What counts as relevant experience in l'age moyen?

As Caroline Kennedy throws her hat into the ring to take Hilary's Senate seat the question arises, what counts as work experience in l'age moyen? The work paradigm dictates that unpaid work is of less value than paid work. So if Caroline Kennedy has spent most of her adult 'working' life as a volunteer raising millions of dollars for charity, sitting on boards etc., does that count for less than Barack Obama's work, albeit paid, as a community organizer? What's the difference really?

Gender is the great divide in this instance. As a man, Barack could not duck out of the workforce for a few years to raise his daughters and devote his work energy to volunteer work in the form of community organizing. He was a full time, paid community organizer. His wife made the big bucks as a hospital executive. I imagine childcare was arranged for their children although it probably cancelled out his income.

Here's where the work paradigm affords women a legitimate alternative to paid work but with a catch. As a woman you can raise kids and work as a volunteer for a period of time or, if your household income permits, the rest of your life. The catch is when Caroline or Franca or Nancy want to apply for paid work the validity of that time as a homemaker/volunteer is called into question.

Jeffrey Tobin, a writer for the New Yorker and CNN political commentator, was quick to comment that for most of her life Ms. Kennedy has been a homemaker. He admitted that she had raised millions of dollars for public education in New York, written a couple of books etc., but really she was just a homemaker. As a low paid community organizer Barack took a few hits for the relative obscurity of his work, but by and large he was able to position it as a platform for negotiation and activism that propelled him to the White House. Seems to me Ms. Kennedy is attempting to do the same - the difference is he was paid, she was not (in fact, she did receive $1 per year from the NY Board of Education for fundraising).

Let's face it, about 25 - 30% of women continue to stay home with children full time and a greater number take extended time out of the paid workforce to raise their children. Many spend a portion of that time raising money, volunteering in the school or participating on community committees and boards. Women often return to paid work in l'age moyen (children are of an age and women are ready for the next phase of their lives). Do any of these women leap forward in their careers when they decide to return to paid work as a result of this broadened life/work experience? Hardly. It is simply discounted and by and large you have to make up for the lost time by returning to your pre-leave role or starting anew. The work paradigm rewords continuous years of work with access to influential, well-paid jobs. This paradigm negatively affects a woman's ability to build wealth in the 2nd half of her life which in turn, affects her ability to prepare for a secure retirement.

So can the paradigm shift to recognize the variety and depth of experience acquired by l'age moyen regardless of the venue? It is quite possible that leadership requires broader thinking and wider exposure than what is currently seen in the paid workforce. Would all leadership benefit from folks having spent an equal amount of time out of the paid workforce? Could this financial crisis (caused mostly by short-term greed) have been avoided if people in leadership roles were better grounded in raising the next generation and building functioning communities?

I don't think Ms. Kennedy should be anointed Senator because she is a Kennedy, but I object to her qualifications being discounted simply because she has not been in the paid workforce.