Felice Schwartz

Felice N. Schwartz (born January 16, 1925 in New York as Felice Toba Kidneyberg , † February 8, 1996 in Manhattan , New York ) was an American author , feminist and advocate for women and minorities. In the course of her career, Schwartz founded two US- wide funding and interest organizations: in 1945 she founded the National Scholarship Service and Fund for Negro Students (NSSFNS), an association that was supposed to give African Americans access to higher education. In 1962 she founded Catalyst, a US organization that promotes women in the workplace. Schwartz served as President of Catalyst for three decades. Schwartz is also known for her controversial article, "Management Women and the New Facts of Life," which was published in the 1989 Harvard Business Review . With this article she turned other feminists like Betty Friedan against her, because Schwartz emphasized the differences between men and women and suggested a special career path especially for mothers, which was debated under the heading "Mommy Track".

Youth and family

Schwartz was born on January 16, 1925 in New York as Felice Toba Kidneyberg. Her parents were the businessman Albert Leberberg and his wife Rose Irene (nee Levin). After graduating from school in Cooperstown , New York , she went to Smith College , where she graduated in 1945. In 1946 she married the physician Irving Schwartz, with whom she raised three children, including political advisor Tony Schwartz . After the death of her father in 1951, she and her brother took over the ailing family business, which they successfully rebuilt and sold four years later.

Career

After graduating from Smith College in 1945, Schwartz tried to address the problem of the extremely low number of African American students. Because she was one of the few Jewish students in her high school , Schwartz empathized with the isolation of African American people at Smith College. In the same year she founded the National Scholarship Service and Fund for Negro Students. The organization asked colleges and universities to open their doors to African American applicants and found suitable existing scholarships for qualified students. In 1951, Schwartz left the organization to help run the family business. However, she quickly encountered difficulties running a company as a woman and she decided to take a career break after the birth of her second child. She had a third child and was therefore out of work for a total of nine years. During this time off, she was frustrated by the barriers that prevented well-educated mothers like her from entering or re-entering work.

In 1962, Schwartz contacted the presidents of various colleges and a handful of them became the board of directors of Catalyst Inc. This new organization, Schwartz hoped, would address the problems Schwartz and others as businesswomen and mothers face were. The mission of Catalyst at the time was to bring together the untapped potential of educated women who wanted to combine family and work and the needs of the country. Schwartz served as president of Catalyst for thirty years until she retired in 1993.

Schwartz died in Manhattan on February 8, 1996 .

The Mommy Track debate

Schwartz has been a prolific writer throughout her professional career. The work she is best known for is the article Management Women and the New Facts of Life , published in the 1989 Harvard Business Review . The article was interpreted as a suggestion that companies should create two career paths for women: one for women who wish to reconcile career and family, and one for women for whom career is a higher priority. This sparked heated debate after The New York Times ridiculed Schwartz's idea and dubbed it "Mommy Track". However, Schwartz stated that her article was misunderstood: "I have violated Political Correctness by saying that women are not just like men. What I then said - and continue to say - is that women face many, many hurdles in the workplace that men don't have to face. I said to the group of men at the top: "Instead of wasting women's talent, do something about it!" "

Publications (selection)

• With Margaret H. Schifter, Susan S. Gillotti: How to Go to Work When Your Husband Is Against It, Your Children Aren't Old Enough, and There's Nothing You Can Do Anyhow . Simon and Schuster, New York 1972.
• Management Women and the New Facts of Life , 1989. In: Nancy J. Rosenbloom (Ed.): Women in American History Since 1880: A Documentary Reader . Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford 2010, ISBN 978-1-4051-9049-7 , pp. 219-223.
• With Jean Zimmerman: Breaking with Tradition: Women and Work, The New Facts of Life . Warner, New York 1992, ISBN 978-0446516006 (German women's careers: a profit for companies. Translated by Patricia Künzel. Campus Verlag, Frankfurt a. M. / New York 1993, ISBN 3-593-34848-9 ).
• With Suzanne K. Levine: The Armchair Activist: Simple Yet Powerful Ways to Fight the Radical Right . Riverhead Trade, New York 1996, ISBN 978-1573225496 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Angie Kim: The Mommy Track Turns 21 . In: Slate , March 31, 2010, accessed October 19, 2010.
2. ↑ Felice Kidneyberg Bride of Captain; Smith Alumna Is Married to Irving Leon Schwartz of Army Medical Corps . In: The New York Times , January 13, 1946, accessed November 4, 2018
3. ^ ^{A b} Gail Twersky Reimer: Felice Kidney Mountain Schwartz . In: Jewish Women's Archive , March 20, 2009, accessed November 4, 2018.
4. ^ ^{A b} Louis Baldwin: Women of Strength: Biographies of 106 Who Have Excelled in Traditionally Male Fields, 61 ADto the Present. McFarland, Jefferson 1997, ISBN 9780786402502 , p. 87.
5. ↑ ^{a b} Emid Nemy: Felice N. Schwartz, 71, Dies; Working Women's Champion . In: The New York Times , February 10, 1996, accessed November 4, 2018.
6. ^ Tamar Lewin: 'Mommy Career Track' Sets Off a Furor . In: The New York Times , March 8, 1989, accessed November 4, 2018.