Women want and do it all, if they think it through
By AMY PERRITT
After noticing the DVD cover on the Blockbuster shelves for several months, I finally rented “Searching for Debra Winger,” a documentary by Rosanna Arquette. I’m glad I did.
From Holly Hunter and Vanessa Redgrave to Robin Wright Penn and Diane Lane, Arquette interviews a range of Hollywood actresses and explores with them the pressures of working in show business. She interviews Sharon Stone in what looks like a hotel room. She has lunch with a group of women, including her sister Patricia Arquette and Kelly Lynch, Daryl Hannah and Melanie Griffith.
I watch Entertainment Tonight occasionally. While standing in line at the grocery store, I flip through People Magazine. But I could tell this documentary was going to be something more rational, something I could relate to. And I did.
Not the industry aspects, of course. Let’s face it. How many of us could register a bank account that receives seven-and eight-digit paychecks? How many of us own not one but several multi-million dollar homes located in Los Angeles, New York, London and Florida? How many of us take our children to sets for the first five years of their life and can afford 24-hour nannies?
What this documentary does in asking these actors how they manage their Hollywood careers is tackle the universal conundrum women — including my friends and colleagues — face today... the act of juggling family, friends, work, etc.
When asked if a woman can have it all — the career, children, a happy and healthy relationship, plus hobbies all at the same time — the answer is quite simple: Yes.
We’re women aren’t we? Of course we can accomplish it all. But when asked if women have it all without feeling we’re neglecting a certain part of our lives, the answer isn’t so easy. Can we do it all without feeling guilty? With all of it, can we honestly claim spiritual satisfaction?
Of course not. We’re women aren’t we?
To paraphrase and snippet some of Arquette’s interviews, Salma Hayek says that “… happiness is never perfect …” and goes on to explain that in order to achieve happiness we must have a life that is complete. We give importance to all of the components of our life (work, motherhood, health, family) without becoming obsessed with one aspect — then we can have it all.
Many of the actors in their own words agree it’s a difficult balance. I think of my friend who returned to being a real estate agent soon after her second child was born. Heading home following an open house, her husband called her with both children crying in the background. Stuck in traffic, her breasts started leaking and panic set in. “… it’s not whether a woman is working. It’s when she’s with the baby, the child, the adolescent, is she really there …,” says Jane Fonda. Debra Winger, the courageous Hollywood defector, states: “… anyone that says that having children is not a sacrifice is pretty much lying or not taking care of their kids.”
It was noon on Friday. I pulled away from my computer and forced myself to leave. I had e-mails to return, the message light on my phone was flashing and there were still 10 unchecked “to dos” on my list but I was taking the afternoon off.
I walked out of the office building and saw my friend and her 2-year-old daughter waiting out front. They were picking me up to go to lunch.
While giving me a colorful Happy Birthday balloon (it was the next day), the little girl suddenly started screaming for the bathroom. She was in the early stages of toilet training, so needless to say, my friend immediately kicked into emergency mode. Un-strapping her daughter from the car seat, she ran to the trunk with the transportable potty.
“You are a good girl for telling mommy,” my friend reinforced while I sat in the front seat thinking about an e-mail I had forgotten to send my boss. I nodded at the business people standing out front smoking and chatting. Watching our spectacle.
“Do you have to go poopy? Are you going sweetie? Did you go?
“I think we made it but let’s get home fast just in case there’s more,” my friend said, putting her daughter in the car seat for the second time. Now in the driver’s position, I maneuvered us slowly through a turn in hopes to avoid potty spillage and after that picked up the pace. Then … the balloon escaped through the open window.
I swung the car around and my friend jumped out and grabbed the gift floating mid-street.
“Are you sure you don’t want to stay at work,” she joked. For three years, she had chosen play dates over her career as a promising photo director.
I shook my head and smiled. By then I had stopped thinking about work. (Amy Perritt)
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on July 2, 2004. Read the original PDF.