Posted on 11/05/2005 7:45:30 AM PST by kalee
Full-Time Motherhood? How Selfish November 5, 2005 BY JULIE SHILLER
Across the nation, privileged young women are seeking to be competitive candidates to gain admittance to prestigious universities. Impressive SAT scores, awards, grades and extracurricular activities are of the utmost importance for college-bound high school students and their families.
The priorities of many of today's elite young women, however, are surprisingly conventional, according to one survey. The most fortunate and educated women say they will conform to traditional gender roles after completing their Ivy League degrees. They are choosing careers as full-time mothers and expect to be supported financially by their successful spouses. Such expectations are utterly selfish and a dishonor to the struggles that the Second Wave feminists (those who came of age in the '60s and '70s) endured for my generation.
ADVERTISEMENT Today, many white women who were fortunate enough to be born into wealthy families are taking their limitless opportunities for granted. In a recent article in The New York Times, "Many Women at Elite Colleges Set Career Path to Motherhood," Louise Story examines this issue. More than 60 percent of Yale women surveyed concluded that when they become mothers, they plan on working only part time or not at all. Although feminism promotes the right for these elite women to choose, they are unappreciative of their economic privilege. Story claims that they "are likely to marry men who will make enough money to give them a real choice about whether to be full-time mothers."
As a Third Wave feminist, I am embarrassed that Story could make such an assertion. Do these women feel a sense of entitlement to be entirely supported by their husbands? Although all women should be permitted to be full-time mothers, most do not have the freedom to stop working outside the home. It is not an equal choice when less wealthy and marginalized women are not granted the option. Women who were born into an unearned advantaged position are relinquishing their power and independence to patriarchy.
Females in the Victorian era were silenced and forced into restrictive feminine roles. Hartford's Charlotte Perkins Gilman wrote "The Yellow Wallpaper" in 1892 during a time when even well-off women were forced into domestic roles that did not challenge their intellectual abilities. The protagonist, a privileged white woman, was labeled a "hysteric" by a male-dominated scientific community that desperately sought a way to repress her for questioning her forced submission. In reality, she was merely responding to being suppressed by her husband and the controlling patriarchy. Now young women are choosing to return to the silence.
Today's liberated, Ivy-League-educated women are willing to sacrifice their privilege and their opportunities to become independent leaders of the 21st century. They are eschewing the opportunities that Gilman's protagonist and other oppressed women of the time yearned for. Ivy League women are not taking advantage of the ability they have to make incredible strides in the fight for gender equality that would benefit women from all backgrounds. Instead, they are choosing to use their power for their own selfish desires.
In the Victorian era, women were forced by men to adhere to submissive, weak and emotional roles as a way for males to maintain ultimate control and status. Now young, dominant women are in a commanding position to enhance the civil liberties granted to disadvantaged women and other minority groups. Unfortunately, the future of our nation has been placed in the hands of elite young women who have chosen to thoughtlessly improve their own lives while jeopardizing the future of those that they had the power to assist.
Julie Shiller, 20, of West Orange, N.J., is a junior majoring in sociology at the University of Hartford.
And we sometimes wonder why so many men refuse to marry?
Who can blame them when they hear this kind of tripe? I'd be running away from the feminazi-babeo-fascists like this too!
I have to wonder where you spent your formative years.....with nannies? ...at a daycare?.... institutionalized somewhere....by someone other than your mom?
How sad your outlook on life....especially the lives of children.
I think I must have done my job well as 'stay at home mom'....
...My daughter, with an education degree, taught school for several years until she had her baby...
..now she's a happy 'stay at home mom' too....
..and her husband appreciates this very much!
Such expectations are utterly selfish and a dishonor to the struggles that the Second Wave feminists (those who came of age in the '60s and '70s) endured for my generation.
Hey dudette...no one twisted their arms to join the STRUGGLE as you put it.
They weren't required to sign their lives away for x amount of years.
The only STRUGGLE they had was what they created for themselves.
Stop your bellyachin and go do something constructive like these young mothers will be doing staying home, teaching their children manners, how to behave and all the nice things of life and THAT includes (for girls) playing with doll babies and learning how to care for them instead of MURDERING THEM. Learning how to set a table with their little plastic dishes, and yes, the cute little ironing board and iron. :) They will also learn how to wash and dry dishes, make beds etc. All the while this mother is teaching these things...she is the heart of the home and is loved by everyone as she loves them. :)
For the boys, they will be taught how to change tires, fix cars, be the "good guy", respect women (even those who don't want it) learn how to build things, take out the garbage, pick up after the dog and learn to look out for and protect women beginning with their mothers and sisters.
