At 44, Sarah Palin is practically a Gen Xer. But many Gen X feminists won't be supporting her in the general election.Boomer feminists question WHY we would even ask Palin how she will balance family and career. Their argument: They wouldn't ask a man the same question.
Xer feminists are more likely to ask WHY would she want to?
Brazen Careerist Penelope Trunk argues that we have standards for parenting and neither a man or woman in her situation (five kids including a special needs infant) should be focusing this much attention on their career. And Penelope is a CEO of her own company.
At the Wall Street Journal, Katty Kay and Claire Shipman authored an opinion piece pointing to the fact that the majority of working mothers are fed up with 60-hour-work weeks and demand more flexibility. They point to a term coined by The Economist: Womenomics.
"Mrs. Palin is actually putting a spotlight on a new women's movement we call "Womenomics." Thanks to women's fast-growing market value we can finally live and work in a way that wins us time and avoids that agonizing choice of career or kids. Today as never before women can define success on their own terms," they write.
3 comments:
I do ask the question of men, and Democrats, too. I thought John Edwards should have dropped out of the race when his wife's cancer came back, and I don't care that she supposedly encouraged him to stay in (though maybe now we know why she was sick of looking at him).
Suzanne: Good post as usual. There are two major points that the Boomers and Republican operatives are missing. As Kristina said many of us DO ask the same questions of the male candidates. And in asking the question we're not saying she shouldn't run. We just want some indication from Gov. Palin that she's considered whether she can do it all. Dismissing the questions out of hand as inappropriate just shows that they don't understand anything about the people who are asking the question.
As a Gen Xer, (and a Democrat) I'm actually thrilled to see Palin on the ticket. I relate to Palin more that any of the other candidates that are on the ticket. I'm a working mom. I know how hard it is to get 3 kids out the door and still make it to work on time. I know what it is like to have a special needs kid. I am a Work Life practitioner and would be thrilled to see more work life effectiveness from the White House that could trickle down to the employers of this nation.
What is it about being the VP that is really any different than running a state, or running a magazine, or being the head of a major corporation for that matter? Working mom's do it all the time, just maybe not in the "traditional" sense.
It's not a matter of choosing one role (VP or Mom) over the other. It is more about using the skills that Working Moms already have to create effective change in the White House.
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