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Heading Home: Motherhood, Work, and the Failed Promise of Equality
Women in today’s advanced capitalist societies are encouraged to “lean in.” The media and government champion women’s empowerment. In a cultural climate where women can seemingly have it all, why do so many successful professional women―lawyers, financial managers, teachers, engineers, and others―give up their careers after having children and become stay-at-home mothers? How do they feel about their decision and what do their stories tell us about contemporary society?
Heading Home reveals the stark gap between the promise of gender equality and women’s experience of continued injustice. Shani Orgad draws on in-depth, personal, and profoundly ambivalent interviews with highly educated London women who left paid employment to take care of their children while their husbands continued to work in high-powered jobs. Despite identifying the structural forces that maintain gender inequality, these women still struggle to articulate their decisions outside the narrow cultural ideals that devalue motherhood and individualize success and failure. Orgad juxtaposes these stories with media and policy depictions of women, work, and family, detailing how―even as their experiences fly in the face of fantasies of work-life balance and marriage as an egalitarian partnership―these women continue to interpret and judge themselves according to the ideals that are failing them. Rather than calling for women to transform their feelings and behavior, Heading Home argues that we must unmute and amplify women’s desire, disappointment, and rage, and demand social infrastructure that will bring about long-overdue equality both at work and at home.
Heading Home reveals the stark gap between the promise of gender equality and women’s experience of continued injustice. Shani Orgad draws on in-depth, personal, and profoundly ambivalent interviews with highly educated London women who left paid employment to take care of their children while their husbands continued to work in high-powered jobs. Despite identifying the structural forces that maintain gender inequality, these women still struggle to articulate their decisions outside the narrow cultural ideals that devalue motherhood and individualize success and failure. Orgad juxtaposes these stories with media and policy depictions of women, work, and family, detailing how―even as their experiences fly in the face of fantasies of work-life balance and marriage as an egalitarian partnership―these women continue to interpret and judge themselves according to the ideals that are failing them. Rather than calling for women to transform their feelings and behavior, Heading Home argues that we must unmute and amplify women’s desire, disappointment, and rage, and demand social infrastructure that will bring about long-overdue equality both at work and at home.
304 pages, Hardcover
Published January 8, 2019
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
August 27, 2021
An excellent book about the conflict between the messages of contemporary feminism and the actual difficulties that working mothers face — that lead them leave the workforce.
Feminist messages today focus on keywords like choice, confidence and empowerment. To opt out of the workforce is presented largely as a personal choice, but leaves out a lot of the underlying dynamics that coerce women to do so: husbands who are unwilling to give up their careers, a gendered expectation that children develop better with motherly care than fatherly care, and toxic work cultures with long hours and an "always on" culture that make it extremely challenging to juggle parenthood and work.
By shifting the dialogue away from structural inequities and framing it as a personal choice, it leaves women to internalise the blame that they don't live up to the ideal balanced woman (who, by the way, is a projection and fantasy because women struggle to pinpoint a specific woman they personally knew who "had it all"). They view their decisions and their lives as a personal failing: yet another situation of women internalising blame and feeling bad about themselves.
The book also explores the downsides of the gig economy, which has otherwise been touted to help moms achieve a work life balance by being a "mompreneur". The truth is that gig economy work doesn't provide job security and benefits and is not something that can be neatly boxed away when the kids are at school.
Great and illuminating book showing how even the most well educated and successful women living in affluent homes still fall into a trap of "voluntarily" leaving paid employment to focus on motherhood. Made me think of way too many examples of Gen Xs falling into this category.
Feminist messages today focus on keywords like choice, confidence and empowerment. To opt out of the workforce is presented largely as a personal choice, but leaves out a lot of the underlying dynamics that coerce women to do so: husbands who are unwilling to give up their careers, a gendered expectation that children develop better with motherly care than fatherly care, and toxic work cultures with long hours and an "always on" culture that make it extremely challenging to juggle parenthood and work.
By shifting the dialogue away from structural inequities and framing it as a personal choice, it leaves women to internalise the blame that they don't live up to the ideal balanced woman (who, by the way, is a projection and fantasy because women struggle to pinpoint a specific woman they personally knew who "had it all"). They view their decisions and their lives as a personal failing: yet another situation of women internalising blame and feeling bad about themselves.
