Women opting out of the workplace is not a result of choice, but of a lack of it

Published: Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Motherhood, the bête noire of 1970s feminism, is emerging as the raison d'être for 2010 feminism

WHAT'S REALLY going on with women like Olwyn Enright, who quit a full-time job and head for home? It's convenient to view her move as an isolated one precipitated by the particularly tough working conditions of a rural politician, or to look at it in terms of "choice" and "priorities". But there's reason to believe something more is going on here: that Enright and all the other mothers who quit jobs to care for families hadn't any real choice at all.

Pamela Stone, author of Opting Out? Why Women Really Quit Careers and Head Home , says the opt-out phenomenon is not a result of choice, but a result of lack of choice. After interviewing dozens of American working women turned stay-at-home mothers, she concludes that they are fed up trying to fit family responsibilities around a male-oriented way of working and they protest by simply walking off the pitch.

"The women I studied, on the surface, seemingly the most traditional of women, represent a kind of silent strike . . . their resistance is mistaken for conventionalism and acquiescence or lack of work commitment. These high-achieving women aren't voting against work or careers, they're voting against an outdated male model of work that ignores their reality."

Little surprise then that the voiceless, powerless mass of caring individuals best described as "mothers" have taken to the internet. They can't get out from under the laundry long enough to participate in government, never mind organise a march on the Dáil, but they can muster up a blog or two, or a thousand.

By ANNA MURPHY in The Irish Times - Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Anna Murphy is a writer, journalist and mother of two. She writes about parenting politics and policies at thedomesticcorrespondent.com

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