This week, Sarah Silverman was the focus of a lot of water cooler chatter when she opened up in a series of tweets about having to give up motherhood, as a comedienne in order to advance her career.
On Monday, she defended her choice to not have kids in order to prioritize her career.
“As a comic always working & on the road I have had to decide between motherhood & living my fullest life & I chose the latter,” Silverman tweeted. “Men don’t have to do that. I’d so love to be a fun dad, coming home from the road & being my best fun dad self.”
“So this is just a lil f— all y’all bc u can’t be a woman w/out sacrifice & that’s the fact jack,” the actress added. “And I [heart emoji] my comedian brothers that acknowledge this truth. They’re my family & for a lot of us women comic sisters, our only family.”
Since, then, there have been a few postmortem essays and columns (like here and here) dissecting her words and choice. I bumped into one column by Heather Wilhelm over at the National Review, a conservative leaning semi-monthly magazine, which had me a little confused.
I think Wilhelm argues that it is Silverman’s position that modern feminism is a lie and falsely convinces women that they can have it all when, the truth is, they cannot.
Wihelm writes:
“It’s a sadness for me because I love kids. I ache for kids,” Silverman told a podcast in 2016, describing her childless state, “but I love my life more. You can’t have it all; you really can’t.” This might come as news to the scores of wildly successful and powerful women with children who have existed throughout history — many of whom, no offense, had far more consequential gigs than comedy — but it’s a feminist doctrine that’s slowly seeping in to the hearts and minds of young women today. “The reaction to my pregnancy was neatly split along demographic lines,” wrote E. J. Dickson in New York magazine last week, in a piece called “Why Did Everyone Act Like I Was Crazy When I Decided to Have a Baby in My 20s?” (As a side note, Dickson is 27, and far closer to 30 — the time when fertility starts to drop off — than 20.) “When I told people over the age of 40 that I was pregnant, they were delighted. People under the age of 40, however, were horrified…
…In other words, it’s a colossal bait-and-switch. Silverman took a lot of online heat for her comments, with people scoffing at her “barren womb,” which frankly isn’t right or fair. The comedian simply echoed years of feminist indoctrination, highlighting the ridiculous package that countless young American women are being sold. “You can’t be a woman w/out sacrifice & that’s the fact jack,” Silverman declared. Correction: You can’t be a good parent, male or female, without sacrifice or hard choices. But in the real world, most good things don’t come for free. Oh, never mind. In most cases, modern feminists don’t believe that line either.”
I’m still confused about the thesis of this piece. Is it a dissection of Feminisim or twisting of Silverman’s words to fit into the proposition. The comments from mainly men are also a little bit off to me. Head over there and have a read and let’s discuss in social what’s up.