Can you imagine how many cakes and cookies they will have coming in from a day at school taking in all those wonderful aromas from the kitchen? Mmmmmm, good. Comfort food, secure feelings and joy.
Congratulations to all the young women who will take on this role. After all...it is really NOT a role but a natural thing for a woman to do if she has children. They are taught what they need before they go out into the world.
God bless them all. We are proud of them. Their STRUGGLE is to make sure they do everything possible for their children and that doesn't mean expensive shoes or constant toys etc. Good books, games, teach by example.
God bless them all. As for the fems...their STRUGGLE continues and that struggle is to keep their men bashing group alive. Good luck fems...you glory days are over.
My tagline applies to her for sure.
2. Its editorial board consists of "lifestyle leftist" 1970s Yalie buttoned-down revolutionaries. Skipper: "Che Guevara and Margaret Sanger Forever!!!!" Muffie: "Oh, good one, Skip!" 4. Butch? Lipstick? Hysteric? America wants to know! Then again, maybe we don't want to know.
I might have sounded like that at 20. I grew up.
I'm finishing up my PhD, and when I get married, I plan to stay home and raise
my kids. Feminazis can call me whatever they want, but when I have kids,
I want to teach them MY values. And, I can do a better job of educating
them in their early years than most public and private school teachers.
That is more of a priority than having a career.
I think the author is entirely dismissing of the contribution of woman who act as full time mothers. The description of their occupation does not come near to doing it justice.
In addition, the author is dismissive of the possibility of unpredictable situations that might suddenly force such family roles upon unsuspecting couples and families. We had a sample just recently with Katrina and Wilma here in SoFlo.
As mentioned and discussed heavily by fellow FReepers, when the power went out and neighborhood essentially became isolated habitations for a few days, such traditional roles became heavily prominent and reinforced.
True, men and women worked on the cleanup, but other roles became obvious such as women pooling together to want children, and men hunting and gathering supplies when they came upon the opportunity to garner them.
Men in our neighborhood worked to restore structural integrity of housing and perform large scale cleanup such as removing trees from driveways while women organized and allocated supplies such as food in the form of prepared meals.
It worked wonderfully and we all felt blessed.
However, if it came down to a difference in opinion in who was to carry out what chores, I suspect things would have been much harder. Still, had I been confronted, I suspect I would have happily ceded my role in tree removal and roof-reconstruction and repair.
I suspect the author may have some extreme difficulties when their time of trial arrives. For all their intentions, reality tends to tread hard on the illusions of the foolish.
"Isn't it amazing that a college junior is so undertrained in logic that she doesn't see the foolishness of her argument. She calls the ones who choose motherhood, which is to serve others, selfish.....and feminism, which is to cater to self, the right path."
I try to go back and remember what a pain in the but I was at this age.
I remember thinking how I had it all figured out (that was...BEFORE I had children!)
Real life experience will set this girl straight, and if it doesn't she'll wind up just like Maureen Dowd.
Wait until she is old and alone.
Old and ALONE.
No children around to make sure she is safe and cared for. Wait until the holidays roll around and she has no one at her table except her laptop and her cell phone.
Wait until birthdays, Christmas etc. roll around ahd she celebrates alone.
I wonder THEN what she'll think of the STRUGGLES of those fems before her.
Not being able to bear children is one thing. Most people adopt. However, not having children becuase you think yur job is more important well....all I can say is: "You are missing out."
And just think.....in a couple years or so...she will be "teaching" young minds full of mush..!!
And please don't think that you have to give up a career in order to have children. You can interrupt it, or find another interest while you are home with the kids.
God, family, country, work. (Okay, everybody has an opinion about the sequence of the first three. But, you should get the idea.)
Was there ever a label for "full time mother" or "housewife"?
What makes you imagine Julie having children? As any 20-year-old sociology major can tell you: "Diapers are so, wellllll, yucky!!!! Especially compared to being a partisan of Ugo Chavez and Che!!!!!!! And to pushing poor people around with an unearned air of social and even pseudo-intellectual superiority."
BRAVO! Well said.
Morning sunshine!
You have FReepmail.
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