Women's deliberation

As a philosopher, Linda R. Hirshman is in a field where death threats are not typically an occupational hazard. Until now.

Hirshman has come out ardently in the media in favor of working mothers, so much so that she's invoked the wrath of a host of ``mommy bloggers," also known as SAHM, stay-at-home-mothers, as well as a death threat that prompts her to not reveal where she lives. A former professor at Brandeis University, she and her husband, who has a different last name, live ``somewhere" in New York State.

Hirshman first became controversial when she wrote an article last year for the liberal American Prospect magazine website saying it's a mistake for women to quit their jobs to stay at home with children. Housekeeping and child rearing, she wrote, are not worthy of the full-time ``talents of intelligent and educated human beings." In a piece last month in the Washington Post, she didn't back down. Then came her book, just out, provocatively titled, ``Get to Work: A Manifesto for Women of the World" (Viking).

``She would not have kind words for me," says WHDH-TV (Channel 7) news anchor Caterina Bandini .

Pregnant with twins due in late October, Bandini will quit one of the most prestigious jobs in Boston television to be a full-time, stay-at-home mom. A woman who has covered the Kosovo war and the Vatican, President Clinton's sex scandal and President Reagan's funeral, at home breast-feeding and burping babies?

``I'm not saying this is forever," Bandini says, ``but I'm doing what I feel in my heart is the right thing."

It's not as if Hirshman doesn't know that tug. She's a mother of three daughters, two step daughters and one biological. But she managed to always work full time. ``It isn't all that big a deal. Really," she says. ``It's the moral right that is making women feel you can't manage both tasks."

At 62, Hirshman is articulate, feisty, and a self-proclaimed intellectual. She may be squeamish about the degree of angry attention she's generating, but she's fiercely proud of the firestorm she's created. While the feminist movement has mostly succeeded in removing the glass ceiling in the workplace, it's done squat about the glass ceiling in the home, she says.

``I'm pulling the discussion along. That's a good thing. The family is to 2006 what the workplace was to the movement in 1964 and the vote in 1920."

Her goal is for women and men to lead equal lives.

``If raising children and housekeeping are so important, why aren't men doing it, too?" she asks on the phone in an interview from a Manhattan hotel. She's not talking about stay-at-home fathers instead of mothers. She wants even-steven, what's-good-for-the-goose-is-good-for-the-gander partnerships: ``Why should we have equality in the public realm and a social caste system in the private [realm]? It's laid on women from the moment they are born," she says. ``They come out with a uterus instead of a penis and get assigned the dishes."

Philosophy is one thing, reality something else again.

Tina Luttinger of Hingham quit her job as a head hunter to be a full-time mom to her children, now 15 and 18. She has no regrets. Barbara Surette of Saugus, mother of 3 1/2-year-old twins and a 9-year-old son, constantly revisits her decision to stop work as a full-time hairdresser.

``I did this because I wanted to, not because of some kind of moral imperative," Luttinger says. ``Boring? Repetitive? Not for me." Exercise is a big part of her life; she's on a tennis team (`` an outlet for my competitive juices "), has coached both her children, and volunteers in the schools. ``I made a choice and my husband was totally supportive," she says, adding that he vacuums and does the dishes.

Surette 's decision was mostly practical. ``My earnings were going straight to child-care. What was the point?" she asks.

``There are days when I feel as if my brain cells are dying, when the four walls close in on me. It's always in your face. Laundry. Cleaning. It does a number on your self-esteem."

Nonetheless, says Surette, ``being home for my children is a sacrifice I'm happy to make." Someday she hopes to work part time, but not anytime soon.

Getting back into the workforce is not always easy. Maria Mucci, also of Hingham, is a former RN who quit full-time work when her youngest was 2, 16 years ago. ``It was my choice. It felt important to me to be home," she says. Now divorced and no longer current in her profession, she's attending Boston Architectural College to get a certificate in decorative arts. And then there's this nagging thought: ``What kind of role model did I give them, to not be out earning money? To not being a member of the workplace? In hindsight, that doesn't feel so good."

Ginny Lund of Kingston is a divorced mother of four, ages 7 to 14, and works full time as director of public relations for WHDH-TV. She's engaged to a man who also has four children. When they marry next month , six children will live with them, and she'll continue to work full time. She has a live-in nanny.

``I knew I wanted to have children, and I knew I would always work," she says. But she's ambivalent. ``If finances were not an issue, I would choose to work part time."

Jo Myers McChesney of Wellesley thinks she has the ideal. When she was pregnant with her first child, who is almost 4, she and a business partner dreamed up the idea for Isis Maternity, a resource for expectant and new parents which now boasts three centers, in Brookline, Needham , and Arlington. Being the boss means she has flexibility; she works 30 hours in the office and can take time off on Thursdays, for instance, to attend a mom and child music class, conveniently located at her center. Knowing how important flexibility is to a working mother, she also extends the privilege to her employes, most of whom are women.

``Before children, I was a management consultant working 50 hours a week and traveling. I didn't want to do that as a mother. I also knew I didn't want to be a stay-at-home mom. For me, it's all about personal choice."

The reality, however, is that not all women have choice.

``I'm blessed financially to be able to make this decision," says Bandini. ``What about all the women who don't have a choice? How can we make things easier for them? To me, choice is what I thought the feminist movement fought for."

``Choice!" harumphs Hirshman. ``It's a weasel word, a cop-out."

She says women today who think they are making a choice delude themselves. ``It's a decision in the context of a culture which only recognizes one morality, the morality of the right which has ramped up the importance of mom-at-home beyond recognition. I'm not saying child rearing isn't important or rewarding. I'm saying it needs to be treated rationally. Equally."

Her advice to women boils down to some simple, concrete rules. Among them:

Use your education with a career in mind, so your job is never ``less than" your husband's .

Refuse to marry or have children unless your partner agrees to always pull half the weight of the household .

If you're already married without that deal, stop playing household manager. The dirtier the house (and children) get, the faster he'll pitch in. (Hirshman does not address the issue of single motherhood. ``My position is to have another adult in there," she says.)

Hirshman talks forcefully, sometimes barely taking a breath between thoughts. Suddenly she slows down.

``Why is it," she wonders, ``that as a society, we care so much more about children than we do about the women female children grow up to be?"

She bounces back quickly. Even after Lesley Stahl called her judgmental on ``60 Minutes," her response was sanguine: It's a philosopher's job to tell people how to live their lives.

Her idea of equality at home would allow women to lead what she calls a ``flourishing life, the good life," currently unavailable because they are stuck at home. It would also change society in the process. Women would be better able to compete in the workplace because they ``aren't dragging the ball and chain of the household." Men wouldn't be able to work 60 or 70 hours a week because they would have the same ``ghastly" responsibilities women now have.

Oh yes, the children. They would be better off, too. ``They'd have two parents taking care of them instead of one," she says.

Contact Barbara Meltz at meltz@globe.com.