax-advantaged savings vehicles for retirement, health expenses, and education costs, so they could create a similar initiative to deal with situations that require leave.

The primary goals of any government action should be to encourage individuals to provide for themselves and to avoid creating costly mandates that will be a drag on the economy and reduce job opportunities for Americans.

Related Podcast:

Family and Medical Leave Act with Allison Kasic and Carrie Lukas

In the News: 'Having it all' is a feminist myth

Tue, 09 Oct 2007 10:42:00 EDT

Tucson Citizen

Shaunti Feldhahn: From the right

'Having it all' is a feminist myth

Published: 10.09.2007

The reason women feel so pressured isn't because the choices exist but because feminism told us we should seize them all. Feminism wasn't just about equality for women, but about pushing the superwoman addiction. But as all frazzled superwomen know, that's a recipe for nervous breakdown - or for years of regret down the road.

I was blessed with a college-graduate mom who chose to be a domestic engineer. But in the 1970s, she was ridiculed so much for her stay-at-home status that she dreaded even talking about it and risk hearing condescending women say, "That's all you do?"

However, I'm sure my mother is far more happy - not less - for her choice to wait on her nursing career until her children were older, instead of trying to have it all, all at once.

Carrie Lukas, vice president of policy at the Independent Women's Forum and author of "The Politically Incorrect Guide to Women, Sex and Feminism," shared in an interview how hurtful feminist messages can be to women's happiness.

For example, she found feminist literature tended to "only focus on the negative problems of marriage, which contributes to the idea that marriage is disposable. But married women in general are much happier."

One of feminism's biggest and most devastating myths is that you can "have it all."

But as Lukas also pointed out: "Having choices doesn't mean you don't have to make a choice. There are going to be sacrifices no matter what choice you make."

I agree it's significant that the "Happiness Gap" study found increased dissatisfaction for women across the board - but for a very different reason.

Most women have a deep desire for someone with whom to share their life, to have children and watch them grow.

There's nothing wrong with seizing our modern workplace opportunities.

But if a woman pursues those opportunities at the expense of her personal desires and then finds that she's lonely, past child-bearing age or has missed the key moments in her children's lives, why wouldn't she have regrets?

I believe women would be far happier if feminism had been content with just pressing for equality for women - and hadn't made my last paragraph so politically incorrect.

An Update on Working Mothers...

info@iwf.org (Charlotte Hays) — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 09:56:00 EDT

Oh, dear. Linda R. "A Manifesto for Women of the World" Hirshman isn't going to be pleased with this report in today's WaPo:

"In a notable shift during the past decade, working mothers overwhelmingly view fewer work hours as the best option for their busy lives with young children. The proportion of mothers who feel that way jumped 12 percentage points since 1997."

PBS' To the Contrary: Expectant mothers, Michelle Obama, and new treatement for ADHD

info@iwf.org (Michelle D. Bernard) — Fri, 25 May 2007 17:38:00 EDT

IWF President and CEO, Michelle D. Bernard, on PBS' To the Contrary discussing whether expectant mothers are discriminated against on the job; Michelle Obama's decision to join her husband's presidential campaign; and transcendental meditation as an alternative treatment for ADHD.

PBS' To the Contrary: GOP candidates, network news programs, alpha vs. beta moms

info@iwf.org (Michelle D. Bernard) — Mon, 14 May 2007 17:49:00 EDT

IWF President and CEO, Michelle D. Bernard, guest on the PBS program, To the Contrary. In this episode, the discussion will cover: GOP presidential candidates flip-flopping on issues;the lack of women and minorities on cable network news programs; and, the battle between alpha vs. beta moms.

IWF BOOK REVIEW: "The Feminine Mistake, Are We Giving Up Too Much?"

info@iwf.org (Charlotte Hays) — Tue, 01 May 2007 00:00:00 EDT

The Feminine Mistake, Are We Giving Up Too Much? by Leslie Bennetts Hypoerion, $24.95

Author Leslie Bennetts was among those alarmed by a New York Times report that an increasing number of women with degrees from top colleges are choosing to become stay-at-home mothers. Rather than celebrating this as a choice now acceptable for brainy Ivy League graduates, Bennetts sees the phenomenon as fostering a dependency that ultimately puts these women in economic peril.

Starting with Bennetts' grandmother, many of the women in this book lead what the author sees as a 1950's style life that is interrupted when the husband comes home one night and, without warning, says he's leaving, usually for another woman. As a child of divorced parents, I know a bit about what this does to the economics of a family. (I sometimes think that the harsher forms of feminism were born of men who acted like rats.)

Bennetts deserves credit for raising issues worthy of public discussion. But I think her "solution" is narrow, and that the women interviewed for the book, mostly members of the same elite milieu inhabited by Vanity Fair correspondent Bennetts, will be a turnoff to readers who live outside Manhattan and who don't attend certain kinds of parties and share certain values. Make that will appall readers.

