Periodically someone tries to pull the teeth on my feminist manifesto by contending that women are not really opting out of the work force to take care of their babies. Every time some Mommy Blogger retails it, I get a bunch of gotcha comments. As if women's participation levelling off at around 50% and women working the second shift forty years after the publication of the Feminine Mystique weren't enough for a feminist manifesto.

Since, unlike some commentators on female politics, I do not get my data from wingnut marriage manuals or from Erma Bombeck, may she rest in peace, I do not normally worry about such junk. But periodically I feel obliged to remind the blogging world that
1. Get To Work reported the opting out behavior of the Times Brides I actually interviewed, 85% of whom actually quit upon marriage or childbirth
2. The census data reflects that the work force participation of mothers with graduate and professional degrees has at least levelled off if not dropped. "On average, then, hightly educated women with small children are working full time at about a fifty percent rate." (GTW, p. 8)
3. "Revolution is probably overstating it, but something is clearly going on." ( GTW, p. 8)

In July the Washington Post summed up a professional survey of the overall data (not broken out as to class and education, so not directly relevant to GTW) as follows:
"Contrary to popular theory, Labor Department data do not show a rising proportion of women dropping out of the workforce to spend time with their families. Indeed, the participation rate has fallen since 2000 for both women with children and women without children.

While nonworking women are still much more likely than men to cite "home responsibilities" as their reason for not holding or seeking a job, that's actually less true now than it was in the past. The share of women aged 25 to 54, considered to be in their "prime" working years, who gave that reason for not seeking employment has shrunk for more than a decade. The share of men citing that reason has edged up over the same period, according to a Labor Department analysis of census survey figures from 1990 to 2003.

The female participation rate peaked below the men's, though, because women still take out more time to care for children and other relatives, analysts say and the data show.

"During soft economic times, women with young children will be more likely to stay home if they can afford not to work. This is not a new trend; it's just common sense," Russell wrote. She added in an interview that the women's participation rate will probably never match the men's rate because of childbearing. "That is the biological gap."

Remind me again about why it is that women with children stay home and men don't? Can't be the Female Brain. That we learned yesterday, right?