and it caused quite a stir with the A&A crowd. Read the article, and then read on.
Stay-at-Home Moms
Annie D.: Will this stupid trend ever die down???? The psychology behind this is just sickening. Ok, so you hated your mom, but now you’re just like her. You don’t need to start a freakin’ magazine to cope with your insecurities.
Ashley: Also disturbing was the whole, “I can’t quite explain it, but I feel like the world would be a better place if more women stayed at home. I have no statistics to support this, but it’s a hunch I can’t ignore.” Uh, okay, thanks Phyllis Schlafly. (You notice how all the women saying this are women who have been given some sort of pulpit to speak from through their JOB.)
Adrianne H.: I don't think this "men"tality will ever change as long as the corporate work world supports it. I'm talking paternity leave. I think that's the first step, I've been saying it for years. And that goes hand in hand with that whole, you-have-to-tell-your-husband-before-you-have-an-abortion thing. What is that?? Unless his job gives him paternity leave, then the woman has no choice but to be a stay-at-home mom, at least for a little while.
Sarah: Without it, you're right, the baby is solely the mom's responsibility from jump street. It's hard to undo those effects later on. The mindset starts, probably even unconsciously in mommy & daddy's brain. She spends the whole time with the baby and she probably "thinks" the man is incompetent b/c he doesn't have as much time to learn the baby's signs, the baby's cries, its schedule, etc.
Adrienne V.: I firmly believe that all people act the way you expect them to act. If women raise their expectations of men - they'll be pleasantly surprised. Where is that article amongst this sea of "the doomed feminist movement" articles? Historically movements havent succeeded until all walks of life were involved and engaged. Until the feminist movement truly creates a role for men that is forward-thinking and accepted - we'll be on this merry-go-round of feminism.
Keya: Here's the problem I have with the "Opt-Out Revolution" aka, the world of women quitters: There is a basic logical fallacy at work in the thinking of these women. They implicitly equate the working world with a man's world. They argue that women have different desires and different needs that can't be fulfilled by a career. And they conclude that the only logical remedy for this is to simply "Opt-Out." But true feminists continue to insist that the working world must begin to accommodate a larger and more imaginative definition of what it means to be a mature adult.
Finally, this is about basic humanism. What kind of people do we want to be? What kinds of people do we want our social, political, and cultural structures to accomodate? Careerist automotons? Men who can't imagine the way that they fit into a larger structure of family and society? People who fail to take advantage of arts and letters and culture in their drive to reach the top? Or, instead do we just maybe want to populate our world with people who contemplate the complexity of what it means to be a human in this vast, strange world of ours?
It's a shame that our world is populated with too many people (male and female) who simply lack imagination.