Why Women Can T Have It All Analysis

In Anne-Marie Slaughter’s “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All,” she addresses how society’s stigma on the workplace and inflexible, hefty workloads keep women from having their dream life. She explains how the extensive hours at her job took away from her time spent in her teenage boys’ lives. Slaughter highlights on the decisions that women have to make more so than their male counterparts and on the perceived notion that choosing parenthood over work is for the faint of heart. With recent debate over parental leave in the news, Slaughter’s claim that women can’t have it all in today’s society versus Richard Dorment’s counterclaim that women and men both have it difficult in partaking in a balanced work-life, brings back the old rivalry,
Dorment is a senior editor for Esquire, a men’s magazine. He expresses his personal take on the matter of “having it all”. He starts with an excerpt of his life. Him and his wife are talking about whether they want to have a boy or girl. Dorment ends the intro with claiming that there would be no “conspicuous advantages” based on the gender of their child (Dorment 697). He jumps right into the statistics on degrees and jobs that are taken up by more females than males. Dorment asks a few rhetorical questions to get the reader thinking and then dives in. He immediately gives his stance on the problem by contrasting Slaughter’s stance on why women are not sitting at the head of the table to Sheryl Sandberg’s “more grown-up” take on the issue. His tone of writing highlights his distaste for the men blame game when he feels that they are doing the best they can. He feels men are going through the same things that women go through. He even gives a statistic that says men are more stressed than their counterparts, which contrasts completely with Slaughter’s stat of women being more stressed than men. Dorment gives insight into his daily life by explaining that his wife works more in her profession and with their child than he does but he does help out where he can by washing dishes and cooking meals most of the time. They don’t try to one-up each other and just gives 110%
The lack of support of parental leave in America is not helping to achieve a more balanced lifestyle. A study showed that among forty-one nations, the U.S. is the only one that does not mandate paid parental leave (Livingston). This may cause a woman to feel as if she must put off having a family or quit her job to have a family. It’s also important to endorse parental leave as a family thing for dual-income homes. Both partners should feel comfortable taking time off to spend with their new child. How much time each person takes off is up to the individual, but the option should be on the table. Speaking of the table, each gender must fight for their way to the head. Nothing in life is free. Male or female, to make it, you must keep pushing forward and not be afraid to speak up. We should support the mothers and fathers of the workforce to ensure them, and someday me, a balanced life at work and at home, but we have to choose what path would make that goal the easiest. Find careers that line up most with the life we want. No one can have it all, but we can make the most of