Unfinished Business: Women Men Work Family

With special guest:

• Dr Anne-Marie Slaughter
  …in conversation with Bill Kable
  

When our guest today Dr Anne-Marie Slaughter wrote an article for The Atlantic magazine in 2012 it created what could be described as a firestorm. The article had an estimated 2.7 million views and sparked intense debate. Someone seen as a leading light in feminism was questioning the feminist narrative.

The article was called “Why women still can’t have it all” but clearly there was some unfinished business and this became the title of her new book Unfinished Business: Women Men Work Family in which she uncovers the missing piece of the puzzle.

Anne-Marie is clearly a gifted communicator as demonstrated in several high–powered careers, most notably her time as Director of Policy Planning in the US State Department working alongside Hillary Clinton, the Secretary of State.

Towards the end of her two years in that role Anne-Marie knew it was time for her to find a way to devote more of her time to her own children. This meant leaving her dream job and prompted some career feminists to criticise her decision.

Now we get the benefit of hearing directly from Anne-Marie in her refreshing and forthright voice what led to her change of heart and how this affected her vision for the future of families. The vision is of genuine equality between men and women in the workplace and in the family which will require some changes for everyone. Men will no longer be seen primarily as the breadwinner, women will not be judged by how well they nurture. While women have joined the workforce they have not been expected to be doing it as part of their planning for some future family the way men have always done. And the move by men to spend more time with their children will continue to grow.

In her book Dr Slaughter uses her own personal story and also explores the difficulties posed for people in the workforce at the other end of the spectrum. How can we improve the outlook for the single parent battling in the workforce with no qualifications and no backup for when things go wrong?

Anne-Marie gives us action plans and a broad outline for change that will be hard to resist by those in a position to make a change starting with her old friend Hillary Clinton.

You do not want to miss this glimpse of the future provided by one of the leading women in the world.

Dr Anne-Marie Slaughter

Anne-Marie Slaughter is CEO of New America, a think-tank and civic enterprise with offices in Washington DC and New York. She is the Bert G. Kerstetter ’66 University Professor Emerita of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University, one of the Ivy League Universities in the USA. In 2009 Secretary of State Hillary Clinton appointed her Director of Policy Planning for the U.S. State Department, the first woman to hold that position. A foreign policy analyst, legal and international relations scholar, and public commentator, Anne-Marie Slaughter has been a professor at the University of Chicago Law School and Harvard Law School and is a former president of the American Society of International Law. Anne-Marie is married to Professor Andrew Moravcsik and has two teenage sons.

Song selection by our guest: Teach Your Children by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young

Note: This program is an encore presentation of the one aired on 9 June 2016.

Podcast (mp3)