I’m so pleased you raised this issue, L, as it is a subject I have lots to say about!
For the most part, I strongly agree with you. However, there are 2 levels on which this debate has to operate.
The first is within our own professions, amongst women with partners, who, like us, are privileged enough to be well-educated and, for whom working may be an economic necessity, but ultimately, we have good, well-paid-enough (despite constant gripes) careers, and, crucially, we were able to choose our respective paths.
These women – I’m sorry to say it – are a casualty both of feminism and of our shallow contemporary culture, both of which teach us that we can have everything. We can’t. Feminism(s), in its multiplicity, seeks to at least attain equal opportunities for women. Well how is taking 6 months paid maternity leave, to “fulfil a narcissistic desire for personal development” equal to men? Men don’t have everything. They generally have better and more highly paid jobs, but they also generally don’t take off 6 months to look after the babies. Frankly, I don’t see what female biological needs necessitate 6 months off work. If you are ill during your pregnancy, take it as sick leave. Most large companies extend a policy of flexi-time to a degree, and there is no reason as far as I am aware why heavily pregnant women’s mental functions should be impaired, so if it is too difficult for them to move during the latter stages of pregnancy, they should work from home. They can take 2 or 3 weeks off following the birth as holiday. A C-section is surgery, and, as with any other operation, this should be taken as sick leave from work.
It is offensive to describe pregnancy and early maternity as a physical disability, to women, men and children. Is the lawyer who claims this male or female, and does this lawyer have children?
I do not see changing employment structures as a solution. Clearly this is unfair to any worker for whom maternity leave does not apply. Furthermore, like maternity leave itself, any change to employment structures in favour of working mothers would actively reinforce the notion that it is the mother who should stay home with the babies, rather than the father (isn’t paternity leave something pitiful like 2 weeks?). It would also, rightly or wrongly, reduce women in the workplace to their “biological destiny”. This is essentially what the concept of maternity leave does anyway, and quite frankly, is one of the things that makes bosses (male and female) reluctant to hire women, and the suggestion of women having a “get-out clause” reflects badly on all women in the workplace – again, rightly or wrongly – as it suggests that women never have to be as serious-minded about their careers as men.
The bottom line is that we cannot have everything. You cannot give 100% of your self to your child and still expect to have the same career opportunities as other women. Life is about making choices and compromises.
In fact, having made my own life choices – which don’t include children – I note that there is more of a social stigma attached to my lifestyle than to that of a colleague, who recently returned from maternity leave. It is understood and accepted that she cannot travel abroad on business trips any more and that she has to leave the office by 6pm, yet I could never cite missing a training session at the gym or a law lecture as a viable reason for not working at least a 10 hour day and travelling abroad on business at least twice a month!
I should add that the above arguments relate to women in a particular socio-economic group. The other level on which this has to operate is in consideration of the many women who have no option but to work, and are bringing up children on their own. It is important that they have a job to go back to, and we have a social responsibility to ensure this. However, I think that rather than offering maternity leave – to all women – there should be subsidised childcare available to everyone with children, perhaps in relation to salary, with people in the lowest salary brackets not having to pay at all. This would also act in the interests of ensuring more women in the workplace, in better and higher paid jobs, and in encouraging equality with men in these respects.
This way, a woman’s choice can remain just that – a personal choice, like my legal training or L’s novel – and not threaten the collective cause of women’s rights. Isn’t that what our feminisms are about, after all?