Along with feminist rhetoric ("a patriarchal society encourages women to subordinate their individual needs to those of the family"), there is a pervasive disdain for women who have chosen to stay at home. One woman, called Wendy Greenberg in the book (names are changed), appeared to be the ideal stay-at-home mother, but "if you dig deeper than Greenberg's effervescent public persona and talent got hostessing, her story becomes far more complicated. It seems that the poster girl for stay-at-home motherhood is not a happy camper after all."

As it turns out, Wendy had wanted to go to Yale School of Drama but had gone instead to law school, seemingly safer but she didn't really like it and didn't want to be a lawyer. Marriage, it appears, with the bargain to stay at home, was Wendy's way out of practicing law. (Other women in the book run into trouble in the workplace because of "lack of female role models.") When she first met Bennetts, Wendy maintained that she enjoyed her life and "shepherding" her daughter to ballet lessons. Because of her husband's "refusal" to discuss finances with her, she was unprepared when the one-time whiz kid got into financial difficulties. "I tortured him: 'You've disappointed me! We had this deal; you were going to be successful, and I was going to take care of the children, and everything was going to be fabulous. But this is not what I bought in for. What good are you now to me?'"

Bennetts comments that Wendy's "comfortable" lifestyle might seem enviable to most Americans, but it pales in comparison when those of friends whose husbands earn a million dollars a year. Greenberg expected to own a palatial apartment by now, but instead, "It's been seventeen years and we still rent," she says. Rather than having her own country house, she visits her parents in the suburbs when she wants to escape the city. She and her husband are now debating whether to remove their kids from the private school whose steep tuition has become an enormous burden. Like I said, I don't think the reader is going to care for a lot of the women in this book.

It is also probably possible to make the point that work can bring joy and meaning to our lives without sounding quite as soulless as Heidi Hartmann, founder of the Institute for Women's Policy Research. After professing that she would be willing to die for her children, she adds,"As I once said at a conference, unless you are the mother of an Einstein or a Madame Curie, which most of us are not, your own work, if it is significant, is probably more important to society than raising your kids." So only a really brainy kid is valuable to society?

Bennetts' answer to questions about women and work is: keep working. Hang onto the full-time professional job. The mother of two, she proposes "the fifteen year paradigm"--that is how long the "acute phase of mothering" lasts. "In exchange for staying the course, I've been able to enjoy an immensely rewarding career--not to mention an income that has sustained my family during some really difficult times when my husband's employment was interrupted." Of course, not all women are capable of working from home for one of the best-paying magazines in journalism.

Still, as I said, Bennetts (whom I tangled with in another life when I was a gossip columnist and know to be a formidable woman) does raise real issues. At the Independent Women's Forum, we've urged flex time and other options to improve the life of the working mother. We might also consider reforming no-fault divorce and making divorces harder to get. I'll bet as a member of New York's chic journalistic set Bennetts probably won't go for this one.

Charlotte Hays is senior editor at the Independent Women's Forum.

Mad Mothers and the Feminist Mistake

info@iwf.org (Charlotte Hays) — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 08:27:00 EDT

I haven't read Leslie Bennett's new book, The Feminine Mistake, though I suspect IWF will do a brown bag or some sort of event to address it. But what struck me about the review in yesterday's Washington Post (which finds the book "important but flawed") was the anger:

"A pregnant friend once asked me why all the mothers she knew seemed so angry. 'Lack of sleep and time,' I shrugged. But that's not the reason, or not entirely. New mothers, or at least some, are angry because for the first time they've come up hard against the fundamental inequity between men and women. The biological differences -- excruciating childbirth, endless late-night nursing -- are stark enough, but the societal expectation that child care is a 'women's issue' feels worse. After all these years of supposed equal rights, it seems men still have more important things to do than watch their children, a message relentlessly hammered home by the insufficient day care, inflexible employers and pressure to take 'mommy-tracked' jobs that burden so many mothers' working lives."

The review ends with some policy ideas:

"But Bennetts does make clear that if mothers continue to leave their jobs, instead of forcing employers and policymakers to address the real needs of real families, no solution will be found. Thanks to Bennetts's ferocious analysis of the economic realities that mothers face, the precariousness of their children's lives should be all the more difficult to ignore."

The last thing we need is more meddling in the workplace by "policymakers." Mothers who are assets on the job will probably be able for make arrangements (which is better than "forcing employers and policymakers") to work at home or return to work. Those who are not assets may not be able to do so. But this is a workplace decision, better left to bosses.

PBS' To the Contrary: Daycare wars, battling cancer, and benefits of working in smaller companies

info@iwf.org (Michelle D. Bernard) — Sun, 01 Apr 2007 16:09:00 EDT

IWF President and CEO, Michelle D. Bernard, a guest this weekend on the PBS program, To the Contrary. Michelle joins Bonnie Erbe along with Democratic commentator Irene Natividad, The Feminist Majority's Crystal Lander and The Heritage Foundation's Genevieve Wood.

