A family magazine with more than 11 million American subscribers and international editions available in seventeen languages, Reader’s Digest was for many years the highest-circulating monthly publication in the world. Well known for finding and reprinting compelling short articles from diverse sources since 1922, the magazine also does original, upbeat reporting and publishes jokes and anecdotes submitted by its readers. Its editorial mission, according to the publisher, is to provide concise “content that is real, objective, inspiring, actionable, and important today,” while remaining optimistic and easily understood.
The influence of general-interest magazines has declined somewhat with the advent of targeted online journalism, but Reader’s Digest has been trying to keep up. This article from November 2012 is a case in point. Five months after Anne-Marie Slaughter’s controversial “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All” hit newsstands and The Atlantic Monthly’s Web site, the editors of Reader’s Digest put together a compilation of representative reader responses, collected from the magazines’ online comments sections as well as from popular blogs and Web-based content aggregators. “The Essay That Rocked the Internet” reveals, in just a few pages, both the depth and breadth of reactions to Slaughter’s argument. For a full-length response from a single reader, see Andrew Cohen’s “‘Having It All’? How about ‘Doing the Best I Can’?”
A high-powered working mom writes about her decision to leave a top government job for more time at home—and the fireworks start.
It was one of the biggest cultural blowups of the year. Princeton professor and former state department official Anne-Marie Slaughter left no hot button unpushed in her provocatively titled Atlantic cover story, “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All.” Part confessional, part sociological analysis, part call to arms, the 12,000-word tour de force gave fiery new life to an age-old, ongoing debate and thrust its author into the center of a media maelstrom. The response to the piece, in which Slaughter explained how she gave up her job as a policy adviser to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton “because of my desire to be with my family,” was immediate and enormous. More than one million people read the essay online, according to the Atlantic. Women of every age and background (and plenty of men) let Slaughter know exactly what they thought of her and her ideas about women, work, and family. Eight weeks after publication, the Atlantic Web site had logged more than 2,400 comments, with new ones posted every day and no end in sight. In the same period, the piece (which Slaughter will expand into a book) was recommended on Facebook over 198,000 times.… Here are a few of Slaughter’s points, along with some reader reactions.
She Wrote:
“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.”
Readers Said:
“What, exactly, is ‘having it all,’ anyway? Rising to the top of your profession and yet still being able to be home in time for dinner and make it to all the soccer games? That seems impossible … I don’t know, exactly, where my career (or my personal life, for that matter) is headed. But I do know that ‘having it all’ sounds really exhausting.”—Doree Shafrir, on buzzfeed.com
“‘Having it all’ is such a greedy, selfish, consumerist term, implying … that having more stuff, more experiences, more money, will make you a happy person.”—Richard_Ewell14, on theatlantic.com
“The real problem is expecting more than a standard workweek for anyone, regardless of gender.”—Erica Drake, on theatlantic.com
“I’m not Super Mom; I can’t do everything. It took some time to learn to be OK with that, but I would rather have quality time with my kids when I’m home.”—Cheryl King, on the Reader’s Digest Facebook page
‘We are where we are because the system is broken, not because women lack the motivation or ambition to succeed.”—australianreader, on theatlantic.com
She Wrote:
“I am well aware that the majority of American women face problems far greater than any discussed in this article.… Many of these women are worrying not about having it all, but rather about holding on to what they have.”
Readers Said:
“Most of the women I know personally do not have the high-powered ‘glamorous’ careers that seem to get all the media attention. What I’d like to know is when do we who are pink-collar workers finally get our issues addressed? Have it all? Heck, if we had the kind of jobs the author had, we could freaking buy it all!”—La Dee Dah, on theatlantic.com
“I don’t see Ms. Slaughter as entitled or spoiled. I see a hardworking woman who had an inaccurate view of what it means to be a parent.”—Barb Plunkett, on theatlantic.com
“I am a single mom of two boys with no support from their father. I do two jobs, besides being a mom. I wake up at 3:30 a.m., work online as a tutor from 4 to 6:30 a.m., then get them ready and send them to school. Then I do the housework … I start tutoring again from 6 p.m. till midnight … The one thing that is killing me is not having enough sleep.”—Ketty, on rd.com
“Our luxuries are measured in terms of man-hours. Dinner out for our family is four hours at work for me or six for [my husband]. Disney World is 80/120 hours, respectively … We don’t keep up with the Smiths, much less the Joneses, but that lets my husband and me work hours that still allow us to be involved with our family.”—Stephanie Swalwell, on theatlantic.com
“We should immediately strike the phrase ‘have it all’ from the feminist lexicon and never, ever use it again.”—Rebecca Traister, on salon.com
She Wrote:
“I do not believe fathers love their children any less than mothers do, but men seem more likely to choose their job at a cost to their family … “
Readers Said:
“What I hope for, one day, is that fathers feel the same remorse mothers do when they have to leave their children every morning, that fathers feel as consumed as mothers do about making sure their children eat right, get the right education, etc.”—Liz Craft, on rd.com
“Believe it or not, a whole heap of both women and men think that women and men should take the roles in the household that suit them best … rather than having their genitalia dictate what their role is going to be.”—Alex Marthews, on theatlantic.com
“All of us work too hard. We all shortchange our kids … We are all pretty much a mess when it comes to balance. The difference is women agonize over the menu, and men just order and live with it … Slaughter is right that for most women, the juggle just feels worse.”—Dahlia Lithwick, on slate.com
She Wrote:
“For two years, I never left the office early enough to go to any stores other than those open twenty-four hours … “
Readers Said:
“Why do I want government, public policy, and the businesses that serve me to be run by stressed-out, miserable people who have no connection to their own families and the communities around them?”—SHarshD, on theatlantic.com
“The problem she identified—the staggering speedup of jobs at the top—is not a woman’s problem. It’s the predictable and unavoidable result of the increasing inequality of the American economy.”—Linda Hirshman, on theatlantic.com
“Young women need stories of struggle and sacrifice like a hole in the head. Given economic realities, they need to stick with their jobs, and fanning flames of angst and guilt does them a great disservice.”—Sylvia Ann Hewlett, on hbr.org
“As a child of the ‘70s and ‘80s, I remember all too well defending my mother for working at home as a stay-at-home mom, when she worked just as hard as my father did at his job!”—Daisy Mabel, on slate.com
“Dads, let the wife go make a six-figure income. You stay home and take care of the runny noses.”—Dadthebaker, on the New York Times “Motherlode” blog
She Wrote:
“I realized that I didn’t just need to go home. Deep down, I wanted to go home.”
Readers Said:
“I think it’s fantastic that the modern feminist movement is moving away from the ‘me, me, me’ and ‘self-realization’ shtick and instead recognizing that the traditional ‘female’ value of putting family first is invaluable.”—Ellie Swanson, on theatlantic.com
“Enough op-eds from Marie Antoinette. Let’s work on the problem of redesigning our public institutions and policies to reflect the change in our culture. Women work. Men work. Children need care.”—Lisa Duggan, on theparentdujour.com
“Feminists are not a dying breed. It’s not about thinking that women and men are the same. It’s about wanting a world full of equality for women in an equal partnership with men.”—Marion Lipshutz, on theatlantic.com
“Why must we focus on domestic happiness? Isn’t the whole point of an enlightened, liberated life to exist outside the dueling poles of the office and the kitchen, to be more than just worker or mother, understanding that compromise must be made across the board?”—Lauren Sandler, on slate.com
Read “The Essay That Rocked the Internet,” and respond to the following questions.