See this article
For the record, genuinely don't give a shit about SAHM/WOHM - do whatever you want. But this was just the most ridiculous, ill-thought, badly-argued article. Several major flaws jumped out at me and made me want to eat my own head.
First, she says 'A woman can't have it all...An exceptional woman of today - young, beautiful, healthy, energetic, talented and a logistical genius - can get pretty near it. But most of us just don't have all these advantages. We aren't Superwomen, after all: we are just women. We get tired trying to do it all.'
Um - why exactly does being young or beautiful have to do with anything? Healthy, energetic, talented - yes. But if you're not young or beautiful you're 'just a woman'? Great message.
Then this: 'And while we go on scrabbling for the perfect life, unable to abandon the vision, it's the children who suffer in a world that two generations of feminists have created.' Wow, did feminists create a whole new world? I didn't realise they had that much power. What Weldon is actually talking about is the fact that now one salary isn't always enough to support a family. When was it ever? If you're going to get annoyed about that, blame economic reality.
She claims that women have become so bound up with not wanting to be 'just' an appendage to a man (wife, mother, daughter) that they have, apparently, become 'aggressive' and are scaring off men. Where? I haven't noticed that. All my friends, male and female, are either in a relationship or would like to be in one. I don't know anyone who says they 'don't need' anyone else.
"So the male wage that once kept a family, mysteriously no longer can. This, too, is something that we did not foresee."
I don't get this. My mother's family background is completely working class. Everyone worked, otherwise there wasn't enough money. Children were left with either grandmothers or the lady down the street, or tagged along. The upper classes (and the middle classes who emulated the uppers in all things) had nannies and governesses to care for their kids. In what mythic, halcyon world was the 'fragile, biological bond' between mother and child prized and nurtured? Most people were just trying to survive.
And also - does she mention men even once? No. Presumable these babies have two parents, and therefore at least 50% of the responsibility for them lies with their fathers. Oh wait, she does mention them once. She says that part of the problem with women trying to have it all is that sometimes their husbands become 'unhappy' because they're not getting enough time and attention. Any man worth his salt would help his partner out, knowing that this was the quickest way to free up some couple-time.
Woolly-minded, ridiculous, grumpy-old-man-esque article. AIBU?