The War over The War

Sandra Tsing Loh writes a scathing review of Mommy Wars, a new book by Leslie Morgan Steiner. I know nothing about Steiner, except for one random blog post I caught in which she praises her children for being so blessedly independent, unlike the coddled children of full time parents. In real life, I don't see any women bitching each other out like that, and I make proclamations like "mommy wars are a media myth." Then I read this stuff. I guess Steiner is making a buck by all the mommy war crap and needs to fuel the fire. Maybe that blog post wasn't representative, but that's what I caught.

I love that there is actually a war about whether or not there is a war.

Loh's biggest gripe about the book is that the authors in this edited book are all loaded. These wealthy women have only choices and no forces pushing them one way or another. Yet, they still moan and whine.

... it's a given today, in non-zine, non-blog, hardcover-anthology women's writing, that "Everymother" implicitly means "every mother from the well-defined e-mail list of people like us" -- media professionals who have now become their own class and tribe. A female member of the mediacracy can now seize the bully pulpit for all women without needing to give even lip service to those women whose lives, unglamorously enough, are more blue collar than blue state.

Loh mentions the many women who have to work to put food on the table. Their job choices are unglamorous and monotonous and underpaid. Job moves are understood to be a sacrifice for the family, rather than a him versus her struggle.

Not only is there is no reflection about other non-rich moms or some effort to find a commonalities amongst all women, but there is shameless recitations of material possessions. Label dropping that would make Bret Easton Ellis proud.

But what gets Loh the most is the weird pairing of feminism with professional success, ala Hirshman.

But Steiner goes further, arguing that although stay-at-home moms do, in their own intimate way, add value to their communities, "without the money, the power, and the loudspeaker successful careers bring, women will never have the collective bargaining power to make the world better for ourselves, our children, and all the women who can't leave abusive husbands, the ones who wear veils, the moms who earn less than minimum wage cleaning houses and don't have choices about birth control or prenatal care or any other kind of care."

Again, to slow down and unpack (although it's almost enough just to note the delicious, vaguely hand-waving phrase "the ones who wear veils"): Steiner's enumeration of "money, power, loudspeaker" suggests that little good can ever be done by women suffering any combination of poverty, obscurity, or -- most horrific of all -- lack of media access.

Leaving that aside, the question remains: Once they have the proverbial loudspeaker, how much social good do affluent, successful, powerful women really do (other than treating their wonderful full-time nannies like members of the family)? I didn't notice any successful career women in the book mentioning specific campaigns they're waging on behalf of the less fortunate, nor did I catch to what women's or children's charities proceeds from the book will be given. (I would love to know the inner dynamics of this collective-bargaining arrangement of which Steiner speaks, whereby a turbo woman's pursuit of a glamorous career somehow makes the world better for her minimum-wage sisters.) These days, I suppose, it is feminist enough an action to edit a women's anthology, get on Oprah, sell a million copies, and make a pile of cash, all of which you keep, presumably so that your investment-banker husband can't move the family again.

You know what? That's so good that I'm going to end this here.

Comments

[Amy P]

Here's what Loh's final quote (about the family moving) is talking about:

"Take the mini-autobiography proffered by Steiner, a graduate of Harvard and Wharton, the general manager of The Washington Post Magazine, and the former Johnson & Johnson executive who was responsible for the international launch of Splenda. Her dilemma, she explains, was being married to an investment banker who kept getting ever more attractive jobs in ever new places. The crisis came when he was "offered the presidency of a hot Internet start-up," which would require a family move to Minneapolis. The pain of it had Steiner lying on the parquet floor in her beloved Upper West Side, fighting tears: "Within a ten-minute walk lay my son's favorite playground, my sister's apartment, my in-laws' condo, Gymboree, a pediatrician as kindly as Big Bird, five or six Starbucks, the Reebok gym, and at least a dozen museums." But no. "My husband calmly explained that we were very lucky and really had to go. Millions of dollars in stock options, he said.""

I realize we are supposed to point and laugh at this, but I feel sorry for Steiner! Her husband sounds like a real ogre to be demanding this kind of sacrifice, unless the family was faced with destitution if they didn't move.

[Amy P]

One thing that's been bugging me for quite some time is the casual assumption that once enough women reach the top, things will magically improve from women on the bottom. It reminds me of an old joke about a bunch of friends who pool their savings to send one of their number (a solipsist) for a vacation to Hawaii, reasoning, "If he goes, we all go!" Well, no.

[jen]

I did kind of laugh at Steiner. Minneapolis is awesome. And I'm a native new yorker. please. The upper west side is not All That. However, I agree with your point about the husband. Unless you are an army wife in general, people talk about this and figure out what's best for the family and economics is not the only reason to move or not to move, obviously.

[monboddo]

I loved the piece, too -- there is just a sense underlying it of Loh finally losing all patience with these people. But there is something strange about the quoted bit from Steiner; her husband insists they have to move to (gasp) Minnesota, and she whines, and mopes, and ... that's it because her husband insists. One would expect a woman like Steiner to, oh, fight, or do something more than just fold when her husband says they really have to move. Leaves one wondering how reliable Steiner's story really is.

[Laura]

Yes. So, Steiner is in a relationship with a guy who calls all the shots. He moves the family against Steiner's wishes and not because they are starving or anything. Just so they can move from being upper middle class to rich. It is sad that Steiner has so little power in the family. So little hand, as Seinfield would say. It's sad that her husband's values are so out of wack. It's sad that Steiner isn't flexible enough to embrace the chilly but cool Minneapolis.

Don't get me wrong. Work is a fine thing. I'm humming a happy song all today thinking about my adjunct class for the fall.

But it's the next leap that gets Loh and myself. It's just a stretch to go from "needing to work to get some hand or sanity or whatever" to "working to further the goals of all womankind".

[Amy P]

For me, too, coming from a family full of housewives, farmers and small business people (evil conservatives, all) it is simply inconceivable that a woman could have so little say in her and her family's future. I've seen women argue that they need a job in order to have a say in their own families, but never really believed that that kind of marriage existed among educated urban families. Well, now I believe.

I'm sure Minneapolis is a wonderful place (Lileks certainly thinks so, at least half the year). What is unforgivable is asking a woman to uproot her home, move away from family and friends, just to make a well-off family more well-off.

[Elizabeth]

From her blog, it's clear that Steiner and her husband have a pretty asymmetrical relationship -- she did a little dance a few weeks ago because for the first time ever her husband cancelled a business trip because she had a conflicting obligation.