Feminism Reality Check: You Cannot Have it All

Can a woman really “have it all”? Can a man?

Of course, the answer to such questions depends on what is meant by “all” – but from a worldly perspective, the obvious conclusion is “No.”

The late Helen Gurley Brown wrote a bestselling book back in 1982 suggesting it wasn’t only possible – but also ideal. The longtime editor of Cosmopolitan magazine, Brown’s Having It All: Love, Success, Money – Even If You’re Starting With Nothing was considered something of a feminist blueprint for happiness and fulfillment.

Known to be provocative, regularly pushing against the cultural norms, the former award-winning advertising copywriter turned feminist cheerleader once suggested, “Good girls go to heaven and bad girls go everywhere.” Brown’s advice wasn’t all bad. She urged women to “Marry a decent, good, kind person who will cherish you.”

The problem, though, was much of the other advice and perspectives she held and championed often made it more difficult for women to find and commit to a husband.

Dr. Corinne Low, associate professor of Business Economics and Public Policy at the Wharton Business School, breaks down many of these claims in a new book, Having It All: What Data Tells Us About Women’s Lives and Getting the Most Out of Yours. And what Dr. Low concludes is what modern critics of feminism have long claimed and warned – women have been sold a lie that regularly disappoints and destroys.

“I know women who have planned their careers with the utmost fastidiousness,” Ms. Low wrote. “They invested. They climbed. They negotiated. They set goals and they achieved them. And yet, almost none of us, and I’ll include myself in this, chose our partners with the same care.”

Feminism isn’t the only party guilty of stressing the prioritization of career and wealth over family and relationships. It’s been an age-old problem for both sexes but given the woman’s traditional role as primary caregiver and nurturer, the consequences of the imbalance disproportionally impact them and then the larger family as a whole.

The establishment of Focus on the Family in 1977 can be traced back to the push by progressives to redefine traditional roles in the home. From the very beginning, Dr. James C. Dobson, the ministry’s founder, emphasized that family should always be prioritized over career, and he especially lauded the unique role of mothers in their children’s lives.

“No job can compete with the responsibility of shaping and molding a human being in the morning of his or her life,” he wrote. “Without question, the future of a nation depends on how it sees its women, and I hope we will teach our little girls to be glad they were chosen by God for the special pleasures of womanhood.”

Dr. Low gets personal in the book, sharing how refreshing it was to spend more time with her children when she didn’t have to commute during the COVID shutdown. She acknowledges that women often romanticize work and warns: “Remember that your employer will never love you back.”

In reviewing her book in this week’s Wall Street Journal, Kate B. Odell astutely notes that Dr. Low’s overall analysis of the lies of feminism are sound, but that she ventures into unhelpful territory when advising women “to reduce every decision to a utility equation: ‘Am I getting a good deal?’”

Opines Ms. Odell: “The exercise can be helpful for taking inventory of all that’s required to run a home with young kids, which can approach the complexity of steering an aircraft carrier. But fairness as a first principle is a prescription for grievance and resentment, and that’s still too much of what is being sold to young women.”

Conversely, Scripture has a lot to say to young women, and it’s clear that pursuing a righteous and godly character should trump any desire to climb the corporate ladder.  King Solomon reminds us that a wife “is more precious than jewels” (Proverbs 31:10), she should be “dignified” and “sober-minded, faithful in all things” (v. 11) and that “Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised” (Proverbs 31:30).

No, by a worldly definition, women cannot have it all – but neither can men. In a fallen and imperfect world, the reach will always be short of the grasp. The bills must be paid and the children must be fed. But by adjusting, reconsidering and even redefining our definition of “all” we can have what we need – and in God’s economy, that is more than enough.

Photo from Getty Images.