The Mommy Wars Get Ugly

A story in the Wa Post last week chronicled an ugly chapter in the Mommy Wars. The author, Linda Hirshman, wrote an article in American Prospect that opined that women with children are better off working than staying at home. She got flamed by the mom/blog community, many of whom are religious, as the Post article, penned by Hirshman, points out.

The article made me lament the fact that the organized feminist movement has morphed into a socialist reproductive rights movement. Somehow, some way, the National Organization for Women has taken a position in support of the estate tax as part of their platform.

I am a woman in finance and totally understand all of the issues that women face in that arena, and they are real. However, I think that most of the discrimination, and it is real and big, is due to the fact that most women in my field receive years of on the job training and just when they are expected to become revenue-generating they quit to have children. It would be much more fair to women to be able to ask them whether they are planning to have children. Otherwise I will always hire men.