In this episode the discussion will cover the daycare wars, battling cancer, and why more women choose to work in smaller companies.

Post Secret and the Mommy Wars

info@iwf.org (Allison Kasic) — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 11:00:00 EST

I'm a big fan of PostSecret - a site where people send in anonymous postcards with their deepest secrets spelled out for the world to see.

This secret caught my eye. Alongside a picture of a mother with her baby, it reads: I am happier being a stay-at-home mom than I have ever been in my whole life - and I DON'T miss my career.

At first that seems all warm and fuzzy, right? Mother loves baby. Mother sends in postcard to tell the world she loves her baby. It's all sunshine and lollipops. Or is it? Whoever sent in that postcard thinks that enjoying being a stay-at-home mom is her biggest secret. This woman's confession is a testament to the pressure and biases women who chose to stay at home often face from modern society. It's a shame that such a clear joy for this woman is a secret.

Do you need role models or a paycheck?

info@iwf.org (Charlotte Hays) — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 10:06:00 EST

I'd love to know what my colleagues have to say about a new report about how men and women differ in the work place. The study was done by Development Dimensions International (DDI), and Fox has the report:

"Matt Paese, a DDI executive coach and vice president, said that DDI associates who work to ensure smooth transitions for newly named top dogs in businesses 'don't see a big difference between men and women on skills, but rather in the way they feel about their skills.'

"Women execs typically find it easier to create a new network and inspire workers to perform, while they feel it is more challenging to delegate a workload. The female business leaders polled also said they feel they are better at engaging others to get tasks done than they are at assigning them in an authoritative manner.

"On the other hand (or brain), male professionals ranked building a new network as extremely challenging but find it easy to hand out assignments to new subordinates."

The study repeats the old canard about the male-female wage gap (if you factor in choices made by women, such as to take a few years off to raise children, it disappears):

"The women surveyed value money, self-esteem and greater stimulation as what motivates them to put their best foot forward in their career. (Though at first I was surprised to find the majority of women polled focused on the dollar figure, it only took a few seconds for it to make sense. After all, as Evelyn Murphy reminds us in her book 'Getting Even': "Women working full-time - not part-time, not on maternity leave, not as consultants - still earn only 77 cents for every full-time male dollar.")

"The polled men indicated they were not as concerned with salary, self-worth or stimulation factors as their female counterparts. Instead, they found it more important to feel productive and influential."

"In another split between the sexes, women in the study expressed a need for better role models in making the transition smoother, while this was not as important for the male execs."

I'll go first and comment: Role models? Do we really need a lot of blather about role models? How about figuring out how to do your job and doing it? The platitudes about role models are: (A.) a way to call for more affirmative action (B.) there because we've all absorbed the language of therapy, management consultants, and feminism, or (C.) just plain dumb. Work is not about having role models?it is about having a paycheck.

Gang, what do you think?

business leaders polled also said they feel they are better at engaging others to get tasks done than they are at assigning them in an authoritative manner.

"On the other hand (or brain), male professionals ranked building a new network as extremely challenging but find it easy to hand out assignments to new subordinates."

The study repeats the old canard about the male-female wage gap (if you factor in choices made by women, such as to take a few years off to raise children, it disappears):

"In another split between the sexes, women in the study expressed a need for better role models in making the transition smoother, while this was not as important for the male execs."

Gang, what do you think?

Office Queen Bees...

info@iwf.org (Charlotte Hays) — Wed, 03 Jan 2007 07:23:00 EST

There is some bad news for feminists who support affirmative action for women as a way for women to move up in the office hierarchy. According to an article in the Times of London a female boss is rarely a female worker's best chance for promotion:

"Women bosses are significantly more likely than men to discriminate against female employees, research has suggested.

"The study found that when presented with applications for promotion, women were more likely than men to assess the female candidate as less qualified than the male one...."

The findings were based on a recent study with 750 participants:

"'Female and older participants showed more prejudice against the (idea of a) female leader than did male and younger participants,' said Rocio Garcia-Retamero, a psychologist at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin and lead author of the report.

"Garcia-Retamaro said the findings showed that many people adopted a stereotypical view that leadership was a masculine notion. '(This) leads to a bias against a female candidate's promotion to a leadership post,' she said.

"Nicola Horlick, the City financier nicknamed 'Superwoman' for combining a demanding job with a large family, said some women looked on other women as a threat and preferred to surround themselves with men.

"'It is called the 'queen bee syndrome,'' she said."

