Claim Now Get To Work: . . . And Get A Life, Before Its Too Late Imagined By Linda R. Hirshman Displayed As Audio Book

and also insightful, everything a good book should be, It will either make you cheer or want to pull Hirshman's hair out, but very entertaining, Hirshman makes a good argument that feminists are failing the movement by dropping out of the career world to stay home with their children, She provides a lot of anecdotal and blogosphere evidence that the female elite women who worked hard and excelled at Ivy League schools, got graduate degrees, and worked their way up the corporate ladder have a responsibility to advance the status of women in the workplace by sticking it out after they become mothers, and that their education and ambition is being wasted by baking cookies and going to playgroups.


My complaints about this book are twofold: first, it does seem pretty narrowly restricted to upper and middleclass white women, There are plenty of women who work because they have to, who can't afford a nanny, and who aren't considering the feminist implications of their juggling schedules.
I would have liked a little more consideration of their circumstances, Secondly, I don't feel that Hirshman considers the feelings of most workers men and women that WORK SUCKS and everyone would gladly drop out or cut back if something provided them with an excuse to do so.


But it's a good, short, quick read, with interesting ideas a reproductive strike don't major in art and the ability to make you feel empowered about taking onlyweeks of maternity leave.
As a woman who did not marry or have kids, I watched many of my peers eagerly quit careers, focus on family life and then wind up in middle age often as insecure shadows of their former selves.
I always found this choice incomprehensible, because it limited their lives so much, wasted their educations and abilities, and cant possibly be for the greater good of society.
Plus studies show it didnt make much difference for the outcome of their childrens lives, aside from ingraining patriarchal gender roles into yet another generation, The “choice” to stay home puzzled me and the vociferousness with which people defended it was worrying, It often seemed to be justified by morality and emotion, along with a passive resistance to fighting for a more fulfilling life,

Meanwhile I was also increasingly infuriated at the deep unfairness of the lives of my female peers who had kids but stayed at work, Their exhaustion, their mountains of responsibility and the sheer selfish laziness of the men they partnered with! I was agnostic about men of my generation until I saw how utterly crappy most were at home.
Fuck them. Or rather, dont.

By dint of my work, plus luck and privilege, I was able to retire early, What a miserable six months! Full of energy and intellectual interest, a homecentered life with some travel and a little nonprofit volunteering was, . . stultifying. Again I couldnt imagine how other women coped without careers, Also, living a life to suit my pleasures rather than serving society at large seemed immoral, So, I started my next job and then the next, etc,

This little book is one of the first Ive found post second wave feminism, that openly and honestly addresses the need for middle and upper class women not to tie themselves down to a life of LESS.
Im sure the author suffered many attacks for her opinions I barely ever say mine out loud because my gosh those antifeminists, who think “choice” equalss gender roles and that their nuclear families are more important than society, they are angry and they will go after you.
I dont always want to stir the hornets nest,

Im grateful this author did though, I hope every young person in their teens ands, who could be helped to see beyond traditional cultural bonds, will read this, Theres a wonderful possibility of life out here for every gender, Please reach for more options and less exhaustion, Linda Hirshman is VERY direct and this will not sit well for all readers, especially if you don't agree with her premise, I found the book refreshing because I think the feminist movement is in need of radical transformation and the most effective arena to do so is in the world of work.


As a working mother, I felt affirmed by her message that women need to abdandon the illusions of "choice feminism" and claim their place in the work world, especially in leadership positions where we can make policy including policies about work/life balance.
This book inspired me to think beyond my middle management position and explore ways that I can have an impact on policy in my agency and in my field.


As with all books about being a mother, I wish she had incorporated more about the need for fathers to step up and contribute euqally as parents, so that the question isn't "should mom stay at home with the kids or go to work", but instead "how can a mother and father best equalize the time spent in careers and the time fulfilling their parenting responsibilities".
I know by posing these questions I am excluding single parents, but wouldn't we have more dialogue about gender roles and supportive policies for ALL parents single and partnered if we had more women in leadership positions

I wish Linda Hirshman could have toned her book down a decibal or two because I fear that her aggressive manner is preventing many people from hearing her core message.
I urge anyone who is thinking of reading this book to do so and give her a chance, If anything, she will challenge your thinking, I agree wholeheartedly that if inequitable households are preventing a parent returning to work then that poor division of labour must be addressed,
However, I feel that the author's assertion that the only flourishing life can be found in the high powered workplace to be limited and lacking in imagination.
She had no real perspective on how many people's lives operate, Very few of us are likely to be Mozart, Einstein, MLK, Condie etc, Her list, not mine. The reality is that work serves the purpose of putting food on the table and a roof over our heads, The vast majority of working women and men go to work for that reason and are fortunte indeed if they attain a high level of satisfaction and fulfillment.

