Oh yes I CAN have opinions on things other than my own issues

In the interest of including more journalism worthy material on my blog, I've decided to copy here the article I wrote for "Women Who Run It" magazine. This was written as part of the interview process - a long three week ordeal, at the end of which the editor and chief told me I "light up when I talk about my writing" and that I was better suited for a writing position (which at the entry level is ALWAYS an unpaid internship). A very frustrating but valuable experience.

Here is that article:

Mayer As Poor Working-Woman Example

AMANDA LABELLE

 

It is perhaps old news now of Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer’s Feb 26, 2013 edict ending work-from-home. Many journalists grappled with the implications, assuming that this edict was a motion to promote the rise of brainstorming and high-work efficiency within the company, while others critiqued the need for Silicon Valley to rise to the ever-changing workscape and embrace the advantages of telecommuting. Of course some focused on the general unfair treatment of the Yahoo workers and what this new decree meant for them and their livelihood. What I feel really needs to be discussed, however, and has so far been overlooked are the implications of Mayer’s actions for working women. 

Concern has been expressed regarding the fate of the current work-from-home employees and their loss of employment; however, some unprofitable political debate has arisen by centering this discussion primarily on women. This is not the feminist critique that is needed here and is in fact slightly insulting because it displays that our thinking about gender roles hasn’t really improved all that much in the last couple of decades. In fact, those work-from-home parents are increasingly more and more work-from-home fathers. Although this particular fact is not really news, as there has been a steady increase in work-from-home fathers year after year, it is a fact that has been overlooked in the current debate. According to Alex Williams’ Aug 10 2012 article in the New York Times, the once inconsequential number of American stay-at-home fathers has “more than doubled” in the last decade. Williams notes that according to recent United States census data 176,000 left the work force entirely to offer paternal care and 626,000 to work from home. Therefore, even if the stay-at-home parental role is still predominantly a female one, this is not the area which requires critique.  

Of course this is not to say that I don’t empathize with these men and women, I most certainly do; however, I feel the real danger or cause for concern is the pedestal that Marissa Mayer has been placed on. Leaving Google for Yahoo, Mayer became a poster-woman for the hard-working mother; a woman to be respected and admired. Yet this is not a role that was warranted or desired – Mayer, having blatantly stated herself that she is not a feminist, perpetuates unprofitable stereotypes of feminism and should not be held up as an example for women. 

Regardless of Mayer's stance on feminism, the real concern is that this “hard-working mom” returned to work a mere two weeks postpartum. I am an advocate for strong female role models with impeccable work ethics, but this gesture was none of those things. What this gesture actually aimed to prove was that Marissa Mayer, as a woman, had what it takes to participate in a man’s world. In publicly declaring that she would only take a two week maternity leave, the tough as nails Mayer was actually declaring that she is above the need for a maternity leave and that the importance of her work at Yahoo took priority over her maternal responsibilities. I want to be clear that I am not speaking ill of any woman’s desire to return to work and take a shorter maternity leave, nor that I believe these women are neglecting their maternal responsibilities, I am merely noting that doing so as a political statement is crippling. In making this statement and power-play Mayer illegitimates maternity leave and makes those who take full leave look corporately undesirable. 

What is most concerning is that this statement and her actions risk re-affirming the “motherhood penalty” within the work place. Since the emergence of forced maternity leave, women have been afforded more job security; however, if the social statement of female CEO’s is that maternity leave is illegitimate, then those who return to work faster will eventually be given higher consideration for work and compensation than those who don’t. Already making less than men and their female counterparts who are not mothers, the working mother is now doomed to a corporate stunt of having to prove her dedication to the job over family by shortening her maternity leave. This goes against all of the work put into fighting for maternity leave in the first place. 

Moreover, the fact that Mayer regards maternity leave so lightly also speaks to her corporate position. The only reason Mayer was able to return to work so quickly was because she had the influence and financial means to build a daycare beside her office. Therefore, her social statement becomes one of privilege and places the common working mother in an impossible position. It is an unfortunate reality that the ones who need maternity leave the most and who are constantly overlooked are the disenfranchised women who don’t even meet the legal requirements for leave in the first place. The underprivileged women who do not work at a company that employs over 50 people, who have not worked at a company long enough, or who have a position that does not allow them to log the necessary hours are not entitled to maternity leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 (FMLA). This total disregard for maternity leave, then, on Mayer’s part becomes a slap in the face to mothers everywhere, especially for those who don’t even have this luxury. Laura Jennings (Roanoke College) speaks to this concern on the current state of maternity leave policies in her essay Feminist Theory and Maternity Leave: A Feminist Critique of Maternity Leave Policies in the United States, noting that “although some progress has been made with maternity leave policies at the international level, maternity leave policies in the United States remain unfair – tending to enforce rather than remove inequality in the work place” (3). Mayer, in her very public declaration, has indeed perpetuated this issue; her actions directly contribute to existing prejudices spurring inequality for women in the work place. By undermining the legitimacy of maternity leave and by making herself an example of the working-woman, Mayer pushes back women’s rights and throws the real everyday-working-women yet again back into a fight against the motherhood penalty, fair compensation, and continued employment.