In the 1960s, American writer Betty Friedan published the book "The Mystery of Women", which tells the inner conflict experienced by middle-class American housewives after World War II, that is, a kind of self-unnamed pain.

In the 1960s, American writer Betty Friedan published the book "The Mystery of Women", which tells the inner conflict experienced by middle-class American housewives after World War II, that is, a kind of self-unnamed pain. Friedan points out in the book that this nameless pain is rooted in the praise of housewives and the myth of "happy housewives" by mainstream American society and culture at that time.

"Since 1949, for American women, there is the only definition of women's perfection, that is, housewife and mother. In this changing world, as a changing and growing individual, the image of American women has been shattered dreamily. Her dream of seeking herself was forgotten in a hurry to explore the sense of security of living with others. Her infinite vast world has shrunk into several walls of a comfortable family," she wrote in the book.

Stills from the American drama "The Deadly Woman" (Season 1).

More than half a century has passed, and the feminist boom has been surging around the world. More and more women have gone out of their families and into the workplace, and the proportion of women in the labor force has also increased compared to the past. When "happy housewife" becomes a thing of the past, we can't help but ask, has the situation of women, especially those of full-time mothers, become better?

in "Return to Family? According to Shani Ogad, the author of the book Family, Career and the Hard-to-Realize Equality, today women face a whole new mystery, namely the myth about "having everything". From the "step forward" of Sandberg to the "hot mom" image in popular culture, the image of a full-time mother sometimes represents a family CEO-style optimist imagination, taking care of the children while starting a business on their own; sometimes it is criticized for being disconnected from the times because of her nothing to do.

Ogaard takes the personal experience of a high-educated full-time mother as the first-hand research data, and combines the analysis of the current descriptions of gender, work and family in the British and American media and policies, pointing out that in popular narratives represented by neoliberal feminism, women's problems and their solutions have been private. For these full-time mothers who return to their families, even though they clearly point out the structural factors that affect their decision to resign, they still blame their choice to return to their families on their personal failure. At the same time, more fundamental and structural institutional inequality in the family and workplace are covered with invisibility.

The following text is excerpted from "Returning to the Family?" Family, Career and Hard to Achieve Equality , explores the impact of the contemporary feminist turn on the gender equality agenda. The excerpts have been greatly deleted from the original text. The title is started by the editor.

"Return to the family? Family, career and difficult to achieve equality," [English] Shani Ogad, translated by Liu Yu, Ideal Country | Guangxi Normal University Press, September 2021.

Original author | [English] Shani Ogad

excerpt | Qingqingzi

"popular" feminism

Feminist media scholar Sarah Banet-Weiser believes that the content she calls "popular feminism" has increased significantly in the media in recent years. She explained that the popularization of feminism has two levels of meaning. First, it spreads across various media channels and social media platforms, thus having extremely high exposure and being widely accessible. Against this backdrop, with the prevalence of movements such as the Everyday Sexism Project, the anti-street harassment group Hollaback, #MeToo and #TimesUp, and the extensive discussion of gender inequality in the mass media field, gender discrimination has clearly become a hot topic in public discourse again. Feminist critic Rosalind Gill noted: “In the UK at least, there are news reports every day about sexual harassment, compensation inequality, gender dysplasia within corporate boards or parties, gender discrimination against women celebrities, and a ‘confidence gap’ between girls and boys."Secondly, Barnett-Weize wrote that the popularization of feminism also refers to its popularity and respect: "This feminist subjectivity is no longer trapped in the silence and rejection of female politics in the post-feminist era, but has become the norm and even trend", and "occupies a hot spot" in contemporary public discourse. This "popular" feminism is dominated by the concept of empowerment, as well as major cultural concepts such as self-confidence, autonomy, self-esteem and rights.

leads the trend of popular feminism and is a highly powerful woman , such as Facebook COO Cheryl Sandberg , foreign policy expert, chairman and CEO of the new American think tank, Anne-Mary Slaughter, and the current US president's daughter and consultant Ivanka Trump (who showed her "feminist" plan in the book "Professional Women: Rules for Rewriting Success" published in 2017). Although the statements are different, these women advocate individualism that emphasizes women's empowerment Concept. They call on women in the workplace to "take a step forward", stick to their position, show themselves, "open the way from obstacles and realize their full potential" (Sandberg), "take power" (Slaut), "having great ambitions", "bring your mark" and "hold your position" (Ivanka Trump).

