This document discusses debates around women's ability to "have it all." It outlines two camps of thought: the "End-of-Men" camp argues that women now have more opportunities and power than men, while the "Women-Can't-Have-It-All" camp believes women still struggle to balance career and family. It also examines theories that women are less happy today and critiques the idea that having it all is possible if women lean in or marry the right person. The document analyzes feminist critiques of how capitalism has influenced expectations around women's roles and empowerment.

1. ON THE “ILLUSION” OF HAVING
IT ALL
Western women questioning their
current condition
Chiara Piazzesi
Université du Québec à Montréal (Canada)
Academic Leaders Program - Tecnológico de Monterrey, Campus
Querétaro
February 24th, 2014

2. “The End-of-Men” Camp

Increasing improvements
in social, professional,
reproductive, sexual
chances for women

Crisis of men, of
masculine norms and
practices, of masculinity

Women as the “new” power,
while men are struggling
CHIARA PIAZZESI
February 24th, 2014
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3. “Women-Can’t-Have-It-All” Camp

A great deal is still
to accomplish in order
to empower women

Women still cannot
have it all (career +
family)

Women struggle for
perfection in a way
that may become selfdestructive (high
standards of
efficiency,
availability, success)
CHIARA PIAZZESI
February 24th, 2014
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4. Hanna Rosin’s “The End-of-Men”
(2010-)
•
Evolution of economy has reduced the demand for male
workers and increased the demand for female workers
•
Post-industrial economy encourages communication,
thinking, adaptability
•
Growing number of college educated women
•
Dominance of women in 13 out of 15 “fastest growing
job categories” in the U.S.
•
“Women are also starting to dominate middle
management, and a surprising number of professional
careers as well”
•
Transformation of family (“matriarchy”) and women’s
biographical paths (sex, marriage, reproduction)
CHIARA PIAZZESI
February 24th, 2014
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5. The End of Men, really?
Source: Philip Cohen’s blog, http://familyinequality.wordpress.com/tag/hannarosin/
CHIARA PIAZZESI
February 24th, 2014
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6. The Paradox of Declining Female
Happiness
(Stevenson, Wolfers 2009)
CHIARA PIAZZESI
February 24th, 2014
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7. Happiness
“Women in the U.S. have become less happy, both
absolutely and relative to men [...]. The
relative decline in women’s well-being is
ubiquitous, and holds for both working and stayat-home mothers, for those married and divorced,
for the old and the young, and across the
education
distribution”.
“[…] these same trends are also evident across
those industrialized countries for which we have
adequate
subjective
well-being
data”.
B. Stevenson, J. Wolfers, “The Paradox of Declining Female Happiness”,
American
Economic
Journal:
Economic
Policy,
2009
http://www.nber.org/papers/w14969.pdf?new_window=1
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February 24th, 2014
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8. A.-M. Slaughter: “Women-Can’t-Have-ItAll”
•
Persisting structural factors thwarting women’s
attempts to “have it all”
•
Societal and economic arrangements, policies, and the
organization of work should be thus blamed – yet
women blame themselves, and each other
•
Women are “told” that they can have it all, and
nevertheless fail (even privileged ones)
•
Highly demanding work schedules are to blame in the
first place
•
The consequence: less career advancement for women,
less women at the top of the ladder
CHIARA PIAZZESI
February 24th, 2014
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9. Change the way we work
«The huge value that so many employers place on
a standard work schedule affects more than the
careers of women. Anyone who, for whatever
reason, needs to take time off or work flexible
hours
gets penalized. The broader economy
suffers when businesses are unable to make full
use of highly educated and productive people».
C. Goldin, “Close the gender pay gap, change the way we work”, Bloomberg, jan.
21st,
2014
CHIARA PIAZZESI
February 24th, 2014
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10. Equality between working women and
men?

Women are relatively absent from leading positions (due to
the structure and the organisation of high-profile jobs)

“Gender wage gap”: 77 cents earned by a full-time working
woman for every dollar earned by a full-time working man
(U.S.)

The “gender wage gap” is not rapidly decreasing: it will
probably be filled around 2057 in the U.S.
CHIARA PIAZZESI
February 24th, 2014
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11. The gender wage gap (2011)
Source: Philip Cohen’s blog,
http://familyinequality.wordpress.com/tag/hanna-rosin/
CHIARA PIAZZESI
February 24th, 2014
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12. Change the way we work
“To be sure, some professions may never be able
to offer much flexibility. Merger-andacquisition bankers, trial lawyers and the U.S.
secretary of state have 24/7, on-call-all-thetime jobs. That said, the universe of such jobs
is probably smaller than it appears”.
Claudia Goldin, “Close the Gender Pay Gap, Change the Way We Work”, Bloomberg, Jan. 21st, 2014
CHIARA PIAZZESI
February 24th, 2014
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13. Half-truth # 1
Having it all is possible if
you are committed enough
a.k.a.
“The Ambition Gap”
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February 24th, 2014
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14. Sheryl Sandberg: Lean in
“How are we going to take down the barriers that
prevent more women from getting to the top ?”
CHIARA PIAZZESI
February 24th, 2014
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15. “The
Ambition
Gap”
according
to
S.
Sandberg:
“in addition to external barriers erected by
society, women are hindered by barriers that exist
within ourselves. We hold ourselves back in ways
both big and small, by lacking self-confidence, by
not raising our hands, and by pulling back when we
should be leaning in. We internalize the negative
messages we get throughout our lives - the
messages that say it’s wrong to be outspoken,
aggressive, more powerful than men. We lower our
own
expectations
of
what
we
can
achieve”.
From Lean in (2013)
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February 24th, 2014
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16. Half-truth # 2
Having it all is possible if
you marry the right person
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February 24th, 2014
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17. Individual or collective responsibility?
“For the United States to catch up with
its more successful neighbors, we’d need
to reconsider some of our beliefs about
community and government. Many Americans
resist the idea of government help in
abstract: they want to fix the stalled
revolution
privately”.
A. Hochschild, The Second Shift. Working Families and the Revolution at Home (19892012)
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February 24th, 2014
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18. The Wonder
Woman
Syndrome
(according to Debora
Spar, 2013)
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February 24th, 2014
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19. The Wonder Woman Syndrome
(according to Debora Spar, 2013)

