tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5552184.post113271676405070427..comments2023-06-10T09:49:08.539-04:00Comments on midlife mama: More on the whole opt-out thingLibbyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09406720496767981522noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5552184.post-1133405221090717242005-11-30T21:47:00.000-05:002005-11-30T21:47:00.000-05:00Exactly, Mrs. C: good analysis, lame solutions. A...Exactly, Mrs. C: good analysis, lame solutions. <BR/><BR/>And thank you for commenting back! I love your name(s), by the way. I teach HDM fairly often in my children's lit classes and love the refences.<BR/><BR/>Cheers,<BR/>libbyLibbyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09406720496767981522noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5552184.post-1133391918032720612005-11-30T18:05:00.000-05:002005-11-30T18:05:00.000-05:00An interesting perspective. I read Beauvoir and Fr...An interesting perspective. I read Beauvoir and Friedan on my own between my freshman and sophomore year of college, and it really changed my viewpoint on women's lives (though I was always pro-women's lib). I think Hirshman is more right with her diagnosis than with her solutions, which encourage women to buy into a system that is inherently unfriendly to family life, rather than trying to alter the system to permit more balance in everyone's lives (male and female).<BR/><BR/>Oh, and thanks for the comment turning me on to your blog!Mrs. Coulterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14439504732028752632noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5552184.post-1133359251904050022005-11-30T09:00:00.000-05:002005-11-30T09:00:00.000-05:00Thanks for linking to the article. I just read it ...Thanks for linking to the article. I just read it and it has made me think about my own choices in this regard. I don't think I would, even if I could, go back and major in business, for example, but it is true that I have chosen to move to a country where my original chosen career path is completely impossible to pursue. I'm lucky in that here job status is much less important, and actually the career option I am going to pursue will put me on pretty solid ground, but a lot of what she said in the article (not all of it) really resonated. Especially the part about computing the childcare costs as taken out of the wife's salary-- definitely an "aha!" moment. <BR/><BR/>I'd love to think more about this and blog on it myself, but since I probably won't get around to it, I thought I'd at least add my two cents here. Now I'm off to Amazon to shop for Beauvoir and Friedan-- I can't believe I still haven't read either one of those!katehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16975826433125245969noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5552184.post-1133296256636865132005-11-29T15:30:00.000-05:002005-11-29T15:30:00.000-05:00great post! i've been feeling burned out, low on m...great post! i've been feeling burned out, low on my supply of feminist outrage, so i haven't been to Broadsheet as much in recent weeks. i guess i'm burned out because we keep finding these tired old arguments, and we keep having to explain (calmly and rationally, lest people think we're those "hysterical feminists" of whom everyone's so afraid) why the arguments are silly and/or flat out false.<BR/><BR/>ugh.<BR/><BR/>in sum, it's going to take both an equalizing in the public sphere (work) and the private sphere (home) before any feminist visions really start to take hold in society.kate.d.https://www.blogger.com/profile/09967162934828397188noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5552184.post-1133105738572282632005-11-27T10:35:00.000-05:002005-11-27T10:35:00.000-05:00Interesting article. Hirshman urges women to apply...Interesting article. Hirshman urges women to apply themselves academically and aim for high paying jobs, but her NYT brides had already done that, and apparently they were ready to quit at the first opportunity.<BR/><BR/>So I guess what she's saying is elite women have a moral obligation to keep working even if they hate it.<BR/><BR/>Yet, other people are saying women have a moral obligation to quit working and stay home even if they hate it.<BR/><BR/>So what is it exactly that makes Hirshman a feminist? Just like anti-feminists, she thinks women have an obligation to sacrifice themselves to an ideal. She thinks women can't be left to make these choices for themselves--our culture has to decide on the correct role for women and then bully them into playing their part. <BR/><BR/>I think it's ironic that a women's studies professor is advising women to avoid the liberal arts and aim for high powered careers. If she thinks it's so great, why doesn't she do it? <BR/><BR/>Corporate careers pay well but the hours are terrible and they don't allow for much of a personal life. Telling anyone, male or female, to aim for that is really bad advice, in my opinion.<BR/><BR/>But I do like the part about marrying younger men! (The idea about marrying much older men is gross--and talk about sacrifice. She actually expects elite women to work like dogs and then come home to some old guy. She's really taking all the fun out of being an elite female.)Choco Piehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11249035692859813704noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5552184.post-1132977905883007982005-11-25T23:05:00.000-05:002005-11-25T23:05:00.000-05:00Tekanji, thanks--I left a comment over on your blo...Tekanji, thanks--I left a comment over on your blog, too. And, Claudia, I think that's fascinating (but yes, depressing) about widows and family history. My grandmother did TONS of research on her husband's family, little or none on her own. So it's a pattern I'm familiar with.Libbyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09406720496767981522noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5552184.post-1132872946122823552005-11-24T17:55:00.000-05:002005-11-24T17:55:00.000-05:00Wow, I just read the article. I have to say that I...Wow, I just read the article. I have to say that I haven't seen such a hateful piece of trash come out of a feminist's mouth (keyboard?) since some woman came onto my blog to yell at me for calling out transphobic feminists.<BR/><BR/>My critique of it got WAY too long to be a comment, but if you're interested you can find it here: <A HREF="http://blog.shrub.com/archives/tekanji/2005-11-24_74" REL="nofollow">Trading one set of chains for another</A>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5552184.post-1132759158307009592005-11-23T10:19:00.000-05:002005-11-23T10:19:00.000-05:00Libby, I have so much to add to these posts about ...Libby, I have so much to add to these posts about feminism and women's equality that I don't even know where to begin. But, one unintended consequence to our patriarchal society has been the invisibility of widows and their history. As a researcher, when I put together a bio on a widow, what I most often find is VOLUMES about the husband and nothing about the wife. Right this minute, I'm searching through a foot of documents of a deceased husband to find shreds of who the widow is - because SHE'S the one that will make the giving decisions. Her interests in history parallel her late husband's but all their activities focused on the history of HIS family. I wonder, who her family is and why there seems to be no interest or articles written about them. It's disconcerting and a bit depressing. They have no children so I wonder, when she dies, apart from the scholarships that carry her name, will she disappear?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com