Interview with Leslie Bennetts, Author of The Feminine Mistake

Leslie Bennetts. Author of The Feminine Mistake and writer at Vanity Fair. Why the controversy? Has her book and message been misunderstood? She states facts, not her opinion, and doesn’t want women to make critical decisions in a vacuum. Constantly she hears from women, why didn’t someone tell me!

Why do you think your book has caused so much controversy? Do you think your book and message has been misunderstood?

Some people have reacted negatively to the title because they didn’t realize that it’s a literary allusion to Betty Friedan’s “The Feminine Mystique.” Women who haven’t actually read my book often assume that I’m passing judgment on them, which I’m not. “The Feminine Mistake” is a book of reporting based on interviews with lots of women and experts from many different fields. The book is about the facts, not about my opinions.

My goal in writing it was to provide women with crucial information that is usually omitted from the media coverage on opting out of the work place. I am not saying it is a mistake for women to stay home for a period of time, provided that they have done adequate financial planning in order to protect their futures. But the decision to opt out is a very risky one, and it’s vital for women to inform themselves about the long-term consequences and to plan accordingly.

Women feel guilty all of the time. They feel guilty that they are never a good enough mother, homemaker, spouse, etc. And many feel that they don’t want to read a book that makes them feel guilty about staying at home. How do you react to this?

The same way I’d react to any other form of denial. The facts don’t change just because you refuse to look at them. It’s always better to face reality rather than pretend it doesn’t exist, because what you don’t know can indeed hurt you. When women give up their financial self-sufficiency by dropping out of the labor force, they are taking a high-stakes gamble with their own futures, as well as their children’s welfare. They’re assuming they can count on their husbands to support them, and yet half their marriages will end in divorce, which often has a devastating impact on women and children. Women’s standard of living goes down 36 percent after divorce, whereas men’s standard of living goes up 28 percent. Most custodial parents are women, but 70 percent of child support cases have arrears owed. And even if you don’t get divorced, you can’t count on having a breadwinner to support you over the long haul. By the time American women reach 60, two-thirds of them don’t have partners. And yet women these days live to 80 and beyond. Many don’t have adequate financial resources for old age.

Women tend to think that if their husbands have a life insurance policy, then they’re covered, But the average age of widowhood in America is 55, and most women don’t have enough life insurance take care of them for forty years. And divorce and widowhood are not the only risk factors. Very few people have real job security any more; your husband could lose his job. He could also get sick or be disabled. When you add up all of these risks, it’s clear that most women who sacrifice their financial self-sufficiency will eventually end up on the wrong side of the odds.

The consequences can be severe. Twice as many women end up in poverty in their later years, compared to men, and four out of five of the women who end up in poverty were not poor when their husbands were around. The facts alone make it clear how dangerous it is for women to count on having a breadwinner to support them.

Your research for The Feminine Mistake shows that women who opt out of the workforce to stay at home with their children are making a definitive and quantifiable economic choice with long term ramifications. Is this an all or nothing situation or can women stay connected by working part time?

There is no one-size-fits-all prescription for life, and I am not telling anyone what to do. Everyone’s needs and circumstances are different. But many women opt out without understanding that this choice may have irrevocable consequences. I am particularly worried about all of the perky self-help gurus out there who say, “Just follow these five easy steps and you too can get back in!” Women are encouraged to think they can return to the work force whenever they want, but virtually all the serious research shows that women have a very difficult time getting decent jobs. It’s particularly hard to find full-time jobs with benefits, and as a result many women find themselves unable to get health insurance when they need it.

When women try to return to work, there are 4 major obstacles, all of which I’ve documented in my book: 1) ageism 2) sexism 3) overt and quantifiable discrimination against mothers 4) negative attitudes among employers toward women who opted out. Add all of these together and the barriers become quite high. The older you are, the harder it gets, but it can be difficult even if you are still in your thirties. I’ve talked to women in their early 30’s who tell me they can’t even get a job interview, let alone a job. There’s a lot of prejudice against hiring women who have opted out.

Should women bear this burden all on their own or should corporations be held responsible?

Of course women shouldn’t bear these burden on their own. We need many structural and policy reforms to make corporate America more family-friendly, and men should also play a larger role in sharing the childcare and domestic responsibilities. But you have to be in the system to work effectively toward changing it. When women give up and go home, they’re not change agents, and when husbands have stay-at-home wives who take care of everything on the domestic front, the men aren’t change agents either.

But when the dad gets the call from the nurse’s office saying that his child is sick and needs to get picked up from school immediately, that father understands the need for workplace flexibility. We can change the system, but it’s not going to change by itself; things change when people demand change. If men and women both feel the need for reforms that make it easier to be a good parent and a valuable employee, both will work for change.

How can two people have high powered careers? Do you really want your children to be raised by nannies? Shouldn’t one person, typically the woman, take a not as high powered job so she can take care of the family and be there for the children?

