Letters to the Editor
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Re: "what feminism told me"
There's nothing wrong with those goals or ideals. Your life might not mirror those ideals but that doesn't mean that those ideals failed. The whole thing is an evolving process rather than something that's set in stone.
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It seems like she's arguing against beliefs that no one even has anymore.
But there may be good money to be made in doing that :o)
I'm a feminist and I don't hold many of the beliefs she's arguing against.
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P.S. My husband does at least half the housework.
Who was it who said, "To generalize is to be an idiot?" So true!
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most men I know DO housework
>>i don't think that my husband is any better or worse than the majority of men out there... he's just a typical man.>>
Well, among my friends, your husband would not be typical. Their husbands DO split the housework. No, I'm not living some "dream" --my life is as confusing as the next person's. So, as far as "typical man," we know there is no typical man, just as there is no typical woman. My concern isn't that he doesn't do housework (god, I don't), but that he's not wililng to negotiate. Housework sounds like least of your worries in a ilfe with a man who's unwilling to negotiate with his life partner.
most guys I know were raised by working mothers. They were taught early on how to fend for themselves and to share the work load. they were also taught to respect their partners, communicate and negotiate.
But it's not "better" or "worse," it's just different. It's that tendency to label people worse if they aren't just like our ideal model that we're trying to fight.
I know 2 stay-at-home husband's and they both love it. And all the Dads I know love and care for their kids just as fiercely as the moms, that other guys post about men not having as much chemicals to care for kids is just sad.
Again, cooperation problems with spouses do not prove feminism is a failure. It proves a failure in cooperation. Geeze, if it wasn't for feminism, we wouldn't have the right to negotiate, we'd just have to obey our husbands.
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Why Even Bother? Why Are You Still Breathing?
Come on BrightStar, admit it. Somewhere, sometime, some mean, strong woman broke your little heart; leaving you with your friends O'Reilly and Limbaugh to assauge your fears and keep your fragile ego safe from the 'femi-Nazis'.
We are all friends here.
Did some mean woman in the "real world" get promoted over you? Did she rebuff your advances? You can admit it, it's okay. Did you read about the "Ellen James Society" in "The World According to Garp" and think that it was nonfiction?
It does sound like reality and fiction are having a tussle in your little head. Maybe you should talk to someone (not a radio personaility) or you can write a note to Cary Tennis.
But come on. The girls and women you describe: hounding and abusing men, hollering anti male sentiments every chance they get, neglecting and drugging boys, killing babies in the eighth month of childbearing, trying in vain to keep their men limited and bottled up in an imaginary and narrow macho charicature really don't exist, do they? Did Papa O'Reilly or Uncle Limbaugh tell you that? You should look out a window occasionally man. Things aren't what they tell ya...
BrightStar, I suspect that you find the world to be a scary place, full of big nasty social movements that your 18th century brain cannot comprehend, and to be honest, I feel very sorry for you.
By the way, you spelled caricature wrong. Don't you have spellcheck in your cave?
Good luck dude.
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Women are opting out of work becasue it is awful to work
Both O'Bierne and another actual real femininst, Linda Hirshman, in her article Homeward Bound in the December publication of American Prospect, both miiss the point.
Women are opting out of the workplace because working in corporate America just plain sucks. Especially if you are a woman. In the last 15 years, the anti-women punditocracy that most white, middle class men listen to, has validated and encouraged a culture in the American Workplace that belittles women. And guess what, the clique of angry white guys with stay-at-home wives ususally runs the place.
You get passed over for promotion, you get teased for your style of dress, belittled for leaving early to pick up dinner or go to a child's play, but when the men leave early to go to a strip club, or skip out at 1:00 on Friday to play golf, while conveiniently not inviting the female manager(s) to join them they get lauded by the boss for team building.
You make less, you get taxed to death if two of you are working, and you pay a lot just to work between gas, cars, clothes, lunch and daycare, the grief just may not be worth it.
I never opted out, but in hindsight, I should have.
Maybe one of the big problems is that corporate America has the issue, not really so much women. But since corporate America controls the media, the governemnt, and the universe we live in, not much is going to change.
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PS
I am FAR from priviledged.
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my point was
my husband is an active and loving father, and he helps with the housework...
but I speak from observation and experience that more responsibility for housework still falls mostly on women.
And if you think that's controversial, then I don't know what planet you live on.
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to Cynthia Montgomery
I notice that you didn't cite any data for your bald assertion that most boys who get into trouble have fathers who are absent by choice. That's of course because there isn't any.
The facts are that at least 10% of all live births are unknown to the father because the mother keeps it a secret from him. Incredibly, this "choice" of hers is entirely legal. And 10% is the bare minimum. 16.1% of all birth certificates state that the father is unknown (or the space is left blank). Persistent efforts by the Office of Child Support Enforcement to get mothers to identify the father of their children are remarkably unsuccessful. According to the American Association of Blood Banks (which accredits DNA testing labs in the US), 29.9% of DNA-tested children in divorce cases turn out to be fathered by a man other than the presumptive father.
Of course, most divorce proceedings are initiated by women and the overwhelming majority of child custody is granted to mothers. Once custody is given to her, the mother can do pretty much what she wants to prevent the man from seeing the child without the slightest intervention by the court. Etc, etc, etc. I could go on and on.
So please, don't pretend that men abandon their children willy-nilly. A few probably do, but most don't. Our judicial system doggedly separates fathers from children. Until that stops, single mothers will struggle on and children will suffer all the hardships of being raised fatherless.