In these high-powered women—the "female pioneers" that Anne and other interviewed women yearn for—the high-profile, feminist revival, and countless remarks that motivate women's empowerment are widely circulated It is puzzling that my respondents feel powerless. They are highly educated women, with wide exposure to popular feminist TV series (several respondents mentioned series such as "High Wife ", "High Wife ", "High Wife Club" and "Homeland Security ", women's magazines, newspapers, radio shows and social media. I mentioned Richard Sunnett and Jonathan Cobb in the introduction to this book The metaphor of "magnet" is that these contemporary popular narrative "magnets" have completely failed to penetrate their imagination and influence their experiences? Stills from the American drama "The Good Wife" (Season 2).

The turn of neoliberal feminism

answer partly lies in the criticism of popular feminism and the rise of what feminist scholar Katherine Rotenberg calls neoliberal feminism. Rotenberg and Benny Tewezer, Jill and others pointed out that while feminist revival, its appearance has been renewed. The emerging popular feminist form circulating in contemporary self-help and guide books, movies, TV series, application software and social media has changed from the concept of equality, social justice, liberation and solidarity that promoted the early feminist movement to focus on women's personal empowerment, confidence, resilience and entrepreneurship. Many examples of media, policy reappearance and discourse discussed in the previous chapters belong to this recent variant of feminism: persuading women to show confidence and encouragement They take a step forward (Chapter 1), advocate a balanced woman who cleverly balances work and life (Chapter 2), portrays women as free choice, smart and capable mothers (Chapter 3 and 4), and media and policies also emphasize women's entrepreneurial spirit and autonomous empowerment in the gig economy (Chapter 5). Many of these contemporary "feminist" rhetoric are not institutional conditions that criticize and maintain gender inequality, but almost only require women to make mental changes, and the capitalist and patriarchal systems that determine this mentality, as well as the objective reality, Basically, it remains the same.

Indeed, some popular feminist declarations and top women who openly support feminism acknowledge that there is macro-institutional inequality. For example, Sandberg pointed out in his popular feminist declaration, Step forward, that institutional issues such as childcare costs, gender pay gaps and gender stereotypes need to be addressed. The chief operating officer of the social media giant called on the United States to raise the minimum wage, implement paid family leave and provide affordable parenting services on Mother's Day 2017.Anne-Mary Slaughter insisted that it is not enough to just ask women to show their ambitions and confidence and cultivate partners who are willing to share housework. She called for the introduction of national policies that attach importance to care work. Ivanka Trump has always claimed to support his family, especially his working mother. She launched a $25 billion federal paid maternity leave program in May 2017 to provide government-funded maternity leave (which may involve tax increases). With the exposure of several women in Harvey Weinstein's sexual assault on several women at the end of 2017 and the aftermath continued to ferment, the discussions triggered by the #MeToo movement have also touched on institutional and social issues when exploring sexual harassment and gender discrimination in the workplace and in general. Stills from the documentary "Inviolable"

.

However, many of these so-called contemporary feminist remarks and comments believe that challenging institutional inequality is too terrifying and too arduous, and therefore an unrealistic and even impossible task. Instead, they often emphasize the importance of achieving small changes with constant self-adjustment and self-stimulation, claiming that such self-adjustment leads to empowerment and self-transformation. As Rosalind and I argued, they “proposed a ‘feminist’ plan to make women actively and constructively adopt strategies to change themselves under the current capitalist and corporate status quo” because in their opinion, it is impossible to change those reality. For example, the best-selling book "HTM1 New York Times " mentioned in Chapter 1, which encourages women to achieve equality in the workplace and other fields only by self-confidence, which is partly based on the "pragmatic" view of male dominance and gender imbalance at the institutional level. “Reality gives people a bad premonition,” wrote American journalists Katty Kay and Claire Shipman, who accused external obstacles “although easy, they went astray.” Instead, because the reality and the environment cannot be changed, Kay and Shipman called on female readers to find the “self-controllable part” and then change themselves through a series of behavioral steps and self-supervision to avoid calculating institutional inequality.

In fact, the core essence of the reappearance of gender equality circulating in media, workplace and government policies is that women need to overcome inner obstacles and “self-inflicted” trauma, which prevent them from becoming confident, empowered and successful. One of the most popular explanations about why women cannot obtain high-level positions and achieve workplace success is the fake syndrome. “Even if women have achieved extraordinary achievements, even experts in the field, it seems that women cannot escape the feeling that being discovered by others – counterfeits with limited technology or ability – is only a matter of time,” Sandberg wrote in “A Step Forward.” This psychological concept often appears in policy discussions on gender equality in the workplace, as well as projects that help women solve and overcome their “deprecating sense”. Many famous actresses, including Emma Watson and Kate Winslet, as well as poet and civil rights activist Maya Angelou, have admitted in the media that they have experienced this symptoms. This explanation is so popular that Samantha Simmonds, a reporter from Huffington Post, hinted that the decision of British Prime Minister Theresa May to hold an early election in June 2017 was the result of the inherent defect of "every successful woman I have met or interviewed" "pretender syndrome". Simmonds speculated: "Maybe she just feels that the Prime Minister is not well deserved - it doesn't feel worthy of it, or it's a good idea, and only the general election can dispel those self-doubts." (However, since the Conservatives lost a majority in the election, this strategy of speculation to gain confidence is naturally counterproductive.)

