Posted on 04/26/2002 9:12:13 AM PDT by Korth
WOMEN have become unhappier as a result of concentrating more on their careers than the family role they once fulfilled, an academic claims in a new book.
Prof James Tooley believes the feminist revolution of the 1960s and 1970s brought about huge changes in attitudes which have not be conducive to motherhood.
In his book, The Miseducation of Women, published next month, he suggests many professional woman would have been more contented by staying at home and bringing up children.
He draws comparisons with the film character Bridget Jones, a love-hungry young woman in publishing who becomes a television presenter and craves a stable relationship rather than being left "a singleton".
Prof Tooley, professor of education policy at Newcastle University, considers that the role of housewife has been "desperately undervalued" in society.
He argues that schools should allow girls to concentrate on the arts and domestic science rather than being pushed towards subjects such as engineering and computer science in an attempt at sexual equality.
Prof Tooley, 42, who is single with no children, said yesterday: "The Bridget Jones effect is growing in society. Women find themselves successful in their careers and unhappy in their lives.
Domesticity has been degraded over the year, particularly by feminists in the 1970s who used the phrases 'parasite' and `leach' to describe the housewife.
"I expect career women will react very strongly against me and to even suggest women would be happier in the home has become almost a taboo. We need to cull a few sacred cows and start a debate on the subject. That is what I am trying to do."
He describes his book as "largely a think piece", based on a study of more than 100,000 men and women in Britain and America by the National Bureau of Economic Research.
Its findings led him to examine the way the education system was shaping the way women lead their lives.
Among his assertions are that women who were pushed into science as pupils and embarked on careers such as law and accountancy are unhappy by the time they reach 30.
Prof Tooley, from Rothbury, Northumblerland, said: "I'm not suggesting we ban girls from the labs, but my research shows that 30 per cent of young women are unhappier with their lives than previous generations were, while young men now seem happier than previous generations were."
Prof Tooley believes the "Bridget Jones generation" was spawned by the feminist revolution.
"Feminists went right to what they thought was the root of the problem. They looked at schooling to change the situation. The Sex Discrimination Act of 1975 and the introduction of the National Curriculum in 1988 are, in a way, products of that, and they've transformed what is taught in school.
"But this means that the curriculum is now designed according to the feminist idea that girls should be following the model that was set down for boys. That is, pursuing a career at the expense of all other things.
"I suggest that this is pushing girls in a direction they don't want to take and there's a whole generation of working women who don't want to be there."
Successful women have made the assumption (projection, I suppose) that men will be as attracted by their success as they are by our success.
But it's not true.
It is false, I think, that we are "turned off" by success in a woman-it just isn't any big deal, whereas to mate-seeking women, it's everything.
Just my 2 cents.
Uh..ok, whatever you say Gloria Bunker :)
BTW as for being bitter. . . honey, if you've been through what i've been through, you'd be a tad acerbic yourself!
if i choose to tell my life story to people, they come away gasping and questioning to themselves "gee, i thought the straight and narrow route always worked out in the end?"
one thing i know: in life there are definitely no guarantees; and implied contracts stand on weak ground.
In some cases, I think this is true. But I have a lot of professional, 30-ish girlfriends who would like nothing better than to settle down with a family...but they can't seem to find a good husband. It makes me feel very fortunate to have met my wonderful hubby at 26...
Let me clue you into something. There are two little girls in my home even as I type this who will believe it to be a wonderful thing to do, regardless of your flipping out over a silly label. Do you really think that calling me a 'Homemaker' as opposed to a 'Stay at Home Mom' is going to change young women's views on whether or not to do it? That is one of the silliest things I have ever heard. Children are either raised to believe it is a worthwhile place in life to make a home and raise a family or they're not. You and your labels are never going to change that.
I think a lot of folks are still sort of confused even a couple of generations after we threw the baby out with the bath water....sexual mores speaking. I think a lot of younger girls are probably more like their grandmothers than their mothers. They seem to have learned from watching. My generation...born in '57...bought the whole bill of goods...some(men and women) didn't figure it out till later...too late for some.
The main thing having children does from my perspective is that it forces one to live outside oneself. That's hard to quantify.
regards
To the landscaper who earns $900 per week for 60 hours work married to the newspaper columnist who earns $2500 per week and works at home for 30 hours - yes, it would be weird.
It doesn't pay to generalize.
I don't think that's exactly the case. I think we're simply not turned on by women who are "successful" in the traditionally male sense of the word. Just as women are sexually attracted to men who can provide well for children, men are sexually attracted to women who appear to be fertile and healthy. In the basest terms, women look for a big wallet, men look for big.... well.... you know.
It might sound creepy to the politikally korrekt, but it's worked for a hundred thousand years or so.
Isnt't that what I said?
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