And What To Do About It, just published by Oxford University Press, is a rallying cry to restructure the outmoded family-work relationship. It promotes what Williams believes is a better model, one for which, she says, American society is ready. Practicality dominates her vision. The lives of children, women, men, and companies would improve, she asserts, with hard, new statistics to support her views. Near the start of each semester, the property law professor sometimes asks students how many plan to work part time during their careers.
Few men say yes.
Female students, however, largely anticipate a period when work and family needs will vie for their time. While the wage gap between men and women has fallen, the gap between the wages of mothers and other women has widened in recent years. American women still do 80 percent of the childcare and two-thirds of the housework. Women represent 76 percent of the workers in the jobs with the fewest advancement opportunities and only five percent of those in the jobs with the most. I teach property, therefore I teach poverty.