Blakes - I don’t have the answers, really. It does seem to me that, in the main these days, women feel as if they “should” return to work. Obviously, most households need two incomes these days (or one obviously if it’s a single parent), so it’s not really a choice as such. Of course other women need that sense of purpose and challenge which is fantastic. But I think, even where there is genuine choice, women feel pressure to return to work and that they should want more than “just” looking after their kids because “feminism”. But all that happens in reality, is that other women, on minimum wage or thereabouts, pick up the slack, as nursery workers or cleaners. It’s seems to me that as women’s roles and expectations have shifted over the decades, men’s haven’t, so it’s still women doing the “women’s” work, they’re just being paid NMW for it, while mums feel guilt whatever they do. If you’re SAH you’re a handmaiden; if you’re at work, you’re “abandoning” your kids. It’s blatant internalised misogyny that makes women look down on each other, in an attempt to justify their own work /life balance. Look at the SAHM/ WOHM threads on here every week - it’s depressing! None of it is feminist, in my view - such MM debate is the antithesis to feminism imo. Se do the work of patriarchy ourselves with this kind of short-sightedness and insecurity. Men just don’t have to think this way. So this is how I think feminism needs to adapt. In the UK at least, we don’t need to fight for the right for women to work anymore (yes I know the gender pay gap is a real thing, but women working is now default). I think feminism needs to reclaim the value of our biology and motherhood and what has traditionally been “female” work and give it status. Why should nursery staff, who have our babies and children’s lives in their hands, be paid less than someone doing a job that society could probably do without, if the truth be known. Why should women feel ashamed, or as if they’re “letting feminism down,” for wanting to raise their own children? Feminism has got us to where we are now, but it needs to keep evolving and women need to stop boxing themselves in and put their own needs and desires forward as equally valid. We need to be honest with ourselves on the context of now and not replace one “ism” of “shoulds” with another set. Corporations and sork environments need to start adapting to women / mothers as half the population, not the other way round, but we can’t get there if feminism tries to deny the fact there there are differences between men and women and that equality no longer has to mean “sameness.”