New mom gets best of both worlds

Wed, 03 Jan 2007 00:00:00 EST

The Washington TImes

By Gregory Lopes
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Published December 28, 2006

On a Tuesday afternoon, Carrie Lukas is more likely to be getting her daughter ready for a nap or taking her out to play rather than bound to a desk. However, she says she's more productive than she's ever been.

An author and a vice president at the Independent Women's Forum, Ms. Lukas did not want to stop working when she had her daughter, Molly, in September 2005 -- but she also didn't want to go back to the office.

"My maternity leave was up, but I felt it was way too early to go back to work," she said. "We needed the paycheck, but it would have felt like too much of a sacrifice to go back so soon."

Today, Americans are working more than ever, and the majority of employees feel deprived of time with their husbands or wives, according to the Families and Work Institute.

The Independent Women's Forum granted Ms. Lukas' request, on a trial basis, for a work-from-home schedule. Rather than see her work diminish, Ms. Lukas was able to streamline her time more effectively than she had in an office setting. She says she works at night or when Molly is taking one of her numerous afternoon naps.

"What is interesting about working from home is that you become more conscious of time," she said. "Production is not how much time I spend on a project, it's how much I get done. I am getting as much done at home as being in the office from 9 to 5."

The work-from-home trial was made permanent at the beginning of this year by Michelle Bernard, president of the Independent Women's Forum for the past three years.

"I knew after Molly was born that Carrie would be willing to leave the company if she had to come back to work," Ms. Bernard said. "I wasn't willing to lose Carrie."

Ms. Lukas is the author of "The Politically Incorrect Guide to Women, Sex and Feminism" and a regular contributor to National Review Online.

Indeed, a flexible work schedule only works if work is actually being done. If both parties fulfill their end of the bargain, Ms. Bernard says, productivity can reach new heights.

"We are committed to being the best public-policy organization, and there is nothing more valuable than a happy employee; the work they put out can be tremendous. On the other hand, an unhappy employee can destroy the productivity of the whole organization."

More American companies are offering alternative schedules and shorter workweeks to help employees balance work and family demands.

"We're seeing Americans work more than ever, but at the same time, there are a lot businesses deciding to offer ways employees can stay married and maintain a profession," said Mitch Daniels, president of the Alliance for Marriage.

Motherhood Movement Picking Up Momentum

Tue, 12 Dec 2006 00:00:00 EST

Seattle-Post Intelligencer

By PAUL NYHAN
P-I REPORTER

Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner appeared an unlikely revolutionary -- a stylish suburban mom and the wife of a Republican state senator -- as she grabbed the microphone at the Wayward Coffeehouse in Seattle.

Once the Kirkland mother of two started speaking, she was decidedly zealous, rattling off concerns about paid leave for parents, workplace flexibility and discrimination against mothers.

Rowe-Finkbeiner is one of the forces behind "The Motherhood Manifesto," a new documentary, and the nation's latest motherhood rights movement. In living rooms, basements and coffee shops around the country, mothers have hosted hundreds of parties to watch the film based on her book of the same name.

Thursday night, it was Seattle's turn, again, as 36 women, and two men, jammed into the back of a Greenwood coffeehouse to watch a shortened 45-minute version. Afterward, teachers, gym owners, nannies and stay-at-home moms talked for two hours about flex time, soaring health care costs, baby cooperatives and parenting in the era of the two-income family.

"I think it would be very easy to say, 'Oh, it is just a lot of latte-sipping moms talking in coffee shops.' These are issues that affect everyone," said Cynthia Kemp, 34, a Ballard High School teacher and mother of 5-month-old Elliott. "It wasn't just a bunch of moms overreacting to minor things."

The Greenwood screening was the latest discourse in perhaps the most intense debate about motherhood since the early 1970s. Motherhood is on Comedy Central, splashed across the covers of news and gossip magazines and the focus of a never-ending flood of books.

Seattle is part of the debate, with "The Motherhood Manifesto" screenings popping up in Magnolia, Wallingford, Medina, Kirkland, Capitol Hill, the University District, Ballard, Mercer Island and Greenwood.

At these events, the film confronts audiences with its stark view of the choices mothers face today with a stylish mix of cartoons, real-life moms, humorous but dated 1950s TV spots, talking heads and potential solutions.

The two dominant themes are that the United States is one of only four countries among 168 studied by Harvard researchers that doesn't have paid leave for new mothers and that mothers fare far better in other industrial nations.

"I think as Americans we always feel like we are getting a good shake compared to the rest of the world," said Shannon Salverda, 34, whose husband works at night, while she teaches school during the day to balance care for their young child.

Not everyone will agree with the film, but it is resonating far beyond traditional feminists and union members.

Salverda was among a largely receptive audience Thursday night of lawyers, gym owners, teachers and business analysts, who had firsthand knowledge of the film's topics: underpaid child care workers, inflexible work schedules and high-priced health care.

As the film opened, one single mother related how she was turned down for work because she had children. Later, another mom explained how she struggled with the soaring health care costs of her son and daughter.

