Why Women and Men Still Can't Have It All?

In this paper I'd like to talk about relationships between men and women. Family is the essential part of our life, but in process of time this value are started to be forgotten. There are two essays, that at first sight seemed to explain two different opinions, but it isn't true. Anne-Marie Slaughter with her essay Why women still can't have it all and Richard Dorment with his essay Why men still can't have it all say about one thing - equal rights. So, clasped them together I'd like to explain their opinions as the whole one.

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Nowadays the main conflict of family life is not the opposition of men and women, or mothers and fathers, but in opposition to family and money. The solution of this paradoxical situation with the balance between family and work is to create a system of social support that would enable families to function. One year after the publication an essay in The Atlantic by Anne-Marie Slaughter titled Why Women Still Can't Have It All plutocratic wave of feminism continues to grow. Slaughter often mentions about her husband, noting that he did everything possible to support their sons and her aspiration to make a career by taking on the lion's share of child-rearing concerns, while she for two years constantly went from Princeton to Washington. In her essay Slaughter also reflected white spots of technocratic elite. It is a guide to creating a family, written super purposeful person. She describes a break from her usually very hard work that she used to concentrate on the family during the holidays, as follows: I see these times as the investment intervals. When it comes to a conflict between work and family life, about half of working parents admit that they are very difficult to find a balance between career and family responsibilities, while no major differences in the points of view of mothers and fathers has been found. Perhaps this is not surprising, considering that during the last century the role of fathers and mothers in so many ways are being closer. Finally, while the fathers busy with housekeeping and child-rearing, they are still in the minority. But for the last decade their number has doubled. Meanwhile, the rise of women to positions of economic power in the middle class continues. Since 1996, women received more bachelor's degrees than men, and since last year they have overtaken men in the number of master's degrees and doctoral degrees. The fact that there is still the income gap between men and women is the most flagrant violation of the rights of the women. However, for the last decade almost all the countries of the developed world, this gap is largely reduced. In developed countries, the majority of economic indicators, women life have improved in comparison with the life of men. Also, of the 15 fastest growing professions in the USA, 13 leading positions occupied women. I still strongly believe that women can have it all (and that men can too). I believe that we can have it all at the same time. But not today, not with the way America's economy and society are currently structured. My experiences over the past three years have forced me to confront a number of uncomfortable facts that need to be widely acknowledged and quickly changed(A.-M. Slaughter Why cant women still have it all page 680).

We live in a false of patriarchy: patriarchal structure of the society keeps the character, while the majority of its members are increasingly professed egalitarianism. And that leads to strange paradoxes. Even women with servants, millions of dollars and occupying the senior positions feel lack of any advantage as part of a particular institution. And they are right. The women in the upper echelons of government are forced to put up with limitations that men simply do not have. Recently began to appear different men's movements which had become a counterweight to feminism. However, this situation is clearly absurd. The lion's share of influence is still concentrated in the hands of men, despite the fact that women are already ahead men in the knowledge economy. Masculinity is becoming less influential and nevertheless retains its status as a sign of power. That is why men are silent. In the end, what may be less masculine than the talk about the decline of masculinity? False Patriarchate prevents women to reach an influential position in society and destroys man's identity. (Average worker, as a rule, belongs to the gender that strongly criticized for usurpation of power, but thus has no power.) The current situation practically does not serve anyone's interests. And, nevertheless, it will be much harder to break down than the earlier forms of sexism. In 2006, the database created by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, proved what our common sense says us: most of the country, where women have greater economic and political power, are richer than countries, where women are relatively powerless. Patriarchate is extremely expensive. That is why it is doomed. The solution of this paradoxical situation with the balance between work and family is not in the fact that (according to Slaughter) to force men to take care of children and the house. The solution is to create a system of social support that would allow families to function. The bottom line is that men, too, cannot have everything and this is happening for the same reasons that all cannot have women: it does not matter, whether the load is divided into 50 to 50, if the load is daunting. And this load will not be the feasible if women get equal opportunities, if self-consciousness will continue to grow, or if men become equal partners in family life. While family problems are considered to be exceptionally women's issues, they will be perceived as just complaints of one of the many interest groups. And, frankly speaking, very few people can understand why the complaint of the richest and most successful women in the world should concern everyone.

But every family has their own rules and allocation of responsibilities. Speak and make decisions about similar is generally not correct. Everyone has their own temperament, and it is one of the most important factors in creating a family. Never, anywhere and no one can establish a wholly-owned equality, patriarchate or matriarchate in the country, because these three forms of society will still exist at the same time but in different families. Women and men should understand their family on their own, should allocate their responsibilities.

Work Cited

Anne-Marie Slaughter Why women still can't have it all pages 676-690. Print.

Richard Dorment "Why men still can't have it all" (page 697). Print.