Dear Linda,
I haven't read your book yet, but I did read the "Homeward Bound" essay, and it scares me. People my age don't care about politics, don't care about what our parents and grandparents fought for. I'm 24, and recently got my first worthy (well-paying) job. My degree is in computer science, and I'm currently working at Microsoft, programming and earning very nice money for a BS. I know I'm very smart, and I will be worth even more soon I'm sure.

I want to read your book soon. My mother went back to work and earned her BA in accounting once my younger brother hit 13, which amazes me. I know how hard it was for her now, seeing all of the wives of my friends at work. I have yet to meet a husband of a friend at work.

I don't plan on stopping working for longer than parental leave until I have enough money to retire TOGETHER with whomever I happen to be with. Currently I have a boyfriend of 4 years that I live with and who does the grocery shopping, dishes, bedmaking, and toilet cleaning. The apartment we have isn't very big, so I vaccuum, cook, and clean the tub. Occasionally.

I think that the gist of what I'm hearing here is totally right. If a woman is truly making a choice, whatever. But I am certain that most women don't make their own choice. They let someone else do it for them.

I know that every day I feel pressure on myself as a 1 in 10 female. It's really hard to not be in the female half of the "significant others" club. A wife of a coworker didn't come to a group event (all were invited) because there weren't non-geeks there, but I think it was because she thought there weren't going to be women there. Because of my major (also 1 in 10) and working here, I'm just one of the guys, and not in a good way. No one likes being the only one. I would have stayed in my career anyway, but ever since I've been outnumbered, I've felt tremendous pressure to do so.

My question - how do I get over feeling like an outcast? I need some female company once in a while too! I don't want to hang out with 35+ year old women, although they will have valuable mentor advice for me. I don't want to hang out with the jobless women, because even if they are only jobless because of a visa situation, they aren't pure peers right now. Likewise, hanging out with the Admin Assistants wouldn't really work, although they are ALL (very nice) *women*. I have met one female close to my age at work, and am trying to meet others. Concentrating on excelling only goes so far when you crave a gaggle of gals to get crazy with. What to do?

Thanks
Frustrated Microsoftie
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A Little from Linda

Dear Frustrated,

You have identified a very important problem: when there are few women at work, they are not only scrutinized more than the men, they often experience very real emotional cost of isolation. My recommendation is to find the local chapter of women in science and computing and reach outside your company for female companionship.
Such professional organizations exist in almost every town of any size and are a great way to network as well as for the support of others in similar positions. Your college alumnae association may offer other options.
and . . . consider the value of us thirty plus women. Someday soon you may be one too.
L

Posted by Linda Hirshman at 07:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Dear Linda,

Question: So, here's a question for you. I'm a happily childless, cheerfully unmarried, professional woman, approaching 40, who's done pretty well for herself. I loved your book, and fundamentally agree with what you argue. But I'm struggling with a somewhat different dilemma. I'm bored. I've reached a senior level in my (male-dominated) field while still comparatively young, and if I stay in that field, my choice is either to keep doing what I'm doing for decades to come (which many do) or shift to management (which many others do). Neither appeals to me. Instead, I'm thinking that I want a total career shift. But I worry that if I leave, I will damage the opportunities and outlook for younger women in my field who, with me gone, will see one less woman near the top. And I do feel a responsibility to them. What do you think?
Local Yokel
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A Little from Linda

Dear Local,

I do not understand why you chose field that did not engage your capacities for the length of your career. Since you do not reveal the field or the aspirational whole career change, it's hard for me to answer well. I will say that many engineers and journalists I know have faced the conflict between their love of craft and the inevitable wicking up into management.
In my opinion, management is the better choice. Unless you're going to invent Velcro or reveal the government's wiretapping program, there's a limit to the flourishing life that can be derived for example for engineers or journalists from doing the same thing over and over again as you describe it. Anyway, man is a political animal, as Aristotle says, so it's natural that the most remunerative positions in a corporate society would involve managing other human beings. Why not take management training and see if you like it?
L

Posted by Linda Hirshman at 03:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Hi Professor Hirshman, [Dear Linda]
[praise for me deleted]

And I've got a question for you:

What you seemed to be arguing is that fulfillment has both a subjective and an objective component. You also seem to be arguing that when educated women choose to stay home with kids - even if they think this is subjectively fulfilling - it isn't objectively fulfilling. And the kicker - the thing that people seem to be getting riled up about - is the conclusion: it is more important to be objectively fulfilled than subjectively fulfilled.

You also seemed to say that women who think they're subjectively fulfilled by staying home with kids are wrong - they've lost touch with their real feelings.

All this reminded me of the philosophical concept of authenticity, and the pursuit of the authentic life. That is a tough route, pursuing the authentic life, because you'll be challenged by yourself, by society, by your family, your boss, by everyone to get off track and to follow their paths rather than finding your own authentic path.
People settle for less than the authentic path because it's easier and it's socially acceptable. And - like Nietzsche knew - people who are living inauthentic lives will tell people living authentically that they're bad and immoral and wrong.

What I was wondering was whether I was correctly analyzing your piece, and if there was this connection to authenticity. I thought of this connection when I heard the podcast of your interview with Brian Lehrer, when the reinsurance lawyer who hated working at a big law firm called in, and your response was to ask why she'd spent all those years in school just to get an education, and then a job, she thought was valueless. The answer, I'm sure, was that the woman went to law school with all sorts of good hopes and ideals, and found those difficult to achieve. She got a job working in reinsurance, found that (predictably) unfulfilling, and left to raise kids. Is there
something other than reinsurance or staying home with kids she could have done? I thought that was where authenticity came in - her job was objectively but not subjectively fulfilling. The problem was that the woman had *chosen* the subjectively unfulfilling job, when she should have chosen a job that would be both objectively and subjectively fulfilling. People have set all this up as a false dichotomy, in other words - the reinsurance lawyer created a world for herself in which reinsurance law or kids were her only options. She
denied herself the authentic life, which would have been to find a job that was harder to get and less obvious, but which would have been both subjectively and objectively fulfilling.

Again, I'm not sure I'm reading you right, but this analytical model made sense to me in the context of your essay and what I see.

Anyway, thank you for your essay - I think it's important and interesting, and it's given my friends and me a lot to talk about.

A Philosophical Reader
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A Little from Linda

Dear Philosophical,

I did not buy the reinsurance lawyer's story for two reasons. One, a well-educted young lawyer can always change fields within the firm or change firms and fields. So I thought the disaffection from the job was a transparent excuse to quit altogether, a decision I think is usually a mistake. Two, I have long wanted to take on the female criticism of capitalism, what I call in my book the "it's only money" syndrome.

If people have values that are going to make them feel inauthentic in any job in the market economy, they have a very narrow range of options indeed. So rather than seeing it as a disconnect between what the society values and what the individual's socially disconnected inner voice tells her to value, I'm interested in where her value system came unmoored from society's. "It's hard to be a good man in a bad state," as Plato says, so if capitalism is really bad, she's right not to want to participate. So the question becomes, is capitalism all bad? Or is there something about reinsurance that is particularly bad? Why is this attitude so concentrated among women?
I don't have a lot of answers, but those are the questions I think need to be addressed.
L

Posted by Linda Hirshman at 08:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)