Essentially, the $180,000 documentary is a mix of art and activism, with proposed solutions at the end of each section.

Not surprisingly, the film is the video arm of a broader movement, MomsRising. Only seven months old, the national movement has 74,000 members and a six-point plan, including paid family leave, greater workplace flexibility and better child care, that it pushes in state capitols, Congress and the White House.

"When this many people are having the same problems at the same time, we have a societal problem that needs to be addressed," said Rowe-Finkbeiner, 37, who co-wrote "The Motherhood Manifesto" with Joan Blades. "In so many ways, the United States ranks in the bottom of the industrial world."

The grass-roots effort is growing through a combination of marketing -- YouTube trailers, word of mouth and house parties -- and savvy promotion. At the MomsRising Web site you can download a step-by-step kit for holding a party, complete with menu suggestions and steps you can take next to highlight issues.

Still, plenty of people don't think the U.S. system needs such drastic repairs.

Many of the problems the film highlights, the wage gap between men and women for example, are simply the result of choices that women make, not discrimination, said Michelle Bernard, president of the Independent Women's Forum, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank that believes in limited government.

"Sometimes women, after they have kids, are more willing than males, for example, to trade flexibility for lower salary," Bernard said. "I don't think they do women any kind of service by not giving them the full facts."

In many ways, MomsRising is a Seattle-area product. One of the film's directors, John de Graff, works in Seattle, and Rowe-Finkbeiner lives in Kirkland.

The group even chose The Boeing Co.'s Rosie the Riveter as its icon, though she holds a baby, not a rivet gun.

With a mother, Chris Gregoire, in the governor's mansion, and two women in the U.S. Senate, the group has targeted Washington for change next year.

To tap this support, the group plans to push state lawmakers to create paid family leave for parents in the coming session.

Supporters of paid leave have tried and failed before, and there is sure to be opposition.

"No one can force the marketplace to place more value on one job than the other," the Independent Women's Forum's Bernard said.

Whatever happens to that effort, the debate over motherhood in America will likely intensify next year.

One mother, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., is poised to become speaker of the House of Representatives, and another, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., is expected to make a run at the presidency.

Whether they succeed or fail, their presence ensures the motherhood debate will be in Congress, on the campaign trail and in the media in 2007.

"I am totally fired up," Piper Thornburgh, a Seattle mother said after the screening. "I think this is going to be awesome."

FOR MORE INFORMATION

Learn about the documentary, "The Motherhood Manifesto," including details on screenings, at momsrising.org. Seattle public-television station KCTS was the first to show the documentary, on Thanksgiving Day, and plans to replay it in late March, though it has not set a date.

P-I reporter Paul Nyhan can be reached at 206-448-8145 or paulnyhan@seattlepi.com. Check out Paul Nyhan's parenting blog, Working Dad, at blog.seattlepi.com/family

Women in the Workplace

info@iwf.org (Allison Kasic) — Mon, 04 Dec 2006 13:47:00 EST

Over at National Review Online, IWF’s Carrie Lukas serves up an assessment of women in the workplace:

"More than 40 years after Betty Friedan urged women to exchange their aprons for business suits, by many measures, women’s progress in the workforce has stalled. Certainly today more women work and hold more prestigious jobs than ever before: as of 2002, women accounted for 46.5 percent of the workforce and held more than half of managerial and professional specialty jobs. Yet few women make it to the very top of the business world. According to the nonprofit research institute Catalyst, just eight Fortune 500 companies have female CEOs, and women account for just 5.2 percent of those companies’ top earners."

The debate starts when people ask "Why?"

"Liberal feminist groups, like the National Organization for Women (NOW), tend to insist that sexism and discrimination are the primary cause. Yet many individual women recognize that their choices -- particularly the choices they make once they have children -- make the difference.

"A recent Newsweek cover story highlighted how many women who are best positioned to break through the proverbial glass ceiling willingly downshift their careers after having children. A Harvard Business Review survey of midcareer women with graduate degrees or college degrees with honors found that more than one-third had taken extended time off from work, with the average break lasting more than two years. Surveys have shown that women evaluating job opportunities place a lower value on pay than men do, focusing more on job characteristics like flexibility and personal fulfillment."

Don’t worry -- that’s good news, says Carrie:

"If women’s different choices and preferences explain the paucity of women in the Fortune 500, then it’s not a problem that needs to be solved. Many women sincerely prefer lives dedicated to raising their families over high-flying careers, and we should respect their choices."

Women Know Best Why They're Not CEOs

info@iwf.org (Carrie L. Lukas) — Mon, 04 Dec 2006 00:00:00 EST

National Review

When Nancy Pelosi is handed the Speaker's gavel in January, it will mark another historic milestone in women's progress. Americans have become accustomed, however, to women ascending to the highest offices in government. Two of our last three secretaries of State have been women. And Senator Clinton is widely assumed to be the Democrat's frontrunner in the 2008 presidential campaign.

