WAS MY MOTHER A HIRSHMAN FEMINIST?

God, all this Hirshman discussion, has my blood pressure boiling right now.  Why?  Because this is the very hardest stuff for women to talk about: our personal choices as to how to deal with career and family.  These choices are deeply personal, they go to the core of who we are, and they are often wrenching and painful. I would submit that the angst women suffer over work-family issues is well-nigh universal (except for those women who simply accept a traditionalist lifestyle in which they accept being subordinate).  But despite the fact that these choices often reflect our values and affect our self-image, the key thing, I think, is to be dead honest about what the trade offs are.

This is the thing I appreciated so very much about my wonderful homemaker mother.  A shy, passive, easily dominated person who never went to college and was either a secretary and homemaker all her life, she might seem at first glance to be the farthest thing from a Hirshman feminist.  But, man, my mother was brave and gutsy as all get out at NAMING the factors that had constrained and shaped her life.  No matter how painful it got, she was clear-eyed about the ways in which she got the shaft because of her sex.

My mother was born in 1941 and was heavily socialized throughout her childhood to aspire to a  very traditional femininity.  She was raised in a devout Lutheran household that stressed the teachings of Paul, including the teachings regarding a woman's proper submissive role.  In high school, despite an excellent academic record, my mother was encouraged by both guidance counselors and parents to choose home economics classes whenever given the chance for an elective.  After high school, there was no thought of my mother going to college because there didn't seem to be any reason for a girl to go to college.  My mother married up  (my father was a Harvard educated professional), putting her at a distinct disadvantage in terms of the power balance in the family.  If there was ever a disagreement, well guess what, dad was going to win because (a) he was better educated, (b) he was the breadwinner, and (c) my mother didn't have the ability to be assertive.  My mother did absolutely everything related to home and child care.  All my father had to do was go to work.  When he got home, dinner was on the table, the bills were paid, the laundry done, the house immaculate, etc.    

Now let me be clear.   My mother has never taken any steps whatsoever to change her subordinate status at home and in society.  I asked her once why she didn't leap on board when the women's movement broke out in full force in the late 1960s and early 1970s.  Her answer was that while the women's movement had her full support, she felt that it came slightly too late for her. 

My mother also takes full responsibility for the choices she made (choices, of course, made within the constraints placed on women on those days).  She both relished and made the most of her life as a stay-at-home mom and a homemaker.  She nurtured my education, my sense of humor, my values, and my interests.  She created a wonderful home.  She gardened, cooked, sewed, and restored furniture, and was invariably cheerful and optimistic.  Her worst error (in my opinion) was in not walking out on my father.  But that would have been an awful lot to ask someone who was raised to be a wife and who could not have hoped to approximate the income that my father was able to provide both me and her.  Striking out on her own with a child would have been simply too daunting.   

But here is the extraordinary thing:  My mother was always very clear about the sex-based injustices that had constrained her life.  I would ask all sorts of obnoxious questions when I was a young kid (not because I was trying to be disrespectful but because I was worried):  Aren't you humiliated not to even have your own name?  Yup.  By not earning an income, aren't you basically a second class citizen?  Yup.  Isn't it unfair that dad gets to tell you what to do? Yup.   

What I loved about my mother is that she would never pussy-foot around.  She never tried to pass off the obvious inequities she suffered as anything other than what they were.  She didn't try to say, "Oh no, I am not a second-class citizen because I have influence." Or, "I'm a lot luckier than your Dad because I get to stay home with you."  Or, "Your dad and I are a team.  There's a give-and-take.  We each have equal but  separate roles."  It was my mother who first made me see in a lightbulb-going-off-in-my-head kind of way why abortion is a key feminist issue. (In a rare bout of assertiveness, she also went off on an Opus Dei priest, who was a guest in our home, when he said a prayer at our dinner table for all the unborn "children" who were "murdered" by abortion.)  She also criticized quite vocally the religion in which she was raised, her own socialization, and the educational choices towards which she was guided when she was young.   

In short, the woman called things by what they are, and for that I will be eternally grateful.  It would have been a lot easier for her to rationalize away the complete subordination of her position in life.  It must have been horrifying for her to see the truth about how she was deprived of the tools to make her own way in the world and to view the unvarnished reality of her subordinate position to my father.  But she always, always, always told me the truth, no matter how painful.

