What Me, Worry?
An old friend of mine called yesterday, and, as we were catching up, she asked me how I felt about my "public image." Just great, I told her. After listening to the backlashers make feminism into a dirty word for twenty years, I am proud to be the one to say, after the immortal Joseph Welch, "Have you no shame, Senator, at long last? Have you no sense of decency, sir?"
And anyway, I told her, I get incredibly supportive emails every single day.
But that she would ask the question tells me that maybe private emails of support and public calumny in the mommy blogs isn't the best balance. So I hereby share with you just the last week's emails, identifying information deleted for the writers' sakes, so anyone interested in the fate of Get to Work regardless of my personal fate, can see what the reaction feels like from where I sit.
No sock puppets here; just a complete sample of just what came in last week, which was a slow week, actually. I have almost 2000 similar letters in my database. If I had Tim Russert's chutzpah, I'd try to publish another book, just telling the stories of the women out there trying to make a life for themselves while a backlash society rains down opprobrium on their heads. And how grateful they were that someone stood up for the value of their lives.
Linda,
I love it, keep 'em coming!
Amy
(citing)
Linda Hirshman's Manifesto For Women
By Mindy Farabee, LA CityBeat
Posted on September 5, 2006, http://www.alternet.org/story/41176/
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Linda,
I just came across your name in the Saturday's Globe & Mail (Globe Focus, Sex -- the ultimate act of freeloading, by Ian Brown). Ian called you "the most radical and readable feminist to have appeared in decades", so I had to google.
Thank you. While not a Times bride, I guess I am the Canadian version. I completely agree with you...I have believed that for the last nine years I have "chosen" not to work, but that really isn't true. Thank you for empowering me to use the skills and abilities that I have to make a difference in the world.
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Sent: Monday, September 04, 2006 10:37 PM
To: linda@gettoworkmanifesto.com
Subject:
I feel sorry for your children that grew up with a "part-time" mother. You cannot "have it all". Because you were selfish and choose to work for your own selfish reasons, don't attempt to brain-wash other women into your way of thinking. The only hope for this world is the loving mothers who put their children above all. That is the path least traveled.
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Linda: Greetings! I have been meaning to email you for several weeks since I saw you on The Colbert Report. You were magnificent! Honestly, I think that Colbert's style throws many of his guests, even his fans, but you were right there with him, being funny while persuasively making your case. Bravo!
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Hi Dr. Hirshman - I loved your book and wished it had been available when I was a medical student. I passed my copy on to my daughter, who is starting college this year. When I got accepted into medical school, a male classmate told me I took a spot from a man. Things are better now, but the discrimination has gone underground and we still have a way to go. As an aside, I doubt many of the women who walk away from advanced training have educational loans. I finally paid off my student loans at age 42. Even without the need to pay off the loans, I love my profession and I am glad to have stayed with it.
As a pediatrician, I see families where the mother is also home-schooling. I worry about the fallout to the kids. I can see two possibilities - the mother is too exhausted and over-extended to meet the kids' emotional needs or; more likely, she is such a controlling and narcissistic super-mother that there is no room for the kids' needs and the kids are expected to worship her extraordinary gift to them.
Thanks again, I've also enjoyed reading the interviews with you.
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Dear Dr. Hirshman,
You are sensational! As I lie in bed at 9 P. M. listening to my radio and Hew Hewett, you were being so called interviewed for your book GET TO WORK. I was so impressed how you countered him. Excitement overwhelmed me. I could not wait until morning when I called the Youngstown, Ohio Library to order your book. It took several days; but I finally got it. I could not put it down until I finished it. The book is excitingly/interestly well written. All my life I have been very independent which has driven people wild. I never got into the 1960 revolution which I truly regret. A year ago I just read The Feminine Mystique followed by The Second Sex and a few others. If I can be of any assistance to this new revolution please contact me. I am a 76 years youthful/single, a Registered Nurse, retired after 50+ years from United Airlines as a flight attendant, belong to Toastmasters, and I now have a small new and used clothing business plus other interests because I love to work.