What about women working in the private sector? More than 40 years after Betty Friedan urged women to exchange their aprons for business suits, by many measures, women's progress in the workforce has stalled. Certainly today more women work and hold more prestigious jobs than ever before: as of 2002, women accounted for 46.5 percent of the workforce and held more than half of managerial and professional specialty jobs. Yet few women make it to the very top of the business world. According to the nonprofit research institute Catalyst, just eight Fortune 500 companies have female CEOs, and women account for just 5.2 percent of those companies' top earners.

Why is this? Liberal feminist groups, like the National Organization for Women (NOW), tend to insist that sexism and discrimination are the primary cause. Yet many individual women recognize that their choices-- particularly the choices they make once they have children-- make the difference.

A recent Newsweek cover story highlighted how many women who are best positioned to break through the proverbial glass ceiling willingly downshift their careers after having children. A Harvard Business Review survey of midcareer women with graduate degrees or college degrees with honors found that more than one-third had taken extended time off from work, with the average break lasting more than two years. Surveys have shown that women evaluating job opportunities place a lower value on pay than men do, focusing more on job characteristics like flexibility and personal fulfillment.

That's good news. If women's different choices and preferences explain the paucity of women in the Fortune 500, then it's not a problem that needs to be solved. Many women sincerely prefer lives dedicated to raising their families over high-flying careers, and we should respect their choices.

Yet there certainly are women who wish it were easier to have both a career and raise a family. The Harvard Business Review survey, for example, found that many women who had taken time off wanted to get back to work, but had yet to do so.

Groups like NOW look to government to force businesses to make it easier for women to work and care for kids. They push for regulations that would require employers to provide longer leave, paid leave, and more subsidies for daycare. But these government mandates come with a heavy cost. Many businesses, particularly small businesses, simply cannot afford to pay workers on leave. Finding qualified temporary replacement workers can be disruptive and expensive, leaving business owners with difficult choices about how to make ends meet.

Some radical feminists try to encourage women to avoid the problems of balancing work and family by forgoing children. Linda Hirshman, author of "Get to Work: A Manifesto for Women of the World," instructs women that they can have one child, but not two. Raising one child, if properly outsourced, need not get in the way of your career, but having two children is a mistake.

Fortunately for women, the private sector has more palatable ideas about how to solve the work-family conflict. Increasingly, employers are creating new ways to make it easier for women to continue working while caring for children and to transition back into the workplace after time off. Businesses aren't acting out of concern for women: They believe these initiatives will help them attract and maintain a high quality workforce. In other words, it makes good business sense.

The prestigious consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton's adjunct program, for example, allows former full-time employees to take on discrete work projects. This allows the adjuncts to evaluate if they have the time to dedicate to a given assignment and select only the most appealing prospects. These workers not only earn money from these assignments, but maintain important connections and skills. Deloitte & Touche has created a program called Personal Pursuits which helps former employees stay connected both to their professional circles and to the company. New technologies are making it easier for women to start home-based businesses and telecommute to work.

There probably never will be as many women running Fortune 500 companies as men. But our market-based system ensures that companies will be competing to find new ways to attract and maintain the highly skilled female workforce. Now that's progress.

Government is not the answer

info@iwf.org (Allison Kasic) — Mon, 27 Nov 2006 10:16:00 EST

John Stossel had a great column last week arguing that the free market, not government regulation, is the key to providing flexibility, day care, and any other working mom conundrum you can think of. IWF’s upcoming "Women’s Progress" book even gets a shout out.

Many people who call for increased government regulation point to "family friendly" laws in Europe. But Stossel points out that these laws come with a heavy price:

"In Europe, the unemployment rate for women is over 10 percent -- double the rate in the United States. From 1970 to 2003, employment in the United States increased 75 percent, by 58.9 million jobs. Yet in France, Germany and Italy, where many job benefits are mandated, employment grew only 26 percent, by 17.6 million jobs. And many of those new jobs were in government!

"If a woman wants a career and a family, that’s great. But why must government force other people to help her out? Forcing companies to behave in a certain way just limits the marketplace of possibilities.

"Leaving workplace choices to women and employers creates better opportunities for both. The forthcoming book by Michelle Bernard of the Independent Women’s Forum, 'Women’s Progress: How Women Are Wealthier, Healthier and More Independent Than Ever Before' points out that American women have never enjoyed more options or such a high quality of life. From 1997 to 2002, the number of female-owned businesses climbed 20 percent to 6.5 million firms.

"That happened because in America, despite numerous attempts by bureaucrats to kill it, the entrepreneurial spirit lives. Let’s not suffocate it with government rules that will only reduce women’s choices."

Check out the article here.

