the book is about how unhappy women are because they’ve been brainwashed into having careers, and that the world would be a much better place if they just stayed home, had babies, and supported their husbands egos…… WTF?!?
Somehow, I thought we were past this – that people make choices (or should make choices) based on what they want to do, not how their plumbing is arranged. Maybe some women do feel pressured into taking high powered jobs when they would really rather be a house mom. I’ll bet some men feel the same sorts of pressures. Just a guess, but it seems the actual problem is people trying to live up to other peoples expectations rather than doing what they want.
Ok… I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know here, but boy this got to me!
I find laughable the implications of this; that men by in large are happy in hogh-powered careers. I would like nothing more than to be able to be a “homemaker” instead of the member of the business class. I would bet that just as many men as women are unhappy in respect to careers, feeling trapped in jobs, and all that. I hope and pray (well, I don’t pray, but it’s an expression) that when I fall in love and get myself a long term SO that she likes to work so I can stay home and be domestic.
Okay, non-smarmy answer. I may be just a kid, but I see this book get written about once every five years. I think there will always be people who believe socially expected gender roles are biologically determined, and who are willing to find an easy and hard-to-define scapegoat (in this case, feminism) to blame for why things are just not quite right in the world.
I don’t know if books and views like these are dangerous or not. After all, you can’t publish just about anything without someone with an opposing viewpoint taking shots at you. The last two paragraphs of this article are testament to that.
I absolutely LOVE my work and dread the thought of ever having to give it up. While I can appeciate the biological clock may kick in in a few years’ time, right now I really don’t enjoy children very much. I have no urge to have a baby or be a parent at this time.
I love my bf but I really don’t want or need him as a “honey I’m homer”.
My career isn’t particularly high-powered, but it is stimulating, exciting, varied and has taken me across the world. I love working with other bright, intelligent and creative adults, and I revel in that wonderful sense of freedom from responsibility that I have from having no dependents. I love the fact that my free time is my own, and I only have to answer to myself for anything I do.
None of this is to denigrate motherhood - it’s just that it is utterly not what I want right now, and not something I have ever wanted in my life so far. Of course there are women who are unhappy in their jobs and want to mother - but it’s not every woman.
Almost every day my husband says to me “Why can’t YOU go and work full-time and I’ll stay home with the kids?”.
Which is what we plan to do when we move back to Australia, because he is better with the kids than I am (plus I’m pregnant and feel too shitty at the moment to even want to work part-time).
You know, I read this as “I love hearing a mass opinion of how women feel”. That’s certainly what pisses me right off about these sort of articles. What on earth makes people feel that any sort of statement that starts with “All women want…” or “All women should…” is ever going to be true. People are … well… different from each other. Some people like having careers. Some people like bumming around at home with their children. What’s so hard about that?
To be honest, I’d feel just as annoyed with a book or article about how high-powered careers were the One True Way For Everyone. People have different lives from each other! This is A Good Thing! Get used to it!
Well, of course women should be at home, barefoot, pregnant, and preferrably uneducated.
:rolleyes: Oh, don’t look at me in that tone of voice, I’m just kidding!!!
I don’t know what rock this guy crawled out from under…but we really need to find a way to put him back. I’m not sure what definition of equality he’s using…but he obviously isn’t getting the part where it’s supposed to provide us with a choice about who we are, and what we want to do. Obviously, that level of choice still isn’t realistically up to par for a lot of women…but it’s getting better, I think. We certainly don’t need attitudes like this jerk-off’s trying to make women second-guess their aspirations to be equal in all ways…gods, what an asshole.
I realize it’s his right to express his opinion…but I still hope he dies alone, from some extraordinarily painful disease, after several years working as the night manager in a bowling alley in the middle of nowhere…that has a karaoke bar with a very small selection.
Wow. With all the squirrels, hamsters, and muskrats this guy’s gonna end up with, somebody better send the guy a roll of duct tape. He’s gonna need it.
[sub]squirrels, and hamsters, and wombats, oh, my…[/sub]:eek:
[sub]I love small furry creatures who claw and who bite
There’s something about them that’s tingley and tight
There is but one drawback to this kinky mode
You have to use duct tape, or they will explode
As a man, I also resent the implication that I would desire as a partner a woman who knows nothing but domesticity.
I say this from the point of view of a man whose partner probably will stay home if and when we ever have children.
Hypocritical? Contradictory? No. The difference is that the kabbess has had a choice. She received a comparable education to myself and did so from the point of view of one expected and expecting to have every bit as high powered job as my own. If she eventually chooses to have a break from that career in order to look after children, it will not be as one who made the decision to do so. Not one who followed the path of her mother and mother’s mother and mother’s mother’s mother.
I want equality from a mate. That equality does not ultimately have to manifest itself as identical roles, but it should include the option of either of us taking each role. I want a friend, not a slave.
