Patriarchy?

Quick lunch break here: instapundit.com links to an article by Hannah Rosin in Slate, The Patriarchy is Dead; Feminists, Accept it.

She writes of her experiences speaking about her book, The End of Men, and her audiences’ reaction, wanting her to more angrily condemn such things as the lack of legally-required or state-provided paid maternity leave (remind me to talk about this later), the disproportionately small number of women as CEOs or in Congress, the lack of a female president.  (Funny — based on a sample size of two, successful female leaders emerge in conservative parties.) 

2000+ comments, two days after this article was posted.  For some, the patriarchy remains because of the metrics of who’s in power, regardless of the overall context.  For others, state failure to provide welfare state-type benefits defines patriarchy.  Others observe the tendency of even high-achieving women to scale back when children are born (Maggie Thatcher aside, I suspect that most high-achieving women are childless), and blame fathers directly, for not stepping up to scale back their own careers or for forcing their wives to work the “second shift” at home by not pulling their weight (hasn’t it been determined, in the meantime, that the “second shift” is largely mythical?  Anyone care to hunt for the data?) or blame society for imbuing us all with the attitudes that cause women and men to behave the way they do.

If a mother wants to stay at home to raise her children, or scale down to minimize the amount of time spent at daycare, and a father is indifferent to the length of time the kiddo’s in daycare, is this someone’s “fault”?  If a mother spends her time scrapbooking, or acting as “room mother” at school, is the Patriarchal System to blame? 

Or, conversely, does a highly-talented woman, who has the potential to be a CEO, have an obligation to society to follow this path, even if she would rather spend her time with her children?

And — to take this a step further — does such a woman owe “society” if she’s been given scholarships through college/grad school, especially those directed specifically at women, or been mentored or selected for career-development programs by her employer or professional organization?  Or, if an entire business school program of study has been turned upside-down to ensure her success? Does she have an ethical obligation to pursue her career to achieve the highest degree of success possible?

Hannah Rosin and others have written on the increasing tendency of men to slack, and be content playing World of Warcraft in mom’s and dad’s basement indefinitely.  Clearly there are plenty of men still willing to work the long hours to get ahead. Are we seeing a split into two, or is the younger generation of men, in general, less willing to put in the traditionally long hours to climb the corporate ladder? 

Lots of issues here.  Have to think about this some more, and pull this together in a later post.