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Last week, on the back deck of Punditmom's house, I was lucky enough to meet and listen to ABC's Claire Shipman and BBC's Katty Kay as they talked about their new book, Womenomics. It was thrilling to hear them talk about the new "facts of life" - that, in fact, it's now good business to hire women and move them up the ladder, and to make room for the special needs that families have when both parents are working. No longer in positions as supplicants, many women can ask, without fear of reprisal, for flexible work hours and the other benefits that make it possible for us to be productive.
If you doubt that, ask these two authors how many corporations and trade organizations have asked them to come speak and help their leadership understand what they need to do to attract and retain female employees. They're in huge demand.
Of course, this conversation has gone on forever. One of the stars writing about it: Morra Aarons, both on her Women and Work blog and here at BlogHer. The wonderful Mom-101 has given us plenty of meditations on how to "do it all" including a great piece on stay at home dads
What about the Obama example? Jill Miller Zimon, mom, blogger and political candidate, writes about the recent New York Times piece about White House family values.
MommaLaw offered a great meditation about Sarah Palin "Another Working Mom Bites the Dust." And right here at BlogHer Amy Gates has written about it more than once - including a post on working moms and depression. You can read about work-life balance at MomOcrats and on childcare problems at Mompreneur Musings. Katherine Lewis at About.com offers dozens of useful pieces including an exploration of what we need to do next. And of course, there are many, many more.
I just have one more question. What happens to women who work on assembly lines or are only paid for the hours they work? How are they to benefit from these new parameters? It's a tough one, but it looks like it's going to take a lot longer for these benefits to trickle down to them. Both Shipman and Kay acknowledge this, and it doesn't make it untrue that benefits for working professional women are far more available. Despite that fact though, it still isn't time to declare victory and go home. Not yet.
