Linda Hirshman, enemy of the "opt-out revolution" and smart feminist who's got that special way of making lots of women (especially mothers) feel like total shit about themselves, has reached out to shamed (and now former) N.Y. Governor Eliot Spitzer's wife with this sentiment: too bad, told you so, would have happened sooner or later.
She writes in a short piece on Slate that Silda Wall Spitzer should not have, lo those many years ago, quit her job in mergers and acquisitions to raise her daughters and support her husband's budding career in politics. Silda Spitzer rode her husband's powerful coattails, Hirshman says, and now that he's powerless, she is too. Silly Silda should have seen this coming!
How? Well, because sooooo many powerful men face their downfall with prostitutes, Hirshman argues, getting the full mile out of her thesis with vague evidence, all of it anecdotal (Clinton! Gary Hart! See, Silda, see!).
And now Silda has nothing. No social cache. No trust in her man. No power by proxy. And, especially, no power of her own. Nothing.
Silda, honey, it's gone.
Hirshman often argues that her criticisms center mainly on the elite -- from birth, from education, from levels of power. But she has said before that women should only have one child and never leave their jobs, and elite or not, we all hear it. She's talking about us. Like most critics of stay-at-home parents or those who "opt-out," she ignores the complications of family life between equal partners with unequal take-home-pay who have kids. There's never talk of institutional change -- part-time work, longer vacations, longer maternity, affordable and/or on-site childcare!, good schools, 40-hour work week, etc. Only personal change will do for Hirshman.
What's most damaging is that she puts a tremendous amount of importance in time -- time away from a career. She assumes that something real is lost when women or men make the difficult choice to "opt-out" for a bit when the kids are young. Because even a short break means all is lost.
Anyone who has ever "opted out" knows nothing is lost. The real problem is that even a short break means it's hard to get anyone to take you seriously. Including Linda Hirshman. She reinforces it for those who don't know any better (for example, uh, American corporations and Hirshman's professional area, academia.)
I have little sympathy for Silda Spitzer, because she doesn't need my sympathy, or anything else from me. Our worlds are quite different. But this week and certainly for the next few, the details of her life and the actions of her husband will be overlayed onto my life. This will be used to teach women lessons and issue warnings. The Spitzer crisis will illicit a stern talking-to from every expert out there about all aspects of my little family (and yours).
Today's nagging comes is brought to us by Linda Hirshman. As I did with yesterday's warning from Dr. Laura Schlessinger, I'll be ignoring Hirshman's too.
Photo: Good Morning America
