Who cares about normal women’s work-life balance? | Barbara Ellen | Comment is free | The Observer

Who cares about normal women’s work-life balance? | Barbara Ellen | Comment is free | The Observer: "This is where what one might term the “she-taming” begins. This is a process by which a garlanded female becomes not only feminised, but also “exonerated” by her innate domesticity. The subtext is: “Show us your human side, you smug, over-achieving cow. Dole out some baloney about forgetting the dry cleaning or missing the school play and we’ll contextualise and forgive your triumphs.” Thus the pressure is on for the successful woman to avoid alienating not only men, but other females as well.

Then again, is this happening as much as we think it is? This seems to me to not only concern gender imbalance, but also imbalance among different classes of women. While the likes of Rhimes are pelted with work-life balance questions, other women, who don’t have her career or power, are all but ignored, even though, unlike Rhimes, who presumably (and with no judgment) has staff, these are women (maybe time-poor as she is, but also cash-strapped on top) for whom work-life balance is a real and pressing issue.

Therefore, while Rhimes may feel that she is asked these sort of questions so frequently that it verges on sexist, other more ordinary women may feel they are not asked enough (if ever). They feel (correctly) that unless they are, say, Rhimes or Sheryl Sandberg, no one cares how they manage, or if they don’t. Why should Rhimes care about any of this? Men are not generally called upon to fret their little hearts out about less successful men. The short answer is that she needn’t."



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