Le Donne Son Mobili

Mobili, as in mobilizing–a poor attempt at a translingual pun (should be “si stanno mobilizzando” says my Italian friend, not “mobili” as in the line from Rigoletto). But if the pun is bad, the move is good–for Italy.

Today’s Times boasts an op-ed by Chiara Volpato on some Italian women’s response to Italian leader Silvio Berlusconi’s sexist treatment of one half of his citizenry:
Italian Women Rise Up

Pointing to big gender inequalities at home and in the workplace, very different from situations in other European countries, Volpato goes on to note that:

“The Italian media only exacerbate this bleak reality by presenting a picture of women that is incomprehensible to the rest of Europe. Private TV channels have started to broadcast images of women who are typically lightly dressed and silent beauties serving as decoration while older, fully dressed men are running the show. (It is worth noting here that Mr. Berlusconi owns the leading private television networks.)

“The impact of years of brainwashing is plain to see: recent research demonstrated that the most popular ambition among female teenagers is to become a velina (basically a showgirl). Young women and girls are consistently taught that their bodies, rather than their abilities and their knowledge, are the key to success. At the same time, the sexism portrayed on TV reinforces chauvinistic ideas among the culturally weakest parts of the population. Researchers who study female body objectification need only look to Italy to witness the sad consequences of this phenomenon.”

But women are increasingly fed up with this treatment, and are moving to change it. Bravissime!

(Volpato links the bad treatment women face in Italy to the low birthrate there, a connection made in earlier work, including a June article in the Times Magazine by Russell Shorto, called No Babies?)

Share

Sister Suffragette

images-1

Today is Women’s Equality Day – 89 years and counting since the passage of the Women’s Suffrage Amendment to the Constitution on August 26, 1920, allowing women to vote in the United States. A day to celebrate, and to take stock of what’s left to be done to get us to full equality, in the US and around the world.

Happily, while there’s plenty of work remaining, lots of people are moving on it. And talking about it. This week, Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn have published a new book (Half the Sky) advocating action in defense of women’s rights on a global scale, and the NY Times Magazine devoted its pages this past week to the cause (Special Issue).

The National Organization for Women launched a new blog today – called “Say It, Sister,” featuring discussion of feminist issues and calls to action.

Of course, saying don’t make it so, not on its own, and the next big steps for women could connect to direct action through legislation – starting with the Healthy Families Act (paid sick days) as well as both the Paycheck Fairness Act and the Fair Pay Act (anti-job-and-pay-discrimination).

Can we make it to 50/50 by 2020, the 100th anniversary of WED and the suffrage amendment? Only if we keep pushing for change – and speaking out. Whether or not we hold up half the sky, we are more than half the population–could get pretty noisy!

From the archive: Never Done and Under Paid

Suffrage History: August 26, 1920, and the Nineteenth Amendment

Share

Happy Belated Daddy Day (in Advance)

2009-06-17-images.jpeg
We hear often about later moms these days, but less about the new later dads who’ve walked hand and hand with those moms into the modern world of birth timing. While it’s always been possible for men to have kids later than women (Sarah was the miracle, not Abraham, when Isaac arrived), the Tony Randalls of this world (new dad at 77) have always been a small contingent.

Like most women, most men tend to have their kids in their 20s and early 30s, though increasing numbers start their families in their late 30s to mid 40s (birthrates to men and women increased in all age ranges between 15 and 45 in the latest data). Though 80% of couples who marry in their 20s have a male partner older than the female partner, and it’s not exactly rare to see couples with men a decade or more older, most couples are still within a few years of one another in age (just 60% of couples who marry in their mid to late 30s and over have an older man – much closer to the 50/50 split that would occur if cultural pressure for an older man didn’t operate at all).

When birth control gave women the capacity to delay kids until they felt ready for them, whenever that might be, men began delaying at a similar rate, for similar reasons. The new later dads of our moment differ from the later dads of yore in that their wives are their peers – not just close in age, but often with similar educations, job histories and earnings (Ben Affleck [36] and Jennifer Garner [37] are one example among millions).

This completely changes the marriage dynamic and has been directly responsible for men’s increased involvement in the lives of their kids. If both parents are educated and earning, the logic of separate spheres evaporates. If they’re both working outside the home, it only makes sense that they’d share the care work as well. What started within individual marriages has quickly become a culture-wide phenomenon, among parents of all ages.

