May-Treanor, Walsh, and the Cycle of Feminism

Image by Getty Images via Daylife Like many, I love watching beach volleyball. Sure, the bikinis don't hurt, but as a former volleyball player in high school, I do really enjoy the game.

Watching May-Treanor and Walsh repeat as gold medalists was a great Olympic moment. Hard-fought match against worthy opponents, but I thought the real moment happened afterwards.

The NBC reporter basically asked "so, what are you going to do next?"

Neither of them said "I am going to Disneyland."

They both said, "I want to have a baby and start a family."

Call me a bit dramatic, but for me this was a watershed moment in the history of feminism.  I am far from a student of the movement, but for years, my impression was that women were expected to forgo family to focus on career and that you would never raise the personal issue of family within a career context. 

Or, as my friend Rachel remarked, 'staying home with your kids was looked down upon."

I think May-Treanor and Walsh are saying, "not anymore."

Like stuffing the ball of an opponents spike, they are saying, "we've done our career thing and now, we want to do our family thing, and that's more than ok!"

They love Volleyball and will come back to it, but for now, it's not their focus.

In other words, it is ok (at least in their mind) to step away from their careers. You can have it all, but since you can't do it all (at the same time), it makes sense to do things in more manageable chunks.

I think this is a great moment for women who wonder "can I afford to take the time off?"

From a skills perspective, it may take May/Walsh more time to get back into Volleyball shape, but from a societal perspective (and Dara Torres showed this as well) more and more people are going to say
"She took time off from her career to focus on her family!!"

Not, 'she took time off from her career to focus on her family :-( '

Congratulations to Kerry and Misti.

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