The book also explores the downsides of the gig economy, which has otherwise been touted to help moms achieve a work life balance by being a "mompreneur". The truth is that gig economy work doesn't provide job security and benefits and is not something that can be neatly boxed away when the kids are at school.
Great and illuminating book showing how even the most well educated and successful women living in affluent homes still fall into a trap of "voluntarily" leaving paid employment to focus on motherhood. Made me think of way too many examples of Gen Xs falling into this category.
March 9, 2020
Great strides have been made in the last 50 years when it comes to equality between the genders. So why is it that many highly-educated, career-driven women are still opting out of the workplace entirely to take care of their children? The prevailing societal answer is that this is entirely due to personal preference by the women and their families.
This book argues (convincingly, in my opinion) this idea of personal preference is not entirely the reality that these women face. Instead, the women who chose to leave their careers made the decision based on a variety of factors other than pure personal preference: work structures, work cultures, and social perceptions to name a few. "Presentism" in their own workplaces and the stress of their husband's high-powered careers are a couple examples of the factors that drove the choice to stay home, even when that wouldn't have been the woman's first choice.
There's a lot I can say on this topic, but I'll leave it at this: The ingrained assumption that employees should be at their employer's beck and call at such a level that is the reality for most working people harms everyone. It harms fathers who aren't there for their kids. It harms mothers who are usually the ones assumed to take on the role of "foundation parent" for their kids.
Unpaid work is still work and should be valued, whether it is done by men or women. It is absolutely a legitimate choice to leave paid work to take care of your family, but we as a society can do better to make it more of an actual choice instead of something that is necessary because of the expectations of the workplace.
This book argues (convincingly, in my opinion) this idea of personal preference is not entirely the reality that these women face. Instead, the women who chose to leave their careers made the decision based on a variety of factors other than pure personal preference: work structures, work cultures, and social perceptions to name a few. "Presentism" in their own workplaces and the stress of their husband's high-powered careers are a couple examples of the factors that drove the choice to stay home, even when that wouldn't have been the woman's first choice.
There's a lot I can say on this topic, but I'll leave it at this: The ingrained assumption that employees should be at their employer's beck and call at such a level that is the reality for most working people harms everyone. It harms fathers who aren't there for their kids. It harms mothers who are usually the ones assumed to take on the role of "foundation parent" for their kids.
Unpaid work is still work and should be valued, whether it is done by men or women. It is absolutely a legitimate choice to leave paid work to take care of your family, but we as a society can do better to make it more of an actual choice instead of something that is necessary because of the expectations of the workplace.
February 23, 2022
Heading Home interviewed a group of highly-educated and successful professional women in the US and UK who chose to opt out of the workplace to take care of their children. They comforted themselves that it was entirely a personal choice due to individual preference. But was it?
Granted, all of these women belong to a niche privileged group (white, upper-middle class, stellar education and professional track records, husbands with high-earning jobs), but the research still offers an insightful look into stay-at-home mothers' psyche. If these women who've got it all are not happy with their child-caring state, what about all the other less privileged ones? Throughout the book Orgad offers many interesting and provocative ideas that made me pause and think. And I finally got what's wrong with the "girl power" feminism. The key to achieve gender equality lies in dismantling patriarchal structures, not in telling women to be more confident, to "lean in", and to internalize external inequalities into self-blame.
3 stars because I find the writing all over the place and the author not good at summarizing her arguments and main points - it definitely felt like an essay stretched into a book. Still worth reading though.
Granted, all of these women belong to a niche privileged group (white, upper-middle class, stellar education and professional track records, husbands with high-earning jobs), but the research still offers an insightful look into stay-at-home mothers' psyche. If these women who've got it all are not happy with their child-caring state, what about all the other less privileged ones? Throughout the book Orgad offers many interesting and provocative ideas that made me pause and think. And I finally got what's wrong with the "girl power" feminism. The key to achieve gender equality lies in dismantling patriarchal structures, not in telling women to be more confident, to "lean in", and to internalize external inequalities into self-blame.
3 stars because I find the writing all over the place and the author not good at summarizing her arguments and main points - it definitely felt like an essay stretched into a book. Still worth reading though.
January 10, 2019
The author perfectly captured the guilt and other emotions experienced by women that have families and still want to have a fulfilling career and life.
January 13, 2022
I liked it primarily because it gave a sneak peak into sociologists work in an accessible way. The content/discoveries were not that insightful.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews