Sarah Palin, Working Mother

Sarah Palin's sudden appearance on the national stage has rekindled the incendiary issue of women, family, and the workplace

by Christina Bielaszka-DuVernay

Posted on Conversation Starter: September 4, 2008 4:48 PM

"Men and women, Chris, are biologically different. Women, for instance, bear children."

So a senior male executive once informed me.

Having borne three children myself in the previous few years, I could hardly disagree. Indeed, I struggled for an appropriate response to his news flash.

I've been reminded of this absurd (and largely one-way) conversation over the last week as Sarah Palin's sudden appearance on the national stage has rekindled the incendiary issue of women, family, and the workplace.

What's particularly interesting in this round of the so-called Mommy Wars is how traditionally liberal and conservative positions have flip-flopped. Citing conservatives' long-standing praise of stay-at-home motherhood, liberals eagerly point out that should the conservative Palin become the vice president, she will have little time to devote to her five children, who include (as everyone has been told a bazillion times already) a pregnant teen and an infant with special needs. Conservatives, for their part, accuse the left of sexism. They ask, quite rightly, if her family obligations would even be an issue were she a man. The debate gives new meaning to the term politics of convenience.

But the conversations aren't only public. They are happening on a smaller scale among friends and colleagues. Wherever they occur, they're uncomfortable.

Men and women are different, and their parenthood experiences in the early months or years of a child's life are different. As I wrote in a post earlier this year, I was hired when I was eight months' pregnant. Because this hire happened in April and my husband's teaching schedule allowed him to be a full-time parent in the summer months, I returned to my very new job when my first child was only eight weeks old. My company's lactation rooms allowed me to continue breastfeeding, but nothing anyone could do—not my employer, not my spouse—could alleviate the wrenching exhaustion of working an 8-to-6 schedule when night after night, I slept in 2-hour shifts because I was nursing. By my second week back, I was, quite literally, walking into walls.

Whether my experience is typical of other working mothers or not, I think we can all safely say it's quite distinct from that of most new fathers. Yet acknowledging these differences between men and women can feel dangerous. There prevails the sense—at least in the U.S. workplace—that the human male's experience is the normative one and women's the often confounding exception. Even as men take on more responsibility for family obligations, survey after survey reveals that women shoulder the heavier burden, and not just for child care. Women bear most of the responsibility for elder care, even when the elder in question is an in-law.

Do such obligations somehow make women less suited than men for certain professions or roles?

The vice presidency is obviously a job with a potentially immense impact on others, compared with the typical executive position. Yet high-level positions usually affect many others. So when do someone's family commitments rule her out as a strong candidate for a highly responsible position?

I'd love to hear your thoughts and your stories.

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