You may have heard of the recent criticism of Texas A&M coach Sydney Carter’s clothing. In full, her job with Texas A&M’s women’s basketball is “player development coach and assistant recruiting coordinator”. Coach Carter wore some clothes at a game that were more stereotypically feminine in style, and the critics said she should have worn something more stereotypically coach-like instead. So what are the politics of this situation?
From a fascist perspective, women shouldn’t be coaches because coaching (and leadership, generally) are a man’s domain, and we have this absurd history of men coaching women’s sports. So this criticism of her clothes is not a fascist criticism. From a neoliberal perspective, anyone can perform any job regardless of their group membership, but they must conform to the job — they must become the job. This is why the pantsuit exists — a woman can’t just come into a management position as a woman. She must discard her woman-ness and put on manager-ness — i.e., she must wear a suit. Paradoxically, neoliberal feminism sees the pantsuit as a symbol of power (because they only see it relative to the fascist position) rather than a symbol of conformity.
Many women see their woman-ness as an important part of their identity and do not want to discard it. These women are placed in a position where they are asked to choose between their femininity and power. It’s nice to see Coach Carter reject this false choice and present herself the way she chooses to. I very much hope this works out for her.
A bigger issue than clothing exists, though, for women who are able to have children and are interested in pursuing that life choice. Neoliberal feminism tells them that they must either employ strangers to raise their children, reject biological motherhood entirely, or accept a life of poverty (and powerlessness). The creation and enculturation of new human beings is probably the single most important job there is and yet this is how we treat them. As a result, there’s a growing concern (and preliminary evidence) about the existence of a “radical feminist to tradwife” pipeline, where women who are understandably concerned about the status of women relative to their potential role in creating and raising children find no support in neoliberal feminism and end up embracing a “tradwife” (traditional wife) ideology instead. Neoliberal feminism clearly looks down on any person who chooses childcare over climbing the corporate ladder. While I don’t think tradwife ideology is the right choice, I also see that there is no right choice available.
Related: #TradWives: sexism as gateway to white supremacy by Miranda Christou (opendemocracy.net)
A better way to deal with this would be to accept an aspiring mother’s life choice and treat that vocation with the respect it deserves. Women who cannot bear children as well as men could greatly benefit, too, as they are certainly capable of caring for children and many would like to do just that. Again: The creation of new human beings and the enculturation of those new human beings are two of the most important jobs that exist on this planet.
If we have to have money (a position I reject) then the logical solution would be to pay them. Yes, if money is how we value everything, then a person who creates a child should be compensated with money. If money is how we value everything, then a person who raises a child should be compensated with money. I’m not talking about a pathetic, trifling wage; I’m talking about an income that says clearly that this job is valuable. This money should not come from the person who donated sperm to the project, either; the current model where people who raise children are funded by their domestic partners only impoverishes families. (For conservatives, I mean that the model where stay-at-home moms are funded by their husbands — thus cutting a family’s income in half — ultimately hurts families.)
I appreciate that some people would like to hire child-care professionals to do this job, and I support this choice, but let’s look at how much those people are paid, too. Are we really getting the quality of work out of those workers that the importance of the job requires? Are we really expressing the true value of this job with the amount they are paid? So, if you look at the Democrats’ child care proposals that have come up since Biden happened, they are not solving this important problem. It almost seems like they are treating children as “developing labor resources” rather than human beings; in the long term, this approach creates not only problematic human beings, but also insufficient labor resources — which brings up a good point:
There’s something deeper than the typical fascists-vs-neoliberals narrative. Both of those groups say that they believe in capitalism; you’d think they’d be finding ways to make sure “investment” is made in “our most precious resource” but they aren’t. Both approach it with half-measures that really serve their ideologies rather than the labor market; they choose to focus on the short term, which damages the economy in the long term (by creating a working class that isn’t sufficiently skilled and is often antisocial). I reject capitalism, but this is just one of many examples that appear to show that the established order may be served by capitalism, rather than the other way around. When the irrational, narcissistic desires of the ultra-powerful (who are also ultra-rich) go against capitalism (in the sense of a rational market economy), capitalism loses. I realize this is largely an issue of framing, but it also short-circuits the popular claim that people who control corporations have “no choice” but to do the wrong thing because capitalism requires it.