Again, you are brilliant. If I can be of any revolutionary help please do notify me.
Comments
Wow. So I guess, as a "choice feminist," I have left no sense of decency, according to this?
You have a lot of useful, positive things to say, that have the potential to help a great many women and society as a whole. I can`t help but wonder why you seem so determined to alienate women like me, who would otherwise embrace your message.
Posted by: L. | September 11, 2006 07:13 PM
I am always interested in who writes saying that they would embrace my message if only I didn't speak so loudly. "Why," the "L" commenter muses, do I seem so determined to alienate "women like [her] who would otherwise embrace" my message. I am dying to know what women are out there who would educate themselves for work, take work seriously, never marry a jerk, not have more than one child and lobby for repeal of the joint tax filing if only Linda would watch her language. I might even change my language for millions of would be followers.
Well, what is the "L" commenter like? In this case, the commenter maintains a blog, homesickhome.com, in which she describes herself.
Here it is:
"We now live in San Francisco, after leaving our home in Tokyo three months ago. Hence, my title -- "Homesick Home." We are all homesick here. Or rather, most of us are -- ironically, my Japanese husband (to be known as "Hub") isn`t homesick at all. He`s zipping around in his Saab, loving his job, eating at expensive sushi bars in Sausalito while I`m eating turkey dogs with the kids. Big Son is 10, Daughter is 8, and Little Son is 3. I thought about calling them "Big Brother, Sister, and Little Brother," to describe how they relate to each other instead of to me. But "Big Brother" conjures up 1984 images, and "Sister" would get confusing, because the older two now go to Catholic school, and I`m sure I`ll be writing here about some of the nuns."
Now, I may be wrong here, but this stay at home mom with three children all born before I ever put pen to paper, being educated by the institutions of revealed religion, and a relationship to spouse, including the allocation of good and nourishing food, that fits pretty cleanly into the concept of caste, does not indeed seem to me to be someone all that ready to "embrace my message." Unless I am missing something pretty major here, I would suggest that it does not advance the discourse for "women like" her to write and tell me they're going to jump right on board if I will only what, stop ending my sentences with a preposition?
Posted by: Linda Hirshman | September 13, 2006 05:35 PM
I just came across your "manifesto" (nice term by the way) about how mother's who make the CHOICE to stay at home with their precious children are basically LAZY AND STUPID! I am extremely insulted. For your information right now I work FULL time, I have for the last twenty years. I got married when I was 30, had a beautiful daughter when I was 33. The absolute WORST day of my life was the day I went back to work and had to hand her over to an absolute STRANGER to raise! I felt like my heart was ripped out of my chest. Are you a mother??? Do you even understand the bioligical NEED to be with your child????
And before you get on some high horse, let me also inform you I am a LIBERAL DEMOCRAT! So how dare you try to judge me and others like me and say we are not working??? I plan to quit my job in two months time and be at home with my daughter for AS LONG AS SHE NEEDS ME! I did not bring her in to this world to be raised by someone else. It is my RESPONSIBILITY to shape and mold her and make sure she grows up to be anyone she wants to be and yes, madam, that includes a stay at home mom!
Like I said I am a liberal democrat, I believe in women's rights, that means I believe it is my RIGHT and my and my husband's CHOICE for me to be a homemaker. And where the hell do you get off thinking that is not a HARD job???? Do you have any idea all the things a homemaker does?? And don't sit there and tell me that a person who works full time does all this stuff too. They do not, I know from experience when you work full time you have no FREAKIN' TIME to do ANYTHING at home except pick up now and then and feed your family tv dinners and SHORTCHANGE the most important people in your life for what???? To put more money into some G**D***** fat cat's pocket.
Sorry honey, you do not speak for this liberated woman so shut your mouth. No one can tell me that being a homemaker is not THE most important job in the universe because it is. I am raising the FUTURE and whether you like it or not, it will be little girls like my own, with good old fashioned values that will be taking over once bitter old feminazi's like you leave the planet. So deal with it!
Posted by: Georgina | September 20, 2006 02:54 PM