Is a Speaker Pelosi a victory for women?

info@iwf.org (Allison Kasic) — Wed, 08 Nov 2006 10:13:00 EST

Newspapers around the country are doubtlessly celebrating the success of women in yesterday's election. After all, Nancy Pelosi stands to be the first female Speaker of the House. That sounds historic, er...herstoric. But is a Speaker Pelosi a victory for women?

IWF's Carrie Lukas says "no" in a great column over at Townhall.com today:

"For two decades, women have consistently voted for more liberal candidates than men. If only women voted, America would have had a President Gore in 2000, a President Kerry in 2004 and a Democratic-controlled Congress. This voting trend sends the apparent message: Women want caring, nurturing, 'feel your pain' Democrats running the show on Capitol Hill.

"American women should be careful what they wish for. Over the next two years, they will witness some of the consequences of having liberals in charge, as Democrats push for bigger government, higher taxes, and more regulation -- none of which benefit women."

What kind of issues, you ask? Let's start with taxes:

"Democrats have derided the Bush tax cuts as solely rewarding the rich. Yet when the Bush tax cuts are allowed to expire, middle class families will learn how much these tax laws have benefited them. In four years, the child tax credits will be cut in half, the marriage penalty will return, and the bottom income tax bracket will rise from ten percent to fifteen percent. Middle class families may be surprised that the Democrats' agenda of repealing Bush's 'tax cuts for the rich' will put a serious squeeze on their family budget.

"American women will also learn how higher taxes hurt the economy. Many of us don't feel directly affected by investor tax cuts on dividends and capital gains. Yet these cuts have a significant, positive impact on the economy, and their elimination will have the opposite effect. Increased taxes on investment make capital more expensive, which makes it harder for businesses to expand and create jobs. That means slower economic growth and higher unemployment."

Or, try the minimum wage:

"One of the few specific items in the Democratic agenda for 2007 is a minimum wage increase. Like most Americans who don't look closely at the policy, many women see this as economic common sense. The reality is, like all regulations, a higher mandated wage comes with hidden costs like unemployment and higher consumer prices. Liberals portray employers as having an endless supply of money that they could give to employees were they not so coldhearted. The truth is companies forced to increase wages must find ways to cut costs or to increase revenue. This means reducing other salaries, firing workers, hiring less, or raising prices."

Read the whole article here.

Brava for a landmark women-and-work ruling in a Europen court!

info@iwf.org (Charlotte Hays) — Wed, 04 Oct 2006 10:40:00 EDT

A landmark ruling regarding the choices we make and how this affects our pay has been handed down by the European court:

"Women who take time out of the workplace for maternity leave have no automatic right to the same pay as male colleagues who are doing the same job but have not had time off, Europe's top court ruled yesterday.

"The landmark ruling, described as the most important sex discrimination judgment for ten years, means that companies can legally pay some workers more for length of service even though a woman's ability to compete on time served will be curtailed by her decision to have children."

"IS IT ME OR DOES THIS SOUND...COMPLETELY FAIR?" Kathryn Jean Lopez asks on The Corner.

K-Lo, it is completely fair.

It is, in fact, a point IWF has been making for years--women often make different choices from men, and this--rightfully--has an impact on salary.

We'd go so far to say that this is a benefit for women--taking time off for motherhood is a plus for many women (not to mention their children). But the employer should not have to pay for this.

Symposium: Can marriage be saved?

info@iwf.org (Charlotte Hays) — Tue, 19 Sep 2006 09:35:00 EDT

"Should our laws treat marriage and cohabitation as if they were identical? Is the old conjugal view of marriage as a lifelong union of husband and wife obsolete, an impediment to our dealing with the new realities of cohabitation, late marriage, divorce, and non-marital childbearing? Or is that old view essential to the sound rearing of the next generation? Is a marriage culture something to be revived and strengthened in our laws, or should its remnants be jettisoned in favor of laws better adapted to a culture of ‘close relationships' and ‘family diversity'?"

Claudia Anderson poses this question in a report on a symposium on the status of marriage and legal definitions of said-institution.

Interesting factoid:

"In the 15 years Leah Sears has served on Georgia's high court, she has watched with alarm as its domestic-relations caseload has risen from 20 percent of all criminal and civil cases to 65 percent. And that doesn't include the fallout from family breakdown in juvenile court. Georgia's underfunded courts are swamped, she says--and, worse, they ‘are not the proper venue to solve our family problems.'"

Bumper Sticker: "Proud Parent of a Baby Who Can Sign 200 words"

info@iwf.org (Charlotte Hays) — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 16:06:00 EDT

Myrna Blyth addresses various motherhood issues in her hilarious review of "Momfidence! An Oreo Never Killed Anybody and Other Secrets of Happy Parenting," by Paula Spencer. Blyth writes:

"It is Paula's theory - and I feel since she is a girl after my own heart, I can call her Paula - that mothers today feel too much guilt about too many things. Paula, who has four kids, admits cheerfully that she lost one of her daughters at Disney World. Several times. She always got her back.