Women understood possibility as
(from “can be/have everything”
be/have everything”)

Women assumed the obligation of being
perfect mother, the perfect worker,
perfect lover, of having the perfect home,
perfect body, the perfect children,
perfect garden etc.

Second-wave feminism contributed to spread and
inculcate this (delusional) ambition
CHIARA PIAZZESI
obligation
to “'must
February 24th, 2014
the
the
the
the
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20. Wonder women
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February 24th, 2014
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21. Wonder women
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22. Wonder women
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February 24th, 2014
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23. “Feminism”
and
capitalism?
“The rising new forces of consumer manipulation—mass
media, mass entertainment, national advertising, the
fashion and beauty industries, popular psychology—all
seized upon women’s yearnings for independence and
equality and redirected them to the marketplace. Over and
over, mass merchandisers promised women an ersatz version
of emancipation, the fulfillment of individual, and
aspirational, desire. Why mount a collective protest
against the exploitations of the workplace when it was so
much more gratifying—not to mention easier—to advance
yourself (and only yourself) by shopping for “liberating”
products that expressed your “individuality” and signaled
your
(seemingly)
elevated
class
status?”.
Susan Faludi, “Facebook Feminism, Like It or Not”, The Baffler, Nov. 23,
2013
CHIARA PIAZZESI
February 24th, 2014
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24. “Feminism”
and
capitalism?
“On the one hand, [young girls], like their
mothers, are being constantly urged to excel, to
do whatever they want and be whoever they want
to be. On the other hand, and at the same time,
they are being pummeled by a bizarrely narrow
set of gender stereotypes. Girls as princesses;
girls as sex objects; girls as pretty things to
be dressed up, jeweled up, and carried off by
men”.
Debora Spar, Wonder Women, 2013
CHIARA PIAZZESI
February 24th, 2014
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25. Feminist critique of state capitalism
(Nancy Fraser 2009)

Second wave feminism criticized capitalism’s economism
(narrow conception of injustice & inequalities as simply
economic)

Second wave feminism criticized capitalism’s androcentrism
(gender division of labor which devalued activities
performed by women)

Second wave feminism criticized capitalism’s étatism (it
demanded strong political institutions capable to put
economic life in the service of justice)

Inclusion
of
matters
traditionally
considered
as
“private”, such as sexuality, housework, reproduction, and
violence against women
 Erosion of the gender division of labor, fairer “work
culture”
CHIARA PIAZZESI
February social justice
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 Growing political commitment for promoting 24th, 2014

26. Nancy Fraser on feminism & neo-liberal
capitalism
What went wrong?

New
economic
framework
promoting
deregulation, and personal responsibility
privatization,

Feminism ambiguously insisted on recognition at the expense
of socio-economic struggles

Focus on recognition contributed to isolating individuals
and categories

Critique of family wage promoted the shift to the “twoearner family”, thus supporting neo-liberal deregulation
and “disorganization”

Gender justice turned into an “individual” matter (and no
longer a social one)
“The cultural changes jump-started by the second wave [of
feminism], salutary in themselves, have served to legitimate a
structural transformation of capitalist society that runs
directly counter to feminist vision of a just society” (Fraser
2009)
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February 24th, 2014
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27. The Lean In Movement
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February 24th, 2014
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28. Susan Faludi on the « Lean in »
movement
“That Lean In is making its demands of
individual women, not the corporate workplace,
is evident in the ease with which it has signed
up
more
than
two
hundred
corporate
and
organization
“partners”
to
support
its
campaign. The roster includes some of the
biggest American corporations: Chevron, General
Electric, Procter & Gamble, Comcast, Bank of
America and Citibank, Coca-Cola and Pepsico,
AT&T and Verizon, Ford and GM, Pfizer and Merck
& Co., Costco and Wal-Mart, and, of course,
Google and Facebook. Never before have so many
corporations joined a revolution”.
Susan Faludi, “Facebook Feminism, Like It or Not”, The Baffler, Nov.
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February 24th, 2014
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23, 2013

29. Thank you!
piazzesi.chiara@uqam.ca
CHIARA PIAZZESI
February 24th, 2014
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