As men have become more involved in the lives of their kids, they’ve come to love being there – even as they understand in new ways the time and effort involved in home work. So dads and moms together are forging the movement to innovate new work rules that will allow both members of a parenting couple to be active participants in their families’ lives while pursuing fulfilling and decently paid careers ( Families and Work Institute ).

While we’re wishing Happy Daddy Day this weekend to all the loving dads, let’s take a minute to appreciate how much more involved in the lives of their kids dads are today than when the first father’s day was celebrated 101 years ago , and how interconnected are the changing dynamics of dads’ and moms’ roles inside and outside the home.

This piece also appeared on the Huffington Post.

Share

Midlife Mamas: It’s Worth the Wait

Here’s a link to a story by Karen West published in Seattle Woman Magazine in May.

The media stories on later motherhood focus most on infertility — but 1 in every 7 US babies is born to a mom 35+ and the average age at first birth for college grads is 30.

This article breaks the media pattern by looking at both pros and cons of delay –the reporter cites my work but also did a lot of interviewing on her own.

Birth timing, women’s work and the status of women as policy shapers all entwine. There’s no one right way — but we badly need a straightforward discussion of what’s at stake.

Share

Gay Moms Doing Well, in Spite of Prop 8

Gay Moms Doing Well

2009-05-26-media_18.jpg

Recently Wanda Sykes (47) and her wife Alex (wed in California, October 2008) joined the growing ranks of gay parents, as these first-time moms celebrated the birth of twins. Sykes has described herself “proud to be a woman, proud to be a black woman and proud to be gay” — and now she can be proud to be a gay black mom as well.

Though today’s California Supreme Court decision qualifies her status as a gay black married mom–by affirming it for those like her who are already married but by denying the same option to others–the likelihood is great that that qualification will be undone in the not-so-distant future. The tide has turned, and the flood of images and stories of loving gay families like Wanda’s have already begun to redefine her status as part of the status quo.

Firm stats on the number of gay families aren’t available – one recent study put the number of gay parents at between 2 and 8 million – but clearly they’re on the rise, with or without the marriage option. For lack of a better category, the CDC counts births to partnered gay women in the births to “single” moms (39.5% of births in 2007).

While gay women have been parents for ages, in the past they were generally the parents of kids from hetero unions entered before the mom came out. An out gay woman didn’t often think of herself as a potential mom until recently, for several reasons:

•because it just didn’t seem like an option physically
•because “mom” often wasn’t the image many gay women had of themselves
•and because the world was not very receptive to gay families.

But that’s changing fast. With the growing openness about gay relationships and the availability of sperm donation and adoption, lesbians can now explore family options as never before. And gay moms are doing fine, at least in part because, like Sykes, many of them start their families later in life. This turns out to be a good thing.

My study of later moms found that delay of kids allows women of all orientations and backgrounds to finish their educations, to mature and settle into relationships more likely to last for the long term, and to establish themselves at work (whether in the limelight or in a cubicle) — leading to higher lifetime salaries and to more flexible schedules (essential to care-giving parents) than are available to women who start earlier, in our very family unfriendly work environments.

Gay women face the same pressures to establish themselves at work before starting a family as other women. As with their hetero peers, starting later means gay women have established themselves as individuals, with the kind of personal authority that allows them to be clear on what they want for themselves and can make them confident advocates for their kids.

In addition, the gay couples I interviewed pointed out that it takes time to figure out who you are and to go through the coming out process, which makes it even more likely that gay moms will come to motherhood later. In the coming years, as society becomes more welcoming to gay people, that process may move faster.

As with hetero women, delay may also lead later gay moms to infertility — especially women who seek to start biological families after 40 (this does not apply to the “other mothers” whose partners do the bearing and who in states that don’t allow gay marriage often become legal parents through adoption). But the steady rise in the birthrate to moms 35 to 45 over the past three decades and more has continued its rise in the latest data, and many women form families later through adoption and egg donation.

Out gay women become moms for many of the same reasons as straight women, but accident is not one of them. These highly intentional moms are changing our understanding of what family can mean, and their successes inspire more change. In turn, the move toward expanding the availability of marriage to gay couples nationally will secure these families a fairer chance at their own pursuit of the happiness our Declaration of Independence calls an inalienable right.

This piece first appeared on the Huffington Post.

Share