Hinrichs: Interview Assignment

When I first approached my mother about the interview assignment, she seemed a bit wary. My initial objective was to flush out some ideas with my mother about who would be the perfect woman to interview. Together we thought of women such as a past women’s studies professor, our local Parent Teacher Association (PTA) president, and my cousin who is a business executive. When I briefly mentioned interviewing my mother, her response was a resounding “No. I’m not qualified. I’m not educated enough on the subject.” Her answer did not completely surprise me, because there have been numerous times throughout my life when I recognized how uncomfortable my mother is with not finishing a college degree. Her discomfort about her lack of education exists despite the fact that she had a successful career in government, raised three children alone, and is one of the smartest people I have the honor of knowing. Given my mother’s response to being interviewed and my own notion of feminism, I knew that she was the woman I had to interview. The purpose of this essay is to illustrate the various and significant ways that my mother has helped shape the feminist movement as well as to share her compelling opinions on the future of feminism. On a broader scale, I intend for this essay to serve as proof that every woman’s experience counts and every voice matters.

When I asked my mother whether or not she identifies as a feminist, she answered affirmatively. In her view, feminism means that “as a woman, I hold an equal position of respect with a man.” When asked whether or not she considers herself a feminist activist, she again answered affirmatively. The first example of activism she gave was her persuasion of numerous women over the years to vote for Democratic candidates based on their pro-choice platform. As I perceive it, my mother’s answer is tied to the third wave notion of an expanded definition of activism. In their piece entitled “Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism and the Future,” Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards argue that “Though activism can be grand or all-consuming, it is also…everyday acts of defiance” (Baumgardner and Richards 629). Building on Richards and Baumgardner’s assessment, I argue that many women of all ages, including my mother, have moved beyond the narrow definition of feminist activism as directly fighting for suffrage and other publicly activist tasks. As a self-identified feminist, my mother considers a woman’s right to abortion to be directly tied to feminist ideas. Given this belief, she considers a persuasive debate on the merits of pro-choice candidates to be an example of activism even when it takes place in her home and with a friend. I agree that such conversations constitute activism and, more importantly, “make up a vital feminist movement” (629).

According to my mother, her most significant contribution to the feminist movement was “raising my two daughters, and my son, to be progressive thinking people.” While I truly appreciate this belief, I could not help but wonder how some feminists would respond. Betty Freidan, for instance, refers to the plight of housewives such as my mother as “the problem that has no name,” an insinuation that a woman relegating herself to housework and children is problematic and unfulfilling (Friedan 49). Contrastingly, Rebecca Walker argues in her “Becoming the Third Wave” that choice needs to be at the heart of the feminist agenda (Walker 601). Though Friedan would likely disagree, my mother views her decision to end a successful career in the federal government to stay home with her children as a choice. While her decision is perhaps not traditionally feminist, it coincides with Walker’s and my own belief in choice feminism. Moreover, I believe that her choice to stay home is not inherently contradictory to feminism.

Lisa Belkin agrees with this argument and calls the countless women like my mother who ended lucrative careers to stay home with their kids members of the “opt-out revolution” (Belkin 1). Belkin writes in her New York Times article entitled “Opt-Out Revolution” that the educated, intelligent, and gainfully employed women who are “opting-out” of careers are “redefining success. And in doing so, they are redefining work” (3). As Belkin sees it, this so-called revolution is beneficial to society in that the tendency of successful women to leave their jobs forces employers to work harder to keep them. The employers’ efforts translate into increased flexible work schedules, job-protected family time off for men and women and other untraditional ways of working (11). To sum up Belkin’s argument, then, the choice of successful women to stay home with their children has helped rather than hindered the feminist movement. When asked whether or not “opting-out” was an adequate term to describe her situation, my mother answered “Yes, I guess I did opt-out. I think that term is problematic, though, because it undermines the importance of raising children. As if I ‘opted-out’ of the more important option to work. I don’t see it that way.” When asked to elaborate, she explained that her education and work experience were in no way wasted because “educated people, male or female, raise educated people.”

In addition to my mother’s concerns about Belkin’s “Opt-out revolution,” I worry that the piece is too much in favor of postfeminism. Postfeminism is the idea that the feminist movement is no longer relevant or necessary because its goals have already been achieved. As Baumgardner says in her foreword to Sisterhood, Interrupted, a postfeminist is likely to negatively think of “older feminists as victim mongerers” (Baumgardner 140). Belkin’s article has definite innuendos of postfeminism in that she insinuates that modern women are not breaking through “the glass ceiling” almost exclusively because of maternity (Belkin 2). While maternity plays a role in the lower percentage of females in top corporate positions, I think sexism is also clearly to blame. Given the prevalent role of sexism in the workplace today, I find little validity in the postfeminist idea. As my mother puts it, “I don’t see how you could say that women have achieved full equality, especially in the workplace. I think feminism will continue to be necessary for quite some time, if not always.”

Continuing with our discussion of the future of feminism, I asked my mother what she thinks is the greatest challenge to the movement in the future. After reading pieces such as Richards and Baumgardner’s “Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism and the Future” which speak of an attainable feminist utopia, I was somewhat surprised to hear my mother’s answer. Her perception and fear is that “some day women are going to realize that they can’t really have it all.” In her case, for instance, she was a widowed mother who had to sacrifice her career in order to care for her children in the way that she saw fit. I do not think that she regrets her decision, but the fact still remains that sacrifices were made by her and by countless women who are forced to choose. The realization that these sacrifices are very often necessary could be, according to my mother, detrimental to feminism.

Upon finishing our interview, my mother once more told me “if this isn’t the kind of material you need, you should interview someone else.” Her insecurity astounds me. After having eloquently expressed countless experiences and insights about the feminist movement, my mother still clearly felt that her opinions were not adequate for an academic paper on feminism. My hope is that this essay stands as proof of the various and significant ways my mother has helped shape the feminist movement as well as her insightful predictions about feminism’s future. Furthermore, I hope to have proven that the experiences and opinions of every woman are valid and important to feminism.