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What's more, critics question whether Vargas's departure after less than six months as an anchor was entirely voluntary, given declines in "World News Tonight's" ratings and considering that Vargas already had experienced the challenges of balancing work and family years before she became pregnant a second time.

"It seems unlikely to me, having survived and thrived through her first pregnancy, that she would logically give up the top job in TV a few months out, anticipating she couldn't handle it," said Kim Gandy, president of the National Organization for Women. "It just doesn't strike me as a logical explanation. I don't think there are too many men who would be happy to be removed from the anchor chair."

Gandy added that ABC, which is owned by the Walt Disney Co., "doesn't look like a very woman-friendly or family-friendly workplace."

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If you read the whole article, there's no information anywhere to support this take on Vargas's job change other than Gandy's interpretation of the unlikeliness of Vargas's decision.

I could easily see making the decision to switch to a less prestigious but still top-level job, making plenty of money to support my family because the new job was less demanding on my time and energy. Is it really that unlikely?

Is there more to the story than the post is publishing?

Edit: Clearly there's more to the story. What I mean is, is there some evidence that Vargas was forced out?

[ May 29, 2006, 05:13 PM: Message edited by: Dagonee ]
 

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Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
 
Slate has an article with a little more information.
 

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Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
 
Thanks, CT. I'm still confused but in a much more informed manner.

The different articles create entirely different impressions about whose idea it was and what actually happened, don't they?

Phrases such as "the insanity of the assertion that a pregnant woman asked to be benched permanently from a major news show (for her second child but not her first)" seem to be making far too broad a statement without something more concrete.
 

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Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
 
I have no idea what to think of this. I would support her choice to make such decisions for herself, and I would also expect that all who partake in this grand circus of media life would be adult enough to allow her to do so graciously.

Criminy. Maybe she did just change her mind. Maybe her husband is going through a gender identity concern, or perhaps her other child suddenly needs more care than expected, or maybe she has just decided that she needs to spend some time each day meditating for religious reasons. There could be any number of [understandably private] reasons why she changed her mind.

[And I would not fault her for keeping mum about such reasons, if that were the case. The old "ah, I left my old job because I needed more opportunity for growth, (aside from the fact that my boss turned into a delusional nitwit who was hyper-obsessed with my personal grooming and his own fetish for coughing up hairballs, that is, but Imnotmentioningthatbit" [/subtext]).]

Sure, I get that this is all going on in a broader context, and such things are worth talking about. Seems to me, though, that it's enough to note: hey, here's something unexpected, guess there could be multiple interpretations, but of course we're likely to never know. Then drop it.

My two cents.
 

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Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
 
Boy, that first article is irritating.

[quote...given that Vargas will return to another demanding, but less visible, job...[/quote]

We're given no idea how demanding the second job is in relationship to the first, only that it too is 'demanding'. There's ER surgeon demanding, and there's line-cook demanding, right? We have no idea which status either job is. But the article takes no pains to clarify that, just uses the fact that since the second job is also 'demanding', gender discrimination of some sort is most likely involved.

quote:

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"It seems unlikely to me, having survived and thrived through her first pregnancy, that she would logically give up the top job in TV a few months out, anticipating she couldn't handle it," said Kim Gandy, president of the National Organization for Women. "It just doesn't strike me as a logical explanation. I don't think there are too many men who would be happy to be removed from the anchor chair."

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Gandy added that ABC, which is owned by the Walt Disney Co., "doesn't look like a very woman-friendly or family-friendly workplace."

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... the organizations call Vargas's status "a clear demotion" and characterize it as "a dispiriting return to the days of discrimination against women that we thought were behind us."

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But that still leaves NOW's Gandy unsatisfied. "If she can't have it all," she said, "who among us could?"

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Originally posted by Rakeesh:
It seems to me that all this sort of unsubstantiated rhetoric does is to induce more eye-rolling when many people hear the acronym NOW, which is unfortunate. There is still work to be done that is much less frivolous and more deadly serious than this appears to be.

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quote:

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Sure, I get that this is all going on in a broader context, and such things are worth talking about. Seems to me, though, that it's enough to note: hey, here's something unexpected, guess there could be multiple interpretations, but of course we're likely to never know. Then drop it.

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Exactly. To add to your list of maybes, maybe ABC did want to drop her for the ratings and they mutually decided with Vargas to use this as an excuse so she wouldn't have the stigma of being dropped for poor ratings. Hell, maybe ABC is being odious and doesn't want to allow Vargas the time off she needs for childbirth. I can't tell.

I like the Slate article's point that the variety of responses to the situation echoes the split personality this country has as whole and amongst individuals concerning work and parenting.

Edit: Oh, and ditto on what Icarus said.

There are important things to be done with respect to parenthood and career.

[ May 29, 2006, 07:34 PM: Message edited by: Dagonee ]
 

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Posted by Swampjedi (Member # 7374) on :
 
Icarus, my first thought upon reading the article was "wow, this is smelling like PETA!"
 

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Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
 
I'd rather not smell PETA, thank you. Nothing you don't cook on the grill can possibly smell good, sez I.

Graaaagh! Rakeesh want rare meat!
 

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Posted by Bob_Scopatz (Member # 1227) on :
 
From the Slate article. A cogent summary, seems to me.

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Everyone is turning Elizabeth Vargas' pregnancy into a referendum on pregnant women in the workplace, and particularly in the media, because it's happening on a big screen in front of us, but also in our homes and our book groups. Vargas isn't just carrying the extra weight of her unborn baby here; she's carrying the weight of a whole nation of people who still see gender in absolute and defining terms. Maybe the reason we can't quite stomach a hugely pregnant news anchor is that we can't even manage to talk coherently about all the ways in which they somehow freak us out.

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