"She also believes that nowadays mothering has become much too hard. ‘Today's diligent mom can't just do the weekly marketing and drop food down hungry gullets. She must buy fresh and scan labels for lethal trans fats and the many disguises of 'white poison,' the staple formerly known a sugar, in order to prevent diabetes and heart attacks in her children forty years down the road. She must maintain vigilance against random toxins and schools with lousy test scores. And she can't swat an errant bottom for fear of bruising a tender psyche (or of being arrested.)'

"And she's right. Moms today are full of worries about the fact that their toddlers can't read, their eight-year-old won't get into Harvard, or that their ten-year-olds aren't on enough sports teams. ‘All this makes a parent's job so much harder,' says Paula who admits to a whole series of mothering no-no's - feeding her kids cookies, letting them watch TV, and playing with Barbie dolls and toy guns . She has even stopped sending her kids to summer-enrichment programs. ‘They didn't want to be enriched,' she says. ‘They said there was just no time to play.'

"‘I think moms should just wing it more and rely on instinct and common sense. Parents get so much advice from experts. But how may of these experts really live with kids who snarf Scooby-Doo Fruit Roll-Rups? What parents hear about in the media are really bad moms with big problems who need help. Or obsessive moms who are super organized and are trying to raise perfect kids. Neither are good examples. We just don't hear enough about ordinary, mainstream moms who are doing fine.'

"Paula lives in Chapel Hill where her two nearest supermarkets, Whole Food and Earth Fare, don't stock Oreos, and where cars have bumper stickers that read ‘Proud Parent of a Baby who Can Sign 200 words.' She writes a column for Woman's Day where editors are pretty vigilant about editing out her belief that there is little danger if kids eat raw cookie dough. No wonder she wrote this book ‘I want to help moms relax, be more confident and have more fun with their kids,' she writes. And the book really is both helpful and funny. What is the reaction she wants from the readers?"

Mommy War

info@iwf.org (Charlotte Allen) — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 12:48:00 EDT

I love when the left starts eating its own. The latest example is this catfight launched by Susan Douglas, co-author of "The Mommy Myth," a lugubrious 2004 tract about how stay-at-home motherhood warps women's brains, against Judith Warner, author of "Perfect Madness," a lugubrious 2005 tract about how stay-at-home motherhood warps women's brains.

Douglas's claim, put forth in a column for In These Times: Warner plagiarized her and co-author Meredith Michaels by stealing, not their prose, but some of their ideas, such as that there are "unattainable standards of perfection surrounding motherhood," so full-time moms ought to quit finger-painting with their kids and get jobs outside the home.

Douglas bolsters her argument by citing some other examples of supposed plagiarism. One is that New York Post story quoting a UC-Berkeley professor who claimed that Ann Coulter had stolen some snippets, all reporting factual material, from her sources. (Even the reliably leftist Daily Kos deemed the charge ridiculous; there are only so many ways you can state a fact.)

Another of Douglas's targets: Caitlin Flanagan (she likes stay-at-home moms, so the rad-fems just hate her!). Flanagan is under assault by Valerie Lawson, author of a 10-year-old biography of P.L. Travers, author of "Mary Poppins," because Flanagan also wrote an article about Travers for the New Yorker that Lawson says used factual material that she had dug up without giving her enough credit.

And here is what Douglas says about Judith Warner's book:

"Much of the argument, point after point, was identical to our book-we compiled six pages of eerily similar passages-yet we were not cited once. Like Lawson, we saw research we had done included without attribution. But because there were no lengthy passages containing identical prose, we had no recourse. Moreover, we were told that if we sought to go public with this, it would hurt us: We would be the ones tainted, not her, as resentful soreheads with no class. After all, as a Newsweek reporter, her book became a cover story for the magazine while ours had not-weren't we just bitter?

"In our current hyper-commercial and anti-intellectual environment, it is the large corporations and publications that can afford to trademark, patent and copyright everything. Prominent and profitable journalists, unless their borrowing is exact and extensive, are protected. The Coulter case suggests that we may be on an even more slippery slope about how much word-for-word copying will be tolerated by bestselling writers in the future....

"Meanwhile, for drones slogging away in archives, tracking down people to interview, checking their facts and struggling to develop fresh ideas about how to see the world and new arguments about history, culture and society, forget it. Your work is increasingly fair game."

Well, you can't copyright ideas, you can't copyright facts, and you can't copyright history. I think Douglas has trouble distinguishing between a "new argument" and a tired liberal meme. Saying that full-time-motherhood makes women neurotic isn't a new argument. It's an old argument, old as Simone de Beauvoir and Betty Friedan. It's a meme, Susan, a meme.