Sure, my mother could have fought.  She could have taken her destiny by the horns and battled all of the expectations and constraints of her situation.  But my mother's not a fighter.  She is, however, a terrific feminist because she had the brass ovaries to NAME the stark realities under which she lived.  Her willingness to do so gave ME the tools to lead a very different kind of life.       

Comments

[h sofia]

I haven't read your Hirshman posts yet, HF, but I love this testimony about your mom.

[Edith]

I asked her once why she didn't leap on board when the women's movement broke out in full force in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Her answer was that while the women's movement had her full support, she felt that it came slightly too late for her.

Not to pick on your mother (or this beautiful piece you wrote about her), but stuff like that always makes me wince.

Your mom is younger than one my parents and only slightly older than my other parent. At 22, that makes my parents older than most other parents of people my age. My oldest sibling just turned 43.

A pet peeve of mine is how baby boomers like to pretend SO much that they were the hippie generation, that they were freedom riders in Selma, that they went to Woodstock, that they were the feminists. Yet most of them weren't, as most of them were in their teens. Those that WERE involved were on the young end of the movements, and almost NO one that young was in any sort of leadership position. *Even the so-called student leaders were mostly graduate students, not undergrads.)

Most of the big name feminists -- Robin Morgon, Kate Millett, Gloria Steinem, etc. -- were born in the early 1930's. The youngest late-60's-early-70's feminist I can think of was one of the members of the Boston Women's Collective that helped put together Our Bodies, Ourselves. The next youngest might have been Shulamith Firestone, who was born in 1945 (so still, not a boomer!).

I think it makes it even more amazing to think of these women, who weren't kids, still having the idealism and energy that they did, you know? It also makes me feel better in my life, knowing that you don't have just a few years in college to be a "radical" and then, that's it, it's grownup time.

[The Happy Feminist]

Yep, I agree that my mother was certainly not too old to have been radicalized if she had had the temperament to do so. As I said, she is not a fighter. I think her comment was a really a reflection that given her time and place, feminism came to late for her to partake of its benefits without openly rebelling, which is contrary to her nature.

But she was pretty darned radical in her views, if not her actions.

[Allison]

This is a great story, and it really helps me as I try to wrap my brain around what feminism means in my life. I already do much more toward shaping my daughter's attitudes than was ever done for me when I was a child, and it's reassuring to remember that whatever walls (often self-erected) I bang my head against, I'm at least helping my daughter to not build barriers for herself later.

[jo(e)]

I agree that naming these things -- being honest and talking about them -- is hugely important. My mother was much the same way.

And while she would never fight for stuff for herself, she would fight for her daughters.

[Scott Lemieux]

I wish I had more substantive commentary to add, but great post.

[Girlistic]

This is a great piece. I also find your mother a strong woman in mind, if not in action. She really seemed to have taken the best course of action for herself, and for you - she seems to have really taught you an interesting perspective.

It makes me reflect on the women in my family. My family is very small, and now that both my grandmothers are dead, it's just my mom and two aunts - the three sisters - as role model women, each of whom are completely different. My oldest aunt is stubbornly opinionated, my mom terrified of denial, and my youngest aunt a confident woman in a male-dominated profession.

And honestly, I think it takes all three for me to be able to get a sense of the generation in which they were raised - all three reflect a different angle of the movement in the 70s - and to get a sense of where women who are of the age of second wave feminists are now.

[Lee]

I agree totally - not only are these choices we make very personal, how we feel about them is very personal, too, and also has to take into account the curve balls life throws at us. I think Hirschman doesn't allow for the bad things that can happen, or for personal limits, when she talks about the sell-out.

My mother (like yours) was very up-front about how she wasn't where she thought would be when she was young, and why. She wanted to be a pharmacist, but when the 4-year program mutated into a five-year program halfway through, she couldn't afford the fifth year and so she returned home to be a secretary. Totally not where she thought she would be! She always told me very clearly that if she had been a man, she would have gotten the financial aid to finish the fifth year of pharmacy school (because she was 2nd in her class on grades). She wishes now that she had had the chutzpah to make a huge fuss with her family or with the school, and the stamina to follow it through, and always always told me that I should stand up for myself because I had one strike against me already just by being a woman.