Only if she wants to jeopardize her own future and that of her children. As one expert I quoted in my book put it, Marriage is an economic partnership, but it’s one in which women assume nearly all of the risk. Why should women be the ones to sacrifice their self-sufficiency, and to pay the price if things don’t work out? As I’ve documented in “The Feminine Mistake,” working women are happier than stay-at-home moms. When full-time homemakers return to paid work, their mental and emotional health improves significantly. Even more striking is the fact that working women are healthier than full-time homemakers, who are subject to far higher rates of medical problems, including obesity. And yet our culture continues to romanticize the traditional gender roles that encourage women to give up their careers, thereby depriving them of all these benefits.

This arrangement doesn’t necessarily work well for men, either. Many men feel tremendous pressure from the responsibility of being the family’s only breadwinner. If the husband has to work brutal hours in order to make a lot of money, he can’t spend as much time with his children as he might otherwise. Men sacrifice a lot on the home front in order to keep their incomes up, and many regret it later on, when their children are grown and it’s too late.

There are other ways to structure families that work better for everyone concerned. If both parents share the breadwinning, both are protected from economic hardship; and if both parents share the child-rearing, each has the opportunity to develop closer relationships with their children. Egalitarian marriages benefit the children, too; research shows that kids who do housework with their fathers actually do better in school as well as having more friends and less depression! The best way to protect a family in the 21st century is to have both partners share the bread-winning, share the child rearing, and share the homemaking. There is no good reason why women should be make these sacrifices that compromise their futures.

What advice would you give a woman who has opted out and is trying to get back in?

Go back sooner rather than later. Stay as connected as you can while you’re out. Maintain your professional network, and upgrade your skills; don’t let them become obsolete. Stay abreast of developments in your field as well as changing technology. Target your volunteer work so that it has professional relevance. Don’t delude yourself that running the school bake sale will be seen as relevant in a professional work place; most employers don’t take these things seriously. Lastly, don’t think you can tune out for 5-10-15 years and get back in where you once were. Women who opt out for as little as three years lose nearly 40 percent of their earning power. You may have to settle for less pay and a lower-level job in order to start the process of working your way back up.

If women don’t work, what message are we sending our daughters?

If our daughters get the message that they can depend on a man to support them, it’s likely to have disastrous consequences for their futures. In America today, marriage increasingly represents a finite segment of the female lifespan. If a woman graduates from college at age 22 and dies at 92, that’s an adult lifespan of 70 years. She may be married for 20 to 30 years before being divorced or widowed, but that still leaves 40 to 50 years when she’s on her own and has to take care of herself. And yet we are still raising girls to believe that Prince Charming will come along, and they can depend their husbands to take care of them forever. For almost everyone, this statistically will not be the case. We need to educate our daughter to understand that they must figure out how to support themselves through meaningful work that is well-suited to their talents. This will protect them emotionally as well as financially. But if we keep raising girls to believe in the fairy tale, instead of informing them about the facts, we are dooming them to potential impoverishment as well as a lack of intellectual and creative fulfillment; they are likely to be very disappointed in the way their lives work out. Why would we want to do this to our daughters?

But what if a person has a lot of money in the bank and is financially secure, would your position on this subject be different?

The answer is no, for two important reasons. Women who stay home usually assume that it’s better for their children, but the facts do not support this belief. For decades social scientists have researched the children of working moms and compared them with the children of non-working moms, trying to determine if one group is better off. Their conclusion is that there is no difference. A mom’s employment status doesn’t predict how well the children turn out; the kids of stay at home moms do not do any better than the kids of working moms.

So if it’s not better for the kids, why should women give up all the benefits of meaningful careers and financial self-sufficiency? These become much clearer as you get older. When children are small, working moms tend to feel stressed, because they’re torn between work and family. At this stage, stay at home moms often feel needed and fulfilled with their domestic lives. But if you look at women ten to fifteen years down the road, there is a striking role reversal. The working moms are flourishing. Their kids are doing fine, so the moms don’t feel such guilt any more; most of the stress is behind them, their careers are thriving, and they are optimistic about their own futures. By this time, however, the stay at home moms often feel lost and confused. Their kids are growing up and pushing them away; teenagers have to assert their independence, which can leave their mothers feeling unwanted and unneeded. The moms have to figure out what to do with their own lives, but when they try to go back to work, they find that their options are limited and inadequate. At this point many stay-at-home moms get very depressed and scared about their futures. For the first time, they realize what a high price they’ve paid for giving up their careers.

But you don’t have to take it from me; all of the statements I’ve made here are conclusions drawn from the research of many experts and from my own interviews with women across the country, ranging in age from 17 to 80. In writing my book, I interviewed experts on everything from legal and financial questions to emotional, psychological, medical, labor force, child development, marriage-related, and many other issues affecting women’s lives. Whether or not they read “The Feminine Mistake,” I would strongly encourage women to learn the facts, no matter what their own circumstances or opinions. You wouldn’t buy a car without researching your options and trying to make the best choice; why would anyone want to make critical life choices that are rooted in ignorance instead of knowledge? It’s always better to start with the facts, because information is power. So many women have told me that “The Feminine Mistake” was the most empowering book they’ve ever read. My hope is that better-informed women will start a better-informed dialogue that will benefit everyone, including our children.