Talk about shock and awe! I thought the arguments about choice had to do with abortion, but no, apparently there's deep division about women working. Here I was thinking Y2K happened seven years ago, and yet, the comments to USA Today's Mommy Wars feature -- 266 as I write this and still coming strong -- are amazing.
I had no idea we had people in this country literate enough to type and send a Web comment who are still living in the 19th century.
The premise of the story, simple enough, is that working women struggle with the dilemma of career vs. taking care of children. I was interested in the story from the moment it came out because that's my daughter and two of my grandsons in the color picture. She is CEO of Palo Alto Software and I'm proud of her.
Now I'm fascinated, but not in a good way fascinated, more like the fascination you get from the exaggerated Deliverance characters. Is there really that much of this kind of thinking still out there, today? Maybe I've been on the West Coast too long.
Take the following comment as an example:
How can you be a CEO and a Mom at the same time? My experience with mothers, especially new ones, is that they never stop talking about their kids. So one can conclude that a "Mommy Ceo" sits around at work and talks about kids all day. Also women are inherently emotional and good businesses are not run on emotions, bad ones are. Personally I'm not going to listen to a CEO or respect one that is nursing a child. Women belong in the home, not playing CEO. Its not play time this is the real world, stop making business decisions and start making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for your kids. Come on.
They go on and on like that. I'm 59 years old, and I thought women working was my mother's crusade, not my daughter's.