Essay: Why Women Still Can’t Have It All – Anne Marie Slaughter

Anne-Marie Slaughter’s 2012 Atlantic essay, “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All,” talks about the difficulty of finding a balance between family and work which limits many professional women. Slaughter, the first woman director of policy planning at the State Department, focuses primarily on her high-profile career but mentions experiencing several realizations, while in Washington DC, that many other women could relate to. She explains, in her essay, that a certain reputation was created for women and many have grasped on to a feminist idea that they were raised with, by their mothers and grandmothers. In her essay, Slaughter provides evidence as to why women can’t have it all based on her own personal story, other professional women’s stories, and provides both logic and reasoning.

 

Slaughter emphasizes why it was hard for her “to have it all” while working in DC. She was a mother to two boys, a 12 and 14-year-old. She found it difficult being away from her kids and wanted to be home to enjoy them while they were still there, but working in DC was in the way of all that. On January 2011, Slaughter left her dream job so she could spend more time with her family. She realized that trying to balance high-level government work with the needs of two teenage boys was impossible. She gave a speech in which she spoke about how hard it was for her to have both and concluded that while women can have it all and they can have it all at once, it’s not possible with the current structure of today’s economy and society. Slaughter has been in the position most women struggle with and many can relate to her.

Slaughter insists that she wasn’t the only one who thought the way she did. For example, Michèle Flournoy, who stepped down after three years as undersecretary of defense for policy, to spend more time at home with her children. Another example was Mary Matalin, who was Bush’s assistant, left to spend time with her daughters and stated that the only way to make it work for women who want to have a career and a family is to have control over your schedule. The problem is that most women in the workforce don’t have the power to request flexible work hours from their employers. If women in high position jobs demand flexible work hours or leave early, to attend to their children, society labels them as not committed. Based on Slaughter’s essay, “leaving to spend time with family” is a euphemism for being fired, in Washington. She believes that work-life balance can’t change unless women speak out.

Slaughter states that giving workers the ability to integrate their non-work lives with their work produces better ideas and creativity. Women can’t have it all for many reasons. Time is an important factor for women with high demanding jobs. They struggle making time for professional accomplishments and personal life. Those women shouldn’t be discouraged by other people because they want to spend time with family. Women have grasped to a belief that as feminists they should appreciate the fact that women can work just as hard as men but a woman needs to raise a family and be there for her children. Slaughter believes that it’s perfectly fine not to balance family and work because in our society today, it’s almost unmanageable for women and men to have it all at the same time.