"A Step Forward: Women, Work and Leadership Will", [US] Cheryl Sandberg, translated by Yan Zheng, CITIC Publishing House , June 2013.

Therefore, although contemporary women's self-empowerment claims warmly support and advocate solving social change and gender equality through personal transformation, they adhere to the fatalistic attitude towards the possibility of promoting macro-institutional change. They tell us that the situation is not optimistic, and at the same time emphasize that "this is the case", so the main or only obstacle that can be fought is itself. French sociologists Luc Boltanski and Eve Chiapello said that this mainstream fatalistic consciousness is crucial to the moral justification of capitalism. They emphasize the role of cultural reproduction in maintaining fatalistic consciousness and weakening the critique of capitalism:

If, contrary to the usual speculation that it predicts its destruction, capitalism not only survives, but also expands its power, it is because it relies on many reproductions and reasons that guide behavior, which portray capitalism as an acceptable, even very satisfying social order: the only possible order, or the best of all possible.

Various self-help and guide books, movies, popular shows, social media articles and application software (specific examples discussed in previous chapters) seem to do exactly this, that is, to advocate the feasibility and desirability of making small changes under the current order, implying that the current order is the only one that works. They urge women to change their thoughts, feelings and behaviors through self-adjustment, saying that this plan is not only feasible and immediate, but will eventually lead to macro changes. Social psychologist Amy Cardi elaborates on her theory of energy posture that is primarily beneficial to women in her popular TED speech. As she summarized in it: "Slight adjustments can bring huge changes."

False hope: Achieve great changes from fine adjustment

In addition, the kind of huge changes that are said to be able to be achieved from fine adjustment, that is, achieve gender equality in public and private lives, is said to be inevitable, and is almost naturally a slow and steady organic change. This statement was vividly reflected in the ninth Global Gender Gap Report released by World Economic Forum in 2016: The report found that although the gap between women and men in other dimensions such as education is narrowing, the economic gap is constantly widening. The news titles related to the report's findings include: "It may take 170 years to eliminate the gender pay gap" ( Guardian ), "World Economic Forum: The gender pay gap will not be eliminated within 170 years" ( Al Jazeera ), "Women's income cannot surpass men within 170 years" (NBC News), "Gender equality is expected to come - but it will be 2095" (Television) Theoretically, the purpose of this report and related reports is to call for emergency measures to eliminate the gender equality gap. However, scientific, factual terms, and assertions that the gender pay gap will not disappear in nearly two centuries, seem to be reporting a natural phenomenon that scientists have observed but cannot control. It describes the narrowing of the gender pay gap as an organic process that will progress slowly and naturally achieve the expected goals in 170 years.

To support this statement, the current gender equality situation in liberal and democratic industrialized countries has been repeatedly compared with the past. This historical comparison can alleviate dissatisfaction and criticism of the status quo, after all, it shows that the situation is much better than in the past. This statement presents change as one-way, gradual and steady, as if the situation will only get better and better; taking the momentum of continued equalization for granted, as if there is no possibility of progress stagnation or regression. This statement is often seen in policy and the activities related to corporate gender diversity that I have participated in over the years. In many such activities, calls for changing the workplace situation and challenging norms and cultures to maintain gender inequality will always be comforted by the "harmony" of "the situation has improved greatly."

At a symposium I attended in 2016, the head of diversity and inclusion at a leading global company used this statement.The chairman of the meeting asked him to talk about the gender equality problem encountered by the company. The supervisor told an interesting personal anecdote: "When my children were young, they had a cat at home, but I was very allergic to cats. I told my daughter - she was four years old at the time - that I could only leave or the cats. Then she said, 'Hey, Dad, you are not at home anyway!'" The spokesperson and other audiences laughed and added, "[Fortunately] the situation has changed a lot since then, and that was something that happened 20 years ago!"

