The Working Mommy Trap

E.J. Graff
October 05, 2005

E.J. Graff, a Brandeis Women’s Studies Research Center resident scholar, most recently collaborated on Evelyn Murphy’s book Getting Even: Why Women Still Don't Get Paid Like Men—And What To Do About It.

You can almost set your watch by it. Every year or two, the elite media declare yet again that feminism is dead, and that most women yearn to stay at home and tend babies. The most recent incarnation of this story came in the September 20 New York Times , which in a front-page feature described young women who attend Yale—and who (gasp!) say they might step out of the job market for a few years while their kids are young. To say the highly anecdotal trend story was full of holes would be to put it mildly; its few “facts” and most of its presuppositions have been blown apart by the blogs.