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This chapter tracks the cultural transformation in conceptions of “progress” for middle-class women in the United States, as well as how liberal feminism has undergone a reorientation: from struggling for equality to advocating balance and happiness. Examining Anne-Marie Slaughter’s famous Atlantic article “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All” in conjunction with popular television series such as The Good Wife, the chapter argues that progress has come to signify women’s ability to successfully balance work with family. This transformation is the result of an intensifying crisis in liberalism’s construal of space, namely, the public-private divide, and is predicated precisely upon the erasure of terms such as freedom, equal rights, and social justice. In their stead, the notion of a felicitous work-family balance has increasingly become a feminist goal and a normalizing ideal, which helps govern women by shaping their desires, aspirations, and behavior.

This chapter examines Ivanka Trump’s Women Who Work in conjunction with Megyn Kelly’s memoir Settle for More and Ann-Marie Slaughter’s Unfinished Business. It first demonstrates how Women Who Work should be read as a neoliberal feminist manifesto. Trump’s how-to-succeed guide encourages the conversion of “aspirational” women into generic human capital by reworking motherhood in managerial terms, whereby women are exhorted to carefully manage the time they spend with their children. Yet, the notion of a happy work-family balance continues to serve as the book’s ideal, rendering it part of the neoliberal feminist turn. The chapter then provides a comparative analysis of all three “how-to” books, revealing how an identical market rationality undergirds all three—despite being authored by women who identify with opposing political camps. It thus highlights how neoliberal rationality’s colonization of more domains of our lives has undone conceptual and political boundaries constitutive of liberalism and liberal thought.

What is the meaning of the surprising origin story of the midlife crisis? Reflecting on the history of the midlife crisis in light of ongoing debates about the cost of living for women and men, the final chapter points to the relevance of female and feminist discourses about aging and the life-course. Feminist conceptions of “midlife crisis” continue to exist, although the term is rarely used. The idea of changing your life midway through is central in the work of theorist Sara Ahmed, and middle age also remains prominent in the debate about gender and careers, where a new “midlife crisis at 30” describes women’s anxiety about integrating work and family lives. However, as Sheila Heti points out, time and aging often liberate from the strain of making a decision and can bring relief for women who are faced with the choice of motherhood. By illuminating critical attitudes and alternative conceptions of the meaning of life, the story of the midlife crisis makes visible the legacy of feminist thought and practice. This makes it important to better comprehend who suppressed it and how, while also encouraging a fuller engagement with feminist pasts as a starting point for new visions today.