This interesting story wants to show that the world has changed a lot, and gender equality has been achieved within the family. Although the supervisor later admitted that there were some lasting gender barriers within his company; his opening story about cats suggests that no matter how severe these obstacles are at present, they will eventually be overcome. Rather than exploring the obstacles to overcome, the spokesperson and other participants emphasized a trend of positive, gradual change. Similarly, at another preparatory meeting for the workplace gender equality event I attended, organizers—five women who advocated the promotion of gender equality and diversity within the organization—emphasized the need to show a bright future and highlight positive changes in the event. "In order not to slam everyone's interest, we should avoid wordings like 'blocks' and 'blocks' in the title," they said. "We should emphasize that the situation is moving in the right direction, but there is still some work to be done." This emphasis is consistent with the contemporary reappearance of positive qualities such as women's empowerment, confidence and resilience. Think of the “happiness industry” inspired by and based on positive psychology, and the new era/self-help speech that has always advocated the concept of tranquility, inner peace, warmth, happiness, success and positive energy. Today, countless messages targeting women support positive emotions and oppose “negative” emotions, especially anger, indignation and complaints. Anne-Mary Slaughter's performance in the gender equality debate reflects this trend well, and in turn drives it.

Stills from the American drama "Nine Perfect Strangers".

As Katherine Rotenberg pointed out, Slaughter elaborated on her gender equality plan in her repeatedly cited article "Why can't We Have Everything", which was later expanded into the book "Unfinished Cause", but the foundation of the entire plan required middle-class white women to "realize happiness by balancing work and life, and balance itself is a sign of women's progress." The emphasis on positive attitudes and positive energy is also reflected in the encouragement of non-white working women. For example, the US Black Career Women’s Network is “committed to the career development of African American women” and defines “black working women” as “confident, strong black women”. Despite the challenges they face “still maintain a positive mindset and image, build social networks, pursue career development, education and guidance in order to achieve their goals.” Similar calls in advertising, social media, women's magazines, self-help books, apps and other media also apply the "inspirational" motto that induces women to love themselves and praise themselves. "Find your passion and create the life you love" (see Ivanka Trump's "Professional Women" Chapter 1), "Believe in yourself, otherwise no one will believe in you", and so on.

This praise and support for positive emotions and positive mentality, as well as the corresponding negation of negative emotions and ideas, is closely related to the momentum of neoliberal feminist discourse turning to the "current". Many self-help articles, blogs and information that induce women to "live in the present" prove this. For example, in "Professional Women", Ivanka Trump urges women to "grasp the present smartly" instead of pursuing a work-life balance in vain. Similarly, Angela Ahrendts, senior vice president of Apple's retail division and former CEO of Burberry, also advised daughters to "always live in the present moment" on the website of "Leaders Daughters" to advise daughters on "always live in the present moment".Katherine Rotenberg shows how female bloggers express their desire to enjoy the present, grasp the present, and live every moment with full and meaningful life through analyzing two "Mommy Blogs" with high click rates. This wish is closely related to the widely circulated happiness in the contemporary era and the balance theory of . Rotenberg believes that "living in the present is an emotional investment in the status quo", so turning to the present not only eliminates the possibility of posing another prospect, but also eliminates the idea of ​​making specific demands for creating a more equal society.

Even the view that even critical of popular feminism and the empowerment of women advocated by women often has the meaning that the situation is progressing and change is the general trend. For example, Rachel Aroseti wrote an article in The Guardian (May 10, 2017) to satirize some "TV series that show off feminist ideas", such as "Girlboss" produced by Netflix, which is a "meaningless branch of feminism." She criticized the Girl Boss for suggesting that women “imitate male behavior, never complain about inequality, but actively join the ranks of materializing themselves.” However, while Arossetti criticizes the show and its empowering feminism, she ends with an optimistic tone, no different from the supervisors quoted above. She wrote that the show “reminds us how good the situation is now (mostly)” by bringing us back to “the dark years of 2006.”

Stills from the American drama "Girl Boss".

The situation has improved greatly now, the concept of progress will occur naturally and inevitable, as well as the focus on the present, the purpose and the result are all calling on women to be patient. Corporate and political discourse on gender diversity in the workplace emphasizes that gender diversity (not to mention equality) takes time and patience. For example, a McKinsey report on women's leadership in the workplace quoted the chairman and CEO of a medical device company, explaining: "It takes time and effort to solve this problem." The same view is even more irritating to reiterate, from the internationally renowned Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava (Santiago Calatrava). In February 2017, Calatrava commented on the results of the Women in Architecture Survey that showed that there is widespread gender discrimination in the construction industry, urging female architects to "wait a little longer" for equal salary. Similarly, the respected judge Jonathan Sumption said when talking about the obvious lack of diversity in the British judicial system:

If we pretend that a team selected by talent can immediately form a completely diverse or relatively diverse Ministry of Justice, then we are deceiving ourselves... In this field, like in normal life, we cannot do whatever we want. We must make a choice and accept helpless compromises. We must even learn to be patient.

Original author | [English] Shani Ogaard

excerpt | Qingqingzi

edit | Qingqingzi

introduction proofreading | Lu Qian