I’ve been trying for three days now to ignore this Q-and-A with Gloria Feldt, but I just can’t do it. Basically, the former head of Planned Parenthood argues that women have an obligation to remain in corporate jobs, whether they like it or not. When women leave the corporate world, she argues:
They make it harder for the rest of us to remedy the inequities that remain. We have to make young women aware of how their choices affect other women. It should be acceptable criticism to point out that, although everyone has the right to make their own life decisions, choosing to “opt out” reinforces stereotypes about women’s priorities that we’ve been working for decades to shatter, so just cut it out.
Just cut it out? Really? Feldt goes through all sorts of mental and verbal contortions to prove that she’s not criticizing a woman’s right to choose, but it becomes clear that “the lady doth protest too much.” At base, Feldt seems to believe that only two choices are truly valid and worthwhile:
- Stick it out on the corporate ladder, no matter how much you hate it; or
- Start your own business, but only if it’s focused on “creating wealth and entirely new ways of doing things … I want to see a female Steve Jobs or Bill Gates.”
That’s right, corporate climbing or entrepreneurial empire-building are the only valid definitions of success. A woman who chooses to seek her own happiness with a family and/or a home-based business is somehow betraying her sex or wasting her potential.
It’s that kind of narrow, reactionary thinking that pressures too many women — and men — into pursuing a career path they don’t really care about. Welcome to the 21st Century, Ms. Feldt: More power, more money and more growth are not the only definition of success. Thanks to new technologies and evolving social mores, entrepreneurs of both sexes can set their own priorities and pursue their own agendas.
True empowerment doesn’t come from getting the key to the executive washroom, but from having the freedom to say, “Small is beautiful” or “Enough is enough.”
In other words, maybe it’s time to stop obsessing about the glass ceiling — the thatched roof might be a better goal.