Every one of us is unique and what one may find restrictive another may indeed flourish, Anyone can push a vacuum around physical capacities a given , what is important is what is happening in the mind, the brain, the thoughts and analysis that can happen at times when our bodies ,though busy, our brains are free to range.
And is the paid workplace free of mind numbing tasks
As an argumentative text I found it poorly written and at times incoherent, Her solutions were not that, . God forbid that anyone should enjoy having children so much that they have another one,
At one stage she states that Betty Friedan, when writing The Second Stage had, "lost her edge". The book was "full of useless, grandiose, and wishful rhetoric, "
My response to that, . . sounds familiar. The same can be said of Get To Work,

Linda Hirshman is a heroine of our time, and you know it because liberals and conservatives both don't want to have anything to do with what she's asking them to consider that we are all wrong, together, about how we view women in our culture.
We've spent too many years patting ourselves on the back for winning the right to vote and have a few women in board rooms, as CEOs, and even representing us in government positions.
But when we look at the vast numbers of men still outnumbering women in every position of power and prestige in our country, we have to take a step back, ask why, and reevaluate what we truly believe and value.


I can't wait to read more books like these from minority perspectives, because when "research" focuses on so few individuals predominantly from highlyeducated, upperclass, wealthy family backgrounds, it really is just a book about trends and observations, and less of a journalistic or researchbased approach.
However, the trends and observations Hirshman makes here are valid, and if you just want to call her names because you disagree, guess what You're proving her points, because you're refusing to add anything of value to the conversation.
Grow up, and get to work, I did read this whole book, but not extraordinarily closely because I was reviewing it forguess whatwork, It's definitely got a tone, and it definitely provides examples to support the claims, but you know what It's all anecdote and outrage, Far too many examples come from the blogosphere, and frankly the worst kind of group blogging sites there could possibly be, You know those sites that choose an experience a bunch of people have and invite all the yahoos in the world to blog there Places along the lines of blog.
sheltielovers. com I just made that up, These are generic comments from generic people on generic topics, I don't think that quoting people from "bloggingbaby, com" and "mothersmovement. org" counts as research. Nor does reading the engagement pages of the New York Times,

But hell. It's a manifesto. Whatever. I guess the term manifesto means you get to set your own standards for making your own points, But it's so not even relevant to the "women of the world" that it drops into the realm of silly, I mean, she mentions some women on welfare in England in, Just about everyone else ruining their lives is some lawdegree holding up and comer now reduced to fighting over who empties the dishwasher,

It's also silly to make up the word "workingwomen," as if "working women" was somehow unclear or misrepresentative, I mean, she could have made some interesting points but she wrote a fairly forgettable book instead, Highly recommend this one I'm inclined towards manifestos and polemics anyway I like the genre and find the agon useful, Hirshman basically critiques what she calls "choice feminism" as illusory choice, That is, the line of reasoning among women that suggests, "whatever I choose is ok whether it's staying at home with the kids, trying to become elected President, or enslavement.
"

She points out that the women's rights movement of the midth Century was great for starting to dismantle the patriarchal institution of work, but that we've done nothing to change the patriarchal institution of family.
And that's where the real challenges lie now, she suggests only when we fundamentally change this patriarchal arrangement and challenge these assumptions within family arrangements i, e. which sex is the primary moneymaker, which is the primary caregiver, etc, will women become consistent and useful participants in public life, In order to get women into powerful positions, in other words, we need to free them from the patriarchal arrangements in their family lives,

Further, she calls for a moral critique of the socalled choices women are making particularly the choice to drop out of a career to be a stayathome mom.
She suggests that this particular choice is highly mitigated i, e. there are loads of institutional arrangements that lead women in this direction starting with the tax codes and ending with unquestioned assumptions about gender roles, She also asks:are these choices good for the individual women, arguing that no, being a stayathome mom is not good for a flourishing life, andare these choices good for society, arguing that no, keeping women out of powerful roles in society delimits us, and does not help anyone.
Anyway, its an interesting and quick read, .